Shudra 2

...The Shudra were the original inhabitants of India. They were certainly not the part of Rig Vedic society. Even they are not visible in most of the later Vedic period. They came into existence at the end of later Vedic period. In the beginning, they were not in the majority in Vedic society which is evident from Manusmriti. According to later Vedas and Manusmriti the agriculture and cattle rearing were the jobs of Vaisya Varna and not that of Shudra. The agriculture and cattle rearing formed almost 90 percent of the economic activities in later Vedic times. So Shudras were supposed to supply their labor only for serving the higher Varnas and not to agriculture and cattle rearing. So they were not the essential part of later Vedic society. They were the latter import into Vedic society which had already internally developed three Varnas with entitlement to thread ceremony. They were the natives of India who were defeated and lost their land to Aryans. All of them did not leave the conquered region. Some of them stayed back. They were assimilated into Vedic society as landless laborers. They were classified as Shudras (the inferiors) and ranked below Aryans without any entitlement to thread ceremony. Being powerless they had to agree to these conditions. Initially there were so few of them so that they could not be assigned the jobs of agriculture and cattle rearing. However in due course of time these two jobs were degraded to Shudra level. All the artisans of native agricultural based village societies were included as Shudras without any right to land or to Vedic rites. The regions beyond Sapta-Sandhav and Ganga were still ruled by Shudra or native kings. Over a period of time, all these Shudra kings were either defeated or assimilated into Vedic society by granting them the status of Kshatriyas. These new Kshatriyas also helped in spread of Vedic culture by defeating the Shudra kings who did not believe in Vedic rituals and in superiority of Brahmanas. Aryavrat was not really the land where Aryans ruled but the area where Aryan way of life or Vedic cultural had become dominant. In other words wherever Varna system spread and where Brahmanas were safe and respected was called Aryavrat. Aryavrat did not necessarily mean the rule by imported Aryan communities. By 200 BC the Brahmanas were found performing Yagyas for Dravidian kings in deep South in lieu of land grants and acceptance of their superiority. The Brahmanas won the cultural war and controlled the society with the help of Shudra kings. The cultural hegemony of Brahmanas was complete with the local rulers accepting their supremacy. This is also called assimilation.

Over a period of time, the occupations of agriculture and cattle rearing were degraded to Shudra level. It indicates that the mercantile activities became very profitable and as result the Vaisyas gave up the inferior jobs of agriculture and cattle rearing because their involvement of the manual labor. As result they became disconnected from labor oriented impure jobs. Another thing which might have happened was that the Vaisyas who were involved in agriculture and cattle rearing were downgraded to Shudra level. Another possibility is that with the increasing cultural hegemony of Brahmanas and spread of Varna culture, the Brahmans did not upgrade local Shudras who were engaged in agriculture and cattle rearing to the level of Vaisyas. This may explain the inordinately large portion of Shudras in the current population whereas in the beginning they were in miniscule minority....