is chandra gupta maurya a sudra?

[Guest guest]

There were various discussions whether Mauryan kings are sudras. To

determine this, let us go back into the days of varna and have a

look.

 

In India, when Varna has been brought into existence, it had four

branches- Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas and Shudras.

 

It is actually a power dissection giving intellectual power to

brahmins, political power to kshatriyas , economic power to vaisyas

and man power to shudras. No varna was greater than the other,

though ksatriyas seemed to enjoy more say in the society due to their

political power and sudras, the least. So far my study goes, these

sections are created to rob brahmins of their wealth and political

power.- which is quite contrary to the popular belief.

 

However, it is the great battle of Mahbharat that has brought about a

great collapse of this varna system, resulting in huge varna

sankara. In fact, it has not just stopped with varna sankara but

since there are not enough men and protectors, the stocks outside

the varna system too have mixed with the people within the varna

tradition and the children born to these people have finally had to

be assimilated into the society.

 

There was no body to check who belonged to which varna since there is

no more any varna. Generations after generations have married people

with mixed origins. Most of them congregated into tribes. These

tribes have an internal hierarchy, probably based on occupation and

importance. Externally too , the tribes were placed in rungs. One

tribe is greater than the other, perhaps based on the culture, power

and the claimed ancestry.

 

This has continued for hundreds of years. In due course, people have

tried to again segregate themselves into groups- we and other. This

time this has been done on the basis of occupation and culture-

ironically, again, with in the framework of varna. Brahmins are

segregated into several subsects, with perhaps some kind of

hierarchy, all kings are called kshatriyas- some of them, pure and

some, fallen, vaishyas are segregated into arya vaisyas and others

and the rest of the people into thousands of castes, based on

occupation.

 

The various people following the same occupation are said to belong

to the same caste, irrespective of their origins. This again brought

a problem due to cultural differences, " I am greater than him though

we both are following the same occupation" traits and this led to

sub castes. How ever, caste system is drastically different from

varna system, not only because the basis of segregation has now

differed but also due to the characterisics of these two systems.

 

For eg., varna had no concept of middle castes, which is a new idea

in the caste system. Similarly, peasantry had been in the keep of

vaisyas during the creation of varna but somewhere during all the

turbulence, it has slid into the hands of middle castes.

 

The Mauryan times and times just before them were witnessing this

kind of consolidation of caste. But, Tribe was still playing a major

role till some where before mauryas.

 

For eg., during Buddha's time, Sakyas have joined in large numbers

into Baudhism. And though sakya represented one tribe, it had people

pursuing all kinds of occupations in the tribe(and hence, belonged

to different castes) . All the same, they were all identified with

the tribal name only. Similarly, Prasena jit, supposedly a

kshatriya , was jilted by sakyas in marriage since they thought he

belonged to a lower tribe and did not like to give away their

daughter to him.

 

In other words, the tribe can include people from all kinds of

occupations, later which turned into caste, irrespective of which

tribe they belonged to. Pre Mauryan times have seen that tribal

segregation is more important than the caste segregation (in fact,

this kind of tribal importance has continued even into the later

dates, but caste based on occupation has become more important. While

sakyas have deceived the more power ful prasena jit due to his lower

status in the tribal hierarchy, similar tribal hierarchical low

status did not stop chandra gupta I to marry a girl from Licchavi

clan, because the fact that he is a king and hence, a kshatriya, pure

or fallen has become more important than the considerations of tribal

hierarchy. But again, thanks to the tribal importance, Chandra guptaI

had attained cognisance due to this alliance. )

 

I think Moriya is also such a tribe. It includes people from all

walks of life and we can not really say that one is sudra or brahmin

just because he belonged to a particular tribe, say Moriya..

 

Thus, we can not really say that all Moriyas belonged to sudras or

what ever. The tribe will include all kinds of castes. But in the

hierarchy of tribes, it seems to be occupying a lower status and

perhaps, this is the reason why the credit of being a sudra was

given to Mauryans.

 

Thus, he was called repeatedly sudra (vrshala) due to his tribal

status (and he never seemed to have objected to this epithet) but

was allowed to become a king due to fact that his ancestors are

chiefs of the tribe and hence, come under kshatriyas in the caste

system.

 

Perhaps, I can summarize this in terms of a tribe- caste matrix.

 

Mauryans are placed low in tribal hierarchy but high in caste

hierarchy.

 

 

Kishore