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As regards the Sudras, they should engage themselves in the task of humbly and honestly collecting together the articles that are to be offered in sacrifices, and in cleaning altars and other places where sacrifices are to be performed. If each order acts in this way, righteousness would not suffer any diminution.
The first form of religion in India was the worship of nature, and the chief gods of the people were the sun, fire, water and other natural phenomena, which were interpreted to the ignorant masses by priests, who gradually developed what is now called Brahminism, and, in the course of time, for social reasons, divided the people into four classes: First, the Brahmins, which include the priestly, the literary and the ruling portions of the population; second, the Kshatryas, or warriors, who were like the knighthoods of Europe in the middle ages; then the Vaisyas, or landowners, the farming population, and those engaged in mercantile and manufacturing industries; and finally the Sudras, or servants who attended the other castes, toiled in the fields and did the heavy labor of the community.
The wail they uttered on that occasion, O king, from grief, resembled the loud lamentations of a swarm of she-ospreys. Then the wives of the citizens, Brahmanas and Kshatriyas and Vaisyas and Sudras, also came out into the streets from every side.
They, O king, that sprang from his thighs were the wealthy class called the Vaisyas. And, lastly, they that were born of his feet were the serving class, viz., the Sudras. Only these four orders of men, O monarch, were thus created. They that belong to classes over and other than these are said to have sprung from an intermixture of these.
Brahmanas then perform acts that are reserved for the Sudras, and the Sudras betake themselves to the acquisition of wealth. Then Kshatriyas also betake themselves to the practice of religious acts. In the Kali age, the Brahmanas also abstain from sacrifices and the study of the Vedas, are divested of their staff and deer-skin, and in respect of food become omnivorous.
Unlike the Vedânta Sûtras, it does not exclude Śûdras from higher studies, but states that there are eight classes of gods and five of animals but only one of men. A teacher must have himself attained emancipation, but there is no provision that he must be a Brahman.
By adhering to this religion, even they who are of sinful birth, such as women and Vaisyas and Sudras, attain to the highest goal. O chief of Bharata's race, there is nothing else that is fraught with happiness greater than this.
And Sudras will expound the scriptures, and Brahmanas will wait upon and listen to them, and settle their course of duty accepting such interpretations as their guides. And the low will become the high, and the course of things will look contrary. And renouncing the gods, men will worship bones and other relics deposited within walls.
And the bed on which they lay was made of kusa grass upon which was spread their deer-skins. And before going to sleep they talked on diverse subjects in voices deep as of black clouds. The talk of those heroes indicated them to be neither Vaisyas nor Sudras, nor Brahmanas. Without doubt, O monarch, they are bulls amongst Kshatriyas, their discourse having been on military subjects.
And O regenerate one, it is I who, assuming the form of a boar, had raised in days of yore this earth sunk in water. In consequence of my energy from my mouth, my arms, my thighs, and my feet gradually sprang Brahmanas and Kshatriyas and Vaisyas and Sudras. It is from me that the Rik, the Sama, the Yajus, and the Atharvan Vedas spring, and it is in me that they all enter when the time cometh.
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