Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/180

 disinterested men who attended upon them, spoke the truth, and declared the Veda aright, were Brahmans. Those of them who formerly were feeble, engaged in the work of husbandmen, tillers of the earth, and industrious, were Vaisyas, cultivators and providers of subsistence. Those who were cleansers and ran about on service, and had little vigour or strength, were called Sudras." Accounts more or less similar to this occur in the other Puranas as well.

The Ramayana in its present shape is, as we have seen before, the work of later ages. In its closing sections we are told that in the Krita Age Brahmans alone practised austerities; that in the Treta Age Kshatriyas were born, and then was established the modern system of four castes. Reduced from mythical to historical language, this implies that in the Vedic Age the Hindu Aryans were a united body and practised Hindu rites, but in the Epic Age priests and kings separated themselves as distinct castes, and the people also formed themselves into the lower orders, the Vaisyas and the Sudras.

The Mahabharata also is, in its present shape, a work of later ages, yet there we read that "red-limbed twice-born men who were fond of sensual pleasure, fiery, irascible, daring, and forgetful of their sacrificial duties, fell into the caste of Kshatriyas. Yellow twice-born men, who derived their livelihood from cows and agriculture, and did not practise religious performances, fell into the caste of Vaisyas. Black twice-born men who were impure and addicted to violence and