Shudra

Shudra or Shoodra (Sanskrit: Śūdra) is one of the four varnas of the Hindu caste system and social order in ancient India.

Quotes

• The Shudras were one of the Aryan communities of the Solar race. . . . The Shudras did not form a separate Varna. They ranked as part of the Kshatriya Varna in the Indo-Aryan society..
  • Ambedkar (1946), quoted from Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 2

• Though theoretically the position of the Shudras was very low, there is evidence to show that many of them were well-to-do. Some of them succeeded in marrying their daughters in royal families. Sumitra, one of the 3 wives of king Dasharatha, was a Shudra. Some of them even worked their way up to throne. The famous Chandragupta is traditionally known to be a Shudra.
  • — G. C. Ghurye, Caste and Race in India

• As a matter of fact, we see Shudras occupying the position of kings and emperors in Vedic times.. [Abmedkar] further confirms that some of the most eminent and powerful kings of ancient India were Shudras. The Mahabharata mentions a Shudra king conducting yajnas . And Ambedkar identifies this king with Sudas who is mentioned in the Rig Veda.
  • Malhotra, R. & Viswanathan V. (2022). Snakes in the Ganga : Breaking India 2.0.

• The Nanda dynasty rulers of northern India in the fourth century bce were Shudras as per Hindu, Jaina, and Buddhist sources. This means Mahapadma Nanda, the great emperor of northern India, was a Shudra. Likewise, the next great emperor of India, Chandragupta Maurya was also a Shudra. The Maurya empire was the biggest that India ever saw, and for the first time an all-Indian nationality was achieved under a centralized government. It is important to note that a Shudra was the head of such an empire.
  • Malhotra, R. & Viswanathan V. (2022). Snakes in the Ganga : Breaking India 2.0.

• Buddhist sources regard the powerful Pala dynasty, which ruled Bengal and other parts of eastern India for nearly four hundred years, from the mid-eighth to the eleventh century, to be of Shudra origin. The Buddhist text Manjushri-mula-kalpa states that Gopala, the founder of the Pala dynasty (750-1160 ce), was a Shudra. 75 The Pala dynasty monarchs were great patrons of Buddhism, and their copper plate inscriptions begin with an invocation to Buddha.
  • Malhotra, R. & Viswanathan V. (2022). Snakes in the Ganga : Breaking India 2.0.

• In medieval India, the Kakatiya dynasty monarchs (c. 1163-1323 ce) who ruled the Telugu-speaking Andhra region claimed themselves to be Shudras in their inscriptions. One peculiarity of medieval Andhra society was that many leading warrior families made no pretensions to be Kshatriyas and instead, proudly proclaimed their Shudra status by mentioning their descent from that of Lord Brahma’s feet. Shudras possessed the greatest degree of actual political power in medieval Andhra.
  • Malhotra, R. & Viswanathan V. (2022). Snakes in the Ganga : Breaking India 2.0.

• An important Sanskrit inscription of the Andhra chief, Prolaya Nayaka mentions a Shudra’s movement to liberate a large territory from the Muslims in 1329.
  Then arose chief Prolaya of the Musumuri family of Shudra caste. Unable to resist his might, the Yavanas abandoned their forts and fled to unknown places. He restored the agrahara lands to the Brahmins and revived the performance of Vedic sacrifices. He cleansed the Andhra Pradesha of the pollution caused by the movements of the Turushkas by means of the butter smoke arising out of the sacrificial fire pits.
  • Malhotra, R. & Viswanathan V. (2022). Snakes in the Ganga : Breaking India 2.0.

• Swami Vivekananda said that the four castes, by turn, governed human society. The brahmin dominated the thought-current of the world during the glorious days of the ancient Hindu civilization. Then came the rule of the kshattriya, the military as manifested through the supremacy of Europe from the time of the Roman Empire to the middle of the seventeenth century. Next followed the rule of the vaisya, marked by the rise of America. The Swami prophesied the coming supremacy of the sudra class. After the completion of the cycle, he said, the spiritual culture would again assert itself and influence human civilization through the power of the brahmin. Swami Vivekananda often spoke of the future greatness of India as surpassing all her glories of the past.
  • Swami Nikhilananda, Swami Vivekânanda : A Biography (1975); the "vaisya" represent those primarily living at the mercantile levels of human motivation, and the sudra represent the working class, or laborers.