Caste and Class Structure in Post Mauryan Period

The four varnas and the four ashramas (chaturvarnashramadharma) emerge as the pillars of brahmanical ideology in the Dhramashastra texts of this period. Important features of caste were the preference for endogamy and hereditary occupation. There are indications of localization of caste and occupation with people of the same profession living in their own separate settlements or in distinct parts within settlements.

Principles of purity-pollution and hierarchy governed restrictions on the giving and receiving of food, particularly vis a vis brahmanas on the one hand and chandalas, the outcastes, on the other. The ‘untouchable’ (asprishya) occurs in the Vishnu Dharamasutra of this period. It signified complete segregation of the social group called Chandalas, which include corpse- removers, cremators, executioners, sweepers, hunters, etc. According to the Manu Smriti, they had to live outside the village or town and could not eat out of other people’s dishes.

There were a number of other groups too that were categorized as lowly (antyaja). At the same time, outsiders such as the yavanas and Shakas, were sought to be assimilated within the traditional social structure by describing them as sankrita varnas, born out of the mixture of castes, or as vratya kshatriyas, degraded kshatriyas. All this shows that the forces of the ideologies of social exclusion and incorporation were simultaneously at work.