Shudra

Shudra (IAST: Śūdra) is the fourth varna, or one of the four social categories found in the texts of Hinduism. Various sources translate it into English as a caste, or alternatively as a social class. They are ranked as the lowest of the four varnas.

The word Shudra appears only once in the Rig veda, in the Purusha Sukta, but is found in other Hindu texts such as the Manusmriti, Arthashastra and Dharmashastras. Theoretically, Shudras have constituted the hereditary laboring class serving others. In actual history, they have shared occupations with other varnas including being warriors and kings.

The term Shudra is rare in the earliest Vedic literature. It appears only once in the Rigveda. This mention is found in a verse in the Purusha Sukta which is one of the 1,028 hymns in the Rigveda.

While the Rigveda was most likely compiled between c. 1500 and 1200 BCE, John Muir in 1868 suggested that the verse that mentions the four varnas has "every character of modernness both in its diction and ideas". This Purusha Sukta varna verse is now generally considered to have been inserted at a later date into the Vedic text, possibly as a charter myth. According to Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton, a professor of Sanskrit and Religious studies, "there is no evidence in the Rigveda for an elaborate, much-subdivided and overarching caste system", and "the varna system seems to be embryonic in the Rigveda and, both then and later, a social ideal rather than a social reality".

According to Romila Thapar, the Vedic text's mention of Shudra and other varnas has been seen as its origin, and that "in the varna ordering of society, notions of purity and pollution were central and activities were worked out in this context" and it is "formulaic and orderly, dividing society into four groups arranged in a hierarchy". In contrast, R. S. Sharma states that "the Rig Vedic society was neither organized on the basis of social division of labour nor on that of differences in wealth... [it] was primarily organised on the basis of kin, tribe and lineage."

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