Jainism

Author(s): N R Guseva
Publisher: Sindu Publications P L

Page 21

THE RISE OF REFORMATORY
attempt to show the analogy between this word and the ancient Russian word 'ves' ('village'). Besides, the Russian pronoun ‘ves' ('all'), having the sense of unification, inclusion, also to all appearances, can be compared with this word 'vis'. Later on, from this term, the name of other caste 'Vaisya' came about in the class society of the Aryans. It was the caste of agriculturists, traders and handicraftsmen, who were the male Kshatriyas of preclass society in the epoch of further division of work.
S. A. Dange in his book alludes to the legend, contained in the 'Satapatha Brahmana'; a well-known and studied work, in which it is said that Prajapati gave birth to the groups (or conceptions? or pursuits?)—Brahma, Kshatra and Visa after creating earth, sky and air and that Brahman was formerly one entity and it was indivisible.10 According to Dange, the latter supports his view that 'Brahman' signified primitive society, which, later, in the process of class formation was divided into caste-groups. We wish to turn our attention to the words 'Kshatra' and 'Visa', which are clearly applicable to the view which we tried to interpret above.
In preclass society, Kshatri-head of the family, must have been a part on a level with all the other members of the tribe in the composition of ‘Vis' i.e. people in general.
With the separation of Kshatriya-martial caste from their numbers, the major part of Kshatries continued their peaceful occupations and their name Kshatri was dissolved in the general name 'Vis' while being preserved in such names as Khatri or Khetri, which are related to the third caste-Vaisya. That is why one must not acknowledge as historically correct the observation that these castes were degraded Kshatriya-warriors.
The population of the ancient Indian republics (in the given case what especially is of interest to us is the republics of the eastern regions) consisted first of all, of pre-Aryan population, which was compelled to acknowledge Aryan domination acquired by fire and sword. Exceedingly little is known about this population. From the sparse data, gathered from the
10. S. A. Dange, India from Primitive Communism to Slavery.