________________
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
149
by ordinary people in their daily intercourse, - which seems to ine quite incredible,--that is still of no value at all as evidence of the condition of things twelve centuries before, in a much more simple and natural state of society.
Another point is that though brahmins take part in the religious and philosophical conversations of those early times, and in the accounts of them are always referred to with respect, and treated with the same courtesy that they always themselves (with one or two instructive exceptions) extended also to others, yet they hold no predominant po. sition. The majority of the Wanderers, and the most influential individuals among them, are not brahmins. And the general impression conveyed by the texts is that the Wanderers and other nonpriestly teachers were quite as much, if not more esteemed than the brahmins by the whole peoplekings, nobles, officials, merchants, artisans, and peasantry.
“But that is only a matter of course," will be the obvious objection. “The books you quote, if not the work of bitter opponents, were at least composed under rajput influence, and are prejudiced against the brahmins. The law-books and the epics represent the brahmins as the centre round which everything in India turns; and that not only be. cause of the sacredness of their persons, but because of their marked intellectual superiority to the rest of the people. Or take the European books on Indian literature and religion. They treat these subjects as practically identical with literature and
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
