Shudra

Among the four major social groups
(varnas) in the traditional Hindu society, the shudras are the lowest and least
influential. In this model, the shudras’
social function was to serve all the others. This low social status is reflected in
the creation story known as the Purusha
Sukta, in which the shudras are
described as being created from the
Primeval Man’s feet. The feet are the
lowest and basest part of the body, and
the shudra was correspondingly seen as
the lowest level of caste Hindu society.
Unlike members of the “twice-born”
varnas—brahmin, kshatriya, and
vaishya—whose adolescent males were
entitled to have a ritual second birth
that entitled them to study the Veda,
shudras were always once-born, and
thus forbidden to study or even to hear
the Veda. In practice the status of shudras differed widely from region to
region—in southern India, many of the
land-owning jatis (endogamous social
subgroups) were shudras, and they were
very influential communities. At the
very least, they were accorded a definitive place in caste Hinduism, unlike the
untouchables, who were considered
completely impure, usually because of
their hereditary occupations.