Social status

  • Higher punishment for certain offences.
    • For example: Adultery with a dvija woman, slander against a dvija.
    • Attenuation: In several cases, a person of a higher varṇa was subject to greater prāyaścitta and daṇḍa. For example, Manu and Gautama require that a brāhmaṇa, a kṣatriya and a vaiśya would respectively be fined eight, four and two times more respectively than a śūdra. Kātyāyana and Vyāsa make this principle a general rule for all offences.
  • A śūdra could not be a judge in high courts (if he was not a king, to be sure).
  • Lower punishments were prescribed for killing a śūdra.

Limitations on social intercourse with dvija-s

  • brāhmaṇa-s could not accept alms from them or eat their cooked food in common circumstances, or even be touched by him.
    • All this was earlier allowed in some cases, but was later barred as something to be avoided in the kali age (kali-varjya).
  • Marital relationship (especially between a shūdra male and a dvija female) was discouraged.

सच्छूद्र exceptions

Concept seems to be that “सच्छूद्रs” (sectarian definitions may vary slightly) ought to be treated with great regard unlike ordinary ones.

(Quoted in an vedAnta-deshika’s rahasya-traya-sāra, an orthodox shrIvaiShNava text)

“स्मृतस् संभाषितोऽपि वा”(इतिहाससमुच्चयम् 31-55) ऎण्ड्रुम्,

“The caṇḍāla who has devotion to Bhagavān - to think even by mere chance, of this chanḍāla, to talk to him and to treat him with respect - these purify the man who does so, O, Brahmin "

तथैव मुण्डकोपनिषदि श्रूयते । ‘अपि वा यश्चाण्डालः शिव इति वाचं वदेत् तेन सह संवदेत् तेन सह संवसेत् तेन सह भुञ्जीत’ इति । अत्र हि शिवशब्दस्य ब्रह्मबोधकस्य समुच्चारणमात्रेणात्यन्ताविशुद्धस्य पातकिनः परमविशुद्धिप्राप्तिरवगम्यत इति ।
Śrīkaṇṭhaśivācārya’s commentary on Brahmasūtra 4.1.16
Appayya also quotes.

Social scale

विद्याकर्मवयोबन्धुवित्तैर्मान्या यथाक्रमम्।
एतैः प्रभूतैः शूद्रोऽपि वार्धके मानमर्हति॥ याज्ञवल्क्यस्मृति १.११६

This verse shows that the possession of knowledge and wealth were open to anyone who could possess them through their ability. - satyan sharma

Incompariability: Medhātithi

“Brāhmaṇa is not superior to Cāṇḍāla” - Medhātithi (on Manusmṛti 10.112) Why? He says that it is only between two things of the same category, that one is said to be superior to the other.

Context: Statement of Manu that śiloñcha is better than pratigraha. He says that it is only because śiloñcha & pratigraha belong to the same category, i.e., taking someone else’s possession, that one is said to be better than the other. The example of the Brāhmaṇa & Cāṇḍāla could imply that Medhātithi’s conception of superiority between varṇas &/or jātis was probably not based on the hierarchical view of the upper one as the Brāhmaṇa and the lowest one as the Cāṇḍāla. It seems that, for him, both are incomparable with regard to superiority & inferiority.