Kshatriya: Difference between revisions

The administrative machinery in the Vedic India was headed by a tribal king called Rajan whose position may or may not have been hereditary.<ref name=":VedicIndiaRenouKshatriyas">{{Cite book|last=Renou|first=Louis|url=http://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.6854|title=Vedic India|date=1957|pages=130}}</ref>The king may have been elected in a tribal assembly (called Samiti), which included women.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Shori|first=Maj Gen A. K.|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=FRCiBQAAQBAJ&newbks=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PT87&dq=The+king+was+elected+in+a+tribal+assembly+(called+Samiti)+which+%22included+women%22.&hl=en&redir_esc=y|title=Seven Shades of Rama|publisher=Notion Press|isbn=978-93-84391-74-4|language=en|chapter=Fifth Shade : Rama as A King}}</ref><ref name=":VedicIndiaRenouKshatriyas"/>The Rajan protected the tribe and cattle; was assisted by a priest; and did not maintain a standing army, though in the later period the rulership appears to have risen as a [[social class]]. The concept of the fourfold varna system is not yet recorded.<ref name=raj>{{cite book|last=Sharma|first=Ram Sharan|title=India's ancient past|year=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=the University of Michigan|isbn= 9780195667141|pages=110–112}}</ref>

The hymn ''[[Purusha Sukta]]'' to the ''[[Rigveda]]'' describes the symbolic creation of the four varna-s through [[Purusha Sukta|cosmic]] sacrifice (yajña). Some scholars consider the Purusha Sukta to be a late interpolation into the Rigveda based on the neological character of the composition, as compared to the more archaic style of the Vedic literature.<ref name=":RigvedaJamisonBreretonPurushaSukta">{{Cite book|last=Jamison|first=Stephanie W.|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1-PRAwAAQBAJ&newbks=0&redir_esc=y|title=The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India|last2=Brereton|first2=Joel P.|date=2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-937018-4|pages=57-58|language=en}}</ref> Since not all Indians were fully regulated under the varna in the Vedic society,<ref>David Kean (2007). [https://books.google.com/books?id=beJP_BOIhEcC&pg=PA26 Caste-based Discrimination in International Human Rights Law], p. 26.  Ashgate Publishing Ltd.</ref> the Purusha Sukta was supposedly composed in order to secure Vedic sanction for the heredity caste scheme.<ref name=":RigvedaJamisonBreretonPurushaSukta"/> An alternate explanation is that the word 'Shudra' does not occur anywhere else in the ''Rig-veda'' except the ''Purusha Sukta'', leading some scholars to believe the ''Purusha Sukta'' was a composition of the later Rig-vedic period itself to denote, legitimize and sanctify an oppressive and exploitative class structure that had already come into existence.<ref>