but had been excluded for improper conduct, ceased to be āryas. The question whether a person was Aryan or not had very little to do with his caste. Whatever relation there may have been between race and caste in the Rig Vedic period the race question was not of any significance in the period of our writer.
When in the times of our writer, a question arose as to whether a certain family was ārya or not, one did not ask whether this family could trace its connection with those invaders who came from the northwest, and slaughtered the natives of the soil by thousands, but only whether the family was descended from the people already regarded as ārya. The princes of the soil who held their own against the Aryan invaders were by no means excluded from the title "ārya." All the princes whether they belonged to the so-called Aryan race, or the so-called Dravidian race were āryas. Whether a tribe or a family was racially Aryan or Dravidian was a question which never troubled the people of India until foreign scholars came in and began to draw the line. The color of the skin had long ceased to be a matter of importance.[1]
- ↑ The attitude of the author of the Dharmashästra in this regard is essentially that of the writers of the epic, to whom ārya was rather ethical than ethnic. Thus an ārya act was a noble act, whoever performed it, and an ārya was a gentleman. Naturally the slave caste as a whole were not representative gentlemen, though, theoretically, a good Shūdra might be so regarded, as a low-born man in the Western world might reluctantly be given the same title, if his virtue or heroism raised him above his caste level. The attitude toward strangers was also 1100 unlike that of the insular Englishman toward foreigners. They were rather despised because they were foreigners, but it was not denied that some of them, by virtue of their bravery or skill, were noble or gentlemen (ārya). If they accepted the standard religion their status was unquestioned; otherwise
