Sudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order Down to Circa A.D. 600

This is an outstanding piece of research and an authentic history of sudras in ancient india professor sharma has made use of all published sources, literary as well as archaeological, bearing on the social and economic position of sudras it gives a lucid and comprehensive account of all aspects of the anguished career of sudras community --l m joshi, journal of religious studies, vol10, no1 & ii, 1982the facility and confidence with which sharma makes his arguments and conclusions comforting, it weaves together scattered references into the first connected account of the sudras varna and place this within a broader historical framework --upinder singh, contribution to indian sociology, vol26, no1, jan-june, 1992sharma co-relates the phases of economic development with social organisation and social change he rightly calls the rigvedic society as basically tribal, pastoral and egalitarian and a pre-class society and contends that the defeated and dispossessed sections of aryans and non-aryan tribes were reduced to the position of sudras in ancient india, the cultural apparatus of the sudras, more so of the untouchables or the asat sudras, was very primitive, consequently their response was usually of abject submission --sn mishra, the eastern anthropologist, vol37, no4, oct-dec 1984