agricultural produce, yet in proportion to the population the trading
community is still extremely small. It thus seems quite impossible that
the Aryans could have been a community of priests, rulers and traders,
because such a community would not have had means of subsistence. And
if the whole production and control of the wealth and food of the
community had been in the hands of the Sudras, they could not have
been kept permanently in their subject, degraded position. The flocks
and herds and the land, which constituted the wealth of early India,
must thus have been in the possession of the Vaishyas; and grounds of
general probability, as well as the direct evidence already produced,
make it clear that they were the herdsmen and cultivators, and the
Sudras the labourers. The status of the modern cultivators seems to
correspond to that of the Vaishyas, that is, of the main body of the
Aryan people, who were pure and permitted to join in sacrifices. The
status, however, no longer attaches to origin, but to the possession of
the land; it is that of a constituent member of the village community,
corresponding to a citizen of the city states of Greece and Italy. The
original Vaishyas have long disappeared; the Brahmans themselves say
that there are no Kshatriyas and no Vaishyas left, and this seems to be
quite correct. But the modern good cultivating castes retain the status
of the Vaishyas as the Rajputs retain that of the Kshatriyas. The case
of the Jats and Gujars supports this view. These two castes are almost
certainly derived from Scythian nomad tribes, who entered India long
after the Vedic Aryans. And there is good reason to suppose that a
substantial proportion, if not the majority, of the existing Rajput
clans were the leaders or aristocracy of the Jats and Gujars. Thus it
is found that in the case of these later tribes the main body were
shepherds and cultivators, and their descendants have the status
of good cultivating castes at present, while the leaders became the
Rajputs, who have the status of the Kshatriyas; and it therefore seems
a reasonable inference that the same had previously been the case with
the Aryans themselves. It has been seen that the word Visha or Vaishya
signified one of the people or a householder. The name Kunbi appears
to have the same sense, its older form being _kutumbika_, which is
a householder or one who has a family, [51] a _pater familias_.

22. The clan and the village.