India: A History

by John Keay

distinguished descent who had forsaken their warrior past for agriculture and other wealth-generating pursuits. Vaisya, the term used to describe this caste, derives from vis, which originally meant the entire tribal community. They were thus considered to be of arya descent and, like the brahman and ksatriya, were dvija or ‘twice born’ (once physically, a second time through initiation rituals). As the ksatriya, literally ‘the empowered ones’, assumed military, political and administrative powers within the new state structures, the unempowered remainder of the erstwhile vis, that is the vaisya, continued as gramini and grhpati, villagers and household heads. Their role was that of creating the wealth on which the ksatriya and brahman depended or, as the texts have it, on which ksatriya and brahman might ‘graze’. In pursuit of this productive ideal many vaisya accumulated land holdings while others invested in trade and industry. Much later, just as the ksatriya in recognition of their martial status would be equated with ‘rajputs’, so the vaisya would be identified with the essentially mercantile ‘bania’. Beyond the pale of the arya were a variety of indigenous peoples like the despised dasa of the Vedas. All were, nevertheless, subject to varying