"In historical times," says Lassen, "their name reappears in that of the town Sudros on the lower Indus, and, what is especially worthy of notice, in that of the people Sudroi, among the Northern Arachosians." [25] "Thus their existence as a distinct nation is established in the neighbourhood of the Indus, that is to say in the region in which, in the oldest time, the Aryan Indians dwelt.

The Aryans probably conquered these indigenous inhabitants first; and when the others in the interior of the country were subsequently subdued and enslaved, the name Sudra was extended to the whole servile caste.

There seems to have been some hesitation in the Aryan community about the actual religious position to be given to the Sudras.

In the time of the liturgical Brahmanas of the Vedas, they were sometimes admitted to take part in the Aryan sacrifices.

Not long afterwards, when the conquests of the Aryans were greatly extended, and they formed a settled state of society among the affluents of the Jumna and Ganges, the Sudras were degraded to the humiliating and painful position which they occupy in Manu.