Status of the VrÄtyas with reference to the Atharvaveda
Hiten Barman
This paper presents the social status of VrÄtya with Atharvavedic stand-point. The term ‘VrÄtya’ means belonging to a roaming band, vagrant, member of fellowship that stood without the BrÄhmanical pale, it is further applied to the son of a uninitiated man, or also to on who has let the appropriate time for the Sacrament of initiation slip. The social status of VrÄtya in the Atharvaveda was a special type and high esteem which in the later Vedic literatures and Smá¹›ti Literatures underwent changed. The status of VrÄtya acquired a totally different by the time of the Smá¹›ti literatures. Manu states that, if after the last given period, the twice-born (dvijÄti) stay on uninitiated, they turn out to be VrÄtyas, fallen from SÄvitri. In the Atharvaveda the term VrÄtya is used not in the sense of ‘One who has not performed his Upanayana’ but its employed in the sense of the highest Brahmaṇa.The highest Brahmaṇa is conceived and glorious as the VrÄtya both as divine VrÄtya, recognized with the great God or MahÄdeva, the Lord ĪśÄna or Rudra and his prototype, the earthly VrÄtya. Finally, in the evolutionary process, at each stage of Indian History, VrÄtya was accorded a different social status; and that status sufficiently mirrored the state of Indian society at that stage.