Sutas
Topic: Society in Early India: Kinship, Varna-Jati, Women · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 3 "Kinship, Caste and Class - Early Societies"
Meaning
Sutas were charioteer-bards. They rode with Kshatriya warriors (the warrior varna) into battle and made up poems praising their victories and deeds. They matter because they probably composed the original Mahabharata story, which first spread orally (by word of mouth). From the 5th century BCE, Brahmanas took over the story and began writing it down, and it slowly turned into a much larger text.
Example
Historians trace the earliest stage of the Mahabharata to the songs of sutas about the war between the Kauravas and Pandavas. In the epic itself, Karna was raised by a suta family and was mocked for his low birth.
Don't confuse with
- Brahmana redactors: these were the priests who later wrote down the epic and added long sections on social rules. The sutas were the first oral storytellers.
Related concepts
- Composition of the Mahabharata
- Vyasa
- Narrative and didactic sections
- Itihasa
- Bhagavad Gita
- Hastinapura
- Draupadi's marriage
- Mahashweta Devi
- Ramayana