With The Scion of Ikṣvāku

By and large, like Mahābhārat, Rāmāyaṇa too is preponderantly populated with the kshatriya, besides the vaḍukar. One seldom comes across any brāmhaṇa other than the above referred holy men and women who seem to have taken to the forests in search of quietude and peace. These look totally different from the Kuru-Pañcāla brāhman pushing their way across the Indo-Gangetic plain. To use the language of Śatapatha Brāmhaṇa, the hermits Rāma meets in Deccan seem to have “forgotten their dharma of sacrifice enjoined in the sacred texts and adopted a new dharma against sacrifice”. (Chakravarti, 1974 : Jaina Literature in Tamil, 4)