सूत sūta

The sūtas occupy a distinctive social position: they are not brahmins, not kṣatriyas, but a mixed-caste hereditary group whose work combines the two great public functions of presence and memory. They drive the king’s chariot in battle (and so are present at the king’s most consequential deeds) and they keep the genealogies and recite the itihāsa.

Both Sañjaya (who narrates the war to the blind Dhṛtarāṣṭra in real time) and Sauti (who narrates the entire Mahābhārata to the rishis at Naimiṣa) are sūtas. Karṇa’s foster-father Adhiratha was a sūta, which is the class-fact that determines his treatment at the Pāṇḍava court — a mismatch the text does not resolve quietly.

The respect accorded a sūta in adhyāya 1 — the rishis greeting Sauti with the formality of guest-rite — is a marker of how the bardic memory was valued, not socially equal but professionally indispensable.