In order to define properly the mediatory role of the monk it is necessary to review the evidence concerning the structure of society in the period with which this book is concerned. It is not our intention to present in exhaustive detail all information in the texts pertaining to social classes, occupational positions, kinship terminology and varṇa affiliation, though some of this will be mentioned. These have been well treated in other publications and any extended treatment here would simply duplicate them. Rather, the emphasis in this chapter will be focused on three areas: (1) a summary of the principal characteristics of the various elite groups as they receive more emphasis in the texts than any other groups; (2) a description of the concurrent operation of various forms of classification which operate within similar groups that otherwise might be different; and (3) the difficulties in determining whether a demonstrably pluralist society needs a universal ideology to provide it with the possibility of political and social homogeneity. Put in another way, the question we have set ourselves in this chapter is to ask whether the many groups and social units mentioned in the Pāli Canon (and tribal names found in late Vedic literature) reflected a society, highly diverse in a number of ways, such that we need to speak of semi-autonomous groups and even of distinct small-scale societies existing side by side.