Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s2.20.1

c48.s2.20.1

a) **Combined crafts** (1,263,900). From at least the date of the Mahābhārata, five trades, called the Pāñckalsi, stand out from the rest, and are usually grouped together. The goldsmith comes first, except in Bengal. Then comes the brass and coppersmith and next the carpenter or other worker in wood. The blacksmith follows in a lower place, partly, no doubt, because his is a dirty calling, partly because he has to use bellows made of oxhide, and partly, again, because the metal in which he works is black, the unlucky colour. In the Gangetic valley, too, there may be some association between the village and the nomad blacksmith, who is probably of Kōl origin and shares the reputation of the gipsy tinker and farrier of Europe. The fifth place in this hierarchy belongs to the stone-worker, which, exept in the south, is a more modern and probably a purely functional body. The above castes are not always strictly separated in occupation: sometimes the carpenter becomes a blacksmith, and the masonry, like bricklaying is done by an outsider; the latter being held to verge upon the task of the potter, which is impure. In the Dravidian country the five are found merged in a single group, called the Kammāḷan in Tamil, Kamsāla in Telugu, and Pañcāḷa in the Karnatic. The occupations then fall into subdivisions. This cohesion seems to have been promoted, if not initiated, by sectarian influence.