Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s2.28

c48.s2.28

§ 42. **Potters** (3,521,800). The Potter is one of the recognised village staff, and in return for his customary share in the harvest is bound to furnish the earthenware vessels required for domestic use. His occupation goes back to the time of the Vedic Sūktas, and varies in its demands upon the worker according to the customs of the province or tract, the consumption of earthen platters being in some parts enormous, whilst elsewhere metal is substituted, except for water and storage. The position of the Kumhār, Kumbhār, or Kuśavan, is above that of the helots, but is undoubtedly low. This is made manifest by the association of the caste with the donkey, the saddle-animal of S'ītalā, the goddess of small-pox. The Dhōbi, or washerman, is the only other of the settled or village castes which makes use of that useful, but in India foulfeeding, animal. Where the caste is much subdivided those who use the bullock for carriage are superior to the patron of the humbler animal. Those who work on the wheel, again, do not intermarry with those who use a mould or make images. Elsewhere there is a distinction drawn between the artificer who only makes large vessels, and accordingly stands to his work, and him who squats on the ground. As in the case of the weavers and oil-pressers, the Bengal potter seems to enjoy a better position than his comrade of upper India. In Madras, too, both Telugu and Tamil Kuśavan wear the sacred thread, and some sub-divisions employ Brāhmans, as in Bengal, whilst others have priests of their own community. Where bricks are in use the potter undertakes the kiln, and though, as above stated, he has to use fuel collected from sweepings and other refuse, he is not called upon to touch the lowest kinds of filth, and escapes therefore the condemnation inflicted upon the scavenger. His donkey, too, where it is in general use, is employed when the kiln is not in operation in carrying grain and other produce. In most parts of the country, the potters sometimes hold land, and in others take service in large households. In the Telugu country they are even in request as cooks, one of their traditional occupations in that region.