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The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v1.c19.s7: VII. Crafts and Industries

The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v1.c19.s7

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English

VII. Crafts and Industries

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Although agriculture formed the predominant feature of Bengal’s economy, a number of crafts and industries were developed at a very early age and played important parts in the life of the people. The most noteworthy among these seem to have been textiles, sugar, metal-work, stone-work, wood-work and pottery.

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The history of textile manufacture in Bengal goes back to the remotest antiquity. At the time when the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya was composed, it was already a well-established industry with a wide reputation in the country.⁵ The author mentions four varieties of textile commodities which were produced in Bengal in his time, viz. kshauma, dukūla, patrorṇa and kārpāsika. Kshauma¹ was linen, but of a coarse variety, being mixed with cotton. Its chief seats of manufacture were Puṇḍravardhana (North Bengal) and Benares. A pure and finer form of linen was called dukūla. It was of three varieties; the first, produced in Lower Bengal (Vaṅgaka), was white and soft; the second, produced in North Bengal (Pauṇḍraka), was black and “as soft as the surface of a gem;” while the third, manufactured at Suvarṇakuḍya in Kāmarūpa, had the “colour of rising sun.” Patrorṇa appears to have been wild silk. Amara (II. vi, 3, 14) defines it as “a bleached or white kausheya,” while the commentator says that it was a fibre produced by the saliva of a worm on the leaves of certain trees. According to Kauṭilya, nāga tree, likucha (artocarpus lakoocha), vakula (mimusops elengi) and vaṭa (ficus bengalensis) were the sources of these fibres. The author adds that patrorṇa was produced in three regions, viz. Magadha, Puṇḍra and Suvarṇakuḍya. It is significant that wild silk of the best quality is still produced in these districts. Kārpāsika obviously meant cotton fabrics. These were manufactured in various parts of India, but Vaṅga and six other regions, as Kauṭilya affirms, produced the best variety.

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⁵ Arthaśāstra, Bk. II. Ch. XI.

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¹ Kshīrasvāmin, commenting on Amara-kośa (II. 6. 113), explains kshauma as made of the fibre of kshuma. This is explained as Atasī both in Amara-kośa (II. 9. 20) and the commentary on Manu (II. 41) by Nandana. Atasī (or Atasī) is a synonym for common flax, hemp, linseed etc.

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It is thus evident that as early as the time of Kauṭilya Bengal had attained to great eminence as a seat of textile manufacture. The records of the succeeding ages tend to show that she retained this eminence down almost to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It may be noted that the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written in the first century A.D., includes “muslins of the finest sorts” among the exports of Bengal.² Referring to Ruhmī (which Elliot identifies with Bengal),³ the Arab merchant Sulaiman wrote in the ninth century A.D. that there was “a stuff made in this country which is not to be found elsewhere; so fine and delicate is this material that a dress made of it may be passed through a signet-ring.” Sulaiman adds that it was made of cotton, and that he was not speaking from hearsay, but had himself seen a piece of it.⁴ Marco Polo, who visited India in the thirteenth century, states that in his time Bengal still plied a lucrative trade in cotton goods.⁵ In the fifteenth century Ma Huan, the Chinese traveller, witnessed five or six varieties of textile goods being manufactured in this province.¹

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² Schoff, Periplus. p. 47.

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³ E & D. I. 361.

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⁴ Ibid. I. 5. Another Arab writer, Ibn Khurdadba (10th century A.D.) says that the country produced “cotton cloths and aloe wood” (ibid. I. 14).

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⁵ Yule, Marco Polo, II. 115. Marco Polo mentions cotton, but obviously he meant cotton goods.

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¹ *JRAS.* 1895, pp. 531-32.

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Another industry which seems to have made considerable headway in our period was sugar. We have already (*supra* p. 650) cited evidence to show that Bengal was probably one of the earliest homes of sugar-cane cultivation. Suśruta mentions that the *pauṇḍraka* canes (which grew in the Pauṇḍra country) were noted for the large quantity of sugar which they yielded. In the thirteenth century Marco Polo noticed that sugar was one of the important commodities of export from Bengal.² Early in the sixteenth century the Portuguese traveller, Barbosa, found Bengal competing with South India in the supply of sugar to different parts of India, Ceylon, Arabia and Persia.³

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² Yule, *Marco Polo*, II. 115.

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³ The book of Duarte Barbosa (Hakluyt Society, London), II. 112, 146.

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The manufacture of salt by means of evaporation either from infiltrated sea-water or from subsoil brine was also probably known and practised in certain areas. The Irdā Plate (*supra* p. 133) of the tenth century A.D. records the grant of a village in the Daṇḍabhukti-*maṇḍala* (*supra* p. 27) of the Vardhamāna-*bhukti*, along with its salt pits (*lavaṇākaraḥ*).⁴ Similarly, the Rāmapāl Plate of Śrīcandra⁵ (eleventh century A.D.) and the Belāva Plate of Bhojavarman⁶ (twelfth century A.D.) mention the grant of villages, located in the Pauṇḍra-*bhukti*, “along with salt” (*sa-lavaṇaḥ*). On the other hand, it should be noted that salt is not mentioned in any of the land-grants of the Pāla and Sena kings. It is, therefore, permissible to infer that although the manufacture of salt was known and practised in certain places, at any rate from the tenth century onwards, it had not developed into any considerable industry. The dampness of the climate and the large amount of fresh water discharged into the sea by the Ganges and the Brahmaputra might have hampered the growth of any large-scale salt manufacture.

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⁴ *EI.* XXII. 155, 158.

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⁵ *IB.* 5.

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⁶ *Ibid.* 21.

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Among other crafts, pottery appears to have been practised on an extensive scale. A large number of specimens of the pottery used by the monks of Pāhārpur, and dating back probably to the eighth or ninth century A.D., have been recovered in recent years. These include large storage jars, spotted vases or *loṭās*, cooking utensils, dishes, saucers, inkpots and lamps of various designs. The potter's art is also exemplified by the immense variety of terracotta plaques discovered at Mahāsthān (Bogra), Sābhār (Dacca), Pāhārpur and other places. Some contemporary inscriptions refer to potters (*kumbhakāra*)¹ and potter's ditch (*kumbhakāra-garta*)²; and the context in which these are mentioned seems to show that pottery as an industry was conducted from rural settlements for the most part.

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¹ Kamauli cp. (GL. 135).

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² Nidhanpur cp. (Kam. Sas. 26).

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Along with pottery, metal-work of various kinds must have been known from very early times. No settled agricultural community could get on without blacksmiths, whose services were required in the manufacture and repair of agricultural implements; and contemporary evidence proves that apart from agricultural implements, the blacksmiths manufactured other articles of general use like water-vessels of iron,³ and weapons of war such as arrow-heads, spear-heads and swords.⁴ Besides working in iron, the metal-workers practised the art of bronze-casting with considerable skill. This is shown by the discovery in different parts of Bengal of a large number of bronze or octo-alloy images, dating from the Gupta period onwards (*cf.* Chs. XIII, XIV). Jewellery, too, provided occupation to a considerable group of metal-workers, for it was the fashion of the rich to use gold and silver dishes and ornaments made of pearls and precious stones and metals (*supra* pp. 613, 618) for personal adornment. The Deopārā inscription of Vijayasena mentions “flowers made of precious stones, necklaces, ear-rings, anklets, garlands and golden bracelets,” worn by the wives of the king’s servants.⁵ The same epigraph speaks of temple girls “the charms of whose body were enhanced by (the wearing of) jewellery.”⁶ The Naihāṭi Plate of Vallālasena refers to necklaces of pearls worn by ladies of royal blood.⁷ The *Rāmacarita* (III. 33-34) mentions “jewelled anklet-bells,” “charming ornaments set with diamonds, lapis lazuli, pearls, emeralds, rubies and sapphires,” and “necklaces with central gems and pure pearls of round and big shape.” The *Tabaqāt-i-Nāsirī* casually alludes to the use of “golden and silver dishes” in the place of Lakshmaṇasena.⁸

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³ The Edilpur Plate of Keśavasena mentions “water-vessels of iron” (IB. 128).

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⁴ Some arrow-heads and spear-heads have been discovered at Pāhārpur The Agni Purāṇa (245. 21 ff.) refers to Aṅga and Vaṅga as important centres of sword-manufacture. The swords manufactured in Vaṅga, we are assured, “were characterised both by keenness and their power of standing blows” (*Cf.* P C. Chakravarti, The Art of War in Ancient India, pp. 163-64).

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⁵ IB. 52.

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⁶ Ibid. 55.

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⁷ Ibid. 77.

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⁸ E & D. II. 309. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mentions the existence of a gold mine near the mouth of the Ganges (*supra* p. 45).

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Two other categories of craftsmen were the workers in stone and wood. The numerous pre-Muhammadan stone images discovered in Bengal (cf. Chs. XIII, XIV) and the beautifully engraved inscriptions on stone slabs bear eloquent testimony both to the volume and skill of the stone-carvers' profession. It has been suggested that the black chlorite stone, out of which most of these images were carved, was probably obtained from the Rajmahal Hills and carried in boats to the different centres of the sculptor's art in the province.¹ Incidentally, this throws light on an important article of internal trade. Alongside stone-carving, wood-carving and carpentry also appear to have been practised on an extensive scale, although owing to the perishable nature of wood only a few architectural specimens of wood-carving of the pre-Muhammadan period have come down to us (supra p. 515). It seems evident, however, that the wood-workers built houses and temples and also manufactured house-hold furniture,² boats, ships, and wheeled carriages (supra pp. 615-16).

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¹ Bhatt.-Cat. xviii.

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² Ibid. pp. xxxv-xxxvi. Cf. also supra p. 615.

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Another important industry was ivory-carving. The Bhāṭerā Plate of Govinda-Keśava mentions an ivory-worker (dantakāra) by name,³ while the Edilpur Plate of Keśavasena refers to “palanquins supported by staffs made of elephant’s tusk.”⁴ Among minor arts, crafts, professions and industries may be mentioned those of scribes, florists, garland-makers, conchshell-workers, braziers, goldsmiths, painters, masons, oilmen, fishermen, washermen, barbers, butchers, distillers of wine etc. who formed so many distinct castes (cf. Ch. xv). As regards fishery, we get additional evidence from the land-grants, some of which refer to the right of fishing as included in the grant.⁵

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³ EI. XIX, 286.

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⁴ IB. 127.

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⁵ Pāla Ins. No. 6.

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Concerning the nature and organisation of industrial labour, we hardly know anything definite. There are certain statements, however, occurring here and there in the inscriptions, which suggest the inference that the workers in various trades and industries were organised in some kind of corporate groups. Reference has already been made (supra p. 266) to the trade and craft-guilds in Bengal in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D., and the important position occupied by the nagara-śreṣṭhī (guild-president), prathama-sārthavāha (chief merchant) and prathama-kulika (the chief artisan) in the local administration. Similarly, the Deopārā inscription of Vijayasena refers to Rāṇaka Śūlapāṇi, who engraved the stone, as Vārendra-śilpi-goṣṭhī-cūḍāmaṇi (“crest-jewel of the guild of Vārendra artists”). The exact meaning of goṣṭhī may be a matter of doubt,¹ but the possibility of its connoting a guild can never be altogether ruled out.

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¹ *IB.* 45-46.

Cites (11)