The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c17.64

v1.c17.64

There is some evidence that already in this period specialisation in industry had begun. The worker in wood has clearly the place of honour, needed as he was to produce the chariots for war and the race, and the carts for agricultural purposes. He was carpenter, joiner, wheelwright in one; and the fashioning of chariots is a frequent source of metaphor, the poet comparing his own skill to that of the wheelwright. Next in importance was the worker in metal who smelted ore in the furnace, using the wing of a bird in the place of a bellows to fan the flame. Kettles and other domestic utensils were made of metal. It is, however, still uncertain what that metal which is called *ayas* was. Copper, bronze, and iron alike may have been meant, and we cannot be certain that the term has the same sense throughout. Of other workers the tanner’s art is alluded to not rarely; and to women are ascribed sewing, the plaiting of mats from grass or reeds, and, much more frequently, the weaving of cloth. It is of importance to note that there is no sign that those who carried on these functions were in any way regarded as inferior members of the community, as was the case in later times. This fact is probably to be explained by the growing number of the servile population which must have steadily increased with the conquest of the tribes, though we cannot conjecture the motives which ascribed to inferiors tasks which in the Rigvedic time were apparently honourable and distinguished. Presumably even at this time the slave population must have been utilised in assisting their masters in their various tasks, agricultural, industrial, and pastoral; but the Rigveda unquestionably presents us with a society which is not dependent on such labour, and in which the ordinary tasks of life are carried out by the free men of the tribe¹. This is one of the facts which show the comparative simplicity of the age of the Rigveda as compared with the next period of Indian history.