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The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s9: Age of the Authorities Used

The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s9

Language
English

Age of the Authorities Used

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It remains now to give some account of the literature from which our knowledge of early Buddhism is chiefly derived, and so form some estimate of its value as a source of history. This literature which deals mainly with ethics and religion, grew up gradually among those followers of the Buddha who dwelt in the republics and kingdoms specified above. There are now 27 books, and only three of them deal with the rules of the Order. But these 27 are mostly anthologies of earlier shorter passages. The Pātimokkha for instance—one of the earliest documents—has 227 *suttas*, and they are of the average length of about three lines; and the Sīlas, a string of moral injunctions, are, if taken separately, quite short. But neither of these tracts, each of them already a compilation, now exists as a separate book. They are found only as imbedded in longer works of later date. It took about a century for the more important works, the Vinaya and the four Nikāyas¹, to be nearly finished about as we have them. (See p. 195.)

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¹ The titles of the five Nikāyas are as follows: 1. Dīgha = the long Suttas; 2. Majjhima = the Suttas of medium length; 3. Saṃyutta = Suttas forming connected groups; 4. Aṅguttara = Suttas arranged according to a progressive enumeration (from one to eleven) of the subjects with which they deal; 5. Khuddaka = smaller works and miscellanea.

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The next century and a half saw the completion of the supplementary works—the supplements to the Vinaya and the four Nikāyas; the thirteen books of the supplementary fifth Nikāya (much of it based on older material); and the seven Abhidhamma books, mainly a new classification of the psychological ethics of the four Nikāyas.

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So far the books had been divided into Dhamma and Vinaya; that is to say, religion and the regulations of the Order. Now, after the close of the canon, a new division begins to appear, that into three Piṭakas (or Baskets) of Vinaya, Sutta, and Abhidhamma. We do not yet know exactly when or why this new division arose and superseded the older one². As late as the fifth cent. A.D. we find Buddhaghosha still putting the Vinaya and the Abhidhamma into the supplementary fifth Nikāya¹, though he and other commentators also use the newer phrase².

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² Perhaps the oldest reference to the three Piṭakas is in Kanishka's Inscr., *Ep. Ind.* VIII, 176.

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¹ *Attha-sālinī*, 26.

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² *Ibid.* 27; *Sum. Vil.* I. 15. So also *Mil.* 21, 90; *Thīg. A.* 199; *Dhp. A.* III. 385.

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The authorities on which our account of early Buddhist history is based are therefore the four Nikāyas, with occasional use of other works mainly of such as are included in the fifth or supplementary Nikāya. Concerning the period to which the Nikāyas belong we have some evidence, partly internal and partly external. To take the latter first:

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Asoka in the Bhabra Edict recommends his co-religionists the special study of seven selected passages. Two of the titles given are ambiguous. Four of the others are from the four Nikāyas, and the remaining one from the Sutta Nipāta now included in the fifth Nikāya. As was pointed out a quarter of a century ago³ it is a critical mistake to take these titles as the names of books extant in Asoka's time. They are the names of edifying passages selected from an existing literature. It is as if an old inscription had been found asking Christians to learn and ponder over the Beatitudes, the Prodigal Son, the exhortation to the Corinthians on Charity, and so on. There are no such titles in the New Testament. Before short passages could be spoken of by name in this familiar manner a certain period of time must have elapsed; and we should be justified in assuming that the literature in which the passages were found was therefore older than the inscription⁴.

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³ Rh.D., *Questions of King Milinda*, I, xxxvii ff.

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⁴ See *J.P.T.S.*, 1896.

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Further, in certain inscriptions in the Asoka characters of a somewhat later date there are recorded names of donors to Buddhist monuments. The names being similar, distinguishing epithets are used—X. who knows Suttantas, X. who knows the Piṭaka (or perhaps the Piṭakas, *Peṭakī*), X. who knows the five Nikāyas. These technical terms as names for books are, with one exception, found only in that collection we now call the Pāli Piṭakas. The exception is the word *Piṭaka*. That is not found in the four Nikāyas in that sense; and even in the fifth Nikāya it is only approximating to that sense and has not yet reached it. One would naturally think, if these Nikāyas had been put together *after* these inscriptions, that they would have used the term in the sense it then had, and has ever since continued to have; more especially as that sense—the whole collection of the books—is so very convenient, and expresses an idea for which they have no other word.

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Thirdly, the commentators both in India and Ceylon say that the Kathā-vatthu, the latest book in the three Piṭakas, as we now have them, was composed by Mogglīputta Tissa at Asoka's court at Pāṭaliputta in N. India at the time of the Council held there in the eighteenth year of Asoka's reign. At the time when they made this entry, the commentators held the Piṭakas to be the word of the Buddha, and believed also that the *Dhamma* had been already recited at the Council held at Rājagaha after the death of the Buddha. It seems quite impossible, therefore, that they could have invented this information about Tissa. They found it in the records on which their works were based; and felt compelled to hand it on. Being evidence, as it were, against themselves, it is especially worthy of credit. And it is in accord with all that we otherwise know. Anyone at all acquainted with the history of the gradual change in Buddhist doctrine, and able to read the Kathā-vatthu, will find that it is just what we should expect for a book composed in Asoka's time. It has now been edited and translated for the Pāli Text Society; and not a single phrase or even word has been found in it referable to a later date. It quotes largely from all five Nikāyas¹.

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¹ See the passages collected in *Dialogues of the Buddha*, I, pp. xi, xii.

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The above is all the external evidence as yet discovered, and the third point, though external as regards the Nikāyas, is internal as regards the Piṭakas. The internal evidence for the age of the Nikāyas is very small, but it is very curious.

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Firstly, the four Nikāyas quote one another. Thus Aṅguttara v, 46 quotes Saṃyutta I, 126; but in giving the name of the work quoted it does not say Saṃyutta, but *Kumārī-pañha*—the title of the particular Sutta quoted. The Saṃyutta quotes two Suttantas in the Dīgha by name—the *Sakka-pañha* and the *Brahma-jāla*². It follows that, at the time when the four Nikāyas were put together in their present form, Suttas and Suttantas known by their present titles were already current, and handed down by memory, in the community.

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² *S.* III, 13 (with a difference of reading), and *S.* IV, 287.

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More than that there are, in each of the four Nikāyas, a very large number of stock passages on ethics found in identical words in one or more of the others. These accepted forms of teaching, varying in length from half a page to a page or more, formed part of the already existing material out of which the Nikāyas were composed. Some of the longer Suttantas consist almost entirely of strings of such stock passages³.

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³ For instance, the *Saṃgīti*, *D.* III, 207.

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There are also entire episodes containing names of persons and places and accounts of events—episodes which recur in identical terms in two or more of the Nikāyas. About two-thirds of the *Mahā-parinibbāna Suttanta* consists of such *recurring episodes* or stock passages¹. This will help to show the manner in which the books were built up.

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¹ See the table of references, and detailed discussion, in the introduction to *Dialogues*, II, 71–77.

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Several conversations recorded in the Nikāyas relate to events which occurred two or three years after the Buddha's death; and one passage (Aṅguttara III, 57–62) is based on an event about 40 years after it.

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The four Nikāyas occupy sixteen volumes of Pāli text. They contain a very large number of references to places. No place on the East of India south of Kaliṅga, and no place on the West of India, south of the Godāvari, is mentioned. The Asoka Edicts, dealing in a few pages with similar matter, show a much wider knowledge of South India, and even of Ceylon. We must allow some generations for this increase of knowledge².

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² This point is discussed more fully in *Buddhist India*, pp. 28–34.

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At the end of each of the four Nikāyas there are added portions which are later, both in language and in psychological theory, than the bulk of each Nikāya.

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All the facts thus emphasised would be explained if these collections had been put together out of older material at a period about half way between the death of the Buddha and the accession of Asoka. Everything has had to be stated here with the utmost brevity. But it is important to add that this is the only working hypothesis that has been put forward. It is true that the old battle cries, such as ‘Ceylon books’ or ‘Southern Buddhism’ are still sometimes heard. But what do they mean? The obvious interpretation is that the Pāli Piṭakas were composed in Ceylon—that is, that when the Ceylon *bhikkhus* began to write in Pāli (which was about Buddhaghosa's time) they wrote the works on which Buddhaghosa had already commented. This involves so many palpable absurdities that it cannot be the meaning intended. Until those who use such terms tell us what they mean by them, we must decline to accept as a working hypothesis the vague insinuation of question-begging epithets. We do not demand too much. A working hypothesis need not propose to settle all questions. But it must take into consideration the evidence set out above; and it must give a rational explanation of such facts as that this literature does not mention Asoka, or S. India, or Ceylon; and that, though there is a clear progress in its psychology and its Buddhology, it gives no connected life of the Buddha, such as we find in Sanskrit poems and Pāli commentaries.

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On the last point the evidence, being very short, may be given here. There are a large number of references to the places at which the Buddha was stopping, when some conversation or other on an ethical or philosophical question took place. These have not yet been collected and analysed. Then there are a small number of short references, in a sentence or two or a page or two, to some incident in his life. And lastly we have two episodes, of a considerable number of pages, describing the two important crises in his career, the beginning and the close of his mission. Out of approximately 6000 pages of text in the four Nikāyas less than two hundred in all are devoted to the Buddha's life.

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Of the long episodes the first is in the Majjhima¹, and describes the events of the period from the time when he had first become a Wanderer down to his attainment of *Nibbāna* (or Arahantship) under the Bodhi Tree². The events are not the names and dates of kings and battles, but events in religious experience, the gradually increased grasp of ethical and philosophical concepts, the victory won over oneself. The Vinaya, very naturally, continues this episode down to the time of the founding of the Order, the sending forth of the sixty and the accession of the most famous of the Arahants³. This episode covers about seven years, the Vinaya addition to it being responsible for one. The other long episode, about twice as long as the first, describes in detail the events of the last month of the Buddha's life. It is contained in the Dīgha, and forms a whole Suttanta, the *Mahā-parinibbāna Suttanta*, referred to above as a composite document.

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¹ Vol. I, pp. 163–175 and 240–249. Repeated at vol. II, p. 93, and again p. 212.

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² The word *Nibbāna* occurs, p. 167.

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³ Vinaya I, 1–44.

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We have no space to consider the shorter references; but the following table specifies the more important, arranged chronologically:

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1. Youth; three residences. Dīgha II, 21; Aṅg. I, 145.
2. The going forth. Dīgha I, 115; II, 151; Aṅg. I, 146; Majjhima I, 163; S. N. 405–424.
3. His teachers. Majjhima I, 163; Saṃyutta IV, 83; Dīgha III, 126.
4. His trial of asceticism. Majjhima I, 17–24, 114, 167, 240–248.
5. Nibbāna. Majjhima I, 23, 116–118, 167, 173, 248–250; Vinaya I, 1–4.

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6. Explanation of the Path. Saṃyutta III, 66 ; IV, 34 ; v, 421 ; Majjhima I, 135, 300 ; Vinaya I, 8-14.
7. Sending out of the Sixty. Saṃyutta I, 105 ; Vinaya I. 21.
8. The last month. Dīgha II, 72-168.

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The relative age, within the Canon, of each of these passages, has to be considered as a question distinct from that of the books into which they are now incorporated. Towards the solution of these questions some little progress has been made, and the tentative conclusions so far reached are shown in the following table.

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GROWTH OF BUDDHIST LITERATURE FROM THE TIME OF THE BUDDHA DOWN TO ASOKA.

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1. The simple statements of doctrine now found in identical words recurring in two or more of the present books—the stock passages or Suttas.

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2. Episodes (not of doctrine only) similarly recurring.

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3. Books quoted in the present books but no longer existing separately—the Sīlas, the Pārāyana, the Octades, the Pātimokkha, etc.

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4. Certain poems, ballads, or prose passages found similarly recurring in the present anthologies, or otherwise showing signs of greater age.

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5. The four Nikāyas, the Sutta Vibhaṅga and the Khandakas. Approximate dates 100 a.b.

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6. Sutta Nipāta, Thera- and Therī-gāthā, the Udānas, the Khuddaka Pāṭha.

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7. The Jātakas (verses only), and the Dhammapadas.

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8. The Niddesa, the Iti-vuttakas, and the Paṭisambhidā.

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9. The Peta- and Vimāna-vatthu, the Apadānas, and the Buddhavamsa.

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10. The Abhidhamma books, the latest of which is the Kathāvatthu and the oldest, perhaps, the Dhamma-saṅgaṇi.

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THE following analysis is constructed from a number of incidental allusions to economic conditions in the great Pāli thesaurus of the Jātaka, and, to a more limited extent in the Vinaya, and also in the other books of the Sutta Piṭaka, of which the Jātaka is a part. Dr Fick’s admirable monograph *Die sociale Gliederung in Indien* is similarly based. That work deals chiefly with social conditions. The present chapter, on the other hand, is mainly economic in scope, and only in a minor degree sociological. It is true that the evidence is drawn very largely from stories. But it is fairly clear that the folk in those tales have given them a parochial setting and local colour. And this is frequently borne out by the coincident testimony of other books not dealing with folk-lore.

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The rural economy of India at the coming of Buddhism was based chiefly on a system of village communities of landowners, or what in Europe is known as peasant proprietorship. The Jātaka bears very clear testimony to this. There is no such clear testimony in it to isolated large estates, or to great feudatories, or to absolute lords of the soil holding such estates. In the monarchies, the king, though autocratic and actively governing, had a right to a tithe on raw produce, collected as a yearly tax; and only to this extent could he.be considered the ultimate owner of the soil. All abandoned, all forest land the king might dispose of¹; and under this right was included the reversion to the crown of all property left intestate or ‘ownerless’² a custom which may or may not be a survival of an older feudalism. The sovereign was moreover entitled to ‘milk money,’ a perquisite paid by the nation when an heir was born to him³, and he could declare a general indemnity for prisoners at any festal occasion⁴. Besides these privileges he could impose forced labour or *rājakāriya* on the people, but this may have been limited to the confines of his own estates. Thus the peasant proprietors enclose a deer-reserve for their king, that they might not be summoned to leave their tillage to beat up game for him¹. A much more oppressive extent of *corvée* is predicted only of a state of civic decay². The tithe on produce was levied in kind, measured out either by the village syndic or headman (*gāma-bhojaka*), or by an official (a *mahāmatta*) at the barn doors³, or by survey of the crops⁴. Some of the rice and other grain may presumably have been told off for the special granaries kept filled for urgency, in war or famine⁵, but Buddhist books make no clear reference to such an institution. The amount levied seems to have varied from ⅙ to 1/12⁶, according to the decision of the ruling power⁷ or other circumstances. And the contributions raised at one or more *gāmas* (villages), rural or suburban, could be made over by a monarch (or by his chief queen⁸) to anyone he wished to endow, e.g., to a daughter on her marriage⁹, a minister¹⁰, a Brāhman¹¹, a merchant, etc.¹² Again, the king could remit the tithe to any person¹³ or group¹⁴.

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¹ *D.* I, 87.

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² *S.* I, 89 (*Kindred Sayings*, I, 115); *Jāt.* III, 302⁵; cf. IV, 485; VI, 348.

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³ *Ib.* IV, 323.

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⁴ *Ib.* IV, 176; V, 285; VI, 327.

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¹ At Benares, *Jāt.* I, 149; the Añjana Wood at Sāketa, *ib.* III, 270.

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² *Ib.* I, 339. A certain familiarity with oppressive taxation is suggested by *ib.* V, 99 ff; cf. I, 339; II, 240.

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³ *Ib.* II, 378.

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⁴ *Ib.* IV, 169.

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⁵ *Ind. Ant.*, 1896, pp. 261 f.

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⁶ Cf. Gautama x, 24; Manu. VII, 130; Bühler, *Trans. Vienna Acad.* Jan. 1897; V. A. Smith, *J.R.A.S.*, 1897, 618 f.

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⁷ *Jāt.* III, 9.

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⁸ *Ib.* V, 44.

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⁹ *Ib.* II, 237, 403.

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¹⁰ *Ib.* I, 354; VI, 261.

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¹¹ *D.* I, 87; *Jāt.* III, 229.

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¹² *Ib.* VI, 344.

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¹³ *Ib.* IV, 169.

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¹⁴ *Ib.* I, 200.

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We have no direct evidence of such a tithe or other tax being levied on the commonwealth by any of the republics or oligarchies mentioned in the Buddhist canon, such as the Sākiyas, Koliyas, Licchavis, Mallas, etc.¹⁵ But that they did so raise the state revenue, in the case at least of the Sākiyas, seems to be attested by Asoka’s inscription on the Lumbinī or Rummindeī pillar¹⁶. The tithe thus remitted on the occasion of Asoka’s visit to the birthplace of the Buddha, must have been imposed by the Sākiyas at a date prior to the Mauryan hegemony. The Sākiyas and other republics are recorded as meeting for political business at their own mote-halls¹⁷, and must inevitably have had a financial policy to discuss and carry out. That their enactments could be somewhat drastically paternal appears in the case of the Malla clansmen of Kusinārā, who imposed a fine of 500 (pieces) on anyone who ‘went not forth to welcome the Blessed One’ when he drew near, on his tour, to their town¹. These Mallas were also possessed of a mote-hall (*santhāgāra*) for parliamentary discussions²—a class of buildings illustrated by the bas-relief of a celestial House of Lords on the Bhārhut Stūpa³.

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¹⁵ See *Buddhist India*, 22.

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¹⁶ *J.R.A.S.* 1898, 546 f.

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¹⁷ *D.* I, 91; cf. *Dialogues of the Buddha*, I, 113, n. 2.

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¹ *Vin.* I, 247 (*Mah.* VI, 36).

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² *D.* II, 147.

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³ Cunningham, *Stūpa of Bhārhut*, pl. XVI.

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Land might, at least in the kingdom of Magadha, be given away, and in that of Kosala, be sold. In the former case, a Brāhman landowner offers a thousand *karīsas* of his estate as a gift⁴; in the latter, a merchant (by a little sharp practice) entangles an unwilling noble in the sale of a park⁵. And in the law-books we read that land might be let against a certain share of the produce⁶. The holdings too in the arable land, called the *khetta*, of each village would be subject to redistribution and redivision among a family, as one generation succeeded another. It is not clear whether any member of a village community could give or sell any of the *khetta* to an outsider. It is just possible that the old tradition, expressed in the Brāhmaṇas when a piece of land was given as a sacrificial fee—‘And the Earth said: Let no mortal give me away!’⁷—may have survived in the villages as a communal, anti-alienising feeling concerning any disintegration of the basis of their social and economic unity. We should anyway expect, from what is revealed in the early Buddhist books, to find such a sentiment upheld, less by the infrequent rural autocrat and his little kingdom of country-seat, tenant-farmers, and *serfs*, than by the preponderating groups of cultivators, each forming a *gāma*.

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⁴ *Jāt.* IV, 281.

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⁵ *Vin.* II, 158 f. (*Cull.* V. VI, 4, 9 f.).

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⁶ *Āpast.* II, 11, 28 (1); I, 6, 18 (20).

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⁷ *Çatap. Br.* XIII, 7, 15.

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When, in the Jātaka legend, a king of Videha abandons the world as anchorite, he is described as renouncing both his capital, the city (*nagara*) of Mithilā, seven *yojanas* (in circumference), and his realm of sixteen thousand *gāmas*⁸. It may sound incredible that a country owning such a wealth of ‘villages’ should contain but one town, and that so vast in extent, as to suggest inclusion not only of parks but of suburban *gāmas*⁹. There was not, however, any such hard and fast line between *gāma* and *nigama* (small town) to warrant the exclusion, in this description, of some *gāmas* which may have amounted to *nigamas*. A similar vagueness holds between our ‘town’ and ‘village.’

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⁸ *Jāt.* III, 365.

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⁹ *Ib.* VI, 330.

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A *gāma* might apparently mean anything from a group of two or three houses¹⁰ to an indefinite number. It was the generic, inclusive term for an inhabited settlement, not possessing the fortifications of a *nagara*, or the ruler’s palace of a *rājadhānī*. The number of inhabitants in the *gāmas* of the Jātaka tales varied from 30 to 1000 families. And family (*kula*), it must be remembered, was a more comprehensive unit than it is with us, including not only father and mother, children and grandparents, but also the wives and children of the sons. *Gāma*, it is true, might be used to differentiate a class of settlement, as in the compound *gāma-nigama*, ‘villages and towns’; but it is also used in the wider, looser sense of group as opposed to single house. For instance, a fire, when starting in a house, may extend to the whole *gāma*¹. When a *bhikkhu* leaves park, forest, or mountain to seek alms, he ‘enters the *gāma*²,’ whether it be a neighbouring village, or the suburbs of great Sāvatthī³.

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¹⁰ Childers, *Pali Dictionary* *s.v.*

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¹ *Milindapañha*, 47.

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² *Vin. passim*, e.g. Cull. V. v, 12; 29. Cf. Thīg. ver. 304; Comm. p. 175.

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³ *Jāt.* I, 106; *Psalms of the Brethren*, p. 34, cf. p. 24; *v. inf.* p. 208.

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Of such cities there were but few in Northern India. Less than twenty are named⁴. Six of them only are reckoned by the Thera Ānanda as sufficiently important cities (*mahā-nagarā*) to be the scene of a Buddha’s final passing away:—Sāvatthī, Champā, Rājagaha, Sāketa, Kosambī, Benares. Kusinārā, where that event actually took place, he depreciates as not a ‘village,’ but a jungle ‘townlet’ (*nagaraka*)⁵. The greatness of Pāṭaliputra (Patna) was yet to come. In the absence of any systematic account of this rural organisation in ancient records, it is better to refrain from laying down any homogeneous scheme. ‘No doubt different villages, in different districts, varied one from another in the customs of land-tenure, and in the rights of individual householders as against the community⁶.’ The jungles and rivers of the vast Ganges valley fostered independent development probably at least as much as the hill-barriers in the Alps have done in the case of Swiss and Italian peasant communities down to this day.

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⁴ *Buddhist India*, 34 ff.

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⁵ *D.* II, 146.

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⁶ *Buddh. Ind.* 44 f.

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Around the *gāma*, which appears to have been classed as of the country (*janapada*)⁷, of the border (*paccanta*)⁸, or as suburban, lay its *khetta*, or pastures, and its woodland or uncleared jungle:—primeval forest like the Andhavana of Kosala, the Sītavana of Magadha, the Pācīnavamsa-dāya of the Sākiya Territory, retreats traditionally haunted by wild beasts and by gentler woodland sprites, and where Māra, the Lucifer of seductive evil influences, might appear in one shape or another⁹. Different from these were such suburban groves as the Bamboo Grove belonging to Magadha's king, the Añjanavana of Sāketa, the Jetavana of Sāvatthī. Through those other uncleared woodlands and moorlands, where the folk went to gather their firewood and litter¹, ran caravan routes, roads that were at times difficult because of swampy passages after rain, and here and there dangerous, less on account of aggressive beasts than because of brigands, not to mention demonic bipeds².

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⁷ *Jāt.* I, 318.

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⁸ *Ib.* I, 215; cf. v. 46.

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⁹ See *Psalms of the Early Buddhists* I, II *passim*; cf. II, p. 151, n. 1.

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¹ *Jāt.* I, 317; v, 103.

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² *Ib.* I, 99.

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Adjoining or merged into these wilder tracts were supplementary grazing pastures³ of herds of cattle⁴ and goats⁵,—herds belonging to king⁶ or commoners⁷. Commoners customarily entrusted their flocks to a communal neatherd, as we find in the Pennine Alps to-day (*le fromageur*). We find him either penning his herds at night in sheds⁸, or, more often, bringing them back every evening and counting them out to the several owners, varying the pasturage from day to day⁹. The official name, *gopālaka*, and the context suggest that dairywork was not usually expected of him so much as sagacity in minding his beasts¹⁰.

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³ *Ib.* I, 388.

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⁴ *Ib.* III, 149; IV, 326.

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⁵ *Ib.* III, 401.

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⁶ *Ib.* I, 240.

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⁷ *Ib.* I, 194, 388; cf. *Rigveda*, x, 19.

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⁸ *Ib.* I, 388; III, 149.

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⁹ *A.* I, 205; *M. Dhp. Comm.* I, 157.

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¹⁰ *A.* V, 350.

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The arable ground of the *gāma* lay without the clustered dwellings, since these were apparently enclosed by a wall or stockade with gates (*gāmadvāra*)¹¹. Fences¹², snares¹³, and field watchmen¹⁴ guarded the *khetta* or *gāmakhetta* from intrusive beasts and birds, while the internal boundaries of each householder's plot were apparently made by channels dug for co-operative irrigation¹⁵. These dividing ditches, rectangular and curvilinear, were likened, at least in the Magadha *khettas*, to a patchwork robe, and prescribed by the Buddha as a pattern for the uniform of his Order: torn pieces of cast-away cloth sewn together, 'a thing which could not be coveted'¹⁶. The limits of the whole *khetta* might be extended by fresh clearing of forest land¹⁷. And whereas the majority of holdings were probably small, manageable single-handed or with sons and perhaps a hired man¹⁸, estates of 1000 *karīsas* (acres?) and more occur in the Jātakas, farmed by Brāhmans¹⁹. In the Suttas, again, the Brāhman Kasibhāradvāja is employing 500 ploughs and hired men (*bhatikā*)²⁰ to guide plough and oxen²¹.

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¹¹ *Jāt.* I, 239; II, 76, 135; III, 9; IV, 370 (*nigama*).

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¹² *Ib.* I, 215.

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¹³ *Ib.* I, 143, 154.

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¹⁴ *Ib.* II, 110; IV, 277.

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¹⁵ *Dhp.* ver. 80 = 145 = Therag. 19; *Jāt.* IV, 167; I, 336; v, 412.

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¹⁶ *Vin. Texts* II, 207-9 (*Mah.* VIII, 12). Cf. *Pss. of the Brethren*, p. 152.

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¹⁷ *Jāt.* II, 357; IV, 167.

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¹⁸ *Ib.* I, 277; III, 162; IV, 167.

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¹⁹ *Ib.* III, 293; IV, 276.

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²⁰ *S.N.* I, 4; cf. *S.* I, 171; *Jāt.* III, 293.

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²¹ *Ib.* II, 165; 300.

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Rice was the staple article of food¹; besides which seven other kinds of grain are mentioned²; sugar-cane³ and fruits, vegetables and flowers were also cultivated.

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¹ *Ib.* I, 340; II, 43, 135, 378; III, 383; IV, 276.

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² *M.* I, 57; also *yava* (barley) in *Jāt.* II, 110.

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³ *Ib.* I, 339; *Vin.* (*Mah.* VI, 35, 6).

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Instances of collectivist initiative reveal a relatively advanced sense of citizenship in the *gāmas*. The peasant proprietors had a nominal head in the *bhojaka* or headman, who, as their representative at political headquarters and municipal head, was paid by certain dues and fines⁴. But all the village residents met to confer with him and each other on civic and political matters. And carrying the upshot of their counsels into effect, they built new mote-halls and rest-houses, constructed reservoirs and parks, and took turns at a voluntary *corvée* in keeping their roads in repair⁵, herein again followed by Alpine peasants of to-day. Women too considered it a civic honour to bear their own part in municipal building⁶. A further glimpse into the sturdy spirit in *gāma*-life is caught in the Jātaka sentiment, that for peasants to leave their tillage and work for impoverished kings was a mark of social decay⁷. Relevant to this is the low social rank assigned to the hired labourer, who is apparently classed beneath the domestic slave⁸.

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⁴ *Ib.* I, 199.

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⁵ *Jāt.* I, 199 f.

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⁶ *Ib.*

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⁷ *Ib.* I, 339.

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⁸ *Cf.* *D.* I, 51; *A.* I, 145, 206; *Mil.* 147, 331; trs. II, 210, n. 6.

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Scarcity owing to drought or to floods is not infrequently referred to, extending even over a whole kingdom⁹. This contradicts the ‘affirmation’ recorded by Megasthenes¹⁰, that ‘famine has never visited India,’ unless his informant meant a very general and protracted famine. The times of scarcity in Buddhist records apparently refer only to brief periods over restricted areas.

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⁹ *Vin.* I, 211, 213 ff.; *Vin. Texts*, III, 220, n. 1; *Jāt.* I, 329; II, 135, 149, 367; V, 193; VI, 487.

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¹⁰ M‘Crindle, *Ancient India as described by Megasthenes*, 32.

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Nothing in all the foregoing evidence has gone to show that, in the India of early Buddhist literature, the pursuit of agriculture was associated with either social prestige or social stigma. The stricter Brāhman tradition, not only in the law-books, but also in the Sutta Nipāta, the Majjhima Nikāya, and the Jātakas, expressly reserved the two callings of agriculture and trade for the Vaiçya or middle class, and judges them unfit for Brāhman or noble. Thus the Brāhman Esukārī of Sāvatthī considers village and dairy farming as not less the property and province of the Vaiçya than are bow and arrow, endowed maintenance (by alms), and sickle and yoke, the property and province of noble, Brāhman, and working classes respectively¹. And here and there, in the Jātaka-book, Brāhmans who engage in agriculture, trade, and other callings are declared to have fallen from their Brāhmanhood². On the other hand, in both Jātakas and Suttas, not only are Brāhmans frequently found pursuing tillage, cow herding, goat keeping, trade, hunting, wood-work or carpentry, weaving, caravan guarding, archery, carriage-driving, and snake-charming³, but also no reflection is passed upon them for so doing, nay, the Brāhman farmer is at times a notably pious man and a Bodhisat to boot⁴. Dr Fick is disposed to think that the North-western (*Udicca*) Brāhmans of the Kurus and Pañchālas, some of whom came east and settled there, inherited a stricter standard⁵. Nevertheless it is not claimed for the pious ones just mentioned, living near Benares and in Magadha, that they were *Udicca* immigrants. Even the law-books permit Brāhmans to engage in worldly callings if they are in straitened circumstances, or if they take no active share in the work⁶.

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¹ *M.* II, 180. The *Vāseṭṭha-sutta* (*M.* no. 98; *S.N.* III, 9) in spiritualising the term *brāhmaṇa*, reveals the same exclusive sentiment as current.

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² *Jāt.* IV, 363 f.

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³ *Jāt.* II, 165; III, 293; IV, 167, 276; III, 401; IV, 15; V, 22, 471; II, 200; VI, 170; IV, 207, 457; V, 127.

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⁴ *Ib.* III, 162.

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⁵ *Sociale Gliederung in Indien*, 138 f.

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⁶ E.g. Manu X, 116.

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As for the Kshatriya clansmen of the republics mentioned above, they were largely cultivators of the soil. For instance, in the *Kunāla Jātaka*, it was the workmen in the fields of the Sākiyan and Koliya ‘*bhojakas, amaccas*, and *uparājas*’ who began to quarrel over the prior turn to irrigate⁷. In the earliest Indian literature agricultural and pastoral concepts play a great part. But even if this implied that a special dignity attached to agriculture, it does not follow that any such tradition survived, if it survived at all, associated with any section of society. There was among Indo-Āryans little of the feudal tie between land and lord with lordship over the land-tillers, which made broad acres a basis for nobility in the West. However they accomplished their prehistoric invasion of the Ganges basin, ‘land-grabbing’ does not seem to have been carried out *pari passu* with success in generalship. This may have been because the annexation of land to any wide extent meant clearing of jungle. Except among Dravidian and Kolārian towns along the rivers, the task of the invaders was more like that of pioneering settlers in America. And there we know that land is not an appanage involving special privileges and entailing special claims, but a commodity like any other.

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⁷ *Jāt.* V, 412.

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The slave or servant (*dāsa*, *dāsī*) was an adjunct in all households able to command domestic service; but slaves do not appear to have been kept, as a rule, in great numbers¹, either in the house, or, as in the West, at mining or 'plantation' work. Their treatment differed of course according to the disposition and capacity of both master and slave. Thus we find, in the Jātaka, the slave, petted, permitted to learn writing and handicrafts besides his ordinary duties as valet and footman, saying to himself that, at the slightest fault he might get 'beaten, imprisoned, branded, and fed on slave's fare'². But of actual ill-treatment there is scarce any mention. Two instances of beating occur, and in both the victims were maids. One lies a-bed repeatedly (to test her pious mistress's temper)³; the other fails to bring home wages⁴. Presumably she had been sent to fetch her master's wage, or else had been hired out. But we do not meet with runaway slaves. Slavery might be incurred through capture⁵, commuted death sentence, debt⁶, voluntary self-degradation⁷, or judicial punishment⁸; on the other hand, slaves might be manumitted⁹, or might free themselves by payment¹⁰. They might not, while still undischarged, be admitted into the religious community (*Saṅgha*)¹¹.

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¹ *Vin.* I, 72 (*Mah.* I, 39); *D.* I, 60, 72, 92 f., 104; *Dialogues of the Buddha* I, 19, 101.

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² *Jāt.* I, 451 f.

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³ *M.* I, 125.

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⁴ *Jāt.* I, 402 f.

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⁵ *Ib.* IV, 220; VI, 135.

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⁶ *Ib.* VI, 521; *Therīg.* ver. 444.

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⁷ *Vin.* I, 72 (*Mah.* I, 39, 1); *Sum. Vil.* I, 168.

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⁸ *Jāt.* I, 200.

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⁹ *D.* I, 72; *Pss. Sisters*, p. 117; *Pss. Brethren*, p. 22; *Jāt.* V, 313.

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¹⁰ *Ib.* VI, 547.

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¹¹ *Vin.* I, 76 (*Mah.* I, 46 f.).

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The hireling, wage-earner, day-labourer was no man's chattel, yet his life was probably harder sometimes than that of the slave¹². He was to a great extent employed on the larger land-holdings¹³. He was paid either in board and lodging, or in money-wages¹⁴. Manu prescribes regular wages both in money and kind for menials in the king's service¹⁵.

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¹² *Jāt.* I, 422; III, 444.

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¹³ *Ib.* III, 406; IV, 43; *S.N.*, p. 12.

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¹⁴ *Ib.* II, 139; III, 326, 444; V, 212.

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¹⁵ Manu VII, 125 f.

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In the arts and crafts, a considerable proficiency and specialisation of industry had been reached. A list of callings given in the Milindapañha, reveals three separate industries in the manufacture of bows and arrows, apart from any ornamental work on the same¹⁶. In the same work, the allusion to a professional winnower of grain indicates a similar division of labour to our own threshing machinists and steamplough-owners who tour in rural districts¹. As certain grain crops were reaped twice a year², this would afford a fairly protracted season of work every few months.

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¹⁶ *Mil.* 331.

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¹ *Mil.* 201 (perhaps a doubtful rendering; yet there is a professional ploughman in *Jātaka*, II, 165).

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² Megasthenes; cf. M'Crindle, *op. cit.* 54; v. *inf.* Chapter XVI, p. 404.

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Some trade-names, on the other hand, are as comprehensive as our ‘smith.’ As with us, this word (*kammāra*) might be applied to a worker in any metal. *Vaḍḍhaki*, again, apparently covered all kinds of woodcraft including shipbuilding, cartmaking³, and architecture⁴, *thapati*, *tacchaka* (lit. planer), and *bhamakāra* or turner being occupied with special modes of woodwork⁵. A settlement of *vaḍḍhakis* is able to make both furniture and seagoing ships⁶. Once more the same worker in stone (*pāsāṇa-koṭṭaka*) builds houses with the ruined material of a former *gāma*, and also hollows a cavity in a crystal as a cage for a mouse⁷.

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³ *Jāt.* IV, 207. We find *yānakāras*, *rathakāras*, *sakaṭakāras* also so engaged.

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⁴ *Jāt.* I, 201; IV, 323; *Mil.* 330, 345.

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⁵ *M.* I, 56, 396; III, 144; *Dhp.* ver. 80.

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⁶ *Jāt.* IV, 159.

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⁷ *Ib.* I, 479.

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Important handicrafts like the three above named and their branches, the workers in leather, i.e., the leather-dressers, the ‘painters,’ and others to the number of eighteen were organised into gilds (*seṇi*), according to Jātaka records; but it is to be regretted that only four of the eighteen crafts thus organised are specifically mentioned, ‘the woodworkers, the smiths, the leather-dressers, the painters and the rest, expert in various crafts’⁸. At the head of each gild was a president (*pamukha*) or alderman (*jeṭṭhaka*), and these leaders might be important ministers in attendance upon and in favour with the king. Occasionally these functionaries quarrelled, as at Sāvatthī⁹. And it may have been such quarrelling also at Benares that led to the institution of a supreme headship over all the gilds, an office doubled with that of treasurer (*bhaṇḍāgārika*) being founded at that city. It is of interest to note that this innovation in administrative organisation was made at a time when, according to the legend, the monarchy is represented as having been elective, not hereditary, and when the king who appointed, and the man who was appointed, were the sons, respectively, of a merchant and a tailor¹⁰! The nature and extent of the authority of the *pamukha* over the gilds is nowhere clearly shown. Nor is it clear to what extent the duties of a *bhaṇḍāgārika*, lit. ‘houser of goods,’ coincided with our word ‘treasurer.’ It was not confined to the custody of moneys, for the *Saṅgha* had officials so named¹; hence it is possible that it referred to a supervision of the goods made or dealt with by a gild or gilds and not only to the king’s exchequer.

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⁸ *Jāt.* I, 267, 314; III, 281; IV, 411; VI, 22.

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⁹ *Ib.* II, 12, 52; cf. *mahāvaḍḍhaki* in *Jāt.* VI, 332.

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¹⁰ *Jāt.* IV, 43.

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¹ *Vin.* ii, 176 (Cull. V. vi, 21, 2).

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Nor can we with any certainty fill up the fourteen unnamed gilds. A great many arts and crafts are mentioned in the books, some of them held in less social esteem than others. Among the latter were trades connected with the slaying of animals and work on their bodies, e.g., hunters and trappers, fishermen, butchers, and tanners. Yet other such despised callings were those of snake-charming, acting, dancing and music, rush weaving and chariot-making, the last two because of the despised, probably aboriginal, folk whose hereditary trades they were. Other more honourable crafts were ivory-working, weaving, confectionery, jewelry and work in precious metals, bow and arrow making, pottery, garland-making and head-dressing. Besides these handicrafts, there was the world of river and sea-going folk, the trader or merchant, and, corresponding in a limited way to the first-named, the caravan-escorts and guides or ‘land-pilots’ (*thala-niyyāmaka*). But although reference is made in connexion with some of these, to a *jeṭṭhaka*, or Elder, no further evidence of civic organisation is forthcoming.

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Other instances of trades having *jeṭṭhakas* are seamen, or at least pilots (*niyyāmaka*)², garland makers³, caravan traders and guards⁴, and robbers or brigands. We read, e.g., of a little robber-gāma in the hills, near Uttara-Pañchāla, numbering 500 families⁵.

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² *Jāt.* iv, 137.

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³ *Ib.* iii, 405.

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⁴ *Ib.* i, 368; ii, 295, 335.

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⁵ *Ib.* i, 296 f.; ii, 388; iv, 430, 433 (Comm.).

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The learner or apprentice (*antevāsika*, literally ‘the boarder’) appears frequently in Buddhist books, one of which indicates the relative positions of pupil and master woodwright⁶. But no conditions of pupillage are anywhere stated.

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⁶ *Ib.* i, 251; v, 290 f.; *Attha-sālinī*, p. 111.

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The title of *seṭṭhi* (best, chief), which is so often met with and, without much justification rendered by ‘treasurer,’ may possibly imply headship over some class of industry or trading. It is clear that the famous *seṭṭhi*, Anāthapiṇḍika of Sāvatthī, the millionaire lay-supporter of the *Saṅgha*, had some authority over his fellow-traders. Five hundred *seṭṭhis*, e.g., attended him in his presentation of the Jetavana to the Buddha⁷. Unless these were convened from different towns, the number in any one town was not limited to one or a few. They are usually described as wealthy, and as engaged in commerce. Dr Fick is probably right in alluding to them as representing the mercantile profession at court⁸. The word certainly implied an office (*ṭhāna*¹) held during life. There might be a chief (*mahā*) *seṭṭhi*, and an *anuseṭṭhi* or subordinate officer²; a commentary even refers to the insignia of a *seṭṭhi-chatta* (umbrella of state)³.

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⁷ *Jāt.* i, 93.

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⁸ *Op. cit.*, p. 167 f.

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¹ *Jāt.* I, 122; cf. *Vin. Texts*, I, 102, note 3.

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² *Vin.* I, 19 (Mah. I, 9); *Jāt.* V, 384.

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³ *Vimāna-vatthu (Comm.)*, 66.

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The remarkable localisation of industries revealed in Buddhist literature has already been noticed. This is observable especially in the case of craft-villages of woodwrights⁴, ironsmiths⁵, and potters⁶. These were either suburban to large cities, or rural, and constituting as such special markets for the whole countryside, as we see in the ironsmiths' *gāma* just cited, to which people came from the *gāmas* round about to have razors, axes, ploughshares, goads, and needles made. On the Ganges or further afield there were trapper *gāmas*, supplying game, skins, ivory, etc.⁷

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⁴ *Jāt.* II, 18, 405; IV, 159, 207.

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⁵ *Ib.* III, 281.

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⁶ *Ib.* III, 376, (408).

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⁷ *Ib.* VI, 71, nesādagāma; cf. III, 49; *Therīg. (Comm.)*, 220, *migaluddakagāma*.

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Within the town we meet with a further localisation of trades in certain streets, if not quarters, e.g., the street (*vīthi*) of the ivory workers in Benares⁸, the dyers' street⁹, the weavers' 'place' (*ṭhāna*)¹⁰, the Vessas' (Vaiçyas, merchants?) street¹¹.

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⁸ *Jāt.* I, 320; II, 197.

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⁹ *Ib.* IV, 81.

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¹⁰ *Ib.* I, 356.

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¹¹ *Ib.* VI, 485.

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Combined with this widespread corporate regulation of industrial life, there was a very general but by no means cast-iron custom for the son to follow the calling of the father. Not only individuals but families are frequently referred to in terms of their traditional calling. The smith, e.g., is Smithson; Sāti the fisherman's son is Sāti the fisherman; Chunda the smith is called Chunda Smithson, etc.¹² This, however, is not peculiar to Indian or even to Āryan societies, up to a certain stage of development. Even of our own it was said but half a century ago that the line of demarcation between different employments or grades of work had till then been 'almost equivalent to an hereditary distinction of caste'¹³. In modern India no doubt these lines of demarcation have intensified in the course of centuries, and have split up the industrial world into a, to us, bewildering number of sections, or, as the Portuguese called them, castes.

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¹² *M.* I, 256; *D.* II, 127 f. ('*kammāraputto*' and '*kammāro*'); *Jāt.* I, 98, 194, 312; II, 79. Cf. *nesādo* = *luddaputto* = *luddo*, *Jāt.* III, 330 f.; V, 356-8.

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¹³ J. S. Mill, *Political Economy*, XIV, 2.

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The Jātakas reveal here and there a vigorous etiquette observed by the Brāhman 'colour' in the matter of eating with, or of the food of, the despised Chaṇḍālas, as well as the social intolerance felt for the latter by the burgess class¹. The Jātaka commentary tells the story of a slave-girl, daughter of a slave and a Khattiya, whose father pretended to eat with her only that she might be passed off before the Kosalans, seeking a nobly born consort for their king, as a thorough-bred Sākiyan².

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¹ *Jāt.* II, 83 f.; III, 233; IV, 200, 376, 388, 390–2.

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