The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s9.224

v1.c19.s9.224

This freedom of initiative and mobility in trade and labour finds further exemplification in the enterprise of a settlement (*gāma*) of woodworkers⁶. Failing to carry out the orders for which prepayment had been made, they were summoned to fulfil their contract. But they, instead of 'abiding in their lot,' as General Walker the economist said of their descendants, 'with oriental stoicism and fatalism⁷,' made 'a mighty ship' secretly, and emigrated with their families, slipping down the Ganges by night, and so out to sea, till they reached a fertile island. Stories, all of these, not history; nevertheless they serve to illustrate the degree to which labour and capital were mobile at the time, at least, when these stories were incorporated in the Buddhist canon, and before that. And they show that social divisions and economic occupations were very far from coinciding. There was plenty of pride of birth, which made intermarriage and eating together between certain ranks an act more or less disgraceful to those reckoning themselves as socially higher. And sons, especially perhaps among artisans, tended to follow the paternal industry. This was all.