Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c8.76

c8.76

The third class consisted of *Herdsmen*², and included shepherds, hunters, and various people of that kind. They were mostly members of the aboriginal tribes, and as such, belonged to the Śūdras, the lowest stratum of Hindu society. They rendered, however, important services to the State. They cleared the fields of the tigers, boars, deer, and birds, which molested the villagers' flocks, herds, and crops. They killed the snakes, scorpions, and dangerous insects which infested the country in the rainy season. Most important of all, they caught and tamed the elephants which played such an important part in the army of Chandragupta. In return for their services, they received an allowance of corn from the Royal Exchequer. Private people were forbidden to keep elephants, which were reserved for royal use. This served as a sumptuary law, checking the ambitions of the nobility; it also secured the maximum number of these valuable beasts for the imperial forces.