The Colas c28.21

c28.21

The wages of common labour can be estimated from the following instances. The Madras Museum Plates of Uttama Cōḷa record a wage of one *kuṟuṇi* per day and two *kalañjus* per annum for clothes for a watchman; and six *nāḷis* per day with half a *kalañju* per annum, for a gardener. At Lālguḍi (Trichinopoly district), about A.D. 960, digging was done at the rate of fifty *kuḷis* per *kāśu*, each *kuḷi* being about 10 feet square by two feet and a half.⁴⁹ In the village of Kiḷiyanūr (South Arcot), the man appointed to sound the bugle for summoning the *sabhā* had, from A.D. 1001, a fixed wage (*nivandam*) of two meals a day at the cost of the village, besides the supply of such things required for his personal use as were sold in the village.⁵⁰ In A.D. 1018, the daily wage of a wood-cutter at Nattam (Chingleput) was four *nāḷis* of paddy per day,⁵¹ which was also the daily wage of a Brahmin cook.⁵² The wage of a palanquin bearer at Tirumukkūḍal (Chingleput) was also four *nāḷis* of paddy in the reign of Rājēndra I.⁵³ This was obviously not a full day's wage, for we find that garden labour in the same place and about the same time commanded a wage of ten *nāḷis* per diem.⁵⁴ The same rate is given in a record of Rājādhirāja I as a sort of family wage for the same kind of labour.⁵⁵ For lifting water and irrigating gardens and fields, and for gathering flowers and other like operations, the wage of male labourers was eight *nāḷis* per day at Tiruvāmāttūr (South Arcot) in A.D. 1030; but women employed in making garlands and flowers were paid only at half the rate.⁵⁶ In the reign of Rājādhirāja I, however, the women servants employed in a feeding house at Tiruveṇkāḍu earned a wage of two *nāḷis* per day.⁵⁷ A man employed to supply drinking water in a public place at Tiruvoṟṟiyūr in 1077 was paid two *kāśus* per annum besides a daily wage of one *kuṟuni*.⁵⁸ The rather low wage of two *nāḷis* per day for a potter and for a fuel supplier at Kuḍumiyāmalai in 1213 was, no doubt, only remuneration for part-time work,⁵⁹ the men being free also to work and earn wages elsewhere.