The Colas c29.5

c29.5

Besides the land-owners, great and small, there were others dependent on agriculture. A fairly large class of landless labourers, an agrarian proletariat, some of whom were in a condition of serfdom, assisted in the operations and shared the proceeds of agriculture. In almost all villages the distinction between persons paying the land-tax (*iṛai-kuḍigaḷ*) and those who did not was clearly established, and the former had usually a larger share in the tasks of local government. Each village had also a staff of hereditary menial servants of the lowest social class who were remunerated for their services to the community by shares in the common land of the village. The artisans of the village had shares also in the communal land; these shares were of the nature of retainers, inducements to them to stay in the village, ready to take up work whenever it came to them, the wage for each engagement forming the subject of separate negotiation between the parties.