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A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c18: Chapter XIII. Social and Economic Conditions

A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c18

Language
English

Contents

Chapter XIII. Social and Economic Conditions

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Plan of remaining chapters—territorial divisions—people—court life—king—army and navy—war and camp—Brahmins—caste—food and dress—education—learning—the temple—sports and pastimes—town and village life—agriculture and irrigation—industries—transport—merchant guilds and articles of trade—maritime trade: under Bāhmanī and Vijayanagar—on the east coast in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—currency, weights and measures.

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IN this and the succeeding chapters we shall try to sketch the social and economic conditions that prevailed in South India from the sixth to the seventeenth centuries A.D., and to trace in outline the principal movements of culture in the spheres of literature, religion and art. The ground is vast and the material abundant; only a summary treatment of selected topics will be possible within the limits of this book.

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The country was divided into certain well-marked territorial divisions, e.g., Kuntala, Andhra, Tondainād, Chola, Pāndya and Chera, and the people of each division tended to develop and cherish separate traditions and habits of their own. These local patriotisms did not by any means prove an obstacle to the formation of larger political units, as happened under the Chālukyas of Bādāmi and Kalyāni, the Rāshtrakūtas, the Cholas and Vijayanagar; and they played a great part in mitigating the evils which resulted from the break-up of the larger units.

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There is no means of forming a reliable estimate of the population at any time during this long period we are now reviewing; even the Cholas, although they kept a minute record of property in land, never thought of taking a census of the population. In the ports on the seaboard, and in the capitals of kingdoms, particularly in Vijayanagar, there were undoubtedly considerable numbers of foreigners, including Arabs, Jews, Persians, Chinese, people from Malaya and the eastern archipelago; and, later, the Portuguese and other European nations. The presence of Parsis is noticed by Friar Jordanus at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Necessarily and obviously, however, the bulk of the population was always and everywhere Hindus organized in castes. There was some connexion between caste and occupation, but this was by no means unalterable, and the pressure of new factors and situations was always bringing about changes, in spite of protests from conservatives and even occasional attempts on the part of the political power to stop them.

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Then, as now, the service of the state in its civil departments, as well as the army and the navy (where one was maintained), furnished openings for all classes of the population; and many are the instances of Brahmin generals who distinguished themselves in war. Krishnadeva Rāya had a high opinion of their loyalty and considered that they should be put in charge of important forts in all strategic places. Forest and hill tribes furnished a favourite recruiting-ground for the army, especially in time of war. The roads were often infested by robbers, and any sharp local quarrel or the turbulence of a chieftain might lead to a village being attacked or its cattle being taken away; in such circumstances the people generally had to defend themselves, and numerous inscriptions attest the bravery of many village heroes, especially near forests and mountains.

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Conquests sometimes led to the large-scale migration of people from one part of the country to another, and to new adjustments in economic and social relations. The most recent instance of this, and one whose effects are still clearly traceable, was the coming into the Tamil country of numbers of Telugus and Kannadigas with the extension of the empire of Vijayanagar and, perhaps, of the Hoysala power earlier. They must have come in as officers and soldiers upholding the authority of the rulers and their migration was doubtless encouraged by grants of land and other concessions at the expense of the people of the conquered territory. Royal patronage of learning, the arts, and religion were other causes of similar movements.

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The king and his court led an extravagant and luxurious life in striking contrast to the modest living standard of the rest of the population. The pomp and ceremony of the court became more and more dazzling in the course of centuries and may be said to have reached its culmination under the Rāyas of Vijayanagar. The palace always had a large establishment attached to it; in theory there were seventy-two departments (niyōgas) in a palace as in a temple. On the establishment there were large numbers of women, specially chosen for their youth and beauty. Some were imported from abroad while others were captured in war and enslaved. Many, needless to say, were courtesans, skilled in the arts of music and dancing, while others were the concubines of princes, nobles and courtiers. A mistress of the Chālukya king Vijayāditya of Bādāmi, Vināpōṭigaḷ by name (notice the honorific plural), performed the *hiraṇyagarbha* at Mahākūta and presented to the deity a pedestal (*pīṭha*), set with rubies, with a silver umbrella over it. The Rāṣṭrakūṭa Amoghavarsha regularly employed courtesans as his emissaries and his feudatories had to receive batches of them from the emperor and entertain them in their courts.

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Princesses of the royal family generally received a good education in literature and the fine arts; some were quite equal, on occasions, to the tasks of administration and war. The Chālukyan princess Akkādevi, elder sister of Jayasimha II, carried on the administration of a province and personally and actively engaged in fights and sieges. Hoysala Ballāla I's queens were highly accomplished in music and dancing, and Sovaladevi, the queen of Kalacuri Sovideva (1174) used to display her accomplishments in these arts in large assemblies attended by nobles, scholars and artists from different countries. The Portuguese chronicler Paes (1520-2) and other foreign writers often described the number and costly establishments of the Vijayanagar queens as well as the large numbers of women attendants, the lavishness of their clothing and jewellery, and the sundry light duties allotted to them in the daily routine of the palace. We learn, for instance, that in the provincial court of Raghunātha Nāyaka of Tanjore there were many learned women poets who were capable of expounding works written in various languages. The role of women in high society was varied, important, and, generally speaking, pleasant. *Satī* was not unknown, especially among the upper classes, but by no means common.

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The king made his appearance in open durbar at least once a day, when all high officials and nobles had to be in attendance, and nothing was omitted that could increase the splendour of the display. It was then that he generally transacted public business, heard complaints, received ambassadors from foreign countries and tribute from subordinate rulers. Such scenes have been repeatedly described by travellers from abroad, and the following account by Nicolas Pimenta (1599) of the interview he had with the Naick (*nāyak*) of Gingee at Chidambaram may be considered more or less typical. ‘The Naickus of Gingi was come hither, in whose dominion it standeth. He commanded that we should be brought to his Presence. Before us two hundred Brachmanes went in a ranke to sprinkle the house with Holy water, and to prevent Sorcerie against the King, which they use to do every day that the King first entreth into any house. We found him lying on a silken carpet leaning on two Cushions, in a long silken Garment, a great Chaine hanging from his necke, distinguished with many Pearles and Gemmes, all over his breast, his long hair tyed with a knot on the Crowne, adorned with Pearles; some Princes and Brachmanes attended him. He entertained us kindly, and marvelled much that we chewed not the leaves of Betele which were offered to us, and dismissed us with gifts of precious clothes wrought with Gold, desiring a Priest of us for his new Citie which he was building.’ In 1443, the king of Vijayanagar interviewed the Persian ambassador Abdur Razzak twice a week when he stayed in the city, and on one occasion he said to the ambassador through his interpreter: ‘Your monarchs invite an ambassador, and receive him to their table; as you and we may not eat together, this purse full of gold is the feast we give to an ambassador.’ The sultans of the Bāhmani kingdom and their nobles were, if anything, even more luxurious and extravagant in their mode of life, as the Russian merchant Athanasius Nikitin testifies. About Bijapur, Varthema (1505) wrote: ‘The king lives in great pride and pomp. A great number of his servants wear on the insteps of their shoes rubies and diamonds, and other jewels; so you may imagine how many are worn on the fingers of the hand and in the ears . . . . They are all Mahommedans . . . . The ladies go with their faces quite covered, according to the custom of Damascus.’

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In war the king sometimes took the field in person, but more often sent his trusted generals. The traditional fourfold division of the army is often spoken of, particularly in literary works, but there is no tangible evidence of the chariot playing any part in battle. Elephants retained their importance to a very late date, and Yuan Chwang observed that in Mahārāshtra they were made drunk before an engagement. Cavalry was so important that kings often competed with one another in the terms they offered to Arab merchants in the busy trade in horses. Firearms came into use in the wars between the Bāhmani and Vijayanagar kingdoms, although the gunners were usually foreigners. Forts played a prominent part in the defence system from very early times, but the art of besieging and reducing them was also well understood. Details of the recruitment, training and equipment of armies are lacking till we come to the period of Vijayanagar. It is clear, however, that they included men from all strata of society, and that their numbers were increased by the addition of fresh recruits and feudal levies when a war was on. A select body of troops often served as a king's chosen bodyguard who shared a meal with the king at the time of his accession and were thereafter always bound to defend him with their lives. They were called by various names—*Sahavāsis* under the Chālukyas, *Vēlaikkārar* under the Cholas, *Garuḍas* under the Hoysalas, and *Āpattudavigaḷ* under the Pāṇdyas. The institution seems to have fallen into desuetude in later times. Though total war was altogether unknown, war was not always confined in its effects to the fighting forces. Although instances of clemency, such as Narasimhavarman I sparing Bādāmi, and Vikrāmāditya II the citizens of Kāñchi, are indeed known, the wars between the Cholas and the Chālukyas of Kalyāni, and those between Bāhmani and Vijayanagar, were undoubtedly marked by much wanton destruction and cruelty. Nuniz describes an expeditionary force of the Vijayanagar army in the following terms: ‘All were equally well armed, each after his own fashion, the archers and musqueteers with their quilted tunics, and the shieldmen with their swords and poignards in their girdles; the shields are so large that there is no need for armour to protect the body, which is completely covered; the horses in full clothing, and the men with doublets, and weapons in their hands, and on their heads headpieces after the manner of their doublets, quilted with cotton. The war elephants go with their howdahs from which four men fight on each side of them, and the elephants are completely clothed, and on their tusks they have knives fastened, much ground and sharpened, with which they do great harm. Several cannon were also taken.’ On the camp, the same writer observed: ‘All the camp was divided into regular streets. Each captain's division has its market where you found all kinds of meat, such as sheep, goats, pigs, fowls, hares, partridges and other birds, and this in great abundance; so much, so that it would seem as if you were in the city of Bisnaga.’ There were gymnasia in the capital and other important centres where the troops were systematically trained in military exercises in peacetime. Commanders who were defeated were given women's clothes to wear, as Yuan Chwang observed, and as has been confirmed by Chola inscriptions of the eleventh century.

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Not much information is forthcoming about the navy, though we hear of naval operations, great and small. The conquest of Rēvatidvipa and Purī on the West Coast by the Chālukyas of Bādāmi, and that of Ceylon and the Maldives by the Pallavas, Pāndyas and Cholas as well as by Vijayanagar, above all the great naval expedition of Rājendra Chola against the maritime empire of Śri Vijaya could not have been executed without an efficient naval organization. Furthermore the maritime trade of the country, which was always considerable, must have required protection from the depredations of pirates and hostile powers. The opinions of Chola mariners expressed in treatises on navigation were quoted with approval by their Arab successors in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There is no doubt that the kingdoms of South India had a fairly continuous maritime tradition which served their immediate purposes; but it failed them altogether against the more adventurous nations of Europe.

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In civil life the Brahmins occupied a highly respected position. With the exception of the few who entered the state service in the army and elsewhere, they generally devoted themselves to religious and literary pursuits and stood outside the race for wealth and power. They lived on voluntary gifts from all classes of people from the king downwards. Hundreds of inscriptions proclaim the continued solicitude of kings, nobles and merchants for the maintenance and encouragement of a class of men who devoted themselves exclusively to learning and teaching, who were capable of detached thinking on all problems of social welfare, and whose presence in every town and village was calculated to provide not only patterns of ethical and religious conduct for the rest of the population, but active helpers and disinterested arbitrators in the numerous concerns of their daily life. ‘The intellectual superiority of the Brahmans as a caste’, says Sir Charles Eliot, ‘was sufficiently real to ensure its acceptance and in politics they had the good sense to rule by serving, to be ministers and not kings. In theory and to a considerable extent in practice, the Brahmans and their gods are not an *imperium in imperio* but an *imperium super imperium*.’ It cannot be denied that the Brahmin did not always live up to the ideals of his vocation, and that some movements, like that of the Lingāyats, raised a protest against the position accorded to the Brahmin in society; but as a rule he proved true to his trust, and the rest of the community willingly acknowledged the justice of it in every way.

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In fact the institution of caste with all its social and economic implications was accepted almost universally, and the upholding of the social order organized on its basis was held to be the primary duty of the ruler. This accounts at once for the prevalence of much social exclusiveness in matters of food and marriage among different sections of the people, and for the readiness with which they came together and co-operated on matters of common concern like the management of a temple and its adjuncts, the regulation of land and irrigation rights in the village, and the administration of local affairs generally. The emphasis was throughout on the performance of duties attaching to one's station rather than on the rights of the individual or group. The general atmosphere was one of social harmony and contentment with the existing order; differences and disputes there were—there has been no society without them—but they were seldom acrimonious. Even the quarrels between 'right-hand' and 'left-hand' castes, a distinction which has an early start and whose origin is a mystery, did not attain the violence that characterized them in subsequent times. Both in towns and villages, the castes tended to live in separate quarters of their own and follow their own peculiar customs and habits. The outcastes who tilled the land and did menial work (under conditions little different from slavery) lived in hamlets at a distance from the village proper.

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Some curious instances of mixed castes and their trades occur in the inscriptions. Towards the close of the reign of Kulottunga I, for instance, the bhaṭṭas of a village consulted the codes and laid down the professions to be followed by the anuloma caste of Rathakāras as architecture, coach and chariot-building, the erection of gōpuras with icons on them, the manufacture of sacrificial instruments and so on—a decision in conformity with the nearly contemporary manual of law, the Mitāksharā of Vijñāneśvara. Sometimes the privileges of particular castes became, for specific reasons, the subject of royal regulation. For instance, the stone-masons (kanmāḷar) of South Kongu and some other areas were granted the following privileges by a Chola monarch: the blowing of two conches, the beating of drums and so on at domestic occurrences, good or bad, the use of sandals when they went out of their homes; and the plastering of the walls of their residences with lime plaster. A barber Kondōja pleased Sadāśiva and Rāma Rāya so much that he was able to secure exemption for his entire community from taxes and dues like forced labour, land-rent, Mahānavami torches and so on; and a number of inscriptions recording this fact contain engravings of razors, strops, mirrors, scissors and others of the barbers' tools of trade.

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Food and dress varied with the time, place and the class of people concerned. Much authentic and detailed information on these subjects can be gathered from epigraphs, literature, and the observations of foreign travellers which become more copious and detailed after the foundation of Vijayanagar. Here, for instance, is Varthema's account of what he saw in Vijayanagar early in the sixteenth century: 'Their dress is this: the men of condition wear a short shirt and on their head a cloth of gold and silk in the Moorish fashion, but nothing on the feet. The common people go quite naked, with the exception of a piece of cloth about their middle. The king wears a cap of gold brocade two spans long, and when he goes to war he wears a quilted dress of cotton, and over it he puts another garment full of golden piastres, and having all around it jewels of various kinds. His horse is worth more than some of our cities, on account of the ornaments which it wears. When he rides for his pleasure he is always accompanied by three or four kings, and many other lords, and five or six thousand horse. Wherefore he may be considered to be a very powerful lord.'

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Some sections of the population—Brahmins, Jains, and Śaivas—were strict vegetarians. There was generally a good supply of the prime necessaries of life, and scarcity and famine are only rarely heard of.

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Of the system of education, we get more positive information on higher studies in Sanskrit than on popular education; while the former formed the subject of liberal endowments recorded in inscriptions of considerable length, we have to make inferences about the latter from the mention of the village teacher and his share in the arable land of the village and also occasional direct endowments, as for the teaching of Tamil, Marathi, and Prakrit in the schools in Kuntala. What we should now call technical or vocational training was a private affair; the father brought up his children in his calling, and learning went side by side with doing. The erection of a temple or palace must have been the occasion as much for the discovery of fresh talent as for the application of known abilities; and, judging from the monuments that have survived, we may well conclude that at no time was there a dearth of artisans who were also great artists. The beauty and accuracy which mark the engraving of most inscriptions on stone and copper attest the high degree of the literacy and skill of the engravers, while the literary quality of many of the inscriptions, as well as the volume of literature produced in all languages, shows that the cultivation of the popular speech of each locality and its employment in administration and education was by no means neglected. All we lack is clear knowledge of the processes by which these results were achieved, especially during the earlier period when the mathas had not come up in such large numbers as they did later to foster vernacular learning and culture. The ‘three Rs’ were taught in village schools which met under the shade of a tree or in the verandahs of temples, and the village teacher (vātti or akkariga) was among the regular village officials who held assignments of land from the village on the condition that they fulfilled specified duties. The Italian traveller Pietro Della Valle (1623) has left a vivid account of the village schools and the methods of instruction they followed, including the process of learning by rote and the use of fine sand strewn on the floor for writing, methods which survived in full force till the other day and have perhaps not quite gone out yet in remote villages. Ibn Batuta (1333-45) records: ‘I saw in Hanaur thirteen schools for the instruction of girls, and twenty-three for boys, a thing I have not seen anywhere else.’ Robert de Nobili, in a letter of 1610, says that in Madura there were 10,000 students who went to the Professor in Theology and Philosophy. When the Christian missionaries came, they began to start schools which, besides hospitals, formed the main channels for the propagation of their gospel. They had schools at Madura, San Thomé and Chandragiri.

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‘Adult education’ was provided throughout the country by endowments in temples for the recitation and exposition of the epics and Purāṇas. An intelligent and popular expositor seldom confined himself to the words of his text, but at once instructed and amused his audience by ranging over a variety of topics including shrewd comments on current affairs. This form of popular instruction is not unknown even at the present day. The singing of devotional hymns in temples by choirs regularly maintained for that purpose and the training of young men for the same purpose in schools generally attached to *mathas* is another side of education that deserves notice. Besides *mathas*, Jain *pallis* and Buddhist *vihāras* played a part in educating the people wherever they existed, and they had large libraries of books in all branches of learning which were being copied from time to time.

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Sanskrit learning tended to be the monopoly of Brahmins, though there were exceptions, and it was particularly encouraged by means of large special endowments. Sometimes only four, and sometimes as many as fourteen or eighteen subjects of study were enumerated. The four subjects were: philosophy (*ānvikshikī*), Veda (*trayī*), economics (*vārttā*), and politics (*daṇḍanīti*)—a group which was particularly suited to kings and which in fact first occurs in Kautilya’s *Arthaśāstra*. The fourteen *vidyās* were: the four *Vedas*; six *angas* (auxiliaries)—phonetics, prosody, grammar, etymology (of difficult words), astronomy and ritual; *purāṇa*; logic (*tarka*); exegesis (*mīmāṃsā*); and law (*dharmaśāstra*). To these were added *āyurveda* (medicine), *dhanurveda* (archery), *gāndharvaveda* (Music) and *arthaśāstra* (politics) to make up the tale of eighteen. Brahmins learned in many of these sciences served as *Rājagurus* (teachers of kings) and spread themselves all over the land edifying the lives of the inhabitants of every town and village. Gifts of land and houses were frequently offered as inducements to Brahmins to come and settle where they were wanted. In several places they were organized into corporate colleges called *brahmapurīs* and *ghaṭikās*, like the *brahmapurī* at Belgaum or the *ghaṭikā* at Kāñchi. A Vaishnava *maṭha* and its scholars are mentioned in an inscription of Nripatunga’s reign from Kāveripākkam. Another record of the same monarch proves the flourishing condition of a college at Bāhūr, near Pondicherry, where the fourteen *vidyās* were pursued. At Salatgi was another eminent college to which pupils came from different *Janapadas* (countries) and whose *vidyārthisangha* was richly endowed in 945 by Nārāyaṇa, the minister of Krishna III, with the revenues of houses, land, and levies on marriages and other ceremonies. We also hear (1058) of a *ghaṭikā* at Nāgai with ample provision for 200 Veda students, 50 students of the *śāstras*, three teachers of the Vedas, and three teachers of the *śāstras*—one each for Bhāṭṭa, Prābhākara-mīmāṃsā and Nyāya —besides a librarian who brings up the strength to 257 in all. At Ennāyiram in South Arcot the Chola Rājendra I endowed a large college of (1) 270 junior students of whom 40 studied the elements of grammar according to the Rūpāvatāra, 10 studied the sūtras of Bodhāyana, and the rest learnt the Vedas by rote; (2) 70 senior students, 10 studying vedānta, 25 vyākaraṇa, and the rest Prābhākara-mīmāmsā; and (3) a teaching staff of 14. In another college, in the same neighbourhood at Tribhuvani, there were 260 students and 12 teachers. Full details have been preserved of the food and residence of the pupils of a smaller institution at Tirumukkūdal in Chingleput district in an inscription of the reign of Virarājendra (1067) which also gives equally interesting details about the stock of medicines maintained in a good-sized hospital in the same place. A medical school at Tiruvāḍutuṛai where the Aṣṭāngahridaya and Caraka Samhitā were taught, and a school for the study of Pāṇini's grammar at Tiruvoṛṛiyūr, may also be noted. The study of Law and Astronomy found special encouragement from the Yādavas of Devagiri. Education and learning continued to receive generous support from the Rāyas of Vijayanagar and their numerous feudatories. The Bāhmani kingdom and its successors naturally devoted more attention to Muslim education and Islamic studies, in such large and well-equipped colleges as the one at Bidar, established by the celebrated minister Mahmud Gawan.

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The apparent geographical isolation of Kerala did not mean any cultural aloofness. Kerala appears in many ways in the literature of the rest of India. In Kerala itself the Nambūdiri Brahmins allowed only the eldest son to contract a permanent marriage and rear up a family; the younger sons freed from family cares devoted themselves generally to study and teaching, and helped in the promotion of literacy among the masses. Sanskrit learning was patronized by the chiefs as can be seen from a grant of the Āy king Karunandaḍakkan, middle of the ninth century, endowing a college and hostel for the maintenance of ninety-five vedic students who were admitted after an entrance test in Vyākaraṇa (grammar), Mīmāmsā (exegetics), Paurohitya (priest-craft) and Trairājya-vyavahāra (Law and usage of the three countries, perhaps Pāndya, Chola and Kerala). The college was to function in a Vishnu temple at Pārthivaśekharapuram in South Travancore, and indeed, the many temples of the land as well as the mathas and sattras tended each in its way to become a centre of learning of the gurukula type.

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The temple was not merely a place of worship; it filled a large place in the cultural and economic life of the people. Its construction and maintenance offered employment to numbers of architects and craftsmen who vied with one another in bold planning and skilful execution. The making of icons in stone and metal gave scope to the talents of the best sculptors of the country; some of the larger bronzes cast in the Chola period take their place among the wonders of the world for the mass of metal manipulated as well as for the grace of form attained in the result. The daily routine, especially of the larger temples, gave constant employment to numbers of priests, choristers, musicians, dancing-girls, florists, cooks and many other classes of servants. The periodical festivals were occasions marked by fairs, contests of learning, wrestling-matches and every other form of popular entertainment. Schools and hospitals were often located in the temple precincts, and it also served often as the town hall where people assembled to consider local affairs or to hear the exposition of sacred literature. The large endowments in land and cash bestowed on each temple by successive generations of pious donors tended to make it at once a generous landlord and a banker whose aid was always available to those that needed it. The practice of decorating images, particularly those used during processions, with numerous jewels set with precious stones encouraged the jeweller's art to a considerable extent. There can be no better record of the details of the economy of a large temple than is provided by the numerous inscriptions of the Great Temple of Tanjore. There the gifts of Rājarāja came largely from booty captured in successful warfare and included well over 41,500 *kalañjus* of gold, or, taking a *kalañju* to be about 70 grains, well over 500 lbs. troy weight. The value of jewels was 10,200 *kāśus*, equal to half as many *kalañjus* in gold. Of silver he gave 50,650 *kalañjus* or over 600 lbs. troy weight. He set apart lands in villages throughout his dominions, including Ceylon, with an annual income of 116,000 *kalams* of paddy, equal at the then prevailing prices to 58,000 *kāśus*, besides a cash income of 1,100 *kāśus*. For the service of the temple, 400 *devadāsis* were impressed from those attached to other temples in the empire, each one receiving a *pangu* (share) consisting of a house and one *vēli* of land yielding a net revenue of 100 *kalams* of paddy a year. About 180 further such shares were set apart to maintain 212 male dancing-masters, musicians, drummers, tailors, goldsmiths, accountants, and so on. These men-servants included three people to sing the Āriyam and four others the Tamil, which apparently are the two systems of music called ahamārgam and dēśi elsewhere. A choir of 50, on a daily wage of three kurunis of paddy, recited the Tiruppadiyam to the accompaniment of musical instruments. This choir had the additional privilege of filling vacancies by co-option if any of their number died or emigrated without leaving behind a suitable relative to take his place. Rājarāja’s elder sister Kundavai was another generous contributor to temple funds. On one occasion she presented gold weighing nearly 10,000 kalañjus and utensils valued at 18,000 kāśus. Others, too—queens, high officials and regiments of soldiers—made gifts which have been recorded with equal care and precision on the walls and pillars of the temple. Cash endowments, which amounted to several thousands of kāśus, were loaned to numerous village assemblies at rates of interest fixed in kind or money, and generally about 12 per cent per annum. Camphor, cardamom-seeds, champak-buds and khus-khus roots were among the products provided for by means of cash endowments.

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The inscriptions contain accurate and detailed descriptions of numerous icons, some of which were cast in the form of complex groups of figures illustrating favourite themes from legends. They also contain an equally minute and complete account of the ornaments and jewels of the temple, and record periodical inquests into the management of temple affairs by officers of state, and sometimes even by the king himself—clear proof that the business side of the temple administration was properly controlled. All systems of public administration were not as efficient as the Chola system, and all temples were not so well off as that of Tanjore. As a matter of course, however, every temple held more or less the same position in relation to its neighbourhood that the Great Temple held in the Chola capital; the difference was only one of degree. And it is no exaggeration to say that the temple gathered round itself all that was best in the arts of civilized existence and regulated them with the humaneness born of the spirit of dharma. As an agency of social well-being the medieval Indian temple has few parallels.

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Of the sports and pastimes of the different classes of people, the inscriptions do not give us many authentic accounts of a detailed nature. The Rāṣṭrakūṭa Govinda III took part in a boar-hunt on the banks of the Tungabhadra when he was camping there after his conquest of Kāñchī in 804, and the Ganga Būtuga II's hound ‘Kālī’ died after fighting a boar. (A memorial was erected over its remains at Ātakūr and a gorava appointed to offer regular worship to it.) A ball game on horseback, much like polo, is said to have been the favourite game of the Rāshṭrakūṭa prince Indra IV. Paes states that, every morning before daylight, Krishnadeva Rāya drank gingelly-oil and exercised himself with earthenware weights and a sword till he had sweated out all the oil. He then wrestled with one of his wrestlers and after that went riding before his morning bath. There were arenas inside the royal palace in Vijayanagar where, for the amusement of the monarch and his court, fights between animals and wrestling matches took place, the latter sometimes among women. Gambling, racing, cock and ram fights were the pastimes of common people, besides the festivals and fairs of which there was no lack. Then there were peripatetic entertainers like the snake-charmer and troupes of acrobatic performers whose visits furnished much genuine amusement at very little cost. Picnics and folk-dances offered other means of diversion. The following account of what Pietro Della Valle saw in the streets of Ikkeri of an evening (in 1623-4) is of great interest from several points of view:

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‘We saw going along the streets several companies of young girls, well clothed, after their manner, with some of the above-mentioned wrought and figured silk from the girdle downwards; and from thence upwards either naked, or else very pure linen, either of one colour, or striped and wrought with several, besides a scarf of the same work cast over the shoulder. Their heads were decked with yellow and white flowers formed into a high and large Diadem, with some sticking out like sun-beams, and others twisted together and hanging down in several fashions which made a pretty sight. All of them carry'd in each hand a little round painted stick, about a span long, or a little more which they struck together after a musical measure, to the sound of Drums and other instruments, and one of the skilfullest of the company sang one verse of a song, at the end of which they all reply'd seven or eight times in the number of their meter with the word *Colé, Colé, Colé*, which signifies I know not what, but, I believe, ’tis a word of joy . . . I imagined it was for some extraordinary Festival.’

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Another citation, from the same observer, relating to Calicut, is well worth making for its vivid portraiture of conditions many of which were obviously not confined to that city: ‘We went to see the Bazār which is near the shore; the Houses or rather Cottages are built of Earth and thatched with Palm-leaves, being very low; the streets also are very narrow, but sufficiently long; the Market was full of all sorts of Provisions and other things necessary to the livelihood of that people, conformably to their custom; for, as for clothing they need little, both men and women going quite naked, saving that they have a piece either of Cotton, or silk, hanging down from the girdle to the knees and covering their shame; the better sort are either wont to wear it all blew, or white stripped with Azure, or Azure and some other colour; a dark blew being most esteemed amongst them. Moreover both Men and Women wear their hair long and ty’d about their head; the women with a lock hanging on one side under the ear becomingly enough as almost all Indian women do; the dressing of whose head is, in my opinion, the gallantest that I have seen in any other nation. The Men have a lock hanging down from the crown of the head, sometimes a little inclined on one side; some of them use a small coloured head-band, but the Women use none at all. Both sexes have their Arms adorned with bracelets, their ears with pendants, and their necks with jewels; the Men commonly go with their Swords and Bucklers, or other Arms, in their hands, as I said of those of Balagate.’

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The vast majority of the population lived in villages and agriculture was their main occupation. Great prestige attached to ownership of land, and everyone, whatever his occupation, aimed at having a small plot he could call his own. The village was thus primarily a settlement of peasants, and its assembly an association of landlords. A periodical redistribution of the arable land of a village among its inhabitants prevailed in many parts of the country till comparatively recent times. Besides the landowners, great and small, there was a fairly large class of landless labourers, an agrarian proletariat, who assisted in the operations and shared the proceeds of agriculture; some of them were in a condition of serfdom, and all of them had less to do with the management of local affairs than the landowners. The artisans of the village had shares from the common land of the village, which were of the nature of retainers or inducements to them to stay in the village, ready to take up work as it came to them, the wage of each engagement forming the subject of separate negotiation between the parties. There was also a staff of menial servants from the outcaste who were likewise rewarded by shares in the common land. Day labour was usually paid for in grain, and even the small peasant was ready to hire himself out in his spare time.

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Tenancy cultivation was quite common, especially on lands belonging to temples and other corporate institutions, the terms of the tenancy being fixed either by the terms of the original endowment or by separate negotiation in each case. Very often such tenants had rights which made them more or less part-owners of the land they cultivated. The distinction between garden land, including flower-gardens and orchards, in the neighbourhood of capital cities, land under wet cultivation and that under dry cultivation, and forest land was carefully maintained for taxation and other purposes, wet lands being further divided into several grades according to their natural fertility. Besides cultivating food grains and pulses on both wet and dry land, intensive flower and vegetable growing and the raising of commercial crops like cotton and sugar-cane were also widely practised. Black land and red land are particularly mentioned in Chālukya records besides the usual wet land, garden land and waste land. Betel and arecanuts, ginger and turmeric, fresh fruits and flowers, were the chief items of garden produce. Abdur Razzak noticed the number of rose merchants in Vijayanagar and added that roses seemed as necessary as food to the people of that city. The importance of irrigation was well understood from early times; dams were erected across streams and channels taken off from them wherever possible.

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Large tanks were made to serve areas where there were no natural streams, and the proper maintenance of these tanks was regularly provided for. The extension of agriculture was encouraged at all times by granting special facilities and tax concessions for specified periods to people who reclaimed land and brought it under cultivation for the first time. The prosperity of the cultivator depended to some extent on the seasons, but to a larger measure on the conditions of his tenure and on the tax-collecting agency. Tenant conditions were probably easier on lands set apart for religious and charitable uses and of which temples, *mathas* and Brahmins were the landlords. But where rights were assigned to high officials and nobles, or where, as often happened, the collection of the land tax was farmed, both the rate of tax and the manner of collecting it might have pressed hard on the cultivator. Even in the heyday of liberal and efficient administration—under the imperial Cholas—there were complaints of the tax-gatherer's oppressive methods; and after the weakening of Vijayanagar, under the Nāyaks, the ryots were generally compelled to purchase the state's share of the grain at prices arbitrarily fixed by the tax-gatherer. Closely allied to agriculture was cattle-raising and dairy farming, and land was set apart for pasture;

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this industry must have been widespread at all times, but in the inscriptions we hear more of the cattle belonging to temples and eating-houses, of the cowherds in charge of them, and of the obligations they owed to the temple or other owner. Ghee was not only an important item of food among the upper classes, but was used in considerable quantities for burning in lamps in the larger temples.

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In most of the common industries the rule was production for the local market; but the movements of individual merchants from one part of the country to another, and the highly developed organization of mercantile corporations in different parts of it, provide adequate evidence of a brisk internal trade in certain sorts of goods. Spinning and weaving formed a major industry which occupied considerable numbers, and guilds of weavers were generally in a flourishing condition and took an active part in many local concerns. The export of the finer varieties of cloth from various parts of the country is proved by records during the entire period covered by this survey. Warangal specialized in the manufacture of carpets which were much sought after, and other places had other specialities. The metal industries and the jeweller's art had reached a high state of perfection. Household utensils of metal were apparently confined to the rich, earthenware being in more common use to judge from the frequency with which they are mentioned in connexion with cooking and eating in śālas (or charitable feeding-halls). Iron was used for making arms, and some places like Palnad attained celebrity for the excellence of their output. The manufacture and sale of salt was generally the concern of government which derived a considerable revenue from it. This industry was naturally concentrated at important centres on the sea-coast, as was pearl-fishing in the Gulf of Mannar—an important industry which attracted the notice of foreign visitors (including Marco Polo) who have often described it.

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Almost all the arts and crafts were organized in castes and guilds of their own, and work was clearly done on a corporate basis, for we hear little about individual artists, not even the names of the architects, sculptors and painters who added so much beauty to life in the country. One of the very few and notable exceptions to this rule is Śri Guṇḍan Anivāritachāri, the builder of the Lokeśvara temple (now called Virūpāksha) at Pattadakal, who procured many privileges for his class from the contemporary Chālukya ruler of Bādāmi besides winning for himself the title Tenkanadiśeyasūtradhāri, ‘the architect of the South’. It was he who designed the sculptures of scenes from the Rāmāyaṇa which adorn the walls of this temple. Śri Guṇḍan is said to have been an expert in planning cities, constructing palaces, vehicles, thrones and bedsteads. Several Hoysala sculptors ‘signed’ their creations, the most famous names among them being Malitamma, Baicoja, Caudaya, Nanjaya, and Bāma.

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It is not possible to give a detailed account of the conditions of internal transport. There was as little scope then (as now) for the use of natural waterways for the carriage of merchandise in the interior, and there is no evidence that canals were made for any purpose other than irrigating agricultural lands. Roads are mentioned in inscriptions from all parts of the country, and to maintain them, great and small, in good repair was part of the duty of local authorities, the villagers being generally expected to give their labour free. The breadth of a main road was about twenty-four feet; but there were also tracks, only slightly better than foot-paths, which were apparently impassable for wheeled traffic. There was regular coastal shipping. Up-country, merchandise was carried in carts, on the heads or shoulders of men (kāvaḍis), and on the backs of animals. The roads were not always safe and brigandage increased in unsettled times. Soon after the battle of Rakshasi-Tangadi, Caesar Frederick was detained in Vijayanagar for seven months ‘until the ways were clear of thieves, which at that time ranged up and down’.

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Merchants were generally organized in powerful guilds and corporations which often transcended political divisions and were therefore not much affected by the wars and revolutions going on about them. The most celebrated guilds from fairly early times were the Maṇigrāmam and the Nānādeśis or Aiññūṛṛuvar. The records of the Kākatīyas speak of merchants of the home country (svadeśabēhārulu), merchants of another country (paradeśabēhārulu), and merchants from different countries (nānādeśis). The first were the local merchants organized in local guilds—nagarams. The second were like the first except that they came from another country—perhaps combining pleasure with business while on a visit to their neighbours, or possibly acquiring religious merit by attending yātras and festivals in famous shrines. The last were the powerful guilds already mentioned which included merchants from all countries, with established branches in all of them, and perhaps playing a prominent part in the foreign trade of the country as a whole. The name Maṇigrāmam is generally explained as a corruption of Vaṇik-grāmam, ‘an association of merchants’, and this may well be correct. They are mentioned in many early South Indian inscriptions and in a Tamil inscription at Takua-pa (Siam) of the reign of Nandivarman III, Pallava. The fact that this merchant guild had established itself on the opposite coast of the Bay of Bengal with sufficient permanence for it to be put in charge of a Vishnu temple and a tank gives a clue to a yet little-known chapter in the annals of our ancient politics and commerce.

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The Aiññūṛṛuvar, often styled the Five Hundred Svāmis of Ayyavolepura (Aihole), were the most celebrated of the medieval South Indian merchant guilds. Like the great kings of the age, they had a praśasti of their own which recounted their traditions and achievements. They were the protectors of the Vīra-Baṇañju-dharma, i.e., the law of the noble merchants, Baṇañju being obviously derived from Sanskrit Vaṇija, merchant. This dharma was embodied in 500 vīra-śāsanas, edicts of heroes. They had the picture of a bull on their flag and were noted ‘throughout the world’ for their daring and enterprise. They claimed descent from the lines of Vāsudeva, Khaṇḍali and Mūlabhadra, and were followers of the creeds of Vishnu, Maheśvara and Jina. Among the countries they visited were Chera, Chola, Pāṇdya, Maleya, Magadha, Kausala, Saurāṣṭra, Dhānuṣtra, Kurumba, Kāmbhoja, Gaulla, Lāta, Barvvara, Parasa (Persia), and Nepāla. They traversed land-routes and water-routes penetrating all the countries of the six continents. They traded in elephants, bloodstock, sapphires, moonstones, pearls, rubies, diamonds, lapis lazuli, onyx, topaz, carbuncles, emeralds and other precious articles; cardamoms, cloves, bdellium, sandal, camphor, musk, saffron, malegaja and other spices and perfumes. They either sold them wholesale or hawked them about on their shoulders; they paid the śunka regularly and filled the royal treasury with gold and jewels, and replenished the kings' armoury; they bestowed gifts on pandits and sages 'versed in the four samayas and six darśanas'. There were among them the sixteen seṭṭis of the eight nāḍs, who used asses and buffaloes as carriers, and many classes of merchants and soldiers, viz. gavēras, gātrigas, seṭṭis, seṭṭiguttas, ankakāras, biras, biravaṇijas, gaṇḍigas, gāvuṇḍas and gāvuṇḍasvāmis. A fragmentary Tamil inscription from Sumatra (1088) and a temple of Vishnu which they erected at Pagan and which was still flourishing in the thirteenth century attest the truth of their claim to trade with foreign countries beyond the seas. In the Chola country they had their own settlements called vira-paṭṭanas where, with the sanction of the local powers and the central government, they enjoyed special privileges in matters of trade. Historians have generally tended to ignore the effect of trade on the outlook of the people of those comparatively remote times. There is no doubt, for instance, that the continuous meeting and intermingling of people of diverse social backgrounds tended to create a liberal and cosmopolitan, as opposed to an insular, attitude to life.

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The maritime trade of South India in the early centuries of the Christian era has been briefly described in Chapter VII. In the Chinese annals of the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, all the products of Ceylon and India are classed, with those of Arabia and Africa, as products of Persia. The direct sea-route between India and China, however, is known to have come into common use by the fifth century; Fa Hien travelled from Ceylon in a merchantman which carried no fewer than two hundred Indian and Ceylonese merchants; and I-tsing mentions the names of thirty-seven of his contemporaries who took this route to India at different times. There were Brahmin temples and merchants in Canton in A.D. 750.

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By the ninth century A.D. the countries of southern Asia had developed an extensive maritime commerce which brought great prosperity. The T'ang empire in China, Śri Vijaya under the powerful line of the Śailendras, and the Abbasid Khalifat at Baghdad were the chief states outside India that flourished on this trade. Owing to political troubles China became unsafe for foreigners in the latter part of the ninth century, but Chinese ships regularly called at the ports of the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra to buy foreign goods. This was the beginning of Chinese navigation of the high seas. From the twelfth to the fifteenth century, Chinese sea-going junks were frequent visitors to the west coast of India. Siraf, on the eastern coast of the Persian Gulf, was the chief emporium in the west and the rich merchants of that city feasted the numerous merchants from China, Java, Malaya, and India who visited their city—every Indian insisting on having a separate plate exclusively reserved for him!

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