The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c14.169

c14.169

The big Brâhmaṇa landowners have their fields cultivated by their slaves or by day-labourers. Of a *kassakabrâhmaṇa* who is in possession of 1,000 karîsas¹ it is narrated that he goes with his men to the field and supervises their ploughing (III. 293). The Brâhmaṇa mentioned in the Sâlikedâra Jâtaka (IV. 276) possesses likewise a field of 1,000 karîsas on which he has sown rice. When the crop is cut, he makes the hedge thick and places his own men (*attano purisâ*) to guard one-half of his property by assigning fifty karīsas to one, sixty to another, while the remaining five hundred karīsas he puts in charge of a hired labourer (bhataka) who is punished for every loss.