The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c16.24

c16.24

More sharply pronounced appear in our text the divisions within the manufacturing classes according to the individual branches of the profession. Here appear circumstances which greatly favour a combination and organisation of particular unions. For manufacture, the hereditariness of the profession, which for trade was originally nothing more than a mere custom, was of essential importance; under the direction of his father the son is introduced to the technicalities of the profession which he is to adopt, from his early youth, and the manual skill, the talent for a particular handicraft, is inherited and increases from generation to generation. The taking up of a profession other than the ancestral one was manifestly unheard of among the manufacturers; not a single exception to the rule do we find mentioned anywhere in our source. "Son of a smith" (kammâraputta, is in the Pali texts (Sutta Nipâta, verse 83; Mahâparinibbâna Sutta, iv. 14) used as a synonym for a smith. Along with the families of smiths we find also other families of artisans in the Jâtakas; the hereditary character of the manufacture of pots is exhibited in the Kacchapa Jâtaka, where it is said of the Bodhisatta that he was reborn in a potter family (Kumbhakârakula, II. 79) and maintained his wife and child by manufacturing pots. Similarly it is said in the Kumbhakâra Jâtaka: "The Bodhisatta was re-born in a potter family in a village lying in front of the gate of Benares; when he grew up, he became a householder and receiving from his wife a present of a son and a daughter, he maintained his wife and children by manufacturing pots." With a stone-grinder family also we become acquainted in our text: the Bodhisatta born in it understands his handicraft thoroughly when he grows up, as mentioned in the Babbu Jâtaka.