The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c16.34

c16.34

The three conditions mentioned: local division of different kinds of work, hereditary character of branches of profession and the existence of an elder: seem to me to indicate clearly an organisation of handicraft which can be compared in many respects with our corporations in the Middle Ages. Also in these tradesmen's corporations of ancient India the principle finds application, which has already been mentioned in connexion with the guilds of tradesmen: the more in the course of centuries the caste theory—even in Buddhist lands—obtained currency, the greater the exclusiveness of, and respect for, the leading castes, the more did the manufacturers' corporations become incorporated in the caste-order. After the example set by nobility and the Brahmanical caste, they surrounded themselves with limitations by which a common bed and a common table were forbidden with members of castes who on account of the lowness of their race occupied a lower stage of human society than they themselves. That many of the manufacturers mentioned above occupied a comparatively low social position admits of no doubt and was, in my opinion, the chief reason why they separated themselves from the rest of the population and thereby had in ancient times the appearance of being something akin to a caste: the corporations of the manufacturers fall—partly, at any rate—undoubtedly under the category of the despised castes which will be treated of in a later chapter.