[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.fick-1897) › c17.45 # The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c17.45 The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c17.45 - **Language:** English ### [c17.45](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.fick-1897.c17.45) Much less than in the case of the casteless professions hitherto treated, is mention made of an external co-ordination or any organisation whatever in the case of the serving classes, as they were composed of all possible elements of the population differing in point of race and professional work. He who suffered shipwreck in the struggle with the waves of life and was rendered poor must have been forced even at that time—whatever might be his descent—to win his bread by service. We read of a poor gahapati who supports himself and his mother by working as a hired labourer (bhatiṃ katvā III. 325); he complains that he earns only one or half a māsaka¹ and that his mother can with difficulty be supported. The three Brāhmaṇa daughters of the Suvaṇṇahaṃsa Jātaka have, as their supporter is dead, to serve in other families and pass their days in trouble (paresam bhatiṃ katvâ kicchena jîvanti, I. 475). Of course, these members of the aristocratic castes formed a small fragment of the serving classes; the majority was formed by the classes of the population in whom the profession of a hired labourer was as much hereditary as the poverty connected with it. The Bodhisatta, re-born in a poor family (daḷiddakula), as described in the Kummâsapinḍa Jâtaka, works, when he is grown-up, for money at a \*setthi's\* and maintains his livelihood in this way (III. 409; similarly, III. 444). The payment which falls to the lot of the day-labourers seems, according to the Jâtakas, to be so miserable as to be hardly sufficient to enable them to eke out their livelihood. As the \*gaha-pati\* through his paid works earns no more than one or half a \*mâsaka\*, so also it is said of a \*bhataka\* who supports himself by carrying water (udakabhatim katvâ III. 446) that he has saved half a \*mâsaka\*. With such a low pay and owing to the impossibility of gaining access to any higher profession, the possibility seems to be wholly excluded—and in this it has a certain resemblance with a caste—of the Indian hired labourer emerging out of his miserable position: born and bred in poverty, he bore his sad lot as a nature-necessity in order to leave it to his children as a legacy. - [Previous: c17.44](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.fick-1897.c17.44) - [Next: c17.46](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.fick-1897.c17.46) - [Up: c17](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.fick-1897.c17) ## Linked texts (1) - [Jātaka](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.theravada.sp.khuddaka.jataka.398) — Pāli --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.fick-1897.c17.45](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.fick-1897.c17.45) · Pramāṇa