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The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s4: III. Social Position of the Ruling Caste

The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s4

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III. Social Position of the Ruling Caste

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I have called the warrior-caste the ruling caste of India, because all power, political as well as martial, lay in the hands of the military organization.

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The hold that the priest obtained upon the king has been compared with that secured by the European priest in the Middle Ages. There is a great and essential difference. The Hindu priests had no strength of combination. They formed no union of political power parallel to, and capable of opposing itself as a whole against, the sovereignty of the throne. It is true that they formed an association, that they were an exclusive and distinct class. But they formed no corporate body, and had no head. They worked as individuals. Moreover, their power possessed no financial basis such as that of the Roman church. They drew no direct and constant property-contributions from the people. They were dependent on the king. From him they obtained largesses; from him, or rich members of his caste, they obtained their wealth of cattle and later of land: wealth that did not, however, go to swell a general fund, but enriched favored individuals. They lived on charity, and stood under armed patronage. Their very exclusiveness hindered their upgrowth; for had they with the religious tools familiar to them been able to ally themselves by marriage with the nobles, had the priests' daughters (for by their law celibacy was forbidden) wedded the priests' protectors, the religious order might by such family alliance have gained a thorough control of the state. As it chanced, mighty was the individual ministerial influence of certain priests, coercive as was the religious power they could wield, they still stood apart from the rulers, depending on those whom (it is only fair to say) they despised—a fragmentary class, that enforced respect as a whole through fear of the fate to come upon the king that denied their influence with the gods, but never a class that rose to be independent of that king in respect of support. Moreover, as matter of fact, most of the priests lived retired and quiet lives, content to beg for food, satisfied with a little rice, cows, and a hut, and without worldly ambition; regarded with love or awe by the common outside world, with honor by the nobles, and only occasionally, in the person of the king's private priest and advisers, interfering at all in the matters that concerned the warrior-caste.

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This view is of course not brought forward in the law-books. Their authors were the later priests, who regarded the world as made for them alone, and looked upon the king as a steward divinely appointed to provide them with what needed. Far otherwise appears the Aryan state in the early Epic. A freer life is found here. The king is a king, not an appendage to the priest. The view of the formal law reflects the vain ideas of men conscious of mental superiority and anxious to bring the state into harmonious relations with their egotism. The Epic, an unconscious mirror, furnishes social facts as found in an age as yet comparatively independent, and portrays conditions that survived even the unscrupulous handling of the text by those opposing this independence. ‘The priest is the standard of the world,’ says the formal law; ‘the king is the standard,’ says the Epic.*

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In looking at the state from a political point of view, we must, therefore, reverse the arrangement formally proclaimed by the priests themselves, and put their order below that of the military caste. And next came the ‘people.’

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There were, thus, three Aryan castes in the Epic period. The ruling caste, comprising the king, his great lords and vassals, together with the knightly part of the army; the priestly caste, elevated by religious knowledge, often individually powerful as guiders of the king’s will, but otherwise forming a lowly class of penitents and beggars, who, if not irritated into a wasp-like wrath by unprovoked insult, remained a sedate, humble, and morally useful element in the state; lastly the third caste, called collectively the people, exalted only through their Aryan blood and their fully allowed claim to all Aryan privileges in the matter of legal rights and religious rites, but otherwise constituting a body that was looked upon with contempt by the military and extolled only by the priests. These knew the source of revenue.† There was, too, another and un-Aryan caste, of which the members were, to the Aryan ‘twice-born’ (re-generate through holy ceremonies), merely ‘once-born,’ or ‘deprived of good birth.’ These had, barring pretense, no spiritual or legal privileges.‡ They possessed no property. Their wives were so in name. Their lives depended on their owner's pleasure. They were ‘born to servitude,’ for they ‘came from the foot of God.’* They were in fact the remnant of a displaced native population, marked by race-characteristics and stigmatized by their conqueror's pride as a people apart, worthy only of contempt and slavery. It would at times appear as if the slave were the especial servant of the people-caste, although bound also to serve the other high castes (i. 100. 11; but compare xii. 72. 4–8, 6=M. i. 99). The color-distinction between the castes—the slave being black; the people, yellow; the warrior, red; the priest, white (xii. 188. 5; in ii. 36. 24 *kālapūga* means time, not color)—may possibly indicate a real difference of hue (compare Muir, S.T. i. 140; Zimmer, A. L. p. 113, with literature). The people in general, both those of the country (*jānapada*) and those of the town (*paura*), are divided into the ‘people at large and the common people’ (*mahājana, pṛthagjana*; cf. xii. 321. 143; xiv. 90. 14) as distinguished *en masse* from the aristocrats, and so may include the people-caste proper and its leavings—that is, those following or adopting occupations too low to be recognized as fit for Aryans (under which name the three upper castes or the people-caste alone are meant). The statement that ‘there is no distinction of castes’ is meant proleptically, and implies merely that a man changes his caste in future births on earth in accordance with his acts in this; so that e. g. a priest ‘might become yellow and be born as a member of the people-caste,’ if he failed to act as a priest should (*māitrāyaṇagataḥ*; xii. 188. 10 ff.; cf. ib. 239. 13; 279. 5).† I prefer to keep the significant, if not absolutely correct, translations of the caste names rather than their native forms: thus, ‘priest’ for *brāhmaṇa*;‡ ‘warrior’ for *kṣatriya* (‘man of the ruling order’); ‘man of the people’ for *vaiśya* (literally ‘inhabitant,’ or, in the Vedic sense of *viç*, a ‘clansman’ in general; but later confined to members of such families of the Aryan folk as had not renounced farming

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∗ Manu xi. 85: *brāhmaṇaḥ* - - *pramāṇaṃ lokasya*; Mbh. i. 82. 18: *rājā pramāṇaṃ bhūtānām*. The law and Epic give a well known rule to the effect that the right of way belongs to a blind man, a woman, a burden-bearer, and a king; while, if a king and priest meet, the way belongs to the priest (Vās. xiii. 59; Āp. ii. 5. 11. 6; M. ii. 138-9; Mbh. iii, 133. 1; xiii. 104. 25, etc.); but the same Epic recounts a scene where a king meeting a priest calls out to him ‘get out of my way’ (*apagaccha patho ‘smākam*), and when the priest repeats the ‘law eternal,’ as just quoted, it is without effect, and the king even smites him with his whip. The king is cursed by the priest and becomes a demon, but this ‘law’ and anecdote of Vasishtha may serve as an example to illustrate the gradual increase in priestly power, and the means by which it was obtained.

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† Compare v. 132. 30: ‘Let the priest beg; the knight defend the people; the people-caste make money; the slave be a server’; or xii. 91. 4: ‘work is for the slave; agriculture, for the people-caste.’

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‡ *Na hi svam asti çūdrasya* etc., xii. 60. 37: compare the whole section; with 39, Pāijavana, cf. M. vii.

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⁴¹ The slave might clean up after the offerings were made (*çūdrāir nirmārjanaṃ kāryam*, xii. 294. 12-15;

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† Compare Muir, *Sanskrit Texts*, i. 138 ff. for this religious view and some quotations on caste-color.

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‡ Compare Latin *flamen*; see von Bradke, *Beiträge zur Kenntniss der vorhistorischen Entwickelung unseres Sprachstammes*, p. 13.

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his glory is *dākṣya* (activity), to obey the three castes his duty (21); cf. 295. 1 ff.: a priest who becomes *çūtradharman* is degraded; the slave becomes a herdsman, however, or a tradesman, if he cannot support himself by service (3, 4); 297. 27 ff.=M. x. 126 ff. : cf. xiii. 165. 10. The pseudo-Epic also declares the slave to be the next removed from a beast (xiii. 118. 24), but in its religious portions admits that a slave may, like the other castes, get a reward for fasting (*upoṣita*, xiii. 132. 14); just as it says that one of the slave-caste may be made a student (*çrāvayec caturo varṇān kṛtvā brāhmaṇam agrataḥ*, xii. 328. 49) though the *parikṣeta* rule precedes (47). The caste will be later treated in detail.

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∗ It is an old myth that the people-caste came from the loins or thighs of God (Brahmā or Manu), while the warrior-caste came from his arms, the priestly, from his head (mouth), and the slave-caste from his foot: RV. x. 90. 12; law, Vās. iv. 2; B. i. 10. 18. 6; Epic, Mbh. viii. 32. 43 ff.; xii. 60. 28 ff.; 319. 90; R. iii. 20. 30 ff. (here from Manu).

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and trading to live an altogether military or priestly life); ‘slave’ for *çūdra*. Out of these elements was made the theoretical state of the Hindus. Yet earlier only the three upper castes were recognized as *tout le monde*.* Practically, there came in addition an early recognized and large number of ‘mixed castes,’ feigned all to have been either degraded branches of the pure castes or their illegitimate descendants. (Compare e. g. xii. 297. 8, 9.) In reality these were outcasts, made so either formally or naturally (through the increasing tendency of the lower orders to take up means of livelihood not sanctioned by the pure), or, far more, remnants of un-Aryan tribes gradually assimilating to the body politic of their conquerors, but not received into the social or religious body. These were increased, again, by ever growing immigration from strictly foreign nations of warriors and traders, practically esteemed but otherwise despised.†

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But people-caste, slave-caste, pariahs, or foreigners the

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* Compare *etāvad vā idaṁ sarvaṁ yāvad brahma kṣatraṁ viṭ*, Çat. Br. (ii. 1. 4. 12) Weber, *Ind. Studien*, x. 18.

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† Compare xii. 207. 41-45, for the disesteem felt for foreigners; xiv. 73. 25, for the distinction between Kirātas, Yavanas, with other barbarians, and Aryans; or vi. 9. 61, etc.; and xiii. 48 and 49 for the whole account of the mixed castes. The recoil from strangers is not much greater, however, than that of high caste from low caste in the developed state: ‘equals with equals : let priests talk with priests; warriors, with warriors; men of the people, with men of the people; slaves, with slaves,’ xii. 210. 11-12. Yet in a moral sense even the mixed castes are better than the pure if the latter do not do as they ought, iii. 180. 25-36. The high estimation in which certain foreigners, such as the Yavanas, were held is wholly due to the military point of view (see below). Aside from this accident they were all despicable, no matter whence they came, although the Madrakas were chief in positive unholiness and in the anti-Aryan character of their civilization. The Northerners in general were as bad as the rest. The sole exception is that of the storied Northern Kurus. These were looked upon as occupying an earthly Hyperborean paradise. The flank of Mount Meru is in one place given as their home (*dakṣiṇena tu nīlasya meroḥ pārçve tatho 'ttare*, vi. 7. 2), but they are regarded as real people of the North in most cases, with laws more conservative than the Southerners (as in i. 122. 7), and blessed with a typical felicity (as in the first passage, and R. ii. 103. 26) : so blessed in fact that while some happy heroes go at death to Indra’s heaven, others go to the Northern Kurus (xv. 33. 13 ff.), as a sort of earthly heaven. A gate sixteen *yojanas* wide used to be blocked up and prevent their passage; but they can now pass through (iii. 231. 98). It is evident that they were half-real, half-mythical to the Epic poets. Other foreigners are simply barbarians, on a par with the Dasyus, which latter race may be blessed only by changing its way of life and becoming an adherent of Aryan rules (xii. 135. 22, etc.). Rather noteworthy is the *tutoyer* (*tvaṁkāra*) of a seer by a slave in iii. 137. 5-6, and by a Cāṇḍāla (*tam uvāca sa cāṇḍālo maharṣe çṛṇu me vacaḥ*, xii. 141. 55. Compare 85, *bhavān*, and conversely, Viçvāmitra to the Çvapaca *bhavān* in 66, *tvam* in 80) though the custom is to exchange ‘thou’ with ‘sir’ without ceremony. But the rule is that, though persons younger or of the same age may be addressed with ‘thou,’ neither ‘thou’ nor the real name should be said to those that are better (older). Compare xii. 193. 25 (*tvaṁkāraṁ nāmadheyaṁ ca jyeṣṭhānām arivarjayet*, etc.)

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ruling caste held itself at less or greater intervals aloof. The warriors mingled with the people-caste, indeed, but not by preference. Intercourse with all below this line was held with the mutual understanding that such union was temporary, and tolerable only on the ground of expediency. On the contrary, the priestly and knightly castes were always together, for ill or good. But in either case they were distinguished as the aristocracy from all others, more or less plebeian. They fought bitterly, and learned each the other’s strength. They became friendly, joined on the basis of mutual advantage, and from that time on were as one, above the lower order.

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But how were all these classes politically united? What part had each in the state-organization? Whence, above all, came the huge revenues necessary to the establishment of a fighting force liable to be called out at any time, and too proud itself to subsist on its own manual labor?*

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At a time such as that represented by the first story of the Epic, the warrior was always a robber and pillager. This life was the knight’s support. Forays and cattle-lifting provided needed gain. Meantime, although occasionally called into the field, the people (such I name the united ‘clansmen’ whom conservatism partly retained, and the pride of others forced into a caste) continued the peaceable occupations once shared alike by all members of the folk, and were enabled to build up that substantial wealth that was to make them the later support of the state. But, as time went on, the levies upon the people’s wealth, that during an age when feud was the constant condition had been rare, irregular, and generally unnecessary, became with growing civilization more frequent. The king no longer raids along the border. He lives in a walled town, surrounded by a court of polished nobles. War is a serious business, and means often not an attack on out-lying savage races, but a campaign against another Aryan realm grown powerful and civilized as his own. Moreover, as the country becomes settled, the pastime of hunting serves to amuse the war-men in the intervals of fighting, and a costly idle court must be maintained. The people of the country, no longer obliged to retire daily to the mud-built ‘fort’ for protection from the barbarians, spread themselves over the land in open ranches or half-defended villages, to protect which outposts of soldiers are established, new forts are built, and so new towns developed, but always with increasing expense to the people at large and particularly to the people-caste, in whose hands rests the potential basis of supplies. Larger and larger grow the flocks of the ranchmen; a busier traffic arises. The knights are heavy consumers of wealth, but must be supported. The court and its army become a great load. And now regular and oppressive taxes begin to fall upon the supporting caste. War or peace, funds must come into the royal treasury. These funds are drawn from the people-caste. The king is the ‘keeper of wealth’ (*vittarakṣin*, xii. 321. 143) as opposed to the ‘common people’; but these furnish it, and then come to beg of him in need.

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∗ The military-caste-man, if poor, might become a farmer, but only as a resource in need (see below). Otherwise he could be made to work manually only in order to pay a fine: M. ix. 229.

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The settlements, it may be observed, of the Aryan population may be classed in three divisions. The largest, called city or town (*nagara, pura*), was an outgrowth of the village (*grāma, kheṭa*), and is represented as walled; while the village is a collection of houses around a fort (*durga*). The village itself is often no more than the natural development of the *ghoṣa*, or cattle-ranch, which the king is bound to have guarded, and seems to have converted in favorable places into a small village by erecting a fort like that around which the *grāma* naturally arose (compare xii. 69. 35). With this *ghoṣa*, and on a par with it, are sometimes mentioned the small barbarian settlements called *pallī* (*pallīghoṣāḥ*, xii. 326. 20). The radical difference between the *ghoṣa* and *grāma* appears to be usually not so much quantitative as qualitative. The *grāma*, being the earliest form of settlement, presupposes a durga or fort (defense) of some kind as its nucleus; while the *ghoṣa* (sometimes called *vraja*) is an outpost from city or village, and a cow-pen developed into a ranche, and hence into a village by the addition of a fort to protect it after it had become a centre of population. The word *grāma* is not, however, invariably applied to a natural growth from within, but may be used of a community artificially planted, as in ii. 5. 81, where we read: ‘to defend a city, towns (villages) are made, like unto the city; and border-villages (*prāntāḥ*), like unto the towns’ (though for *grāmavac ca kṛtāḥ prāntāḥ* the Calcutta edition reads *grāmavac ca kṛtā ghoṣāḥ*, 215). Characteristic of India is the recall the country, to guard against drought (ii. 5. 77). How the ommendation in this same passage of ponds, to be built over ‘cow-pen’ may practically become a village is illustrated verbally in the use of *goṣṭha*, etymologically a ‘cow-pen.’ This word is used of any general assembly, as in the proverbial verse: ‘The joy of him that liveth in a village is the mouth of death; but the god’s cow-pen (the place where gods assemble) is the lonely forest.’* As to the constitutional power of the villages, we have no reason to believe that they had any political rights beside the liberty given to them by the royal overseer. It is, however, an aphorism of the legal literature that villages shall be their own authority in matters so especially private or of such family interest as the observances at weddings and funerals. In such case no foreign rite is to be imposed, but local usage shall obtain (Pār. G. S. i. 8. 13).

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∗ xii. 175. 25 (b) = 278. 26 (a) ; 26 (b) = *nibandhanī rajjur eṣā yā grāme*, etc. *Cruti*, as often, is merely ‘a saying,’ a proverb. Like this is iii. 200. 92 : ‘Wherever learned priests are, that is a city, whether they live in a *vraja* (village) or a forest.’ Did Sir William Jones get his poem ‘What constitutes a state? Not high walled battlements or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate, but men’, etc., from this passage?

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But it is by no means the Hindu conception of the king's office that the people-caste exists to support it while the throne is free of responsibility. No theory could have appeared more absurd to the Aryan law-givers. The people-caste is a part of the Aryan population, and must not be oppressed. The connection between the king and the people-caste is based on a theory of mutual advantage. The people-caste must be taxed; but the relation between the taxing and taxed parties is always explained in a way evidently calculated to appeal to the latter's business sense. That relation is, in a word, trade. A barter, as is often candidly said, of so much movable property for so much protection. Two things men desire—security and wealth. The people-caste has the latter and wants the former; the military-caste wants the latter and can provide the former. Let us trade, then, says the Hindu, and on the following basis. The taxes shall be low when no danger is at hand. When war is expected, the price of security rises; the levies on the people's wealth shall be greater. The king shall maintain a standing army, and make all the sacrifices necessary to keep the gods in good humor. For this the people shall pay. In return the king shall undertake to keep guard over the country, and defend the agricultural and mercantile classes not only from foes without but from foes within, making good their losses by theft in time of peace, and in time of war keeping them safe from harm, agreeing to become responsible for their sins in the next world if he fails in this after having exacted taxes. The king was thus held responsible to the people for his part of the bargain, and suffered a penalty if he did not fulfil his contract. In small matters, as for instance where a merchant had his goods stolen, the king (his servants) had first to seek for the thief; but if he was not found, the money had to be refunded from the treasury. In event of a great war with defeat, however, where it was absolutely impossible for the king to return the property lost, the people had the satisfaction of knowing that a portion of their sins, or, so to speak, their debts to hell, had been transferred to account of the

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Compare vs. 90: *prākārāiç ca puradvārāiḥ prāsādāiç ca pṛthagvidhāiḥ, nagarāṇi na çobhante hīnāni brāhmaṇottamāiḥ*, etc. According to the Ag. P. the *kharvaṭa* is a town in size between city and village (256. 18); this appears to be unknown to the Epic.

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king’s soul, and in this way some compensation would be theirs hereafter, if not in this life, for the king’s failure to fulfil his legal obligation of protecting.*

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Such is the view most frequently assumed and expressed when the relations between the business classes and the king are discussed. Such a class as this third caste needs, therefore, to be very definitely determined in its social and political limits before we can make an absolute estimate of the ruling or kingly caste. In fact, the latter’s power can be best shown by finding first the relative position of the people in respect of the state at large. What then was the people-caste?

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The priestly caste formed an undivided whole, except for internal distributions of studies, whereby one member learned more than another of some special branch of a pursuit equally open to all. Except for the king’s family-priest, and the election of certain members of the caste to offices bestowed by the king, one member was politically the same as another. The warrior-caste, except for plutocratic distinctions, and the special ability acquired by special members in special acts of warfare, was also a political unit. The slave-caste consisted of so many equal-reckoned slaves. But not so with the people-caste. Here we have class within caste in three well-organized bodies, radically different in their occupations and socially apart. These three bodies met, indeed, on the common basis of their Aryaship in a theoretical view of the state; and the narrower bond of their mutual origin from that part of the people that had gradually confined itself to a business life brought them closer together than they stood as a whole when opposed to the priests or the warriors. But for all that, they were not one body with like aims and needs. Their three subdivisions were, historically, as follows. First, the great body of ranchmen, the cattle-raising population, with their dependants, the herdsmen and cow-

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*As the king is personally responsible for the good conduct of the state, any sums stolen in his realm become his debts to the loser. The amount stolen must be refunded either from his own purse (svakoçāt) or ‘from some one that supports himself’: that is, he should take it from some wealthy member of the people-caste (the commentator suggests ‘a trader’). The financial responsibility is thus later put upon the poor people-caste, but the spiritual loss is the king’s and his ministers’ (xii. 75. 8, 10, 12; no restriction of priest’s property is made here, but may be implied by the context ‘all is saved if the priest is saved’). As to the ministers’ share, compare xii. 65. 28 ff.; 66. 32 ff.: ‘Godlike is the king, and gods revere a just one; the king shares the reward given hereafter for the virtue of the folk; but the evil he shares also; so do the ministers.’ ‘He that steals from the king himself goes to hell; his property is confiscated; his body, slain,’ is the converse. The confiscated property of persons not thieves returns to the family (below: and ib. 96. 6, N.). The passage above gives the king’s titles as Ruler, Generous One, Wide-Ruler, All-Ruler, Warrior, Lord of Earth, Protector of Men. The king refunds by the rule of Ag. P. 252. 62.

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boys. Next, the agriculturists or farmers, who raised grain, and their smaller imitators, who raised fruit and vegetables. Last, the whole trading population, whether on sea or land, continually having intercourse with foreign traders, whether traveling about the country in caravans or located in one town.

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Beside these three divisions, there is a continual row of smaller similar occupations, leading by insensible degrees into the work formally declared to be unfit for Aryans. First, perhaps, money-lending may be mentioned; which, if not an early departure, was one that shows us the gradual extension of caste-functions; for we can still trace its despised appearance, and gradual encouragement, till it is finally received as a legitimate occupation for the twice-born. Here lies, too, the whole mass of mechanics, artizans, carpenters, peddlers, and the like; and the frequent denunciation of those that have embraced such occupations shows us clearly how often the line between respectable and objectionable labor was crossed by Aryans. Such commingling of Aryan and un-Aryan must have begun very early; and I fancy that in the earliest period of the Epic the people-caste had already a more and more uncertain line dividing it from the vulgar—a view supported by the circumstance cited below, that this caste is, in spite of Arya-ship, apt to be set along with the slave-caste against the two more exclusively Aryan castes of the warriors and priests.* The formal law in enumerating the three (recognized) classes of the people-caste sometimes reverses the order, and puts the trading-class before the cattle-raisers. This is not only historically wrong, but is contradicted by the arrangement elsewhere preferred in the native texts. In fact, it is even stated that raising cattle is the only business fit for the people-caste, and that any other occupation is wrong.†

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∗ I do not mean that the army did not also contain a host of un-Aryans. These never commingled and grew together as did the people-caste and the outsiders, but were always oil and water in one jar.

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† ‘A man of the people should bestow gifts, go over the holy texts, make sacrifice, and get wealth; in doing which let him take care of cattle, and be devoted to them as a father is to his sons; any other business that he performs would be for him a wrong business, since the Creator entrusted cattle to the people-caste’ (xii. 60. 23; 23-24 = M. ix. 327). The law, which allows a priest that cannot support himself to follow the occupation of the third caste, also specifies agriculture before trade (which the priest may carry on only with certain limitations), but admits that many object to this pursuit (for a priest) on account of the necessary cruelty involved—the plough injuring the creatures in the earth, and the yoke hurting the cattle (iii. 208. 23, ahimsā: cf. i. 63. 11, the ideal place where ‘they do not yoke miserable cattle’: cf. M. x. 83; Gaut. x. 3 ff.). This objection is also brought against agriculture by the trader or ‘scales-man’ (tulādhāra), whose own boast is that his ‘scales are the same for everybody,’ while he also objects to raising cattle, because it is necessary to castrate them and bore their nostrils (xii. 263. 1, 6, 11, 37). Compare Pār. G. S. i. 69 for late inversion of trades.

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Once the folk at large, the united clansmen of the Aryan people, the people-caste had thus lost its ancient universal practices and become confined to industry and trade. Gradually, from when each warrior was rich in cattle and each cattle-raiser ready to answer to a call for arms, there came a separation of interests. Some grew to depend on their bows and swords, and, finding fighting more agreeable than labor of hands, settled more and more upon the life which the king lived, and took him as their model. They became ‘king’s men,’ the older name of those forming the warrior-caste. They arose from the people and left them. Some, again, confined themselves to study and religion, and before long gained and kept the fame of being the gods’ special ministers. They also arose from the people and left them. And so the ‘clansmen’ or ‘people’ grew socially smaller and became the people-caste—in name the whole, in fact a part, and a rapidly degrading part of the population. But a shadow of their former might remained far into the Epic period. Of this, below. The three occupations, already developed in the Vedic age, now abandoned by the warriors and priests, were cherished by the people-caste. Indeed, so rapidly do we find the subdivisions appearing in the light of demarcated professions that we even notice a differentiation between the people-caste on the one hand and the traders on the other, showing that agriculture and cattle seemed still more peculiarly the people’s work.*

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But the development of commercial interests was sufficient ultimately to cause the establishment of a sort of trade-unions or guilds. These may belong in their full development to a late period, but we find them mentioned early (so in the law-book of Manu) as of importance. Such corporations had their own rules and laws subject to the king’s inspection, the king not being allowed (theoretically) to have established or to establish any laws that contradicted those already approved or sanctioned by usage. The heads of these corporations are mentioned together with the priests as political factors of weight, whose views are worth grave consideration; as an informal instance of which, we find a prince defeated in battle and ashamed to return home—‘for what,’ he exclaims, ‘shall I have to say to my relatives, to the priests, and to the heads of the

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[^ *]: ‘There the men of the people (vaiçyāḥ) do not injure cattle, nor do the merchants (vaṇijaḥ) deal with false weights (kūṭamānāiḥ, i. 64. 21-22).’ It is for pictorial effect that we more often have the sea-trader than the land-trader spoken of in the Epic, the ‘merchant wrecked with ship destroyed’ being a much loved metaphor. Compare e. g. ix. 3. 5; R. v. 26. 12. Not a coaster but a deep-sea sailor is meant. Compare ii. 5. 114: ‘Do the merchants that have arrived from afar for the sake of gain pay no more than their proper (shipping) duties?’

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corporations?* Prominence is given to the guilds in the later books of the Epic. There also we find corporations of every sort, under the name of *gaṇa*; of the members of which the king is particularly recommended to be careful, since enemies are apt to make use of them by bribery. But dissension is their weak point. Through dissension and bribery they may be controlled by the king. On the other hand, ‘union is the safeguard of corporations.’† The power of the corporations is said to be equal to that of all the king’s military dependents; ‘these two, I think, are equal,’ it is said in a passage where the strength of the kingdom is reckoned (unless the dependents include servants of every kind).‡

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The intermingling of un-Aryan with Aryan in this caste is perhaps indicated by the fact that the cowboys, who watched for instance the royal cattle, spoke a dialect unintelligible to the Aryans, unless the latter had especially learned it.§ Kings, of course, are always surrounded by interpreters; but this may be referred simply to the effect of the foreign population.‖

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Two additions to the cattle-raising population are to be found outside of the people-caste. The king is himself a large owner and breeder of cattle, and personally superintends the condition of his flocks at certain times in the year. The whole care is taken, of course, by the cowboys, whose ranches the king visits, when for example the cattle are to be branded. Large gifts of kine are given to kings by foreign allies, and we can still trace pure cattle-raiding expeditions in the Epic story. Such given or stolen cattle were kept for the king. On the other hand, there is comparatively early evidence to show that the priests also, though not personally attending to the duties of the calling, yet carried on more or less cattle-raising and agriculture on their own account, employing the third caste to do the labor.

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The third or people-caste has thus, as regards their duties, quite undefined borders. The humblest tender of cows for a master may be of this caste, or the work may be done by one outside the Aryan ranks. The priest and king share the gain of the profession, and practically intrude on the emoluments theoretically set apart for the people-caste.

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∗ iii. 249. 16; xii. 54.

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²⁰ The *śreṇi* or guild thus includes unpriestly corporations. Cf. R. vi. 111. 13. † xii. 107. 32; xii. 59. 49, *śreṇimukhyopājapena*; N. understands military *śreṇi*, M. viii.

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⁴¹ An interesting list of trades is found R. ii. 90. 10 ff. In the same work the collocation of ‘assemblies and corporations’ is to be noted (*pariṣadaḥ śreṇayaś ca*, R. ii. 120. 5). The further distribution of a popular crowd implied in *sayodhaśreṇinigamaḥ (janaḥ*, R. ii. 123. 5) is apparently later than the Epic. ‡ I should here be inclined to take *maula* as native soldiers, *bhṛta* as mercenaries, were it not for the commentator, xv. 7. 8. § Their dialect, *bhāṣā*, has to be acquired by Aryans: iv. 10. 1. ‖ *Sarvabhāṣāvidaḥ*, i. 207. 39; but *sarvabhāṣyavidaḥ*, xii. 321. 15.

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What was the condition of the small farmers through the realm? We cannot say, further than in their relation to the state as tax-payers. Of the daily worker, shepherd, cowherd, farm-help, we have, however, a chance didactic verse that informs us in regard to his wage. In this passage the lowly laborer is a man of the people-caste: or rather, the people-caste is understood to consist of laborers, as a look at the context will show. After the common formula that the people-caste should tend cattle, we read: ‘he should receive the milk of one cow for the care of every six; if he tend a hundred head of cattle, he should receive a pair; in the case of (dealing for the master of the) flocks or in agricultural labor, his general share should be one-seventh of the proceeds or of the increase, but in the case of small cattle (not horned) only a small part (one-sixteenth.)’*

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Although points of direct contact between the royal and people-castes are, except in the matter of taxation, rarely to be found in the Epic, yet the account of the distribution of the kingly power, as preserved in both Epic and legal literature, points to the fact that the people were in general at the mercy of the king’s vicegerents, and that the people-caste must have been especially exposed to their predatory natures.†

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† The technical itayaḥ or ‘adversities’ of the husbandman include, however, only foreign invasion (a point contradictory of Megasthenes’ account). But see particularly Ag. P. 238. 46; and 262. These itayaḥ are, I believe, not defined in the Epic by text or commentator, but are explained by a native lexicographer as consisting of 1. too much rain; 2. no rain; 3. grasshoppers; 4. mice or rats; 5. birds; 6. neighboring kings (invading the country). The Epic puts them with sickness as one of the ‘faults’ of a metaphysical division of things according to their qualities (iii. 149. 35); and alludes to them in the words of a speaker: itayaç ca na santi me (v. 61. 17. For definition see P. W.).

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In describing the ‘care of the empire,’ tradition divides the realm into seven factors. Of these the first five are the king himself, his ministers, the treasury, army, and allies; the last two are the country-people, and the capital, or ‘the city.’‡ In ‘the city’ the king (theoretically) superintended all duties, even to the adjustment of prices. He had delegates (whom he appointed through the land) to do this for him in other towns and villages. They were stationed chiefly as military commanders. We fortunately have preserved the system of government by which the towns lying out of the king’s direct supervision were cared for. The decimal system of classification (found again in the army) is not necessarily a sign of late origin for this array of officials; but, though coinciding in all respects with the plan authorized by the legal treatises, since it represents as it must an imperial policy rather than that of a limited kingdom the inference is fair that the system was one adopted only after the foundation of great empires, belonging therefore to the later Epic.

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∗ xii. 60. 24 ff., tathā śṛṅge kalā khure. The parentheses are due to the commentator. The amount given is the workman’s ‘yearly pay’ (sāmvatsarī bhṛtiḥ).

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‡ xii. 69. 64 ff.; different order in xii. 321. 154–5. Compare M. ix. 294–297.

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According to this system, the king with his town officers sees to the royal capital, while he is represented in other towns by men selected either from the priestly, the warrior, or the people-castes. It is the duty of these men to protect, each his village, their territory from robbers; more particularly, those that govern a village must keep it and the surrounding country to the distance of a kroça (about two miles) in all directions free from thieves, and are bound to repay to the losers whatever is stolen within this district. In the case of a large town the distance guarded is four times as great. They had also to collect the taxes from their districts.* The Epic describes the allotment of territory thus. Every town or village was presided over by a vicegerent, who was under a superior officer called ‘ruler of twenty’ towns or ‘ruler of a hundred.’ In a gradually extending circle these overseers received tribute, heard reports, passed them on to the one of next highest authority, and he to the next, till revenues and reports focused in the king, the lord of all. The king should create one over-lord to be the governor of a thousand villages (i. e. here as example, over the whole realm); all the villages are to be divided into groups, or departments, of one hundred villages each; these, again, are subdivided into counties of twenty each and ten each, while a headman is to be appointed over each division, reckoning from the village as a unit. The head-man or mayor of each village (grāmasya adhipatiḥ) sends to the ten-village-man or county officer (daçagrāmī) returns of all the crimes committed in his village,† and the ten-village-man in turn sends his report to the twice-ten-man (dviguṇāyī or viṃçatipaḥ);‡ who in turn passes his collected reports to the hundred-village-man (grāmaçatādhyakṣaḥ), from whom they go to the general governor (adhipatiḥ). The officer in each division draws his own income from the province placed under his control: one village provides support for the village-man; the village-men from ten villages supply the ten-village-man, etc. The ruler of a hundred villages ought to have to supply his needs the revenue derived from one whole flourishing town, while the thousandvillage-man has a large city, gold, grain, etc., appropriated to his use.*

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∗ M. vii. 115-125; Yāj. i. 321; Āp. ii. 10. 26. 4ff. † Grāmadoṣāḥ; probably the returns are sent monthly. ‡ The ruler of ten is also called daçapaḥ; and the ruler of one village, grāmikaḥ.

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Beside these special supervisors, each city should be provided with one general officer, a mayor (?) or superintendent of affairs, whose official title is ‘he-that-thinks-about-everything’; his duties are not defined.† A military garrison is stationed in every town and along the border-forts; and the realm is watched by military police, recommended as guards of the city parks (*purodyāna*) and other crowded places.‡ Such is the later ‘defense of the realm,’ as distinguished from the earlier single fort and environs.

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Many of these cities are, of course, those brought under the sway of the king. We may assume, since the general officers here described are particularly urged not to exceed their powers, and to be tender-hearted toward the unfortunate (a plea often urged before kings, as in Nārada’s great sermon in the Sabhā), that they exercised pretty free control and were apt to abuse it.§ In fact, with an uncertain rate of taxation, they could practically demand what they pleased. The proper rate of taxation is not certainly established in the Epic, but at its best was very severe. Agriculture is always implied. It is

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*It is said in the second book that there are five general officers of the military caste in each town as collectors. What their exact functions were the Epic does not say (*kac cic chūrāḥ kṛtaprajñāḥ pañca pañca svanuṣṭhitāḥ, kṣemaṃ kurvanti saṃhatya rājan janapade tava*, ii. 5. 80; the contest shows that *pañca* refers to officers of towns). I suspect that collecting here refers to collecting the regular taxes. One thousand villages given away as a ‘means of livelihood’ is not uncommon in the time of the empires: compare e. g. R. ii. 31. 16. According to Manu the lord of ten villages has as much as can be cultivated by twelve oxen; of twenty villages, by five times that; of one hundred, the produce of a village; of a thousand, the revenue of a town. This certainly seems an older version than that of the Epic. The word *kula*, here employed, land enough for a family, is interpreted by the commentators as ‘what can be ploughed by twelve oxen.’

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†This ‘one-thinker-about-everything’ (*ekaḥ sarvārthacintakaḥ*) appears to be an additional officer, not a substitute for the city-lord; *vā* or *ca* is read, M. vii. 121-122. The description is found xii. 87. 1 ff. Military garrisons are spoken of ib. 69. 6 ff. They are to be stationed through the realm, and on the border-land.

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‡Compare ii. 5. 82 ff., 121, 114, where a garrison guards each town.

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§We learn little of these officers from the law. In M. x. 126; xi. 64 (Mbh. xiii. 165. 10; xii. 297. 25-26) the three upper castes have *adhikāra*, but not the slave-caste; extending (in the Epic law) to any ‘rule of right’ (in Manu *adhikāra* of law and of mines). But in the Epic practical rule we find the slaves have a certain authority (see below). These officers were, as were the king and all royal officers, exempted from certain ceremonial impurities (occasioned by the death of relatives) ‘lest business be impeded (*kāryavirodhāt*) G. xiv. 45; M. v. 93-95. We find often that Hindu strictness in this regard is practically less than at first sight appears.

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only in an ideal realm that we find ‘in that place there was no confusion of castes, and no mining or agricultural labor.’*

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In practical life ‘the king must not be too kind, he must not cut off his own root, he must tax as he finds necessary.’† The proper tax, to levy which the king is enjoined, and in taking which he ‘does no wrong,’ is in the proportion of one sixth of the annual gain got by the party taxed, with special rules for special cases. This regular rate is not regarded as imposing a heavy tax. Further statutes show that it may be increased, and permit even a fourth of the annual income to be so taken ‘in time of need,’ i. e. when danger threatens—the king in each case incurring the same proportion of the people’s sins if he does not return the barter-value of this tax in ‘protecting the people’: especially, as is once sharply added, ‘the better classes of people, and the wealthy classes.’‡

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[^ *]: i. 68. 6 : *na varṇasaṃkaro na kṛṣyākarakṛ janaḥ*. [^ †]: v. 34. 18. The further advice that the king should be merciful toward his people ‘as if toward the gods’ (ib. 38. 41) is, as shown by many examples, based rather on the utilitarian principle that ‘a realm is like a cow; it must not be over-milked’ (xii. 87. 13–21), than on any principle of abstract right. An idea of what was reasonable in taxation may be drawn from the converse of a rule in regard to the king’s expenditures. We are told that he ought to be every morning informed of what he has spent, and that his (yearly) expenditure ought not to cover more than three fourths of his income (ii. 5. 70–72). That is to say, he ought to tax heavily enough largely to increase his actual needs in private and public outlay. One half, one quarter, or three quarters, are given as the legitimate ratios of expense to income. The account is kept by ‘calculators’ (*gaṇakalekhakāḥ*). [^ ‡]: All traders’ taxes, by legal and Epic rule, are to be apportioned according to the conditions under which the goods are presented for taxation: that is to say, a merchant’s wares are to be taxed ‘after the king has carefully considered the price at which they are to be sold, and were bought, and the distance they have been carried’; where an impost duty is intended. The artisan also must be taxed in such a way that ‘both the king and the artisan may get profit.’ Taxation more than ‘legal’ is decried;

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larger taxes must not be demanded, it is sometimes said, but begged for, and that from all the castes, except the priests (xii. 87. 13–21; 71. 15). But when the king conquers and is conscious that his taxes are not unjustly levied, then ‘let the king address his new people, saying “give me the rightful tax;” if they give it, it is well; if not, let them be forced’ (xii. 95. 2). The proper tax is formally given as above, i. 213. 9; xii. 24. 11 ff.; 69. 25; 139. 100. The yearly income is regarded as the basis of reckoning the tax in cattle-increase and grain-increase. Compare ii. 5. 78, and M. vii. 80. The Calcutta reading in ii. 212 (=5. 78) *pādikaṃ ca çatam* is certainly to be rejected for the Bombay *pratyekaṃ ca çatam*. The king is here advised to befriend the husbandmen when the crops are poor, and to take one in the hundred of the increase as a moderated equivalent of the normal tax; not to tax (more heavily than before) at the rate of twenty-five per cent. The possibility of the kingdom’s existing without taxation seems especially to irritate the compilers of the pseudo-Epic. They revert to the subject again and again, and prove that the king must have wealth; his army, his happiness, his virtue depend on it; ‘as a robe conceals a woman’s nakedness, so does wealth conceal sin; therefore let him get wealth, even if he be sinful’ (xii. 133. 7).

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The twelfth book says in effect to the The authority of Megasthenes, if rightly reported, would induce us to believe that the agriculturists hold the land as tenants to the king, and that the gain of rents goes into the royal treasury, besides the payment of a fourth part of the crops as tax. Except on the principle of the Hindu proverb, that ‘the cow (seemingly) belongs to the calf, the cowherd, the owner, and the thief, but he that gets the milk is the real owner’ (xii. 174.32), we must decline *in toto* to accept this statement as valid for the times covered by the Epic narration, and, since they represent a more imperial policy than that depicted in the native works, conclude either that Megasthenes is misquoted in respect of land ownership and taxes, or that he speaks of a small part of the land where such custom prevailed, or writes of times different from that represented by Epic didactic poetry. Arrian says that Megasthenes saw only a little of India; but I am inclined to think that the present difference between the quarter and the sixth as a regular grain (income) tax indicates a difference of time rather than of locality, and that the Epic coinciding with the law represents in this point an ideal, or older state of affairs than that found by the Greek (c. 300 B. C.).*

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king: ‘rules do not hold in certain contingencies; do not ordinarily tax too much; but yet let your first care be to keep your treasury full; if it is necessary to tax heavily in order to this end, do so; money is the chief thing; wealth is a necessity; let the king imitate the people, they make as much as they can; for poverty is a crime’ (xii.130.33 to end). The verse distinguishing between protection for the people in general and the better classes (xii. 24.17, *çūrāç cāryāç ca satkāryā vidvāñsaç ca, . . . gomino dhaninaç cāi’ va paripālyā viçeṣataḥ*) is, despite the commentator, especially in the interest of the rich men of the people: ‘Warriors, Aryans (the people-caste), and sages (priests) should all be treated well; those rich in cattle and those possessing property should be especially well protected.’ As to the moral guilt incurred by a king through his people’s sin see below. It is remarked in xiii. 61.32 that ‘the people ought to kill the rascal of a king who does not protect them’ (*arakṣitāraṁ hartāraṁ viloptāraṁ anāyakam, taṁ vai rājakaliṁ hanyuḥ prajāḥ saṁnahya nirghṛṇam*; in 33, *saḥ . . . nihantavyaḥ*.

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∗ Of the seven social orders that Megasthenes notes, the first is the order of priests; the second, the agriculturists, who greatly outnumber the others. These abstain from war, he says, and from all other public service, spending their time in agriculture; and no enemy injures the crops, because everyone looks on the agricultural class as a public benefactor—whence the richness of the uninjured land. He continues, as quoted by Diodorus and given above, with the words: *βιοῦσι δ’ ἐπὶ τῆς χώρας μετὰ τέκνων καὶ γυναικῶν γεωργοὶ, καὶ τῆς εἰς τὴν πόλιν καταβάσεως παντελῶς ἀφεστήκασι. Τῆς δὲ χώρας μισθοὺς τελοῦσι τῷ βασιλεῖ διὰ τὸ πᾶσαν τὴν Ἰνδικὴν βασιλικὴν εἶναι, ἰδιώτῃ δὲ μηδενὶ ἐξεῖναι κεκτῆσθαι · χωρὶς δὲ τῆς μισθώσεως τετάρτην εἰς τὸ βασιλικὸν τελοῦσι*. In the next class Megasthenes rightly distinguishes from these farmers the herdsmen, shepherds, and poorer members of the people-caste; for though theoretically one, they were, as we have seen, in reality a different order; and we are not surprised to find no hint from the Greek observer that the two classes belong together. These poorer people, he says, are great hunters; they do not live in towns or villages, but *σκηνῇη δὲ βίῳ χρῶνται*: ev-

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