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Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c9.t1: Agriculture. Methods of Ploughing

Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c9.t1

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Agriculture. Methods of Ploughing

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Around the *gāma* lay its *khetta* or pastures, and its woodland or uncleared jungle. *Khetta* or agricultural land is considered among ten kinds of external possessions, the rest being buildings, gold etc, seeds of grains, collection of wood-fuel and grass, friends and relatives, conveyance, furniture such as bed, sofa etc., male and female slaves and utensils.² A *khetta* is divided into *setu* and *ketu*; the former being irrigated by Persian wheels (*arahatta*) etc., and the latter by rainfall.³ Various methods of irrigation were adopted in different countries. For example, in the country of Lāṭa the fields received their moisture from rainfall, in Sindhu from rivers, in Draviḍa from ponds, in Uttarāpatha from wells and in Dimbharelaka from floods.⁴

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² Brh. Bha., 1. 825.

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³ *ibid*., 1. 826.

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⁴ *ibid*., 1. 1239.

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Agriculture was carried on by ploughing. It is said that p'oughing (*kisikamma*) being done at the right time yields plenty of fruit.⁵ The *Bṛhatkalpa Bhāṣya* refers to the festival in honour of the ploughing deity (*Sītā-janna*).⁶ *Phoḍakamma* is mentioned as a ploughman's profession dealing in ploughing the field.⁷ In a prosperous country the lands were ploughed with hundreds and thousands of ploughshares, and sugar-cane, barley and rice were cultivated by shrewd (*pannatta*) farmers (*karisaya*).⁸ We read of the *gāhavai* Ānanda who limited the cultivable land to five hundred ploughshares, each one ploughing one hundred acres (niyattana) of land.⁹ Three types of ploughshares are mentioned, viz., *hala*, *kuliya* and *nangala*;¹⁰ spade (*kudāla*) was known.¹¹ The fields were guarded by fences.¹² *Samūha* is mentioned as a place situated in a mountain or any other place of safety where the farmers used to store their corn.¹³

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⁵ Uttarā. Ṭī., 1 p 10a.

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⁶ 3. 3647. Cf the Grhva Sūtras (e g Gobhila, IV 4 281, S B L vol xxx) where the goddess Sītā is the rustic deity of the furrows and sacrifice may be offered to her anywhere but preferably on a field of rice or barley (V M Apte, *Social and Religious Life in the Grhya Sūtras*, X, p. 129) In the *Mahābhārata* (VII, 105 19) Sītā is a goddess of harvest. The legend of the birth of Sītā is mentioned in the *Rāmāyaṇa* (I. 66 14f), and it is by furrowing the earth with a plough that Janaka gives birth to Sītā (Sylvan Levi, *Pre Aryan and Pre-Dravidian in India*, pp. 8-15).

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⁷ Uvā., 1, p. 11.

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⁸ Ovā., 1, p. 2; Āva. Ṭī., (Harı.), 947, p. 426a.

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⁹ Uvā., 1, p. 7. *Niyattana* is mentioned by Baudhāyana; it was an area of land sufficient to support one man from its produce, (S. K Das, *The Economic History of Ancient Ind.*, p. 190).

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¹⁰ Ācā., ā p 81

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¹¹ Uvā., 2 p. 23.

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¹² *Abhidhānārājendrakosa*, under 'Nigara'.

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¹³ Brh. Bhā., 1. 1092

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