History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c20.95

v2.c20.95

Manu (X. 116)²⁸⁷ enumerates ten means of maintaining oneself in *āpad* (distress) viz. learning, arts and crafts, work for wages, service (i. e. carrying out another's orders), rearing cattle, sale of commodities, agriculture, contentment, alms, money-lending. Out of these some cannot be followed by a brāhmaṇa or a kṣatriya when there is no distress (e. g. a brāhmaṇa cannot engage in service). Yāj. III. 42 enumerates seven of these and adds 'cart' (i. e. driving carts for hire), mountain (subsisting on the price of grass and fuel taken from hills), a country full of water, trees and shrubs, king (i. e. resorting to or begging from a king). Chāgaleya quoted in Gṛ. R. p. 449²⁸⁸ speaks of nine means of livelihood in a season of drought, viz. cart, plot of vegetables, cows, fishing, asyandana (maintaining oneself by the slightest effort possible?), forest, a country full of water, trees and shrubs, a mountain, king. Nārada (ṛnādāna 50-55) says that three modes of acquiring wealth are common to all, viz. inheritance, a gift of friendliness or affection and what comes to a man with a wife (at the time of marriage); that each of the three varṇas has three special modes of acquiring wealth, viz., receiving gifts, fees as priest and fees for teaching in the case of brāhmaṇas; booty in war, taxes and fines in judicial trials in the case of kṣatriyas; agriculture, rearing cattle and sale of commodities in the case of vaiśyas. Nārada (ṛṇādāna verses 44-47) divides wealth into śukla (white, pure), śabala (dark-white, mixed) and kṛṣṇa (dark) and each of these into seven varieties. The Viṣṇu Dh. S. chap. 58 also divides the wealth of householders into these three varieties and says that what is earned by the special modes prescribed for each varṇa, inherited wealth, gifts of affection and what comes with the wife-these are śukla (pure); what is obtained by following the special avocation of the varṇa immediately lower than one's own varṇa and what is acquired by giving bribes or by sale of forbidden articles or from one who is under one's obligations is śabala; what is obtained by following the avocations of a varṇa other than the immediately lower one and what is acquired by gambling, theft, violence or fraud is called kṛṣṇa. Baud. Dh. S. (III. 1. 5-6) speaks of ten kinds of vṛttis (means of livelihood) and III. 2 explains them at length. Manu (IV. 4-6) speaks of five ways of livelihood viz. ṛta (i. e. subsisting on grains left in the fields), amṛta (what comes without begging), mṛta (alms obtained by begging), pramṛta (agriculture), satyānṛta (sale of commodities) and forbids śvavṛtti (service, lit. living like a dog). Manu (IV. 9) further says that some brāhmaṇas live by six means (i. e. adhyāpana, yājana, pratigraha, agriculture, rearing cattle and trade), some by three (viz. the first three), some by two (yājana and adhyāpana) and others again only by one (adhyāpana).