Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c5.t1.26

c5.t1.26

It is of course needless for us to dwell on the character of labour as productive or unproductive. The large number of parasitical professions which existed in our Jātaka-society, as discussed above, show that a considerable portion of labour was clearly unproductive, though there is no such condemnation of labour in the stories themselves. But still the distinction between “high” (Ukkaṭṭha) and “low” (hīna) labour was recognized. All these workers, the hunters and the fishermen, the wood-workers and the potters, the barbers and the sweepers come under the category of "low" classes. Through their professional work they fell into contempt.¹