Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c5.t1.32

c5.t1.32

There was still, mostly in towns and cities, the regular serving class, composed of all possible elements of the population differing in point of race and professional work. To this class belonged the hired-labourers and the slaves (*Dāsa-kammakaras*) who laboured for others in return of some payment (*bhataka*), whether in kind or in money.³ Let us first take up the hirelings or the wage-earners (*kammakaras: bhatakas*).