Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c5.t1.9

c5.t1.9

The general tendency of the people was, it is true, to follow the same vocation which their fathers had adopted.⁴ Not only individuals, but families are often spoken of in terms of their traditional calling. We have, for instance, such expressions as the "family of caravan-drivers" (*satthavāhakulam*),⁵ "grain-merchants' family" (*dhañña-vāṇijakulam*),⁶ "green-grocer's family" (*paṇṇikakulam*),⁷ or the "potters' family" (*kumbhakārakulam*);⁸ and in these instances, the son takes up his father's calling; the *satthavāhaputta* is a *satthavāha* himself and the potter's son is a potter himself.⁹ But, inspite of this tendency, nothing prevented a person of one occupation finding his way into another, if he so chose to do. There was complete freedom of initiative. A few instances of this freedom and mobility may be cited. A low class deer-trapper (*migaluddako*) becomes first a protégé and then the inseparable friend of a rich young seṭṭhi.¹ A pious farmer and his son, without much ado, turned to rush-weaving.² Similarly a young man of good family, but of reduced circumstances (duggata kulaputta), starting on his career by selling a dead mouse for cat’s meat at a farthing, then turning his capital and labour to every variety of job, finally bought up a ship’s cargo with his signet-ring pledged as security, and won both a profit of 200 per cent and the hand of the Seṭṭhi’s daughter.³ We have also an instance of the whole village of wood-workers being removed and located in another place,⁴ without even a hint of social barriers. Thus the mobility of labour, both from place to place and occupation to occupation, was rendered largely independent of status.⁵ Still we cannot forget that hereditary tendency was a prominent factor in the economic life of those days.