Local Government in Ancient India c8.2

Language: English

c8.2.1

According to orthodox Hindu tradition and opinion, the origins of Hindu culture and civilization in all respects and particulars, aspects and phases, strata and stages, are to be found foreshadowed and imbedded in the Vedas. To these eternal and original documents can be traced the roots of all our subsequent history and development. Whatever may be the intrinsic worth and merits of this theory, it seems to be true at least in respect of the history of Hindu guilds. Even foreign scholars such as Geldner, Roth, &c., for instance, find references to them in the Vedic literature. There is no doubt a difference of opinion among Vedic scholars as to the exact significance of these references, and, considered by themselves merely as literary passages, they may seem to be doubtful indications of a formal and well-defined institution. But if we combine with the *literary* evidence the evidence of *history*, the evidence furnished by the evolution of Aryan life, the spread of Aryan colonization, the propagation of Aryan culture and civilization in India from the Vedic period downwards, much of the uncertainty of the purely literary evidence will disappear.

c8.2.2

The fact of the matter is that Vedic society was sufficiently settled to admit of an elaborate differentiation of functions and occupations among the people, and already presented an economic environment favourable to the growth of industrial and commercial combinations in the community, leading to the formation of specialized institutions like the guilds. These were perhaps natural and necessary growths out of the conditions and requirements of the economic life of the age with its many-sided development. It is admitted on all hands that Vedic society at a comparatively early period divided itself into three fundamental orders, estates, or castes, viz.: (1) the ruling caste or the warrior-caste, comprising the king and his entourage, his great lords and vassals, the knights of the army; (2) the priestly caste, distinguished in learning and religion, which, though not directly wielding any political or martial power, was possessed of supreme influence in the state as regulating the king's will—an influence which rested solely on its high character and spirituality; (3) the people-caste with its Aryan blood and eligibility for all Aryan privileges in the matter of legal rights, religious rites, and educational opportunities.

c8.2.3

These three were the twice-born classes, but to them was added a fourth, the un-Aryan, merely ‘once-born’, deprived of good birth, devoid of spiritual or legal privileges, of the rights of property, comprising the remnant of a displaced native population, the degraded branches or illegitimate descendants of the pure castes, and also foreigners, so as to constitute a mixed class of outcastes, pursuing means of livelihood not sanctioned for the pure. All these castes or classes were, from the political point of view, well-organized units with defined status and occupations, except the people-caste where we have an internal classification in three well-organized bodies, socially and economically apart from one another. Historically, these three sub-castes were (1) the great body of ranchmen, the cattle-raising population, with their dependants, the herdsmen and cow-boys; (2) the agriculturists or farmers who raised grain, and their supplementary associates who raised fruit and vegetables; and (3) the entire trading population, whether by land or by sea, maintaining active intercourse with foreign merchants. As Kauṭilya¹ puts it, the three legitimate occupations which the Vaiśya should follow to earn a living are Kṛṣi, Pāśupālya, and Vaṇijyā, i. e. Agriculture, Cattle-raising, and Trade. Subsidiary occupations developed in connexion with these, such as money-lending which, despised at first, became afterwards a recognized occupation for the twice-born.

c8.2.4

There were also the mechanics, artisans, carpenters, pedlars and the like, and the line between legitimate and objectionable labour was very often crossed, as is proved by the frequent denunciations in our legal literature of those that did so, and also by the relaxation of the legal strictness in cases of distress due to failure of legitimate living.¹ There were thus in course of development three specialized sub-castes dividing the unity of the people-caste, each pursuing its particular interests to the exclusion of other interests, so that ultimately the traders as a class made themselves into a distinct body, apart from the classes to whom belonged the care of agriculture and cattle. Thus the due development of the commercial interests of the country was secured, leading to the establishment of guilds. The same thing happened also in the case of the artisan class or the Śūdras, who came to be regarded as legitimate members of the Aryan body-politic with their occupations defined. These were, in the words of Kauṭilya (a very early authority), ‘Vārttā, Kārukuśīlavakarma ca’, i. e. agriculture, cattle-rearing, and trade, together with manufactures and practice of such arts as acting and the like, thus showing that the line of demarcation separating the occupations of the Vaiśya from those of the lower caste was not very rigid.¹