Local Government in Ancient India c8.2.3

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.