Chandragupta Maurya and His Times c15.13

c15.13

It may be noted that the Buddhist literature of the times holds up the ideal of the landlord cultivating his own land from which he should not divorce himself. It attaches a social stigma to the agricultural labourer or hireling who is ranked below the slave [*Dīgha Nikāya*, I, 51; *Aṅguttara Nikāya*, I, 145, 206; *Milinda Pañha*, 147, 331]. The *Jātakas* [e.g., I, 339] deplore as a sign of social decadence the distressing sight of sturdy peasants leaving at home their own empty barns, and swelling the ranks of landless agricultural labourers to toil as hirelings on the estates of royal capitalists.