Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c10.176

c10.176

Hiring people for wages appears as a widespread phenomenon in the age of the Buddha. We come across several terms such as pessa, bhataka, purisa and kammakara, for wage earners. But the term kammakara is repeatedly mentioned in Pāli texts along with the term dāsa. The practice is also found in Āpastamba³ and continued in Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra and some other Sanskrit texts which use the word karmakara. All this suggests that the dāsa and karmakara belong to the same social category. Economically however wage earning appear only at an advanced stage of social development, for it presupposes considerable rational judgement and deliberate decision making. Indo-European languages have no common term for wage or wage earner. In Sanskrit terms for wage appeared in post-Vedic times. Later Vedic society did neither develop much private property nor produce much surplus. Only when these limitations were overcome, did the wage system appear. Although wages could be paid in kind, the wage system came into general vogue in India only with the increasing use of money and coming of some degree of marketisation which made it possible to purchase labour. As has been pointed out, the process involves several abstract ideas such as (1) purchase of labour power, (2) use of labour time according to the wishes of the purchaser, (3) calculation of the wages according to the labour time spent and the nature/kind of work performed, (4) some kind of contract regarding wages based on such a measurement and (5) separation of product from the producer and its consumption in a household to which he does not belong.⁴ The conditions for hiring labour were created in the post-Vedic society of the middle Gaṅgā basin because of the emergence of propertied households which needed to hire labour in order to exploit the resources which were beyond the capacity of the family labour. This factor was coupled with the availability of impoverished people, who either on account of war or on account of social subjection, found themselves unable to eke out a living out of their own family resources. Constant wars waged by Magadha from about 550 B.C. may have been a great source of slavery and dependent labour. Once slaves and hired labourers were made available in good numbers, rules and regulations had to be formed not only for governing wage labour but also for creating, identifying and maintaining a social order which could ensure its supply. Those who worked as slaves and hired labourers came to be known as śūdras.