Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c10.29

c10.29

It has been suggested that the Jātakas represent a state of society which provided suitable conditions for trade, perhaps during the Sātavāhana period.³ But the finds of punch-marked silver and copper coins coupled with a large number of iron objects, assigned to the period of the North Black Polished Ware (*circa* 600-250 B.C.), clearly point to the definite beginnings of urban life⁴ and the rise of trade and commerce.⁵ Besides, Kauṭilya’s regulations regarding industry and commerce, if true of Mauryan times, do presuppose some progress in such economic activities in the earlier period. Again, the Jātakas hardly refer to the trade and commerce of southern India, with which the Romans were in active intercourse under the Sātavāhanas. Nor do the Jātakas allude to so many guilds and occupations as we find in the Sātavāhana period.⁶ Moreover, since the Buddhist birth stories are represented in the reliefs and sculptures of Sāñchī and Bhārhut in the second century B.C., they can be taken back at least two centuries, earlier, especially in a country where old religious traditions continued to provide the motif for works of art till medieval times. Thus although the *gāthās* and past stories may be regarded as reflecting the state of affairs existing in the two or three centuries preceding the establishment of the Mauryan empire, for the purpose of our study those parts of the Jātakas which deal with the caṇḍālas may be regarded as later additions because the Jātaka references to these despised people are not corroborated fully by the brāhmaṇical texts of the pre-Mauryan period. We may also note that the long list of mixed castes given by Manu does not find its counterpart in the Jātakas.