Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c11.103

c11.103

As regards the fixation of wages, Kauṭilya enunciates the general principle that wages should be fixed according to the time and quality of the work. This certainly indicates a high stage of social development in which the importance of time, skill and labour invested in a piece of work was very well recognised, Kauṭilya further states that artisans, musicians, physicians, cooks and other workmen shall obtain as much wages as similar persons employed elsewhere usually get, or as much as experts shall fix.¹ The servant shall get the promised wages; but if they are not settled first, a cultivator (i.e. an agricultural labourer) should get 1/10 of the crops grown, a herdsman 1/10 of the butter clarified and a trader 1/10 of the sale proceeds.² Here a distinction has to be made between the share-cropping agricultural labourers who were entitled to receive 1/4 or 1/6 of the crops on the crown lands, and the general agricultural labourer who received only 1/10 of the crops.