Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c11.52

c11.52

Probably the main body of the śūdra population continued to be employed as agricultural labourers and slaves. Slavery as known from the Dharmasūtras, was domestic in nature. Kauṭilya is the first and the only brāhmaṇical writer who furnishes evidence of dāsas being employed in agricultural production on a substantial scale.³ In the early Pāli texts there are only three instances of big farms, but in the Mauryan period there seem to have existed numerous such farms, worked with slaves and hired labourers in the direct employ of the *sitādhyakṣa* (superintendent of agriculture). He supplied them with agricultural implements and other accessories, and requisitioned the services of carpenters, blacksmiths and other artisans for the purpose.⁴ This fact is broadly attested by Megasthenes, who mentions the officers superintending occupations connected with land and also those of the artisans.⁵ Arrian speaks of the superintendents of agriculture,⁶ who probably performed the functions of the *sitādhyakṣa*. Strabo informs us that the third caste of shepherds and hunters led a nomadic life and were given an allowance of corn from the king for keeping out the wild beasts and birds from the land.⁷ They seem to be similar to the nomadic aboriginals (*sarpagrāhādikāḥ*, i.e. people engaged in catching snakes and others),⁸ who were pressed into the service of agriculture by the *sitādhyapṣa*.⁹ The Mauryan state therefore was a great employer of dāsas and karmakaras, artisans and the aboriginal peoples, who apparently belonged to the śūdra class. And in this respect the organization of agricultural production in this period resembles to some extent that which prevailed in Greece and Rome.