Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c12.111

c12.111

While stating that the śūdras are meant for serving the brāhmaṇas he lays down that in fixing maintenance for them regard should be paid to their ability, work and the number of people they have to support.⁶ He repeats the instruction of Gautama that these servants should be given leavings from the table, old clothes and beds, but adds that they should also be given the refuge of grain.¹ These rules obviously refer to the remuneration of those śūdras who served as domestic servants. Manu further states that the wages of those employed in the service of the king—maids and servants—should be fixed according to the consideration of time and place.² These workers, high (*utkṛṣṭa*) and low (*apakṛṣṭa*), should get the daily wages varying from one paṇa to six paṇas.³ Besides, they should get provisions such as food, clothes etc. differing according to respective status.⁴ It is not clear whether the terms *utkṛṣṭa* and *apakṛṣṭa* refer to high and low varṇas, as they are interpreted in another context.⁵ But we learn from Patañjali that there was a wide difference between the wages of the karmakaras and the bhṛtakas on the one hand and those of the priests on the other. Thus, while the latter received cows as their wages, the former received only ¼ of a niṣka daily,⁶ i.e. 7½ niṣkas per month. It is suggested that the niṣka is identical with the kārṣāpaṇa.⁷ But if this proposition is accepted the daily wages of a worker will come to ¼ paṇa, while the nearly contemporary evidence of Manu indicates that the minimum wage of a labourer amounted to one paṇa, the maximum being six paṇas. In the *Arthaśāstra* the daily wage of a worker varies from ⅛ paṇa to 2½ paṇa, i.e. one to four times,⁸ but we have no means of estimating the relative purchasing power of the paṇa known from these sources.