Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c12.96

c12.96

According to Manu, one of the qualifications of the person with whom money should be deposited is that he should be an ārya.³ This naturally excludes the śūdras. But in the second century A.D. in the Sātavāhana territory money was deposited with the potters, the oil millers⁴ and even the weavers.⁵ This practice prevailed among the lay devotees of Buddhism, who made such deposits for the purpose of providing robes and other necessities for the monks. But the orthodox also followed such practices, for we have a record which shows that during the reign of Huviṣka (circa A.D. 106-138) a sum of money was deposited by a chief with the guild of flour makers at Mathurā, out of the monthly interest of which a hundred brāhmaṇas were to be served daily.⁶ These practices provide further evidence of the independent functioning of craftsmen organised in guilds. Evidently they could purchase their raw materials and implements with money deposited with them, and could pay interest on it out of the proceeds from the sale of their commodities.