Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c13.142

c13.142

The land grants of this period, made in Central India, repeatedly refer to the tax-paying kuṭumbins and kārus (artisans).⁹ Land transactions from Bengal mention the names of the *kuṭumbins* who are informed of the gifts or the sale of land.¹ It is beyond doubt that the *kārus* were *śūdras*. This applies also to the *kuṭumbins*. The latter have been taken as cultivators² or houseslaves.³ It is also suggested that the *kuṭumbins* belonged to the professional artisan classes who cultivated land as a subsidiary means of livelihood.⁴ But it seems that, in contrast to the *kārus*, the *kuṭumbins* were cultivating householders. In the early Pāli texts they appear as householders of substance,⁵ and may have been vaiśyas. In the *Arthaśāstra* of Kauṭilya the sharecropping *kuṭumbins* have been taken as *śūdras* by T. Ganapati Sastri.⁶ The tax-paying cultivator families of the Gupta period may have included both vaiśyas and *śūdras*. But the position seems to have changed substantially in subsequent times. The kurmis, who constitute a numerous cultivating caste in West Bengal, Bihar and U.P. and are placed in the category of *śūdras*, seem to correspond to the *kuṭumbin*. The same is true of the kunbi caste found in Maharashtra and parts of Madhya Pradesh.