Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c13.244

c13.244

At the district level, however, the head of the artisans, who was a śūdra, had some share in the work of administration. The two Dāmodarpur copper-plate inscriptions dated A.D. 433 and 438 represent the prathamakulika Dhṛtimitra as a member of the district council of Koṭivarṣa (in north Bengal), which was in charge of a kuinārāmātya.⁴ The term kulika has been interpreted variously as a senior town judge⁵ or a merchant.⁶ But such interpretations are not supported by early texts. The term kulika is probably identical with the kulaka of the Amarakosa, which means the head of the artisans and occurs in the śūdra-varga of that work.⁷ The term also seems to have been used in the sense of an artisan by the Nārada Smṛti, which includes the kulika in the list of false witnesses.⁸ Therefore the prathamakulika was the first among the kulikas,⁹ i.e. the head of the guilds of artisans, and as such had a place in the advisory council of the district of Koṭivarṣa in north Bengal. Probably the same practice was followed at the district headquarters of Vaiśālī, where we find individual seals of two prathamakulikas.¹⁰