Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c13.61

c13.61

We have some idea of the wages of the workers who were employed as agricultural labourers and cowherds. Yājñavalkya, Nārada and Kātyāyana repeat the rates of payment as prescribed in the *Arthaśāstra* of Kauṭilya. According to this a cultivator should get 1/10 of the crop, a herdsman 1/10 of the butter and pedlar 1/10 of the sale proceeds as his wages.² Such a statement seems to be conventional in nature, and does not take into account the changes in wages during the Gupta period. These can be deduced from variant passages found in the *Śānti Parvan* and the law-books of Nārada and Bṛhaspati. As regards the wages of a herdsman the *Śānti Parvan* states that, if he keeps six kine for others, he should get the milk of one cow.³ It adds that for keeping a hundred cows a pair of animals will be given to the herdsman.⁴ Nārada gives a lower rate of remuneration. For tending a hundred cows a heifer shall be given as wages every year, for tending 200 cows a milch cow shall be given, and in both cases the cowherd shall be allowed to milk all the cows every eighth day.⁵ This works out at the rate of the milk of one cow for tending eight cows and modifies Nārada’s statement in which he lays down the conventional rate of 1/10 of butter as wages for a herdsmen. Contemporary Jain sources show that these provisions were often approximately followed in practice. We hear of a herdsman who was given the whole milk of a cow or a buffalo on the eighth day.⁶ In another case the remuneration is much higher; a cowherd received 1/4 of the milk produced as his wages.⁷ Thus there was a definite advance in the wages of herdsmen. Moreover, provisions for the possession of animals indicate the relatively independent status of the herdsman, who was supposed to own his own house and patch of land for fodder.