Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c16: Appendix II: Proliferation of Servile and Peasant Castes

Śūdras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c16

Language: English

Appendix II: Proliferation of Servile and Peasant Castes

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The later Vedic texts speak of four varṇas, a few non-Aryan tribals such as the Niṣādas and Andhras, and of about a dozen craft groups. All these find place in the puruṣamedha described in the Yajus texts. The object of this sacrifice was to establish some kind of rapport between the patriarchal ‘Aryans’ living on cattle-rearing and plough-agriculture and matrilineal non-Aryans engaged in hunting and hoe-cultivation. The puruṣmedha was evidently a religious mechanism for bringing the divergent orders, occupations and non-Aryan peoples under one umbrella. But these tribes and occupations did not assume the characteristics of caste in the brāhmaṇical sense. Another device introduced in later Vedic times to absorb the non-Aryan peoples in the brāhmaṇical fold was the theory of the vrātya. Vrātyas, as later explained by Kauṭilya and Manu, were originally dvijas who came to be regarded as ‘second class citizens’ because of their deviation from vrata or vow. The Magadhas, originally a people who settled down in Magadha, belonged to this category, and their king appears as a vrātya ruler in later Vedic texts. But the vrātya also included many other peoples. It was a package term used by the brāhmaṇas to cover such tribal people in the eastern zone as lived on hoe-cultivation, producing some kind of primitive maize calld gavedhuka,¹ which served as their food and the fodder of their cattle. They seem to have been a matrilineal people. Rudra, the god of animals, was the god of the vrātyas, who knew neither ploughing nor trading. The vrātyas were possibly the black-and-red ware people who used microliths and some copper implements in the pre-iron age in eastern U.P., Bihar and Bengal, and lived on fish and rice. However their material equipment does not suggest large settlements in the thickly forested areas of the Gaṅgā basin. Evidently the vrātya people consisted of several tribes such as the Niṣādas, Puñjiṣṭhas and others whose names are not mentioned. Members of a clan headed by its chief may have lived together for six generations, and at a time they may have numbered 200.¹ A clan was collectively admitted to later Vedic peasant society through the ritual known as vrātyastoma, and gradually it settled down to plough agriculture and developed as a caste. Some names mentioned in Manu may look back to much earlier times, but all this is speculative.

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¹ K.P. Chattopadhyaya, The Ancient Indian Culture Contacts and Migrations (Calcutta, 1970), p. 28.

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¹ Ibid., pp. 25-26.

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With the establishment of a full-fledged agrarian economy based on iron-plough agriculture the ‘Aryan’ society went on expanding through conquests, and the problem of tribal acculturation assumed important dimensions in pre-Maurya times when we find at least sixteen large territorial kingdoms in northern India inhabited by the standard four orders and numerous new tribes. The spread of iron technology in eastern U.P. and Bihar, the beginnings of trade and commerce, the use of coins and the rise of towns in the Gaṅgā basin naturally gave rise to many crafts, whose practitioners had to be given place in the brāhmaṇical social framework. Hence the Dharmasūtras evolved the theory of the anuloma and pratiloma, namely, the mixed castes formed as a result of miscegenation between men of the higher varṇas and women of the lower varṇas and vice versa. The number of such castes arose gradually. The Dharmasūtras mention twenty-four mixed castes, and Kauṭilya specifies sixteen; all of whom except vrātya are common to the Dharmasūtra list, which raises the total number of mixed castes to twenty-five. Obviously the list does not include all the crafts, twenty-eight of which are mentioned in the Digha Nikāya and eighteen of which seem to have been organized into guilds conventionally known as the aṣṭadaśa śreṇi in early Pāli texts.² The craft guilds did not develop into rigid castes so long as there was plentiful use of money, thriving towns meeting the needs of their rural hinterlands and vice versa, and expanding trade and commerce from about the fifth ceutury B.C. to about the fifth century A.D. The economic setup made room for considerable mobility in the case of craftsmen and merchants for whom the taboos regarding food and marriage habits had to be relaxed.

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² The number eighteen is latter applied to tīrthas (officers in the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya), parihāra (immunities), parvans and akṣauhiṇīs in the Mahābhārata, to Purāṇas and so on. Its multiple thirty-six appears in early medieval times to enumerate varṇas.

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But when we come to Manu’s tenth chapter, ascribable to late Gupta times, we have the remarkable spectacle of sixty-one mixed castes, most of them being the products of *pratiloma* or hypogamous unions. Later Hsüan Tsang notices so many mixed castes that he finds it difficult to describe them. Manu offers two explanations for their origin. First he takes recourse to the *vrātya* theory, which was modified in post-Vedic times. Baudhāyana identifies *vrātya* with the *varṇasaṃkara* and the third book of the *Arthaśāstra* of Kauṭilya roundly supports this view.¹ According to Kauṭilya the *vrātyas* are sons begotten by impure men of any of the four orders on a woman of lower caste.² Manu also characterises the *vrātya* as a mixed caste but excludes the śūdras from the process of producing the *vrātyas*. In addition to assigning a mixed origin to the *vrātya* both Kauṭilya and Manu call him a deviant from the established religious practice. According to Manu a twice-born (*dvijāti*) produces on a similar woman (*savaṛṇā*) those who do not observe *vrata* (*avratān*), and these people, who are not entitled to the sacred thread ceremony, are called *vrātya*.³ The *vrātya* brāhmaṇa produces on a brāhmaṇa woman Bhūrjakaṇṭaka, Āvantya, Vāṭadhāna, Puṣpadha and Śaikha.⁴ The progeny of the rājanya *vrātya* from a kṣatriya woman consist of the Jhallas, Mallas, Licchavis, Naṭas, Karaṇas, Khasas and Draviḍas.⁵ From the vaiśya *vātya* on a vaiśyā are produced Sudhanvā, Ācārya, Kārūṣa, Vijanma, Maitra and Sātvata.⁶ Thus Manu enumerates in all eighteen *vrātya* mixed castes. Although divided into three categories of brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya and vaiśya, they are all reduced to the position of śūdras inasmuch as they are not entitled to *upanayana* and consequently Vedic studies. In addition to these vrātya castes, Manu enumerates twelve kṣatriya castes who were reduced to śūdrahood on account of abandoning their rituals and lack of contact with the brāhmaṇas.¹ These are Pauṇḍraka, Auḍra, Draviḍa, Kāmboja, Yavana, Śaka, Pārada, Pahlava, Cīna, Kirāta, Darada and Khasa.² They are as good as vrātyas, for they are also distinguished by the lack of *upanayana*. Since two mixed castes mentioned in the second list are also found in the first list, the total number of the vrātya and semi-vrātya castes comes to twenty-eight.

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¹ AŚ, III. 7.

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² According to Kangle’s translation of AŚ, III. 7 *vrātyas* are produced by impure men of three higher varṇas on women of the same varṇa.

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³ X. 20.

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⁴ X. 21.

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⁵ X. 22.

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⁶ X. 23.

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¹ X. 43-44.

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² Ibid.

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It is difficult to identify all the twenty-eight *jātis* ethnically, linguistically, geographically and occupationally. The Āvantya (*people of* Avanti), and Vāṭadhāna (mentioned as a people in the *Mahābhārata*) definitely belong to the category of tribes and peoples, and at least the former lived in the Malwa area. The Sātvata tribe also belonged to western India, and if we identify the Maitra with the Maitraka, which is grammatically a diminutive of the former, the Maitra belonged to Valabhī situated in the Kathiawar region of Gujarat. The Mallas lived in earlier times in the foothills of the Himalayas, and in Gupta times the Licchavis had set up their rule in Nepal, where they made land grants to the brāhmaṇas. The Jhallas may have been their neighbours, and were probably the remnants of a tribe. The title *jhalla* is still prevalent, and we have a district called Jhalawar in Rajasthan. The Pauṇḍrakas belonged to north Bengal, the Auḍras to Orissa, and the Draviḍas to south India, and all the three are mentioned by Manu in the same geographical order. Similarly a set of foreign peoples – the Yavana, Śaka, Pārada and Pahlava – is mentioned in a neat geographical and chronological order which also includes the borderline Kāmbojas; they all belonged to north-western India. We have another group of local and foreign peoples belonging to northern and eastern India. They are mixed together as Cīna, Kirāta, Darada and Khasa; many of these find place in the *Mahābhārata*, and the Khasas are also mentioned as a people in Pāla inscriptions along with the Hūṇa and Kulika. Karūṣa can be identified as a people of the forested area of Bihar covering the districts of Sasaram and Palamau. All told nineteen out of the twenty mixed castes of Manu appear to be indigenous or foreign tribes, mostly living in the periphery of the Āryāvarta or Brahmāvarta which was the area of the Aryan culture according to Manu. Thus the myth of the vrātyahood or the status resulting from the loss of ritual was invented to facilitate the admission of local and foreign tribes as non-dvija members of society. However these members enjoyed varying degrees of respectability as degraded brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas, vaiśyas and śūdras.

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Of the remaining nine vrātya castes mentioned by Manu bhūrjakaṇṭaka, puṣpadha,¹ śaikha and acārya seem to be degraded priests or followers of different religious sects which tended to crystallize into castes. Naṭas and karaṇas are occupational groups; sudhanvā may have been a group of archers, while vijanma literally means an illegitimate child. Thus the vrātya theory was used by Manu on a large scale to cover all categories — ethnic, occupational and territorial — which had been assimilated in brāhmaṇical society as castes. It is likely that the tenth chapter of Manu, which theorises about the legitimisation of these peoples as castes, is a work of about the fifth century by when all these tribes had been assimilated into brāhmaṇical society.

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¹ The bhūrjakaṇṭaka may have something to do with the Bhojaka, rst mentioned in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa.

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The second explanation given by Manu for the origin of numerous castes is the extension of the theory of anuloma and pratiloma, an idea which also forms part of the vrātya theory. More than thirty castes are accounted for by means of this theory. The origins of a good many of these are explained in the Dharmasūtras, and in several cases the varṇasaṃkara theory applied by Manu runs counter to them. The inconsistencies involved in accounting for the varṇasaṃkara origin of the same caste in different ways by different lawgivers including Manu have been brought out in an article.² They demonstrate that this theory was fictitious. Whether it is deviation from prescribed varṇa duties or the miscegenation between the varṇas or both the relentless logic of the four original varṇas is being imposed on all the castes. But it seems that many of the mixed castes had nothing to do with the four orders in either sense. The explanation has to be sought in certain historical processes.

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² Vivekananda Jha, "Varṇasaṃkara in the Dharmasūtras : Theory and Practice", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, xiii (1970), 273-88.

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The non-Sanskritic names of many of these mixed castes and their description as tribes or occupations at different places suggests that these were older tribes and occupations improvised into castes. We may possibly identify eighteen remnants of the older tribes in this Manu’s list of mixed castes. These are: Ābhīra, Āhiṇḍaka, Ambaṣṭha, Andhra, Caṇḍāla, Cuñcu, Dāśa, Kaivartta, Madgu, Mādhuka, Māgadha, Mārgava, Meda, Niṣāda, Pukkusa, Sairindhra, Vaidehaka, and Veṇa. The remaining thirteen, namely, āvṛta, āyogava, carmakāra, dhigvaṇa, kukkuṭaka, kārāvara, karaṇa, kṣattā, maitreyak, pāṇḍusopāka, pāraśava, sūta, śvapāka, and ugra might indicate occupation.¹ Antyāvasāyin, though defined as a separate mixed caste in Vasiṣṭha and Manu, seems to have been an omnibus term applied to all the untouchables.

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¹ The problem of occupational untouchables has been discussed by Vivekananda Jha in his Patna University Ph. D. thesis, Untouchables in Early India, Ch. III.

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The total number of vrātya and mixed castes mentioned by Manu comes to sixty-one, and, if we add the four broad orders, it comes to sixty-five. This list includes practically all the mixed castes mentioned in the Dharmasūtras and the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya. These are ambaṣṭha, antyāvasāyin, āyogava, bhṛjjyakaṇṭha, caṇḍāla, karaṇa, kṣattā, kukkuṭaka, māgadha, niṣāda, pāraśava, pukkusa or paulkasa, sūta, śvapāka, ugra, vaidehaka or vaideha, veṇa or vaina, and yavana. Dauṣmanta, dhīvara, kṛta, kuśīlava, mahiṣya, and mūrdhāvaṣikta are the mixed castes who are mentioned in the earlier lists but do not find place in Manu’s catalogue, although naṭa in Manu may correspond to kuśīlava in Kauṭilya. Vrātya appears as a mixed caste in Kauṭilya, but Baudhāyana and Manu treat it as a generic term, and Manu places twenty-eight mixed castes in this category. However the important thing to note is more than doubling of the mixed castes in Manu. In the earlier law-books altogether their number is twenty-five, but in the tenth chapter of Manu it rises to over sixty. The lists in either case may not be exhaustive, but they unmistakably reflect the trend towards the multiplication of castes.

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In post-Gupta times the number of ‘mixed’ castes goes on steadily multiplying, and from the numerical point of view Manu’s list is not very much different from the one given in the tenth chapter of the Brahma khaṇḍa of the *Brahmavaivarta Purāṇa*, attributable to the tenth century. The latter counts seventy-two mixed castes, of which many are common to Manu. However the additional castes, mentioned in this Purāṇa, comprise about fifty tribes and craft groups who do not appear in Manu.

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It is obvious that we can neither accept Manu’s explanation of the proliferation of castes nor its further projection in later texts. Then how did this number increase? Since many of the mixed castes were originally tribes, we have to find out the circumstances under which they were made part of the caste system. As stated earlier, conquest and territorial expansion brought the caste or varṇa-based rulers into contact with the tribal, aboriginal people all over the country. Since the established values regarding property, social orders and patriarchal family were not shared by the tribal people who did not understand the language of the ruling class, by persisting in their old ways of life they created troubles for these rulers. Aśoka had to face difficulties, and he tried to convert them to civilized life by propagating principles of dharma among them. He claims to have achieved success, but we have no idea of its extent.

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The society which received the tribals in pre-Manu times and the methods through which it assimilated them changed after the age of Manu. Although the earlier society was varṇa-divided, it was not sharply marked by unequal distribution of land leading to the establishment of strong private rights in it. Independent peasants formed the backbone of the society which was also served by a considerable amount of trade and commerce, a good many thriving towns and handicrafts, and a widespread use of metallic money. The tribals therefore were annexed to a four-tier society, and several of them were absorbed as kṣatriyas and vaiśyas. The vrātya list of Manu does not speak of any specific śūdra caste. On the other hand it specifies twelve second-class kṣatriya castes (all of them being originally tribal peoples, foreign and indigenous) and six vaiśya castes tribes. The number of the brāhmaṇa vrātya castes is five, out of whom only two appear to be remnants of original tribes. It seems that the vrātya theory meant for according recognition to tribals annexed to brāhmaṇical society had started much earlier, and if Manu’s vrātya examples are taken as marking the climax of the old process, it would appear that most tribals were given place in the second and third strata of society, in other words as warriors and peasants.

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The mechanism for absorbing tribals involved the support of brāhmaṇa priests and Buddhist monks who received gifts consisting of cash money supplemented by grants of pieces of land. This can be said on the basis of epigraphic evidence from western Maharashtra and in the Sanchi and Bharhut areas. The nature of gift was determined by the medium of exchange prevalent in *circa* B.C. 200-A.D. 500. The Buddhist missionaries, like the *dharmamahāmātras* of Aśoka, must have played an important part in propagating Buddhist social ethics among the tribal people. This ethic emphasised the values of patriarchal family, individual property, respect towards elders, monks, priests, etc., preservation of cattle wealth, and respect for kṣatriyas and brāhmaṇas, for according to the later Buddhist texts the Buddha was born only in the two higher varṇas. It was in this phase that a good portion of Maharashtra and Gujarat was acculturated, and, because of the strength of the four-strata system, in these areas almost all the four orders came to be established.

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Cash grants were supplemented by grant of pieces of land, mostly belonging to the royal demesne (*rājakam khetam*) in western Maharashtra where we have the earliest inscriptional evidence. Villages also began to be granted, but such grants transferred the royal revenues in the donated areas and not their ownership. In any case in Gupta and post-Gupta times the mechanism of gift-making changed materially. Cash endowments were replaced mainly by land endowments, and Buddhist receivers by brāhmaṇa beneficiaries.

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Later rulers, instead of deputing *dharmamahāmātras* or *anta-mahāmātras*, adopted the practice of planting brāhmaṇas in the tribal areas through land grants. Between the second and fifth centuries brāhmaṇas were granted land in good numbers in the Deccan—in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Land grants to brāhmaṇas on a considerable scale appear in Madhya Pradesh in the fourth-fifth centuries, in Orissa in the fifth-seventh centuries, in West Bengal and Bangladesh during the same period, in Assam in the seventh century and in Himachal Pradesh and Nepal in the fifth-seventh centuries. To the sixth-seventh centuries belong an appreciable number of grants issued to brāhmaṇas by the Maitraka princes of Valabhi in Gujarat. In short in the fourth-seventh centuries large-scale land grants were made to members of the priestly order in the outlying, peripheral, backward (and in some cases mountainous), and aboriginal areas such as Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bengal, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Nepal. In some cases the number of landed beneficiaries was quite large. In the fifth century 1000 brāhmaṇas were endowed with land in one district by a charter by Pravarasen II.¹ In the seventh century, 205 brāhmaṇas were granted land through a single charter in Assam, and 100 brāhmaṇas through a single charter in the wild tracts of the Tipperah district of Bangladesh. In the same century 23 brāhmaṇas in one case and 12 in another received lands in the Cuttack area, and in the following century 200 brāhmaṇas were given lands in the Balasore district of the same state.²

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¹ D. C. Sircar (ed.), *Sel. Inscr.*, i, Bk. III, no. 62, ll. 19-20.

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² For more instances see B. P. Mazumdar, "Collective Landgrants in Early Medieval Inscriptions", *JAS*, x (1968), 7-17.

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Since the priestly beneficiaries were endowed with almost all the fiscal rights and privileges which were enjoyed by the kings, they were faced with the problem of collecting regular share of the produce, levying forced contributions such as food, fuel, grass, timber, etc., and imposing forced labour called *viṣṭi* or *pīḍā*. If necessary they could lease their land and fiscal rights to others and replace one set of peasants by another. They had also the authority to punish offences against family and property. Although in many cases the villagers were instructed to carry out the orders of the beneficiaries and in some cases specifically transferred to them, these provisions in themselves would not help the brāhmaṇas unless these were constantly enforced. But for enjoying all these fiscal and economic concessions and maintaining law and order the brāhmaṇas did not possess any administrative apparatus. In a way they appeared as the enjoyers of a good portion of the produce but did not have the coercive machinery to compel the peasants and artisans to produce. What they mainly possessed was the strength of refined rituals and the ability to propagate the varṇa ideology and convert the people to it. For various civil and criminal offences the Smṛtis prescribe not only fines and punishments enforceable by the government but also elaborate penances (prāyaścittas), which obviously were enforced by the brāhmaṇas. But these would not mean anything to the tribals who did not subscribe to the varṇa system and the values associated with it. The brāhmaṇas therefore accelerated the age-old practice of converting the tribes into castes within their established social framework. This is the reason why the lists of Manu and of the late Purāṇas disclose a large number of mixed castes, all śūdras, whose tribal origins can be detected without difficulty.

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In backward areas the land grant economy led to the accession of numerous tribes as varṇasaṃkara śūdras; in settled areas it led to the loss of mobility at the lower levels. The loss of mobility was further caused by the decline of foreign trade. One of the reasons of the flourishing trade in the first two centuries of the Christian era was the establishment of stability over large areas on account of the Han, Kuṣāṇa and Iranian (Arcasid) empires, all of which carried trade with one another and the Roman empire. The first three empires disappeared in the middle of the third century,¹ and decline set in in the Roman empire a century later. Trade with the eastern Roman empire continued in a depleted form in Gupta times, for some Byzantine coins of the fifth-sixth centuries have been found in India. But this trade sharply declined from the sixth century. One of the reasons was the acquisition of knowledge of silk by the Byzantium which ceased to depend for its silk on India from the seventh century. Even earlier we have an indication of sharp fall in silk production in western India, for in the middle of the fifth century a guild of silk weavers migrated from the Nausari-Broach region, the hinterland of the Gujarat ports, to Mandasor in Malwa where they gave up their old vocation and proliferated into the occupations of archers, story tellers, religious expounders (teachers), astrologers, warriors, and ascetics.¹ Obviously all these trades were non-productive. On account of fall in demand for trade similar things may have happened to other craft guilds engaged in petty commodity production.

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¹ Michael Loewe, “Aspects of World Trade in the First Seven Centuries of the Christian Era”, *JRAS*, no. 2 (1971), 177.

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¹ Sel. Inscr., i, Bk. III, no. 24, verses 16-19.

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Decline of trade in the western world and central Asia was not offset by trade with China and South-East Asia, which possibly in the third-fourth centuries, supplied gold to India in return for beryl, cotton fabrics and sugar. During the rule of the Wei dynasty (A.D. 220-265) the Chinese learnt from Indians the art of making from stone coloured glass which could be passed off as beryl.² Soon after the sixth century A.D. they learnt cotton cultivation and the manufacture of textiles from Central Asia and South-East Asia, where it was introduced through Indian contacts.³ They also learnt the art of making sugar from Magadha in the reign of the Tang Emperor Tai-tsang (A.D. 627-649).⁴ Hence by the seventh century or so China and South-East Asia ceased to depend on India for the supply of sugar, cotton goods and precious stones. This, therefore, undermined Indian trade in this direction. What India supplied later consisted mainly of perfumes and elephant tusks.

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² Tan Chang, "Ancient China's Quest for Indian Products", The Sunday Statesman, Magazine Section, 6 April 1969.

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³ Ibid.

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⁴ Ibid.

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Commercial decline is also indicated by progressive decline in the pure gold content of the Gupta gold coins as compared with those of the Kuṣāṇas. The Vāsudeva coins have 118 grains of pure gold, the Candragupta-Kumāradevī coins 109, certain Samudra Gupta coins have 105-04, other Samudra Gupta-Candra Gupta I coins have 99-98, the Archer coins of Kumāra Gupta I have 92, the similar coins of Skanda Gupta have 79-67, and those of the successors of Narasimha Gupta have 73-54 grains.¹ Thus by the middle of the fifth century the pure gold content of the Gupta coins is reduced to almost half the gold content of the Kuṣāṇa coins. By the end of the sixth century gold coins almost disappear and become rare for about four hundred years. In western India under the Śakas and Guptas we have a good number of silver coins which were apparently used for trade in that area, but they practically disappear in post-Gupta times. All this must have meant a great setback to heavy commercial transactions.

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¹ Based on S. K. Maity, *Economic Life of North India in Gupta Period* (Calcutta, 1957), Appendix III, p. 202 and Table I (c) on p. 205; also see my "Indian Feudalism Retouched", *The Indian Historical Review*, i (1974), 322-23.

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Medium and petty transactions, especially internal, could be carried on through copper coins, but we have very few copper coins after Candra Gupta II. Imitations of Kuṣāṇa copper coins have been found in certain parts of the country, but their number is limited as compared to those of the Kuṣāṇas. Paucity of coins therefore indicates substantial shrinkage of the internal market from the middle of the fifth century.

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The decline of trade and petty commodity production is further underlined by the decay of urban settlements in Gupta times and their desertion in the post-Gupta period. Excavated urban sites in north India show a constant improvement in structures from about the fifth century B.C. to about the third century A.D., the Kuṣāṇa levels providing the most flourishing phase. In Pakistan the Kuṣāṇa phase is so thriving that it is called the golden age of that country. But when we come to Gupta levels in northern India, we notice that Kuṣāṇa bricks are re-used in their buildings. In post-Gupta times most excavated sites were abandoned, for we have little or no signs of habitation. This is also attested by Hsüan Tsang. Although his observations are confined to the decay of the Buddhist towns, their number is considerable, and in many cases his statement can be substantiated archaeologically.² The decay of towns therefore would mean less activity for crafts and commerce.

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² R. S. Sharma, "Decay of Gangetic Towns in Gupta and Post-Gupta Times," *Journal of Indian History*, Golden Jubilee Volume, 1973 pp. 135-50.

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Coupled with the practice of land grants the decay of trade created conditions for reversion from semi-commodity production to some kind of natural economy in which people were mainly attached to the lands and all remunerations were made through land grants and grant in the share of produce. Although for acquiring lands the brāhmaṇas moved from one place to the other, artisans and merchants did not have to move. Social intercourse in the form of marriage and interdining was confined to a small circumference, and it is prescribed that a brāhmaṇa should not give his daughter to a person who lives at a long distance. On account of loss of mobility, territorial and occupational, at the lower levels of society in a purely agrarian economy guilds of artisans based on occupation tended to fossilize into castes. This may have been particularly true of the settled older areas.

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The decline of crafts and commerce lessened the importance of traders and craftsmen and hardened the attitude of landed classes—brāhmaṇas and kṣatriyas—towards them. Craftsmen working in bamboo and leather were placed in the category of untouchable castes. But the basic factor that explains the increase in the number of mixed, śūdra castes also operated in the case of the conversion of the tribal peoples and in the fossilization of craft occupations. It was the expansion of land grant economy, and the introduction of feudal localism in which everybody had to stick to his land, village, master or client. Clients and masters might change, but not their artisans and peasants. This changelessness, which was the result of a society which practically stopped petty commodity production, prepared the climate for the perpetuation and proliferation of castes.

c16.47

It seems that in earlier times artisans sold their products in the market and were paid in cash. But in the beginning of the sixth century in addition to a share in the produce land grants became an important mode of paying them. We have indirect indication of service grants in a sale deed recorded on a copper plate of A.D. 507 from Rajshahi district in Bangladesh. In defining the plots of land granted to brāhmaṇas, the plots of land belonging to the neighbouring cultivators are mentioned in detail. This list also includes many artisans. We hear of the field belonging to kālāka,¹ which may be identical with kaulika or weaver. There is clear mention of the ground belonging to a carpenter called Viṣṇuvardhaki,² and to a vaidya or physician.³ We come across three plots of land each belonging to three persons whose names end in vilāla,⁴ who are thought to have been a mechanic caste like carpenter.⁵ In addition to this we also come across ja(jo)lāri-kṣetra,⁶ which may possibly belong to a weaver. Similarly the term vi(du)ggurika-kṣetra⁷ might mean a field belonging to a vāgurika or a hunter. Although in some of these cases identification of artisans is doubtful, there is no doubt that service grants were given to artisans and others. This coupled with the practice of remunerating their services in kind would naturally make them attached to their plots of land and make their movements difficult. It would hasten the process of the conversion of crafts into castes and contribute to the growth of the jajmāni system.

Linked texts (5)

Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit
Mānava Dharmaśāstra — Manu & Bhṛgu, Sanskrit
Brahmavaivartapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Aitareyabrāhmaṇa — Mahidāsa Aitareya, Sanskrit
Mahābhārata — Vyāsa, Sanskrit