Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c16.45

c16.45

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.