History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c24.s3.t4.6

v1.c24.s3.t4.6

The usual practice was to sow the seeds after the field had been ploughed. This is indicated by numerous literary accounts, which, in describing the sowing processes in cultivation, speak of the sowing of seeds in a field that has been carefully tilled [*Sat.Br.* I.1.6.3 ; *Cu.V.* VII. 1.2 ; *Mil.* II. p. 269 f(VI.22)]. Generally seeds were scattered by hand (Ray, pp.100, 120). We get an idea of the method of sowing seeds from a verse in the *Mahābhārata* (VII.25.31) which compares it with the throwing of arrows in quick succession. But there were some other methods as well. In the *Matsyapurāṇa* (Ch. 154.404), the Ṛṣis, who approached Śiva for Umā’s marriage with him, when returning, bent their bodies before Śiva as done by a farmer in sowing seeds. This may be interpreted as referring to the practice of line-sowing in which the farmer, in dropping seeds in the furrows, keeps his body in a drooping position. Panini mentions the term *bījakaroti* (V.4.58), which is explained by the *Kārikā* to mean tilling along with the seeds (*saha bījena vilekhanam karoti*). This suggests a device by which a cultivator sows the seeds in the line of tilling through a cone attached to the pole of the plough (Agrawal,p.200). Medhātithi (on Manu II.112) also refers to seeds being sown with the help of the plough.