Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c18.29

c18.29

**Caste and Craft.** The rules of industrial apprenticeship as given by Nārada indicate that admission to a craft was free, provided the guardian's consent was obtained. Normally, no doubt, the Hindu system did not favour the free choice of occupations under its fundamental philosophical position that economic ends are not ends in themselves but must subserve the higher religious and spiritual ends of life. Therefore, as a social regulation, to promote the self-fulfilment of the individual, different castes were to pursue different crafts in consonance with the ideals and values for which each caste stood. But while this was the ideal, it did not mean that it did not permit of deviations from it in practice and in the actual circumstances of life. The *Smṛitis* agree that, under necessity which has no law (*āpad-dharma*), "in times of distress or failure to obtain a living through lawful labour," persons could take to any occupations. The economic life of the times is better revealed in the Buddhist texts with their touch of realism and references to its concrete facts and details. Some of the typical ones may be cited. In *Vinaya*, i, 77 and iv, 128, we find parents freely discussing the various professions and callings of the day which their son might choose, such as Writing [*Lekham*] or occupation of the Scribe or Clerk, Accountancy [*Gaṇanam*], and Money-changing [*Rūpam* to be learnt from the treatises called *Rūpa-sutta*]. In *Chullavagga*, v, 28 even the Bhikshus or Monks, with all their preoccupations of religious life, are allowed "the use of looms and of shuttles, strings, tickets, and all the apparatus belonging to a loom", presumably because it was considered that a Monk should be able to produce the scanty clothing prescribed for him, "the triple clothing" comprising the upper and lower cloth and a towel, so as to make the whole brotherhood and Vihāra self-contained in regard to a primary requisite of life. The Jātakas even tell of Brāhmans as physicians [iv, 361], goat-herds [iii, 401], merchants, hunters, snake-charmers [iv, 457], archers, and even cartwrights [iv, 207].