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A History of Agriculture in India v1.c28: Chapter 22. The Magadhan Empire

A History of Agriculture in India v1.c28

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English

Contents

Chapter 22. The Magadhan Empire

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FOURTH CENTURY B.C. CIVIC LIFE, ARTISANS, MERCHANTS AND MONEY

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MAGADHA emerged as the most powerful State in eastern India in the sixth century B.C. Bimbisara (ruled 544 B.C. to 492 B.C.), the king of Magadha, conquered Anga. Bimbisara made Magadha the paramount power. He was succeeded by his son Ajatasatru, who ruled from 492 B.C. to 460 B.C. Ajatasatru began the construction of fortifications of Rajgir. He was succeeded by Udayin (460-444 B.C.), who made his capital at Pataliputra, the present-day Patna. In 413 B.C., the house of Bimbisara was overthrown by Nanda. Mahapadma Nanda conquered Kalinga and Kosala. The Nandas of Magadha used elephants on a large scale for their warfare.

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In 325 B.C., the Nanda dynasty was overthrown by Chandragupta Maurya, whose chief adviser was Kautilya, also called Chanakya, the author of the *Arthashastra*. In 322 B.C., Chandragupta Maurya returned to Magadha from the Punjab with a large army, killed the Nanda king and occupied Pataliputra. In 305 B.C., Chandragupta defeated Seleucus, the Greek ruler of western Asia. Seleucus not only ceded to Chandragupta eastern Afghanistan, Baluchistan and the area west of the Indus but also gave him his daughter in marriage.

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The sources for information on the life of the people and their agriculture in the Buddhist period are Kautilya's *Arthashastra* (fourth century B.C.), Pali texts *Mahavagya* and *Kullavagya* (third century B.C.), which describe the daily life of the Buddhist monks, and Jataka stories, which tell us about the previous incarnations of the Buddha. The sculptures of the railings and gateways of the stupas of Bharhut and Sanchi (second century B.C.) are also an important source of information on the dress, ornaments and appearance of the people of that age, and the fauna and flora of the period. Some of the Greeks who accompanied Alexander on his expedition to northern India in 326 B.C. left vivid impressions of the daily life of the Indians. In his *Anabasis of Alexander*, Arrian (Flavius Arrianus, A.D. 96 to A.D. 180) describes the life of Alexander from his accession to his death. He derived the information from the writings of Aristobulus of Cassandreia and Ptolemy, who accompanied Alexander on his campaign in the Punjab. Arrian also wrote the *Indika*, which is based on the accounts of the country given by Megasthenes and Eratosthenes. Megasthenes was sent on an embassy to Chandragupta Maurya, by Seleucus Nikator, king of Bactria. He lived in Pataliputra and wrote a book on India, also called *Indika*, which served as a source of information to many classical writers.¹

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¹ Majumdar, R.C. *The Classical Accounts of India*, p. 5

The People

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The Greeks noted that the Indians were a tall people—'tall and slender', says Arrian, 'lightly-built to a degree far beyond any other people.' On the other hand, Diodorus, following perhaps some other source, describes them as eminently tall and massive. In the south of India complexions approximate to those of the Ethiopians and in the north to the Egyptians. But in features there is not any marked difference, and no Indian people has woolly hair, like the Negro races, 'owing to the dampness of the Indian climate'. There was discussion among the Greeks whether the darkness of skin was due to the action of the sun or to a property in the water of the African and Indian rivers. The Indians, or some races among them, were believed by the Greeks, in striking contrast with truth, to be singularly free from diseases and long-lived. The people of Sind, Onesicritus said, sometimes reached 130 years. The intellectual powers which they displayed in the arts and crafts were attributed, like their health and longevity, to the purity of the air and the rarefied quality of water, but their health was also attributed to the simplicity of their diet and their abstinence from wine.

Dress

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Megasthenes noted down a variety of points which struck him in the manners and customs of the people. A noble simplicity seemed to him the predominant characteristic. Nearchus seems to have described the dress of the people in the Indus region. They wore clothes of cotton, and this linen from the trees is of a more shining white than any other linen, unless it be that the people themselves being dark make the linen appear all the whiter. The reference is obviously to tree-cotton, *Gossypium arboreum*. They have a tunic of tree-linen down to the middle of their shins, and two other pieces of stuff, one thrown about their shoulders and one twisted round their heads. And the Indians wear ear-rings of ivory, those that are very well-off.... Also they dye their beards different colours. In the summer they protect themselves with umbrellas. They wear shoes of white leather very elaborately worked; and the soles of the shoes are variegated, and high-heeled so as to make the wearer seem taller.

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Megasthenes observed at Pataliputra that in dress the Indians, for all their general simplicity, indulged a love of richness and bright colours, wearing ornaments of gold and gems and flowered muslins, with umbrellas carried after them.

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‘Nearchus described their dress in war. ‘The foot-soldiers carried a bow as long as the body.... To shoot, they rested one end of it on the ground and set their left foot against it. They had to draw the string far back, since the arrows in use were six feet [1.8 metres] long. In their left hand, they carried long narrow shields of raw hide, nearly co-extensive with the body. Some had javelins instead of bows. All carried long two-handed swords with a broad blade. The horsemen had two javelins and a shield smaller than that of the foot-soldiers.’ In a Sanchi relief we see two soldiers carrying bows of this type (Fig. 167).

Diet

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‘Their diet was distinguished from that of the Greek by the absence of wine, which they drank only in religious ceremonies; but rice-beer was generally drunk. Their staple food was pulpy rice. Each man took his food by himself when he felt inclined; for they had no fixed times for common meals. When a man would sup, a table was placed beside him and a gold dish set upon it, in which first was put the rice, boiled after the manner of the Greek chondros (gruel) and then on the top of it seasoned meats, done up in the Indian way. Their system of gymnastic exercise differed from that of the Greeks: it consisted principally of massage, and they used smooth rollers of ebony for shaping their bodies.

Honesty and Truthfulness of People

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‘Megasthenes observed the much greater part played by oral tradition and memory, as compared with written documents, than was the case in the Greek world, though it cannot be asserted that writing was unknown, as Strabo would seem to imply, since in one passage he referes to written inscriptions. In the sphere of morals, the salient characteristic of the Indian people was a high level of veracity and honesty. ‘An Indian has never been convicted of lying’, he wrote in one passage, and in another pointed to the rarity of law-suits as evidence of their frank dealing. ‘They are not litigious. Witnesses and seals are unnecessary when a man makes a deposit; he acts in trust. Their houses are usually unguarded’. During the time that Megasthenes was on Chandragupta’s camp, out of a multitude of 400,000 men there were no convictions for thefts of any sums exceeding 200 drachmas (about £8). In Sind, Onesicritus said, no legal action could be taken, except for murder and assault.

Punishment for Crime

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‘The laws, Nearchus said, were preserved by oral tradition. According to Megasthenes, many of them were sufficiently severe. A man convicted of giving false witness suffered mutilation. In the case of bodily harm being inflicted, not only was the principle of an eye for an eye observed, but the hand was cut off as well. To cause a craftsman the loss of his eye or hand was an offence punished by death.

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Fig. 168. A bullock-cart, with a pair of bullocks in the foreground. A medallion from Bharhut, 200 B.C. Calcutta Museum (Courtesy: Archaeological Survey of India)

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Fig. 169. Punch-marked silver coins of the Buddhist period. Top row, left, Bent bar variety, silver, sixth century B.C.; right, Punch-marked cup-shaped variety, silver, fourth century B.C.; Bottom row, left, Punch-marked, silver, third century B.C.; right, Silver coin of Sophytes, a prince of the Punjab, the obverse of the coin showing a cock with large spurs. c. 300 B.C. (Courtesy: National Museum, New Delhi)

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Fig. 170. The threshing of wheat near Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. Seven bullocks are tied with a rope to a wooden post (methi). They walk around it for hours and thresh out the grain. This is a practice as ancient as the Buddhist period

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Fig. 171. The winnowing of wheat in Madhya Pradesh

Daily Life

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'As regards daily life, the public side of it was sufficiently gay. The people were frugal in their diet, and sober, except on occasions of festivals. The chief display of luxury was in dress. The inns, hostelries, eating-houses, serais, and gaming-houses were evidently numerous; sects and crafts had their meeting-places and the latter their public dinners. The business of entertainment provided a livelihood for various classes of dancers, singers, and actors. Even the villages were visited by them. There were penalties for refusal to assist in organizing public entertainment. The king provided, in amphitheatres constructed for the occasion dramatics, boxing, and other contests of men and animals, and also spectacles with displays of pictured objects of curiosity, and the streets were lighted up for festivals. Then there were also the royal processions, when the king went forth to view his city or to hunt.

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'In domestic life, the joint-family system prevailed. A boy and a girl attained majority at the age of sixteen and of twelve respectively. Adoption—legitimated by the king—was common. There were the four regular and four irregular forms of marriage, which was dissoluble by mutual consent or prolonged absence.'²

Pataliputra

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Chandragupta's capital, Pataliputra, on the site of the modern Patna, is described by Megasthenes as a splendid city, standing on the northern bank of the Son. It was the shape of a parallelogram, roughly nine miles by two [14.5 × 3.² kilometres], and was surrounded by a broad, deep moat, which received the drainage and was connected at its two extremities with the river. The city wall was a massive timber palisade, with drawbridges, towers and gates at regular intervals. The town itself was well planned and laid out, with inns, gaming-houses, theatres, race-courses, and meeting-halls for guilds and religious sects. There were handsome bazaars where indigenous and foreign goods were displayed for sale. The streets were crowded with a busy and many-coloured throng of men and animals. The houses were two or three storeys high, and, as they were mostly wooden, elaborate precautions were taken against an outbreak of fire. In the heart of the city was the royal palace, which stood in the midst of a walled-in park, with ornamental trees, tame peacocks and pheasants, and lakes full of sacred fish.

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² Rapson, E.J. The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I, pp. 370, 371 and 433

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The palace was built of wood, exquisitely carved; the pillars were plated with gold and silver, ornamented with designs of vines and birds. The king lived in great state. "In the Indian royal palace", we are told, "there are wonders with which neither Memnonian Susa in all its glory, nor the magnificence of Ecbatana can hope to vie."³

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³ Rawlinson, H.G. *India — A Short Cultural History*, pp. 66-67.

Ring Wells

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In the ring wells, instead of bricks, terracotta rings were used. Ring wells appeared in India in the sixth century B.C. and continued till about the second century of the Christian era. The ring wells of Ropar are dated from fifth to fourth centuries B.C. to the beginning of the Christian era. According to Y.D. Sharma, ring wells can be seen even at present in the south and in Orissa and Bengal. Their present use is for drinking water. In ancient times, they were mostly used as soakage or sullage pits. In some places, undoubtedly, they also must have been in use for drinking-water. In ancient times, they appeared often in clusters. In Ropar, there were five of them in a cluster, their depth being different from one another. When one was silted up, another was dug up close by (Fig. 69).

Artisans

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In the arts and crafts, a considerable proficiency and specialization of industry had been reached. A list of callings given in the Milindapanha, reveals three separate industries in the manufacture of bows and arrows, apart from any ornamental work on them. In the same work, there is allusion to a professional winnower of grain.

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'Some trade-names, on the other hand, are comprehensive. The word *kammara* might be applied to a worker in any metal. *Vaddaki* apparently covered all kinds of woodcraft, including shipbuilding, cartmaking, and architecture, *thapati*, *tacchaka* (lit., planer), and *bhamakara* or turner being occupied with special modes of woodwork. A settlement of *vaddakis* is able to make both furniture and seagoing ships. Once more, the same worker in stone (*pasana-kottaka*) builds houses with the ruined material of a former *gama* and also hollows a cavity in a crystal as a cage for a mouse.'

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Important handicrafts like the three named above and their branches, the workers in leather, i.e. the leather-dressers, the 'painters', and others to the number of eighteen were organized into guilds (*seni*) according to Jataka records.

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Various types of workers are described by Rhys Davids as below.

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*The workers in wood.* They were not only carpenters, and cabinet-makers, but also wheelwrights; and the builders of houses, and of ships, and of vehicles of all sorts.

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*The workers in metal.* They made iron implements—weapons of all kinds, ploughshares, axes, hoes, saws, and knives. But they also did finer work—made needles, for instance, of great lightness and sharpness, or gold and (less often) silver work of great delicacy and beauty.

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The workers in stone. They made flights of steps, leading up into a house or down into a reservoir; faced the reservoir; laid foundations for the woodwork, of which the upper part of the houses was built; carved pillars and bas-reliefs; and even did finer work such as making a crystal bowl, or a stone coffer. Beautiful examples of these two last were found in the Sakiya Tope.

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The weavers. They not only made the clothes which the people wrapped round themselves as dress, but manufactured fine muslin for export, and worked costly and dainty fabrics of silk cloth and fur into rugs, blankets, coverlets, and carpets.

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Leather-workers. They made foot-covering and sandals worn by people mostly in cold weather; and also made embroidered and costly articles.

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Potters. They made all sorts of pots, dishes and bowls for domestic use; and often hawked their goods about.

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Ivory-workers. They made a number of small articles in ivory for ordinary use, and also costly carvings and ornaments.

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Dyers. They dyed the cloth made by the weavers.

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Jewellers. Some of their handiwork has survived, and is often represented in bas-reliefs. We know fairly well the shape and size of the ornaments they made.

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The fishermen. They fished only in the rivers. There is no mention of sea-fishing.

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The butchers. Their shops and slaughterhouses are mentioned several times.

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Hunters and trappers. They are mentioned as bringing on carts animal and vegetable products of the woods, and also venison and game for sale into the city. It is doubtful whether they were formed into guilds. But their industry was certainly a very important one. The large stretches of forest, open to all, separating most of the settlements, the large demand for ivory, fur, sinews, creepers, and all the other produce of the woods, and the congeniality of the occupation, all tended to encourage the hunters. And there is no reason to suppose that the very ancient instinct of the chase was confined to the so-called savages. The kings and nobles also, whether Aryan by blood or not, seem to have taken pleasure in it, quite apart from the economic question of food-supply.

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The cooks and confectioners. A numerous class, probably formed a guild.

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The barbers and shampooers. They had their guilds. They dealt in perfumes, and were especially skilled in arranging the elaborate turbans worn by the wealthier classes.

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The garland-makers and flower-sellers. They made garlands and sold flowers.

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Sailors. They were occupied for the most part in the traffic up and down the great rivers, and also going to sea. In some of the earliest documents we hear of sea voyages out of sight of land; in the later documents, such as the Jatakas, the mention of such voyages is frequent. The earlier documents speak of voyages lasting six months made in ships.

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‘And later texts, of about the third century B.C., speak of voyages down the Ganges from Benares to the mouth of the river and thence across the Indian Ocean to the opposite coast of Burma; and even from Bharukaccha (the modern Broach) round Cape Comorin to the same destination. It is clear, therefore, that during the whole of this period the occupation of the sailor was neither infrequent nor unimportant.’

Merchants and Trade

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‘Besides, the peasantry and the handicraftsman there were merchants who conveyed their goods either up and down the great rivers, or along the coasts in boats; or right across the country in carts travelling in caravans. These caravans, long lines of small two-wheeled carts, each drawn by two bullocks, were a distinctive feature of the times. The carts struggled along, slowly, through the forests, along the tracks from village to village kept open by the peasants. A typical bullock-cart and a pair of bullocks are seen in a Bharhut relief (Fig. 168). Smaller streams were crossed by gullies leading down to fords, the larger ones, in cart ferries. There were taxes and octroi at the border of each Mahajanapada and a heavy item in the cost was the hire of volunteer police who let themselves out in bands to protect caravans against robbers on the way. The cost of such carriage must have been great; so great that only the more costly goods could bear it.

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‘Silks, muslins, finer cloth and cutlery and armour, brocades, embroideries and rugs, perfumes and drugs, ivory and ivory work, jewellery and gold (seldom silver) were the main articles in which the merchants dealt.

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‘The activity of trade is indicated by the traffic on high roads (rajapatha, ‘routes royales’) and by-roads (banikpatha, ‘merchant roads’) the bustle at frontiers, ferries, tolls, and city-gates.’⁴

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⁴ Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, pp. 90-96

Money

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‘The most important feature of the economic development during this period was the use of coins as common currency. The system of barter, in vogue during the Vedic period, was gradually replaced by exchange in precious metals. Herodotus’s statement that the satrapy in India paid 360 talents of gold dust as annual tribute to the Achaemenid king of Iran shows that even in the 6th century B.C. dust or ingots of gold and silver served as currency.

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‘In the sixth century B.C., we find the use of actual coins, i.e. a piece of metal of regular shape, whose weight and fineness were guaranteed by a recognized authority. They were regularly issued by rulers, individual merchants, or corporations, and the State had no monopoly in this respect. As one or more figures were marked on these coins by a punch, as symbols of the issuing authority, these coins are generally known as punch-marked coins. They, however, bore no names, and, with rare exceptions, no legends at all, and some coins with similar devices were also cast. These coins bear no inscriptions and have symbols of various types such as human and animal figures, arms, trees, solar, lunar and planetary marks (Fig. 169). These coins appear to have been in circulation from 700 B.C. to A.D. 500. The coins of this variety are found throughout the length and breadth of India. The technique of minting punch-marked coins was a simple process. The metal was possibly melted in a crucible and the molten metal was poured on to a slab to cool. Then it was beaten on an anvil into sheets. The sheets were cut into small pieces which were later punched with symbols. Thousands of these coins found in different parts of India show that they formed regular currency for a long period.’

Indo-Greek Coins

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It is the Bactrian Greeks who first introduced coins with names and portraits of the rulers. The figure of the king on the obverse and of a deity or other symbols on the reverse are executed with a high degree of artistic skill. The credit for injecting art into the coinage of India goes to these Greek rulers. Not only the other foreign hordes who invaded India but even the Indian rulers adopted the system and issued coins of similar type. In a silver coin issued by Sophytes, a prince of the Punjab (c. 300 B.C.), we see him wearing a Greek helmet. On the reverse is an Aseel cock with large spurs (Fig. 169). Aseel is a fighting breed of poultry (Fig. 172). It is still popular with people in India who enjoy the sport of cock-fighting.

Standard

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The weight of the earliest coins was based on the system laid down in Manu-Samhita. Its unit was the rati or gunja berry weighing approximately 1.83 grains or 0.118 gram. Although no actual specimen of the suvarna or standard gold coin of 80 ratis is known, the silver purana or dharna or 32 ratis, and of the copper karshapana of 80 ratis, as well as their various multiples and subdivisions have been discovered all over India.

Relative Value of Metals

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We have no definite knowledge of the relative value of gold and silver in India before the time of the Persian Emperor Darius (518 B.C.), when it was 1:8 in his Indian Satrapy while in Persia it was 1:13. This is due to the fact that while India had gold in abundance, her supply of silver from indigenous sources was very restricted, and it had to be largely imported from outside. But gradually the ratio in India came to be the same as in the western countries. The ratio between gold and copper did not show the same fluctuation as that between gold and silver, as both gold and copper were procurable in this country. The fluctuation in the ratio between silver and copper was, however, great and led to the variation in weight of the two coins. The approximate ratio of the two metals was 1:⁵.7.

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In the earliest period, the copper Karshapana of 80 ratis (146 grains, 9.44 grams) was the standard coin. Kautilya refers to the silver Karshapanas of 32 ratis.⁵

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The Magadhan state functioned on a powerful cash economy. The *Arthashastra pana* was of silver. The age shows plenty of hoards of silver coins of the 3.5-gram standard, but none of gold and very few of copper. Every state servant was paid in cash. The highest pay was 48,000 *panas* per year each for the king's chief priest, high councillor, chief queen, queen mother, crown prince, and commander-in-chief. The lowest was 60 per year for the menial and drudge labour needed on such a large scale in camp and on State works; this was called *vishti*. A good deal of this labour was for porterage in bad country, roadmaking, digging irrigation canals or fortification ditches and piling up dykes. The scale of 60 pieces of silver shows the minimum then needed to keep body and soul together for a year under conditions of hard physical labour, with perhaps something left over for dependants. (This amounts to 17.⁵ grams of silver per month, almost exactly what was paid to the lowest Indian labour by the British East India Company in the early eighteenth century.) Carpenters and craftsmen were paid by the State at 120 *panas*. The heavy-armed soldier of the line after being trained in full got 500, which was the scale also for scribes and accountants in State service. The expert miner and the engineer received 1,000 a year. So did the best quality of spy who could disguise himself in many ways. Whereas these spies were expected actually to follow the normal pastimes of the classes whose disguise they adopted, there were no extra allowances; hence 1,000 *panas* per annum may be taken as the decent minimum for a Magadhan *grihapati's* normal standard and style of living. The lower spies got 500, which was also the scale for the registrar who reported on the village or villages in his charge. Royal messengers were paid on a fixed scale, in proportion to the distance travelled, with double rates for the long-distance couriers. There were regular pensions for those disabled in State service, and for the helpless dependants of servants and officials who died during their term. For long service, special bonuses were given in the form of allowances of rice or foodgrain, presents of cloth and the like. Never was anything given away which would permanently curtail State revenues.

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⁵ Majumdar, R.C. *Ancient India*, pp. 216-218

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Besides the coins, there was a very considerable use of instruments of credit. The great merchants in the few large towns gave letters of credit on one another. And there is a constant reference to promissory notes. Interest itself is mentioned very early; and the law books give the rate of interest current at a somewhat later date for loans on personal security as about eighteen per cent per annum.

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Kosambi, D.D. *The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India in Historical Outline*, London, 1965 Majumdar, R.C. *Ancient India*, Delhi, 1960 Majumdar, R.C. *The Classical Accounts of India*, Calcutta, 1960 Marshall, J.H. and Foucher, A. *The Monuments of Sanchi*, 1940 Rapson, E.J. (Ed.) *Cambridge History of India*, Vol. I, Cambridge, 1922 Rawlinson, H.G. *India, a Short Cultural History*, London, 1954 Rhys, Davids, T.W. *Buddhist India*, London, 1903 Sastri, K.A.N. and Srinivasachari, G. *Advanced History of India*, New Delhi, 1970

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