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A History of Agriculture in India v1.c30: Chapter 24. Agriculture in the Mauryan Age

A History of Agriculture in India v1.c30

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Chapter 24. Agriculture in the Mauryan Age

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322 B.C. — 232 B.C.

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THE Greeks noticed in India two annual harvests—the winter and the summer ones—and the sign of an astonishing soil fertility. They knew that rice and millets were sown in summer, and wheat and barley in winter. Aristobulus described the cultivation of rice in enclosed sheets of water. They saw trees, which the generative power of the Indian soil endowed with a strange capacity of self-propagation—the branches curving to the ground to become themselves new trunks, till a single tree became a pillared tent, under whose roof of broad leaves a troop of horsemen could find shade from the noonday heat. The reference is obviously to the banyan-tree and its pillar-like aerial roots. Among the plants, two especially interested them. One was sugarcane, ‘the reeds that make honey without the agency of bees’. Megasthenes seems to have attempted a scientific explanation of its sweet juice. It was due to the water which it absorbed from the soil being so warmed by the sun’s heat that the plant was virtually cooked as it grew. The other plant was the cotton plant, yielding vegetable wool. Some of it the Macedonians used uncarded as stuffing for saddles and suchlike. Spices were also associated in the Greek mind with India.¹

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¹ Rapson, E.J. *The Cambridge History of India*, p. 363

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In the *Arthashastra*, we find a mention of the suitability of different lands for the cultivation of different crops, viz. lands that are beaten by foam, e.g. river banks, etc., are suitable for growing pumpkin, gourd and the like. Lands that are frequently flooded with water for long are suitable for pepper, grapes and sugarcane; those in the vicinity of wells for vegetables and root crops; moist beds of lakes, etc., for green crops; and the marginal furrows between any two rows of crops are suitable for the plantation of fragrant plants, medicinal herbs, *khus-khus* roots, and the like.

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The *Arthashastra* mentions the following crops: Sali (a kind of rice), vrihi (rice), kodrava (*Paspalum scrobiculatum*), tila (sesamum), priyangu, daraka(?), and varaka (*Phaseolus trilobus*) are to be sown at the commencement of the rainy season.

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Mudga (*Vigna mungo*), masha (*Vigna radiata*), and saibya (?) are to be sown in the middle of the season.

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Kusumbha (safflower), masura (*Lens culinaris*), kuluttha (*Dolichos biflorus*), yava (barley), godhuma (wheat), kalaya (leguminous seeds), atasi (linseed), and sarshapa (mustard) are to be sown last.²

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² Shamasastry, R. Kautilya's Arthashastra, p. 128

Implements of Agriculture

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Srni (sickle), khanitra (hoe), musala (pestle), udukhala (mortar), surpa (winnowing-basket), dhanyakṛt (winnowing-fan), chalani (sieve), sthivi (granary), methi (the post of the threshing-floor round which cattle turn to thresh out the grains), are mentioneed as tools of agriculture.

Cycle of Farming Operations

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In the Kullavagga, Mahanama the Sakyan, while telling Aniruddha what is incident to a household life, gives a short list of farming operations. "First you have to get your fields ploughed. When that is done, you have to get them sown. When that is done, you have to get the water led down over them. When that is done, you have to get the water let off again. When that is done, you have to get the weeds pulled up. When that is done, you have to get crops reaped. When that is done, you have to get the crop carried away. When that is done, you have to get it arranged in bundles; when that is done, you have to get it trodden out. When that is done, you have to get the straw picked out. When that is done, you have to get all the chaff removed. When that is done, you have to get it winnowed. When that is done, you have to get the harvest garnered. When that is done, you have to do just the same the next year and the same all over again the year after."

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According to the Jatakas, the agriculturists sowed different kinds of grains, planted sugarcane, cotton, different kinds of vegetables, such as pumpkins, gourds and cucumbers. To scare away birds, they made use of scarecrows; and towards the harvest time, when crops stood thick in the fields, the peasant anxious to kill the creatures that devoured crops used to dig pitfalls, set traps, fix stakes and snares. At the sight of coming rains, they would hurry to the fields with spade and basket in hands to bank the dikes, and the women of the house make haste to carry indoors rice and crops that were spread in the sun to dry, lest the harvest should get wet. Jat. No. 140 mentions a female slave dozing in her watch over rice spread out in the sun to dry, and of a goat waiting for a chance to eat it.

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When crops were ripe, the threshing-floor was made ready and methi (the post of the threshing-floor round which cattle turn to thresh out grains) was planted with care on an auspicious day. The harvest was then threshed, winnowed and garnered after setting aside the rice of the king’s tax that was measured with grain basket.³

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³ Gangopadhyay, R. Some Materials for the Study of Agriculture and Agriculturists in Ancient India, pp. 42, 65, 106, 107

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Even at present the threshing of wheat in parts of Madhya Pradesh is being carried on in the same manner as in the Buddhist period. A number of bullocks are tied with a rope to a wooden post (methi) fixed in the centre of the threshing-floor. They go round and round and thresh out the grain (Fig. 170). After that, the threshed wheat straw and grain are thrown from a basket by a farmer standing on a wooden stool, and is assisted by his wife. The grain falls near the stool while the dust is blown away by the wind, and the bhoosa falls near the heap of grain (Fig. 171).

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The *Arthashastra* gives the following directions for the threshing of crops. 'Grains and other crops shall be collected as often as they are harvested. No wise man shall leave anything in the fields, not even chaff. Crops, when reaped, shall be heaped up in high piles or in the form of turrets. The piles of crops shall not be kept close, nor shall their tops be small or low. The threshing-floors of different fields shall be situated close to each other. Workmen in the fields shall always have water but no fire.'⁴

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⁴ Shamasastry, R. *The Arthashastra of Kautilya*, pp. 128-131

Growing of Crops

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According to the *Arthashastra*, rice crops and the like are the best; vegetables are of intermediate nature; and sugarcane crops are the worst, very difficult to grow, for they are subject to various pests and require much care and expenditure to reap.

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The seeds of grains are to be exposed to mist and heat for seven nights; the seeds of *kosi* are treated similarly for three nights; the cuttings of sugarcane and the like are plastered at the cut ends with the mixture of honey, clarified butter, the fat of hogs, and cowdung; the seeds of bulbous roots with honey and clarified butter; cotton seeds with cowdung; and water pits at the root of trees are to be burnt and manured with the bones and dung of cows on proper occasions.

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The sprouts of seeds, when grown, are to be manured with a fresh haul of minute fishes and irrigated with the milk of *snuhi* (*Euphorbia antiquorum*).

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Where there is the smoke caused by burning the essence of cotton seeds and the slough of a snake, there snakes will not stay.

Irrigation

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The Kama Jataka speaks of a Brahmana clearing the jungle for cultivation and making little embanked squares for water. We also hear of the rivers being dammed for the purpose of irrigation. Says the Kunala Jataka, 'The Sakiya and the Koliya tribes had the river Rohini, which flows between the cities of Kapilavathu and Kolia, confined by a single dam, and by means of it cultivated their crops. In the month of Jettha-mula when crops began to droop, the labourers from both the cities assembled. Then the Koliyans said, “Should this water be drawn off of both sides, it will not prove sufficient for both of us. But our crops will thrive with a single watering; give us then the water.”⁵

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⁵ Gupta, K.N. The Land System in South India, pp. 216-217

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Kautilya also refers to sluice-gates of tanks and enjoins that ‘persons letting out the water of tanks at any other place than their sluice-gate shall pay a fine of six panas; and persons who obstruct the flow of water from the sluice-gate of tanks shall also pay the same fine.’ It is further laid down that ‘the water of a lower tank, excavated later on, shall not irrigate the field already irrigated by a higher tank and the natural flow of water from a higher to a lower tank shall not be stopped, unless the lower tank has ceased to be useful for three consecutive years.’

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The Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman records that the Sudarshana lake was constructed by Pushyagupta, the provincial governor of Chandragupta Maurya; it was subsequently provided with conduits by the Yavana king Thushaspha for Asoka Maurya. It suffered a breach (420 cubits long and 75 cubits deep) in the second century of the Christian Era, owing to heavy flood in the rivers Suvarnarekha and Palasini. It was repaired by the Parthian amatya Suvisakha, who was the governor of Rudradaman, the Saka ruler of that time. In western India, the successors of Rudradaman continued the tradition of constructing tanks.

Irrigation Charges

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The Arthashastra enjoins, “Those who irrigate land by manual labour shall pay 1/5th of the produce as water rate (udakabhagam); by carrying water on shoulders, 1/4th of the produce; by water lifts 1/3rd of the produce; and by raising water from rivers, lakes, tanks, and wells, 1/4th of the produce.

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The Superintendent of Agriculture shall grow wet crops, winter crops or summer crops according to the supply of workmen and water.”

Plant Diseases

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In the Kallavagga, we find the Buddha pointing out that when the disease called ‘mildew’ falls upon a field of rice, that field of rice cannot last long; neither does a field of sugarcane continue long if the disease called ‘blight’ falls upon it.⁶

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⁶ Gangopadhyay, R. Some Materials for the Study of Agriculture and Agriculturists in Ancient India, p. 73.

Perils of Snakebites

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'As at present, the farmers in India ran the risk of being bitten by snakes. Jat. No. 354 relates the story of a farmer's family consisting of man and wife, two children—a son and a daughter—a daugther-in-law and a maid-servant of the house. They lived happily together. One day, the farmer, along with his son, was ploughing a field. The son collected dry leaves scattered over the field and set fire to them. The smoke hurt the eyes of a snake who lived in a termite-hill close by. In a rage, the snake bit the farmer's son and he fell down dead.'

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Dixit, K. N. *Agricultural Implements in Ancient India*, *Jour. U.P. Hist. Soc.*, Vol. XVIII, 1970 Gangopadhyay, R. *Some Materials for the Study of Agriculture and Agriculturists in Ancient India*, Calcutta, 1933 Gupta, K.M. *The Land System in South India*, Lahore, 1933 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 Raychaudhari, S.P. and Kaw, R.K. *Agriculture in Ancient India*, New Delhi, 1968

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