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A History of Agriculture in India v1.c30.s2: Cycle of Farming Operations

A History of Agriculture in India v1.c30.s2

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Cycle of Farming Operations

v1.c30.s2.1

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."

v1.c30.s2.2

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.

v1.c30.s2.3

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

v1.c30.s2.4

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

v1.c30.s2.5

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).

v1.c30.s2.6

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

v1.c30.s2.7

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

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