CHAPTER VI ECONOMIC CONDITIONS HERE has been as yet no attempt to reconstruct THE a picture of the economic conditions at any period in the early history of India. Professor Zimmer, Dr. Fick, and Professor Hopkins have dealt incidentally with some of the points on the basis respectively of the Vedas, the Jātakas, and the Epics. But generally speaking the books on India have been so exclusively concerned with questions of religion and philosphy, of literature and language, that we seem apt to forget that the very necessities of life, here as elsewhere, must have led the people to occupy their time very much, not to say mostly, with other matters than those, with the earning of their daily bread, with the accumulation and distribution of wealth. The following remarks will be chiefly based on Mrs. Rhys-Davids's articles on this important subject in the Economic Journal, for 1901, and in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, for 1901. And numbers given in this chapter as references, without letters referring to other sources, refer to the pages of the latter article. 1 When the King of Magadha, the famous (and infamous) Ajātasattu, made his only call upon the Buddha, he is said to have put a puzzle to the teacher to test him-a puzzle characteristic of the King's state of mind. It is this: What in the world is the good of your renunciation, of joining an Order like yours? Other people (and here he gives a list), by following ordinary crafts, get something out of them. They can make themselves comfortable in this world, and keep their families in comfort. Can you, Sir, declare to me any such immediate fruit, visible in this world, of the life of a recluse?" The list referred to is suggestive. In the view of the King the best examples of such crafts were the following: 1. Elephant-riders. 2. Cavalry. 3. Charioteers. 4. Archers. 5-13. Nine different grades of army folk. 14. Slaves. 15. Cooks. 16. Barbers. 17. Bath-attendants. 18. Confectioners. 19. Garland-makers. 20. Washermen. 21. Weavers. 22. Basket-makers. 24. Clerks. 25. Accountants. These are just the sort of people employed about a camp or a palace. King-like, the King considers chiefly those who minister to a king, and are dependent upon him. In the answer he is most politely reminded of the peasant, of the tax-payer, on whom both he and his depended. And it is evident enough ! D. I. 51. from other passages that the King's list is far from exhaustive. There is mention, in other documents of the same age, of guilds of work-people; and the number of these guilds is often given afterwards as eighteen. Four of these are mentioned by name.' But a list of the whole eighteen has unfortunately not yet been found. It would probably have included the following: 1. 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 (863). 2. The workers in metal. They made any 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 (864). 3. 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 (864). Beautiful examples of these two last were found in the Sakiya Tope. 4. The weavers. They not only made the cloths 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." 1 At Jāt. 6. 427. 2 D. 1. 7. |