The Jātaka
commentary
tells the story of a slave.
Cambridge History of India - v1
1, 125.
7 Jät. I, 402 f.
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ARTS AND CRAFTS
183
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might be incurred through capturel, commuted death sentences, debt?
voluntary self-degradation, or judicial punishment : on the other hand,
slaves might be manumitteds, or might free themselves by payment. They
might not, while still undischarged, be admitted into the religious commu-
nity (Sangha)?
The hireling, wage-earner, day-labourer was no man's chattel, yet his
life was probably harder sometimes than that of the slaves. He was to a
great extent employed on the larger land-holdings'. He was paid either
in board and lodging, or in money-wages10. Manu prescribes regular wages
both in money and kind for menials in the king's servicell.
In the arts and crafts, a considerable proficiency and specialisation of
industry had been reached. A list of callings given in the Milinda panha,
reveals three separate industries in the manufacture of bows and arrows,
apart from any ornamental work on the samel. In the same work, the
allusion to a professional winnower of grain indicates a similar division
of labour to our own threshing machinists and steam plough-owners who
tour in rural districts13. As certain grain crops were reaped twice a year! 4,
this would afford a fairly protracted season of work every few months.
Some trade-names, on the other hand, are as comprehensive as our
'smith. ' As with us, this word (kammāra) might be applied to a worker in
any metal. Vaddhaki, again, apparently covered all kinds of woodcraft
including shipbuilding, cartmaking15, and architecture16, thapati, tacchaka
(lit, planer), and bhamakāra or turner being occupied with special modes of
woodworki? . A settlement of Vaddhakis is able to make both furniture and
seagoing ships18 Once more the same worker in stone (pāsāņa-kottaka)
builds houses with the ruined material of a former gāma, and also hollows
a cavity in a crystal as a cage for a mouse19.
Important handicrafts like the three above named and their branches,
the workers in leather, i. e. , the leather-dressers, the 'painters,' and others to
the number of eighteen were organised into gilds (seni), according to
Jātaka records ; but it is to be regretted that only four of the eighteen
crafts thus organised are specifically mentioned, 'the woodworkers, the
1 lb. IV, 220 ; VI, 135.
2 lb. VI, 521; Therig. ver. 444.
3 Vin. I, 72 (Mah. I, 39, 1) ; Sum. Vil. 1,168.
4 Ját. I, 200,
5 D. I, 72 ; P88. Sisters, p. 117; Pss. Brethren, p. 22 ; Jāt. V, 313.
6 Ib. VI, 547.
7 Vin. I, 76 (Mah. I, 46 f). 8 Jät. I, 422 ; III, 444.
9 1b. III 406 ; IV, 43 ; S. N. p. 12. 10 16. II, 139 ; III, 326, 444 ; V, 212.
11 Manu VII, 125 f.
Mil. 331.
13 Mil. 201 (perhaps a doubtfull rendering ; yet there is a professional plough.
man in Jataka, II, 165).
14 Megasthenese ; cf. M . Crindle, op. cit. 54 ; V. inf. Chapter XVI.
15 Jāt. IV. 207. We find yānakāras, rathakāras, sakatakaras also so engaged.
16 Jät. I, 201 ; IV, 323 ; Mil, 330, 345. 17 M. I, 56, 396 ; III, 144 ; Dhp, ver. 80.
18 Jāt. IV, 159.
19 1b. I, 479.
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[ ch.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
9
smiths, the leather-dressets, the painter and the rest, expert in various
crafts'. At the head of each gild was a president (pamukha) or alderman
(jetthaka), and these leaders might be important ministers in attendance
upon and in favour with the king. Occasionally these functionaries quarrel-
Jed, as at Sāvatthi'. And it may have been such quarrelling also at Benares
that led to the institution of a supreme headship over all the gilds, an office
doubled with that of treasurer (bhandāgārika) being founded at that city. It
is of interest to note that this innovation in administrative organisation was
made at a time when, according to the legend, the monarchy is represented
as having been elective, not hereditary, and when the king who appointed,
and the man who was appointed, were the sons, respectively, of a merchant
and a tailor'! The nature and extent of the authority of the pamukha over
the gilds is nowhere clearly shown. Nor it is clear to what extent the
duties of a bhandāgārika, lit, 'houser of goods', coincides with our word
'treasurer. ' It was not confined to the custody of moneys, for the Sangha
had officials so namedł ; hence it is possible that it referred to a super-
vision of the goods made or dealt with by a gild or gilds and not only to
the king's exchequer.
Nor can we with any certainty fill up the fourteen unnamed gilds. A
great many arts and crafts are mentioned in the books, some of them held
in less social esteem than others. Among the latter were trades connected
with the slaying of animals and work on their bodies, e. g. , hunters and
trappers, fishermen, butchers, and tanners. Yet other such despised callings
were those of snake-charming, acting, dancing and music, rush weaving and
chariot-making, the last two because of the despised. probably aboriginal,
folk whose hereditary trades they were. Other more honourable crafts were
ivory-working, weaving, confectionery, jewelry and work in precious metals,
bow and arrow making, pottery, garland-making and head-dressing.
Besides these handicrafts, there was the world of river and sea-going folk, the
trader or merchant, and, corresponding in a limited way to the first named
the caravan escorts and guides or land-pilots' (thala-niyyāmaka). But
although reference is made in connexion with some of these, to a jetthaka,
or Elder, no further evidence of civic organisation is forthcoming.
Other instances of trades having jetthakas are seamen, or at least pilots
(niyyāmaka), garland makers®, caravan traders and guards? , and robbers or
brigands. We read, e. g. , of a little robber-gāma in the hills, near Uttara-
Panchāla, numbering 500 families.
1 Jāt. I, 267, 314 ; IIT, 281 ; IV, 411 ; VI, 22.
: 1b, II, 12, 52 ; cf. mahavaddhaki in Jät. VI, 332.
3 Jät. IV', 43.
4 Vin II, 173 (Cull. l'. VI, 21. 2). 5 Jāt. IV, 137. 6 1b. III, 405.
7. Ib. 1, 368 ; II, 295, 335. 8 Ib. I, 296 f. ; II, 388 ; IV, 430, 433 (Comm. )
:
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VII]
LEADERS OF INDUSTRY
185
The learner or apprentice (antevāsika, literally 'the boarder') appears
frequently in Buddhist books, one of which indicates the relative positions of
pupil and master woodwright. But no conditions of pupilage are anywhere
stated.
The title of setthi (best, chief), which is so often met with and, without
much justification rendered by “treasurer,' may possibly imply headship over
some class of industry or trading. It is clear that the famous setthi,
Anātha pindika of Sāvatthi the millionaire lay-supporter of the Sangha, had
some authority over his fellow-traders. Five hundred setthis, e g. , attended
him in his presentation of the Jetavana to the Buddha”. Unless these were
convened from different towns, the number in any one town was not limited
to one or a few. They are usually described as wealthy, and as engaged in
commerce. Dr Fick is probably right in alluding to them as representing
the mercantile professsion at court3. The word certainly implied an office
(thāna“) held during life. There might be a chief (mahā) seļthi, and an
anusetthi or subordinate officers : a commentary even refers to the insignia
of a setthi-chatta (umbrella of state).
The remarkable localisation of industries revealed in Buddhist litera.
ture has already been noticed. This is observable especially in the case of
craft-villages of woodwrights”, ironsmiths, and potters. These were either
suburban to large cities, or rural, and constituting as such special markets for
the whole countryside, as we see in the ironsmiths, gāma just cited, to which
people came from the gāmas round about to have razors, axes, ploughshares,
goads, and needles made. On the Ganges or further afield there were
trapper gamas, supplying games, skins, ivory etc10.
Within the town we meet with a further localisation of trades in
certain streets, if not quarters, e. g. , the street (vithi) of the ivory workers in
Benares11, the dyers' street12, the weavers’ ‘place' (thāna)13, the Vessas'
(Vaiçyas, merchants ? ) street14.
Combined with this widespread corporate regulation of industrial life,
there was
à very general but by no means cast-iron custom for the
son to follow the calling of the father. Not only individuals but families are
frequently referred to in terms of their traditional calling. The smith e. g. ,
is Smithson ; Sāti the fisherman's son is Sāti the fisherman ; Chunda the
1 16. 1, 151 ; V, 290 f. ; Altha-sālini. p. 111.
2 Ját. 1, 93.
3 Op. cit. , p. 167 f.
4 Jät. 1, 122 ; cf. Vin. Texts, 1, 102, note 3,
5 Vin. I, 19 (Mah. I, 9) ; Jāt. V. 384. 6 Vimāna-vatthu (Comm. ), 66
7 Jāt. II, 18, 405 ; IV, 159, 207. 8 lb. III, 281. 9 1b. III, 376, (408).
10 16. VI, 7. nesādagāma ; cf. III, 49; Therig. (Comm. ), 220, migaluddakagāma.
11 Jät. I, 320 ; II, 197. 12 1b. IV, 81.
13 16. I, 356.
14 16. VI, 485
.
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186
[сн.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
a
smith is called Chunda Smithson, etc. This, however, is not peculiar
to Indian or even to Āryan societies, up to a certain stage of development.
Even of our own it was said but half a century ago that the line of demar-
cation between different employments or grades of work had till then been
'almost equivalent to an hereditary distinction of caste. In modern India
no doubt these lines of demarcation have intensified in the course of
centuries, and have split up the industrial world into a, to us, bewildering
number of sections, or as the Portuguese called them, castes.
The Jātakas reveal here and there a vigorous etiquette observed
by the Brāhman ‘colour' in the matter of eating with, or of the food of, the
despised Chandă las, as well as the social intolerance felt for the latter
by the burgess class'.
The Jātaka commentary tells the story of a slave.
girl, daughter of a slave and a Khattiya, whose father pretended to eat with
her only that she might be passed off before the Kosalans, seeking a nobly
born consort for their king, as a thoroughbred Sākivan'.
On the other hand, a great many passages from both Jātaka and
other canonical books might be quoted to show that the four “colours are
on the whole to be taken in no stricter sense than we speak of 'lords and
commons,' ‘noblesse, église, tiers-etat,' “upper, middle, lower classes. '
That Brāhmans claimed credit if born of Brāhmans on both sides for
generations back, betrays the existence of many born from a less pure
'connubium. ' In the Kusa Jātaka, a Brāhman takes to wife the childless
chief wife of a king without losing caste' thereby Elsewhere in the
Jātaka-book princes, Brāhmans, Setthis are shown forming friendships,
sending their sons to the same teacher, and even eating together and
intermarrying, without incurring any social stigma or notoriety as innovators
or militants? . The following instances may be quoted :-
A king's fon, pure bred, cedes his share of the kingdom to his
sister, turns trader and travels with his caravanº. A prince, whose wife in
a fit of displeasure has returned to her father, apprentices himself at
that father's court, without entailing subsequent social disgrace, to the
court potter, florist, and cook successively, in order to gain access to
herº. Another noble, fleeing from his brother, hires himself to a neighbour-
ing monarch as an archer10. A prince resigning his kingdom, dwells
with a merchant on the frontier, working with his hand311. A commentarial
tradition represents a child of the Vaccha Brāhmans as the 'sand-playmate'
1 M. I, 256 ; D. II, 127 f. (“kammāra putto' and 'kammāro,); Jāt. I, 98, 194, 312 ;
II, 79. Cf. nesādo=ludda putio=luddo Jāt. II, 330 f ; V, 3. 56—8.
2 J. S. Mill, Political Economy, XIV, 2.
3 Jāt. II, 83 f. ; III, 233 ; IV, 200, 376, 388, 390-2.
4 Ját IV, 144 ff.
5 D I, 93 ; M. II. 156 ; Thera-găthā, vv. 889, 1170, 6 Jāt. V, 280.
7 Jāt. II, 319 f. ;III 9-11, 21, 249-54, 310, 405 f. , 475, 517 ; IV, 38 ; VI, 348;
421 f. ; Fick, op. cit. , VI-XII ; Dialogues I, 96 ff.
8 Jāt. IV, 84 ; Peta-ratthu Comm. 111f. 9 16. V, 290 : 3; cf. I, 421 f.
10 16. II, 87.
11 16. IV, 169.
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SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS
NCTIONS
187
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of the little Siddhattha, afterwards the Buddha'. A wealthy, pious
Brāhman takes to trade to be better able to afford his charitable gifts”.
Brāhmans engaged personally in trading without such pretext", taking
service as archers', as the servant of an archer who had been a weavers, as
low-caste trapperse, and as low-caste carriage-makers? .
Again,, among the middle classes, we find not a few instances
revealing anything but caste-bound heredity and groove, to wit, parents
discussing the best profession for their son :-writing, reckoning, or
money-changing (rūpa ? ), no reference being made to the father's trades ; a
(low-class) deer-trapper becoming the protege and then the 'inseparable
friend' of a rich young Setthi, without a hint of social barriers' ; a weaver
looking on his handicraft as a mere make-shift, and changing it off-hand
for that of an archer10 ; a pious farmer and his son, with equally little
ado, turning to the low trade of rush weavingál ; a young man of good
family but penniless, starting on his career by selling a dead mouse
for cat's meat at a 'farthing,' turning his capital and his hands to every
variety of job, and finally buying up a ship's cargo, with his signet-ring
pledged as security, and winning both a profit 200 per cent and the hand of
the Setthi's daughter12.
This freedom of initiative and mobility in trade and labour finds
further exemplification in the enterprise of a settlement (gama) of wood-
workers13. Failing to carry out the orders for which prepayment had
been made, they were summoned to fulfil their contract. But they,
instead of “abiding in their lot,' as General Walker the economist said
of their descendants, 'with oriental stoicism and fatalism14,' made ‘a
mighty ship' secretly, and emigrated with their families, slipping down the
Ganges by night, and so out to sea, till they reached a fertile island.
Stories, all of these, not history ; nevertheless they serve to illustrate
the degree to which labour and capital were mobile at the time, at
least, when these stories were incorporated in the Buddhist canon, and
before that. And they show that social divisions and economic occupations
were very far from coinciding. There was plenty of pride of birth, which
made intermarriage and eating together between certain ranks an act more
or less disgraceful to those reckoning themselves as socially higher. And
sons, especially perhaps among artisans, tended to follow the paternal
industry. This was all.
The trade of the trader, dealer, or middleman (vānija) may well have
1 Psalms of tho Brethorn, 17 ! Vanavaccha).
2 Jāt. IV, 15 f.
3 Ib. V, 22, 471.
4 16. III 219 ; V, 127 f.
5 1b, I, 356 f.
6 16. II, 200; VI, 170 fi. 7 1b. IV, 207 f.
8 V'in 1,77 (Mah. I, 49, 1); IV, 128 (Pāc. LXIV,128). 9 Jāl. III, 49 ff. 10 16. II, 87.
11 lb. IV, 318, 1: 16. 1, 120 ff. 13 Jāt. IV, 159. 14 I he Wages Question, p. 177.
## p. 188 (#222) ############################################
188
(ch.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
1
been largely hereditary? . Traditional good-will handed on here would prove
specially effective in commanding confidence, and thus be a stronger
incentive than the force a tergo of caste-rule. There is, however, no instance
as yet produced from early Buddhist documents pointing to any corporate
organisation of the nature of a gild or Hansa league? . The hundred or so of
merchants who, in the Chullaka-Setthi Jātaka", come to buy up the cargo of
a newly arrived ship, are apparently each trying to 'score off his own bat’
no less than the pushful youth who forestalled them. Nor is there any hint
of syndicate or federation or other agreement existing between the 500
dealers who are fellow passengers on board the ill-fated ships in the Valā-
hassa and Pandara Jātakas? ; or the 700 who were lucky enough to secure
Suppāraka as their pilot5, beyond the fact that there was concerted action in
chartering one and the same vessel. Among merchants travelling by land,
however, the rank of satthavāha or caravan-leader seems to imply some sort
of federation. This position was apparently hereditary, and to be a jetthaka
or elder, in this capacity, on an expedition, apparently implied that other
merchants (vānija) with their carts and caravan-followers, were accompany-
ing the satthavāha, and looking to him for directions as to halts, watering,
precautions against brigands, and even as to routes, fording, etc. Subordi-
nation, however, was not always ensured? , and the institution does not
warrant the inference of any fuller syndicalism among traders.
Partnerships in commerce, either permanent, or on specified occasions
only, are frequently mentioned : the former, in the Kutavāņijas and Mahā.
vānija' Jātakas, the latter in the Pāyāsi Suttantal' and the Serivānija Jātaka'l.
In the Jarudzpāna Jātakal? there is, if not explicit statement, room for
assuming concerted commercial action on a more extensive scale, both in the
birth-story and also in its introductory episode. The caravan in question,
consisting of an indefinite number of traders (in the birth-story, under a
jetthaka', accumulate and expɔrt goods at the same time, and apparently
share the treasure trove, or the profits therefrom. In the episode the firm
also wait upon the Buddha with gifts before and after their journey. These
were traders of Sāvatthī, of the class who are elsewhere described as acting so
unanimously under Anāthapiņdika, himself a great travelling merchant. The
Guttila Jātaka13, again, shows concerted action, in work and play, on the part
1 Jāt. II, 287; III, 198. It is noteworthy that mining and miners nerer came on
in the Jātaka scenes.
The compound vaniggrāma is rendered 'merchants' guild' in Macdonell's
Sanskrit Dictionary.
3 Jāt. I ,122. 4 16. I1,128 ; V, 75. 5 16. IV,138 ff, ; cf. also VI, 34.
6 Fick p. 178 ; D. II, 342 f. ; cf. Jāt. I, 93, 7 16. I, 108, 363 ; II, 295 ; III, 200.
8 Jāt. 1,404 also II 181. 9 16. JV,350. 10 D. II, 342.
11 Jāt. I, 111.
12 1b. II, 294 ff.
13 Ib, II, 218 ; cf. 1, 121 for concerted action between dealers in freights.
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VIII)
TRADE BY SEA
189
of Benares trades. It is conceivable, however, that the travelling in
company may have been undertaken as much for mutual convenience in
the chartering of a common ship, or the employment of a single band of
forest-guards, as for the prevention of mutual under-selling or the cornering
of any wares. Merchants are represented, at least as often, as travelling
with their own caravan alone. Thus in the first Jātaka? two traders,
about to convey commodities to some distant city, agree which shall start
first. The one thinks that, if he arrive first, he will get a better, because
non-competitive price; the other, also holding that competition is killing
work (lit. 'price-fixing is like robbing men of life'), prefers to sell at the
price fixed, under circumstances favourable to the dealer, by his predeces-
sor, and yields him a start.
The little aperçus which we obtain from the Jātakas of the range and
objective of such merchants' voyages are so interesting as side-lights on
early trafficking as to create regret at their scantiness. The overland
caravans are sometimes represented as going 'east and west'}, and across
deserts that took days, or rather nights to cross, a 'land-pilot' (thala.
niyyāmaka) steering during the cooler hours of darkness by the stars.
Drought, famine, wild beasts, robbers, and demons are enumerated as the
dangers severally besetting this or that desert route. Such caravans may
have been bound from Benares, the chief industrial and commercial centre
in early Buddhist days, across the deserts of Rājputāna westward to the
sea ports of Bharukaccha, the modern Broach and the sea board of Sovīra
(the Sophir, or Ophir, of the Septuagint ? ), and its capital Roruva? or Rorukas
Westward of these ports there was traffic with Babylon, or Bāveru.
At a later date, say, at the beginning of the first century A. D. the
chief objective of Indian sea-going trade is given in the Milinda' as
follows :
As a shipowner who has become wealthy by constantly levying freight in some
seaport town, will be able to traverse the high seas, and go to Vanga or Takkola, or
China or Sovira, or Surat, or Alexandria, or the Kormoandel coast, or Further India,
or any other place where ships do congregate.
Tamil poems testify to the flourishing state of Kāviri-pațținam (Kamara
in Periplus, Khabari of Ptolemy), capital of Chõla, on the Kāveri river, at
about the same period as a centre of international trade especially frequented
by Yavana (Yona, Ionian) merchants10. According to the Jātaka it was
1 On a local 'corner in hay'see Jāt. I, 121.
2 16. I, 99; cf. 194, 270, 354, 368, 413 ; II, 109, 335 ; III, 200, 403 ; IV, 15 f. ;
V, 22, 164.
3 16. I, 98 f. 4 16. J, 107. 5 16. I, 99. 6 1b. III, 188; IV, 137 ; Dip.
IX, 26.
7 16, III. 470.
8 D. II, 235 ; Divy. 544.
9 Milinda panha 359 ; trans. 11, 269 (S. B. E. XXXVI).
13 Kanakasabhai, The Tamils 1800 years ago, quoted by Subba Rao (v. Biblio.
graphy), p. 81 f. On Chola see Malavamsa XXI, 13.
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190
( ch.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
practicable to attain to any of these ports starting from up the Ganges, not
only from Champā (or Bhāgalpur, about 350 miles from the sea) but even
from Benares. Thus the defaulting woodwrights mentioned abovel reach
an ocean island from the latter city ; Prince Mahājanaka sets out for
Suvannabhumi from Champā? , and Mahinda travels by water from Patna
to Tāmalitti, and on to Ceylon? . It is true that the world Samudda sea, is
occasionally applied to the Ganges, nevertheless, if the foregoing stories be
compared with the Sankha Jātaka', it becomes probable that the open sea
is meant in both. In this the hero, while shipwrecked, washes out his
mouth with the salt water of the waves during his self-imposed fast.
Again, in the Silānisamsa Jātaka, a sea-fairy as helmsman brings 'passen-
gers for India' by ships ‘from off the sea to Benares by river. Other
traders are found coasting round India from Bharukaccha to Suņnvaa-
bhūmi? , doubtless putting in at a Ceylon port ; for Ceylon was another
bourne of oversea commerce, and one associated with perils around which
Odyssean legends had grown ups.
7 Jät. I, 402 f.
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ARTS AND CRAFTS
183
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might be incurred through capturel, commuted death sentences, debt?
voluntary self-degradation, or judicial punishment : on the other hand,
slaves might be manumitteds, or might free themselves by payment. They
might not, while still undischarged, be admitted into the religious commu-
nity (Sangha)?
The hireling, wage-earner, day-labourer was no man's chattel, yet his
life was probably harder sometimes than that of the slaves. He was to a
great extent employed on the larger land-holdings'. He was paid either
in board and lodging, or in money-wages10. Manu prescribes regular wages
both in money and kind for menials in the king's servicell.
In the arts and crafts, a considerable proficiency and specialisation of
industry had been reached. A list of callings given in the Milinda panha,
reveals three separate industries in the manufacture of bows and arrows,
apart from any ornamental work on the samel. In the same work, the
allusion to a professional winnower of grain indicates a similar division
of labour to our own threshing machinists and steam plough-owners who
tour in rural districts13. As certain grain crops were reaped twice a year! 4,
this would afford a fairly protracted season of work every few months.
Some trade-names, on the other hand, are as comprehensive as our
'smith. ' As with us, this word (kammāra) might be applied to a worker in
any metal. Vaddhaki, again, apparently covered all kinds of woodcraft
including shipbuilding, cartmaking15, and architecture16, thapati, tacchaka
(lit, planer), and bhamakāra or turner being occupied with special modes of
woodworki? . A settlement of Vaddhakis is able to make both furniture and
seagoing ships18 Once more the same worker in stone (pāsāņa-kottaka)
builds houses with the ruined material of a former gāma, and also hollows
a cavity in a crystal as a cage for a mouse19.
Important handicrafts like the three above named and their branches,
the workers in leather, i. e. , the leather-dressers, the 'painters,' and others to
the number of eighteen were organised into gilds (seni), according to
Jātaka records ; but it is to be regretted that only four of the eighteen
crafts thus organised are specifically mentioned, 'the woodworkers, the
1 lb. IV, 220 ; VI, 135.
2 lb. VI, 521; Therig. ver. 444.
3 Vin. I, 72 (Mah. I, 39, 1) ; Sum. Vil. 1,168.
4 Ját. I, 200,
5 D. I, 72 ; P88. Sisters, p. 117; Pss. Brethren, p. 22 ; Jāt. V, 313.
6 Ib. VI, 547.
7 Vin. I, 76 (Mah. I, 46 f). 8 Jät. I, 422 ; III, 444.
9 1b. III 406 ; IV, 43 ; S. N. p. 12. 10 16. II, 139 ; III, 326, 444 ; V, 212.
11 Manu VII, 125 f.
Mil. 331.
13 Mil. 201 (perhaps a doubtfull rendering ; yet there is a professional plough.
man in Jataka, II, 165).
14 Megasthenese ; cf. M . Crindle, op. cit. 54 ; V. inf. Chapter XVI.
15 Jāt. IV. 207. We find yānakāras, rathakāras, sakatakaras also so engaged.
16 Jät. I, 201 ; IV, 323 ; Mil, 330, 345. 17 M. I, 56, 396 ; III, 144 ; Dhp, ver. 80.
18 Jāt. IV, 159.
19 1b. I, 479.
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[ ch.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
9
smiths, the leather-dressets, the painter and the rest, expert in various
crafts'. At the head of each gild was a president (pamukha) or alderman
(jetthaka), and these leaders might be important ministers in attendance
upon and in favour with the king. Occasionally these functionaries quarrel-
Jed, as at Sāvatthi'. And it may have been such quarrelling also at Benares
that led to the institution of a supreme headship over all the gilds, an office
doubled with that of treasurer (bhandāgārika) being founded at that city. It
is of interest to note that this innovation in administrative organisation was
made at a time when, according to the legend, the monarchy is represented
as having been elective, not hereditary, and when the king who appointed,
and the man who was appointed, were the sons, respectively, of a merchant
and a tailor'! The nature and extent of the authority of the pamukha over
the gilds is nowhere clearly shown. Nor it is clear to what extent the
duties of a bhandāgārika, lit, 'houser of goods', coincides with our word
'treasurer. ' It was not confined to the custody of moneys, for the Sangha
had officials so namedł ; hence it is possible that it referred to a super-
vision of the goods made or dealt with by a gild or gilds and not only to
the king's exchequer.
Nor can we with any certainty fill up the fourteen unnamed gilds. A
great many arts and crafts are mentioned in the books, some of them held
in less social esteem than others. Among the latter were trades connected
with the slaying of animals and work on their bodies, e. g. , hunters and
trappers, fishermen, butchers, and tanners. Yet other such despised callings
were those of snake-charming, acting, dancing and music, rush weaving and
chariot-making, the last two because of the despised. probably aboriginal,
folk whose hereditary trades they were. Other more honourable crafts were
ivory-working, weaving, confectionery, jewelry and work in precious metals,
bow and arrow making, pottery, garland-making and head-dressing.
Besides these handicrafts, there was the world of river and sea-going folk, the
trader or merchant, and, corresponding in a limited way to the first named
the caravan escorts and guides or land-pilots' (thala-niyyāmaka). But
although reference is made in connexion with some of these, to a jetthaka,
or Elder, no further evidence of civic organisation is forthcoming.
Other instances of trades having jetthakas are seamen, or at least pilots
(niyyāmaka), garland makers®, caravan traders and guards? , and robbers or
brigands. We read, e. g. , of a little robber-gāma in the hills, near Uttara-
Panchāla, numbering 500 families.
1 Jāt. I, 267, 314 ; IIT, 281 ; IV, 411 ; VI, 22.
: 1b, II, 12, 52 ; cf. mahavaddhaki in Jät. VI, 332.
3 Jät. IV', 43.
4 Vin II, 173 (Cull. l'. VI, 21. 2). 5 Jāt. IV, 137. 6 1b. III, 405.
7. Ib. 1, 368 ; II, 295, 335. 8 Ib. I, 296 f. ; II, 388 ; IV, 430, 433 (Comm. )
:
## p. 185 (#219) ############################################
VII]
LEADERS OF INDUSTRY
185
The learner or apprentice (antevāsika, literally 'the boarder') appears
frequently in Buddhist books, one of which indicates the relative positions of
pupil and master woodwright. But no conditions of pupilage are anywhere
stated.
The title of setthi (best, chief), which is so often met with and, without
much justification rendered by “treasurer,' may possibly imply headship over
some class of industry or trading. It is clear that the famous setthi,
Anātha pindika of Sāvatthi the millionaire lay-supporter of the Sangha, had
some authority over his fellow-traders. Five hundred setthis, e g. , attended
him in his presentation of the Jetavana to the Buddha”. Unless these were
convened from different towns, the number in any one town was not limited
to one or a few. They are usually described as wealthy, and as engaged in
commerce. Dr Fick is probably right in alluding to them as representing
the mercantile professsion at court3. The word certainly implied an office
(thāna“) held during life. There might be a chief (mahā) seļthi, and an
anusetthi or subordinate officers : a commentary even refers to the insignia
of a setthi-chatta (umbrella of state).
The remarkable localisation of industries revealed in Buddhist litera.
ture has already been noticed. This is observable especially in the case of
craft-villages of woodwrights”, ironsmiths, and potters. These were either
suburban to large cities, or rural, and constituting as such special markets for
the whole countryside, as we see in the ironsmiths, gāma just cited, to which
people came from the gāmas round about to have razors, axes, ploughshares,
goads, and needles made. On the Ganges or further afield there were
trapper gamas, supplying games, skins, ivory etc10.
Within the town we meet with a further localisation of trades in
certain streets, if not quarters, e. g. , the street (vithi) of the ivory workers in
Benares11, the dyers' street12, the weavers’ ‘place' (thāna)13, the Vessas'
(Vaiçyas, merchants ? ) street14.
Combined with this widespread corporate regulation of industrial life,
there was
à very general but by no means cast-iron custom for the
son to follow the calling of the father. Not only individuals but families are
frequently referred to in terms of their traditional calling. The smith e. g. ,
is Smithson ; Sāti the fisherman's son is Sāti the fisherman ; Chunda the
1 16. 1, 151 ; V, 290 f. ; Altha-sālini. p. 111.
2 Ját. 1, 93.
3 Op. cit. , p. 167 f.
4 Jät. 1, 122 ; cf. Vin. Texts, 1, 102, note 3,
5 Vin. I, 19 (Mah. I, 9) ; Jāt. V. 384. 6 Vimāna-vatthu (Comm. ), 66
7 Jāt. II, 18, 405 ; IV, 159, 207. 8 lb. III, 281. 9 1b. III, 376, (408).
10 16. VI, 7. nesādagāma ; cf. III, 49; Therig. (Comm. ), 220, migaluddakagāma.
11 Jät. I, 320 ; II, 197. 12 1b. IV, 81.
13 16. I, 356.
14 16. VI, 485
.
## p. 186 (#220) ############################################
186
[сн.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
a
smith is called Chunda Smithson, etc. This, however, is not peculiar
to Indian or even to Āryan societies, up to a certain stage of development.
Even of our own it was said but half a century ago that the line of demar-
cation between different employments or grades of work had till then been
'almost equivalent to an hereditary distinction of caste. In modern India
no doubt these lines of demarcation have intensified in the course of
centuries, and have split up the industrial world into a, to us, bewildering
number of sections, or as the Portuguese called them, castes.
The Jātakas reveal here and there a vigorous etiquette observed
by the Brāhman ‘colour' in the matter of eating with, or of the food of, the
despised Chandă las, as well as the social intolerance felt for the latter
by the burgess class'.
The Jātaka commentary tells the story of a slave.
girl, daughter of a slave and a Khattiya, whose father pretended to eat with
her only that she might be passed off before the Kosalans, seeking a nobly
born consort for their king, as a thoroughbred Sākivan'.
On the other hand, a great many passages from both Jātaka and
other canonical books might be quoted to show that the four “colours are
on the whole to be taken in no stricter sense than we speak of 'lords and
commons,' ‘noblesse, église, tiers-etat,' “upper, middle, lower classes. '
That Brāhmans claimed credit if born of Brāhmans on both sides for
generations back, betrays the existence of many born from a less pure
'connubium. ' In the Kusa Jātaka, a Brāhman takes to wife the childless
chief wife of a king without losing caste' thereby Elsewhere in the
Jātaka-book princes, Brāhmans, Setthis are shown forming friendships,
sending their sons to the same teacher, and even eating together and
intermarrying, without incurring any social stigma or notoriety as innovators
or militants? . The following instances may be quoted :-
A king's fon, pure bred, cedes his share of the kingdom to his
sister, turns trader and travels with his caravanº. A prince, whose wife in
a fit of displeasure has returned to her father, apprentices himself at
that father's court, without entailing subsequent social disgrace, to the
court potter, florist, and cook successively, in order to gain access to
herº. Another noble, fleeing from his brother, hires himself to a neighbour-
ing monarch as an archer10. A prince resigning his kingdom, dwells
with a merchant on the frontier, working with his hand311. A commentarial
tradition represents a child of the Vaccha Brāhmans as the 'sand-playmate'
1 M. I, 256 ; D. II, 127 f. (“kammāra putto' and 'kammāro,); Jāt. I, 98, 194, 312 ;
II, 79. Cf. nesādo=ludda putio=luddo Jāt. II, 330 f ; V, 3. 56—8.
2 J. S. Mill, Political Economy, XIV, 2.
3 Jāt. II, 83 f. ; III, 233 ; IV, 200, 376, 388, 390-2.
4 Ját IV, 144 ff.
5 D I, 93 ; M. II. 156 ; Thera-găthā, vv. 889, 1170, 6 Jāt. V, 280.
7 Jāt. II, 319 f. ;III 9-11, 21, 249-54, 310, 405 f. , 475, 517 ; IV, 38 ; VI, 348;
421 f. ; Fick, op. cit. , VI-XII ; Dialogues I, 96 ff.
8 Jāt. IV, 84 ; Peta-ratthu Comm. 111f. 9 16. V, 290 : 3; cf. I, 421 f.
10 16. II, 87.
11 16. IV, 169.
## p. 187 (#221) ############################################
VIII ]
SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS
NCTIONS
187
>
a
of the little Siddhattha, afterwards the Buddha'. A wealthy, pious
Brāhman takes to trade to be better able to afford his charitable gifts”.
Brāhmans engaged personally in trading without such pretext", taking
service as archers', as the servant of an archer who had been a weavers, as
low-caste trapperse, and as low-caste carriage-makers? .
Again,, among the middle classes, we find not a few instances
revealing anything but caste-bound heredity and groove, to wit, parents
discussing the best profession for their son :-writing, reckoning, or
money-changing (rūpa ? ), no reference being made to the father's trades ; a
(low-class) deer-trapper becoming the protege and then the 'inseparable
friend' of a rich young Setthi, without a hint of social barriers' ; a weaver
looking on his handicraft as a mere make-shift, and changing it off-hand
for that of an archer10 ; a pious farmer and his son, with equally little
ado, turning to the low trade of rush weavingál ; a young man of good
family but penniless, starting on his career by selling a dead mouse
for cat's meat at a 'farthing,' turning his capital and his hands to every
variety of job, and finally buying up a ship's cargo, with his signet-ring
pledged as security, and winning both a profit 200 per cent and the hand of
the Setthi's daughter12.
This freedom of initiative and mobility in trade and labour finds
further exemplification in the enterprise of a settlement (gama) of wood-
workers13. Failing to carry out the orders for which prepayment had
been made, they were summoned to fulfil their contract. But they,
instead of “abiding in their lot,' as General Walker the economist said
of their descendants, 'with oriental stoicism and fatalism14,' made ‘a
mighty ship' secretly, and emigrated with their families, slipping down the
Ganges by night, and so out to sea, till they reached a fertile island.
Stories, all of these, not history ; nevertheless they serve to illustrate
the degree to which labour and capital were mobile at the time, at
least, when these stories were incorporated in the Buddhist canon, and
before that. And they show that social divisions and economic occupations
were very far from coinciding. There was plenty of pride of birth, which
made intermarriage and eating together between certain ranks an act more
or less disgraceful to those reckoning themselves as socially higher. And
sons, especially perhaps among artisans, tended to follow the paternal
industry. This was all.
The trade of the trader, dealer, or middleman (vānija) may well have
1 Psalms of tho Brethorn, 17 ! Vanavaccha).
2 Jāt. IV, 15 f.
3 Ib. V, 22, 471.
4 16. III 219 ; V, 127 f.
5 1b, I, 356 f.
6 16. II, 200; VI, 170 fi. 7 1b. IV, 207 f.
8 V'in 1,77 (Mah. I, 49, 1); IV, 128 (Pāc. LXIV,128). 9 Jāl. III, 49 ff. 10 16. II, 87.
11 lb. IV, 318, 1: 16. 1, 120 ff. 13 Jāt. IV, 159. 14 I he Wages Question, p. 177.
## p. 188 (#222) ############################################
188
(ch.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
1
been largely hereditary? . Traditional good-will handed on here would prove
specially effective in commanding confidence, and thus be a stronger
incentive than the force a tergo of caste-rule. There is, however, no instance
as yet produced from early Buddhist documents pointing to any corporate
organisation of the nature of a gild or Hansa league? . The hundred or so of
merchants who, in the Chullaka-Setthi Jātaka", come to buy up the cargo of
a newly arrived ship, are apparently each trying to 'score off his own bat’
no less than the pushful youth who forestalled them. Nor is there any hint
of syndicate or federation or other agreement existing between the 500
dealers who are fellow passengers on board the ill-fated ships in the Valā-
hassa and Pandara Jātakas? ; or the 700 who were lucky enough to secure
Suppāraka as their pilot5, beyond the fact that there was concerted action in
chartering one and the same vessel. Among merchants travelling by land,
however, the rank of satthavāha or caravan-leader seems to imply some sort
of federation. This position was apparently hereditary, and to be a jetthaka
or elder, in this capacity, on an expedition, apparently implied that other
merchants (vānija) with their carts and caravan-followers, were accompany-
ing the satthavāha, and looking to him for directions as to halts, watering,
precautions against brigands, and even as to routes, fording, etc. Subordi-
nation, however, was not always ensured? , and the institution does not
warrant the inference of any fuller syndicalism among traders.
Partnerships in commerce, either permanent, or on specified occasions
only, are frequently mentioned : the former, in the Kutavāņijas and Mahā.
vānija' Jātakas, the latter in the Pāyāsi Suttantal' and the Serivānija Jātaka'l.
In the Jarudzpāna Jātakal? there is, if not explicit statement, room for
assuming concerted commercial action on a more extensive scale, both in the
birth-story and also in its introductory episode. The caravan in question,
consisting of an indefinite number of traders (in the birth-story, under a
jetthaka', accumulate and expɔrt goods at the same time, and apparently
share the treasure trove, or the profits therefrom. In the episode the firm
also wait upon the Buddha with gifts before and after their journey. These
were traders of Sāvatthī, of the class who are elsewhere described as acting so
unanimously under Anāthapiņdika, himself a great travelling merchant. The
Guttila Jātaka13, again, shows concerted action, in work and play, on the part
1 Jāt. II, 287; III, 198. It is noteworthy that mining and miners nerer came on
in the Jātaka scenes.
The compound vaniggrāma is rendered 'merchants' guild' in Macdonell's
Sanskrit Dictionary.
3 Jāt. I ,122. 4 16. I1,128 ; V, 75. 5 16. IV,138 ff, ; cf. also VI, 34.
6 Fick p. 178 ; D. II, 342 f. ; cf. Jāt. I, 93, 7 16. I, 108, 363 ; II, 295 ; III, 200.
8 Jāt. 1,404 also II 181. 9 16. JV,350. 10 D. II, 342.
11 Jāt. I, 111.
12 1b. II, 294 ff.
13 Ib, II, 218 ; cf. 1, 121 for concerted action between dealers in freights.
>
## p. 189 (#223) ############################################
VIII)
TRADE BY SEA
189
of Benares trades. It is conceivable, however, that the travelling in
company may have been undertaken as much for mutual convenience in
the chartering of a common ship, or the employment of a single band of
forest-guards, as for the prevention of mutual under-selling or the cornering
of any wares. Merchants are represented, at least as often, as travelling
with their own caravan alone. Thus in the first Jātaka? two traders,
about to convey commodities to some distant city, agree which shall start
first. The one thinks that, if he arrive first, he will get a better, because
non-competitive price; the other, also holding that competition is killing
work (lit. 'price-fixing is like robbing men of life'), prefers to sell at the
price fixed, under circumstances favourable to the dealer, by his predeces-
sor, and yields him a start.
The little aperçus which we obtain from the Jātakas of the range and
objective of such merchants' voyages are so interesting as side-lights on
early trafficking as to create regret at their scantiness. The overland
caravans are sometimes represented as going 'east and west'}, and across
deserts that took days, or rather nights to cross, a 'land-pilot' (thala.
niyyāmaka) steering during the cooler hours of darkness by the stars.
Drought, famine, wild beasts, robbers, and demons are enumerated as the
dangers severally besetting this or that desert route. Such caravans may
have been bound from Benares, the chief industrial and commercial centre
in early Buddhist days, across the deserts of Rājputāna westward to the
sea ports of Bharukaccha, the modern Broach and the sea board of Sovīra
(the Sophir, or Ophir, of the Septuagint ? ), and its capital Roruva? or Rorukas
Westward of these ports there was traffic with Babylon, or Bāveru.
At a later date, say, at the beginning of the first century A. D. the
chief objective of Indian sea-going trade is given in the Milinda' as
follows :
As a shipowner who has become wealthy by constantly levying freight in some
seaport town, will be able to traverse the high seas, and go to Vanga or Takkola, or
China or Sovira, or Surat, or Alexandria, or the Kormoandel coast, or Further India,
or any other place where ships do congregate.
Tamil poems testify to the flourishing state of Kāviri-pațținam (Kamara
in Periplus, Khabari of Ptolemy), capital of Chõla, on the Kāveri river, at
about the same period as a centre of international trade especially frequented
by Yavana (Yona, Ionian) merchants10. According to the Jātaka it was
1 On a local 'corner in hay'see Jāt. I, 121.
2 16. I, 99; cf. 194, 270, 354, 368, 413 ; II, 109, 335 ; III, 200, 403 ; IV, 15 f. ;
V, 22, 164.
3 16. I, 98 f. 4 16. J, 107. 5 16. I, 99. 6 1b. III, 188; IV, 137 ; Dip.
IX, 26.
7 16, III. 470.
8 D. II, 235 ; Divy. 544.
9 Milinda panha 359 ; trans. 11, 269 (S. B. E. XXXVI).
13 Kanakasabhai, The Tamils 1800 years ago, quoted by Subba Rao (v. Biblio.
graphy), p. 81 f. On Chola see Malavamsa XXI, 13.
## p. 190 (#224) ############################################
190
( ch.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
practicable to attain to any of these ports starting from up the Ganges, not
only from Champā (or Bhāgalpur, about 350 miles from the sea) but even
from Benares. Thus the defaulting woodwrights mentioned abovel reach
an ocean island from the latter city ; Prince Mahājanaka sets out for
Suvannabhumi from Champā? , and Mahinda travels by water from Patna
to Tāmalitti, and on to Ceylon? . It is true that the world Samudda sea, is
occasionally applied to the Ganges, nevertheless, if the foregoing stories be
compared with the Sankha Jātaka', it becomes probable that the open sea
is meant in both. In this the hero, while shipwrecked, washes out his
mouth with the salt water of the waves during his self-imposed fast.
Again, in the Silānisamsa Jātaka, a sea-fairy as helmsman brings 'passen-
gers for India' by ships ‘from off the sea to Benares by river. Other
traders are found coasting round India from Bharukaccha to Suņnvaa-
bhūmi? , doubtless putting in at a Ceylon port ; for Ceylon was another
bourne of oversea commerce, and one associated with perils around which
Odyssean legends had grown ups.
