The Penguin History of Early India

by Romila Thapar

  Brahmans as religious beneficiaries were granted land, ostensibly in return for legitimizing and validating the dynasty, or averting a misfortune through the correct performance of rituals or the king earning merit. Lineage links with heroes of earlier times were sought to enhance status through a presumed descent. If the grant was substantial enough the grantee could become the progenitor of a dynasty through appropriation of power and resources. The grants were also part of a process of proselytizing where the grantee sought to propagate his religion. Many grants were made to brahmans proficient in the Vedas, but when they settled near forested areas, or in villages already observing their own beliefs and rituals, the very different observances of the brahmans may have created tensions requiring a negotiated adjustment on both sides. In this situation the Puranic sects were useful mediators between Vedic Brahmanism and the religions of the local peoples. Even if the brahman took over the ritual of the priest, he would have needed to incorporate local mythology and iconography into the flexible and ever-expanding Puranic sects.

  This would also have required existing social organizations to give way to jati and varna status. Inscriptional evidence of the sixth century AD refers to the conquest of eighteen forest polities as the inheritance of those who called themselves parivrajaka rajas (parivrajaka normally refers to wandering religious mendicants). This may point to the ancestor having received a grant of forested land. Some such rajas were given a brahma-kshatra origin, suggesting a merging of ancestors claiming brahman and kshatriya status. The process of change would have involved the conversion of a forest tribe to a caste. Sometimes mlechchha tribes are said to be participants in the origin myths of dynasties, such as Pulindas in the Shailodbhava myths and Bhils in the Guhila myths. These were probably chiefs of forest-peoples who became allies of the grantees, perhaps intermarried and either founded kingdoms or were involved in the founding of a kingdom. Many of the early temples dedicated to Puranic deities are located in central India, possibly because of the proximity of forest settlements. Incarnations of deities, such as the varaha/boar incarnation of Vishnu, are also found in central India and may represent a compromise between a tribal cult and a sect of the Puranic religion.

  The granting of land gradually changed the political economy through conversion to peasant cultivation in new areas. Wasteland, theoretically belonging to the state, included grassland and jungle, the intention being for the grantee to clear and settle it then introduce plough agriculture to yield a revenue. Arable land was already cultivated even if it was lying fallow at the time of the grant. Crop patterns continued broadly along the same lines. Hsüan Tsang stated that sugarcane and wheat were grown in the north-west, and rice in Magadha and further east. He also mentioned a wide variety of fruit and vegetables.

  Cultivated land was further classified according to whether or not there were facilities for irrigating the fields. In western India, apart from the donation of villages and fields, donations of stepwells are also recorded in inscriptions. Water wheels, built and maintained by cultivators, became a familiar part of the rural landscape and in one case such a wheel is described as a garland of pots. Smaller irrigation works, from water-lifts to tanks or small dams, were built through local initiative or by the grantee. Some inscriptions, referring to the latter, touchingly say that these are contributions towards the religious merit of the author’s parents. There was a sense that the presence of the local community and its well were associated with the smaller grants. The dam on the Sudarshana lake, originally constructed by the Maurya governor and repaired by Rudradaman, was once again repaired and brought into use. It is specifically stated that the cost of the renovation was borne entirely by the administration, with no extra taxes or corvee being imposed. Presumably, such extra taxes and labour were normally demanded.

  The grantee received rights over revenue, together with some administrative and judicial rights. These increased in later periods and were included in the terms of the grant. In the case of grants of villages and cultivated land, the peasants working the land were transferred together with the land. This created a category of tied peasantry whose numbers gradually grew larger. But this was not the equivalent of serfdom as the contractual relation between peasant and grantee was not identical with the generally accepted pattern of serfdom. Nor was the labour used parallel to that of serfs. The peasant so transferred was not necessarily required to cultivate the land of the grantee in addition to his own. His contribution was to pay the grantee the equivalent of what he had earlier paid to the state as tax. Demands of other kinds could be made by the grantee as stipulated in the terms of the grant. Major concessions to the grantee were exemption from billeting troops or provisioning officials, and the right to impose new taxes and vishti, corvée. What was emerging gradually was a juxtaposition of large-scale ownership of land with small-scale peasant production. The compulsions on the peasant were not always economic and the production of a surplus could be enforced. This was complemented by a hierarchical society in which caste differentiation was an additional form of control.

  The inscription recording the grant was often engraved on copper plates, held together by a ring which carried the seal of the donor. Since this was the legal document registering the grant, it was necessary to keep it in the family and produce it when required to prove ownership or the claim to rights. Sometimes the grant was inscribed on a slab of stone that would be kept in a safe and prominent place, for instance, the local temple. An example of the standard formula is shown by the following grant, issued by Prabhavati Gupta, the Vakataka Queen:

  Success. Victory has been attained by the Bhagavat. From Nandivardhana. There was the maharaja the illustrious Ghatotkachchha, the first Gupta king. His excellent son was the maharaja the illustrious Chandra Gupta [I], His excellent son was the maharaja-adhiraja, the illustrious Samudra Gupta who was born of the Queen Kumaradevi; who was the daughter’s son of the Lichchhavi; who performed several horse sacrifices. His excellent son is the maharaja-adhiraja Chandra Gupta II graciously favoured by him; who is a fervent devotee of the Bhagavat; who is a matchless warrior on the earth; who has exterminated all kings; whose fame has tasted the water of the four oceans; who has donated many thousands of crores of cows and gold. His daughter the illustrious Prabhavatigupta of the Dharana gotra born of the illustrious Queen Kuberanaga who was born in the Naga family; who is a fervent devotee of the Bhagavat; who was the chief Queen of the illustrious Rudrasena [II] the maharaja of the Vakatakas; who is the mother of the heir-apparent the illustrious Divakarasena; having announced her good health, commands the householders of the village, brahmans and others in the village of Danguna in the ahara of Supratishtha to the east of Vilavanaka, to the south of Shirshagrama, to the west of Kadapinjana, and to the north of Sidivivaraka, as follows: ‘Be it known to you that on the twelfth lunar day of the bright fortnight of Karttika, we have, for augmenting our own religious merit, donated this village with the pouring out of water to the acharya Chanalasvamin who is a devotee of the Bhagavat as a gift not previously made, after having offered it to the footprints of the Bhagavat. Wherefore you should obey all his commands with proper respect.

  And we confer here on him the following exemptions incidental to an agrahara granted to the chaturvidya brahmans as approved by former kings: this village is not to be entered by soldiers and policemen; it is exempt from providing grass, hides for seats and charcoal to touring officers; exempt from purchasing alcohol and digging salt; exempt from mines and khadira trees; exempt from supplying flowers and milk; it carries the right to hidden treasures and deposits and major and minor taxes.

  Wherefore this grant should be maintained and augmented by future kings. Whoever disregarding our order will cause obstructions when complained against by the brahmans, we will inflict punishment together with a fine…’

  The charter has been written in the thirteenth regnal year and engraved by Chakradasa.

  ‘The Poona Plates of Prabhavatigupta’, in V. V. Mirashi (ed.), I
nscriptions of the Vakatakas, CII, V, p. 5 ff.

  Land revenue was a substantial source of income for the state, which claimed one-sixth of the produce and sometimes raised it to a quarter. One-sixth was a conventional figure, applying even to the merit acquired by the king from the asceticism of the renouncers! Variations on this figure as a revenue demand occurred with other taxes, such as that on the area under cultivation, the provision of irrigation facilities and suchlike. The making of land grants, when they grew to a substantial size, would have meant a loss of some revenue to the state. But there were other compensations in the system, such as the grantees forming a network of support, even in far-flung areas, which provided legitimacy to the ruling dynasty; and in the granting of wasteland new areas were opened up to cultivation without state investment, such as land to the east of the lower Ganges.

  As always, the measuring of land varied. A variety of terms were used, based on the length of the hand, the arm, the bow, the plough or, in a different system of measurement, the amount of land sown by using a specific quantity of seeds or ploughed by yoked oxen in a specific time (for example, kulyavapa, dronavapa, nivartana). A nivartana has been variously calculated as less than i acre or up to 4 acres. The former is more likely, since six nivartanas are said to suffice for a household. That some grants were of an enormous size can be gauged by one statement that a merchant bought half a village, then donated it to a brahman. If this statement is taken literally, it conjures up an immensity of complications for all concerned in terms of rights and obligations. The price of land inevitably varied. Cultivated land, especially if it had irrigation facilities, was more highly valued than wasteland. In one case a certain acreage in Bengal, probably of cultivated land, was valued at four dinara (gold coins), equivalent to sixty-four silver coins. It has been suggested that the area mentioned would be the equivalent of 12 to 16 acres, but estimates vary. The purchase of land for donation to religious beneficiaries is recorded in inscriptions, but the purchase of land as an investment is also referred to in texts.

  Urban Life

  State revenue was derived from a variety of taxes – from the land, and from trade. The maintenance of a powerful state extending patronage to various activities was expensive, and may have put pressure on the economy. The debasement of the later Gupta coinage has been interpreted as recording a fiscal crisis. If Harsha really did divide the income of the kingdom into four, as Hsüan Tsang maintained – a quarter for government expenses, another quarter for the salaries of public servants, a third quarter for the reward of intellectual attainments, and the last quarter for gifts – such a division, although idealistic in concept, may have been economically impractical.

  It has been argued that there was a decay in urban centres at this time, pointing to the Gupta period economy having feudal characteristics. Towns not only declined, but many suffered a visible termination of commerce. Excavation levels of the Kushana period show a more prosperous condition. Maritime trade continued in the peninsula but with a smaller impact. The Hun invasion of the Roman Empire would have disturbed the commercial circuits, not only in the areas beyond north-western India but in the eastern Mediterranean. The insufficiency of agricultural produce to maintain towns has been attributed to climate change, with increasing desiccation and aridity of the environment, catastrophes of various kinds in the countryside and a fall in fertility. A decrease in rainfall and the ill-effects of deforestation would also have affected agricultural production. Such changes would have weakened the agrarian support necessary to towns. An urban decline can be suggested on the basis of these combined changes.

  One difficulty in assessing urban life by counterposing textual and archaeological data is that the former reflects the norms of the wealthy and therefore projects a positive image, whereas the latter can present a different picture including that of more ordinary people. Textual data presents a range of social conditions and it may be necessary to wait for horizontal excavations in order to draw further inferences from archaeological data. It was earlier argued that the revival of urbanism did not take place until the twelfth century or thereabouts, but this time period has now been reduced by evidence of towns to the ninth or tenth centuries. A further problem relates to the question of whether this decline was subcontinental or restricted to certain regions. The evidence for some urban decline in the Ganges Plain has been discussed but noticeable decline in some other regions is not so apparent.

  Some towns certainly declined, but it was not a subcontinental phenomenon and the reasons for decline varied. Apart from environmental changes the reasons would have been connected with economic change. If there was a tapping of new resources, with distribution from new centres of exchange, trade routes may have bypassed areas that were once important. New towns sprang up in the eastern Ganges Plain. Elsewhere Kanyakubja/Kanauj commanded an impressive agrarian hinterland, which remained necessary to the growth of a town, the exchange of agricultural produce being one avenue to a more broad-based exchange. Paunar in the Deccan flourished during the Vakataka period. Valabhi grew in commercial importance through being linked to the trade of the Arabian Sea. Arab traders, affluent in the Arabian peninsula, were picking up the trade across the Arabian Sea.

  Meanwhile, Indian merchants had become more assertive in central Asia and south-east Asia. The establishment of Indian trading stations in both regions initially diverted income to these parts. This may have been responsible for a brief decline in the wealth of Indian cities, until the Indian middleman began to prosper in both regions. In some parts of the subcontinent the Gupta age was the concluding phase of the economic momentum that began in the preceding period. In other parts the sixth century saw commercial links involving new groups of people. Merchants along the west coast became active, while contacts with Arab traders probably initiated a new pattern of exchange.

  Sources of commercial wealth consisted of the produce from mines, plants and animals, converted to items through craftsmanship. Gold was mined in Karnataka but panned in the mountain streams of the far north. The high quality of craftsmanship in gold is evident in the superbly designed and meticulously minted Gupta coins, each a miniature piece of sculpture. They tend to be found in hoards and some are in mint condition. This has led to the suggestion that they were used for presentation, rather than commercially. However, they initially followed the Kushana weight standard, so presumably they circulated in central Asian and north Indian trade. High-value coins were useful for trading in horses and silk, and a familiar weight standard facilitated commerce. Although the art of portraiture seems not to have attracted the designers of coins in India, Gupta coins carry aesthetically impressive depictions of the activities of the rulers. Some of these endorse the symbols of kingship from what were now ancient rituals. Seals are another source of information, both in themselves where they carry succession lists and as attached to copper plate inscriptions.

  The mining of copper and iron continued, being used for household items, utensils, implements and weapons. The refining of iron led to a wider use of steel. Among the most impressive metal objects of this period is the pillar of iron, now located at Mehrauli in Delhi, reaching a height of just over 2,3 feet and made of a remarkably fine metal which has scarcely rusted. It carries an inscription referring to a King called Chandra, identified by some as Chandra Gupta II. Equally impressive is the life-size copper statue of the Buddha, cast in two parts, and now in the Birmingham Museum. Polished metal mirrors were also popular among the rich.

  Ivory work remained at a premium, requiring as much delicacy and skill as the making of jewellery. The pearl fisheries of western India prospered when pearls were in demand in distant markets. The cutting, polishing and preparing of a variety of precious stones – jasper, agate, carnelian, quartz, lapis-lazuli – were also associated with more distant trade. Bead-making was linked to towns such as Ujjain and Bhokardan. Seals were cut from stone and ivory, some were engraved on copper, and a few terracotta impressions also survive. Pottery remai
ned a basic craft though the elegant black polished ware was no longer used. Instead a red ware was common, some of it with an almost metallic finish.

  The manufacture of various textiles had a vast domestic market, since textiles featured prominently in the north-south trade within India, and there was also considerable demand for Indian textiles in Asian markets. Silk, muslin, calico, linen, wool and cotton were produced in quantity, and western India was one of the centres of silk-weaving. Later in the Gupta period the production of silk may have declined, since many members of an important guild of silk-weavers in western India migrated inland to follow other occupations.

  Guilds continued to be vital in the manufacture of goods and in commercial enterprise. In some matters they retained their autonomy, for instance in their internal organization, their laws being respected. The institutionalizing of a craft, ranging from architecture to oil-pressing, by forming a guild which included mercantile corporate organizations had advantages not limited only to commerce. The guilds provided socio-economic support in some ways parallel to that of a jati. Judging by the frequency of guild representatives and merchants being members of urban administrative bodies, it would seem that the authority of the Dharmashastras, which gave some professions a low social ranking, did not hold for all situations. This is another example of the norms of the Dharmashastras giving less attention to the alternative perspective on urban and commercial life arising from the actual functioning of social groups. The royal and corporate authorities governing urban life were not always in agreement with brahmanical statutes, and this had its roots in the pre-Gupta period. There is a continual interplay of status from text to real life, which disallows any simplistic generalization about the unchanging function of caste.

  The rate of interest on loans varied according to the purpose for which money was required. The excessively high rates demanded in earlier times on loans for overseas trade were reduced to a reasonable 20 per cent, indicating a confidence in overseas trade. Interest could exceed the legal rate, provided both parties were agreeable, but it could seldom be permitted to exceed the principal in total amount. The lowering of the rate of interest also indicates the greater availability of goods and a possible decrease in rates of profit.