A changing countryside

What did ordinary people think of their rulers? Jataka stories (Buddhist tales) show the tension: subjects resenting high taxes, and even fleeing to the forest to escape the king's demands.

To raise more revenue, kings promoted agriculture:

• Iron ploughshares spread in the fertile Ganga and Kaveri valleys, where rainfall was good.
• Transplantation of paddy (growing saplings first and then planting them in fields) greatly raised rice output.
• Irrigation grew, through wells, tanks and canals, like the Sudarshana lake in Gujarat.
• In hilly areas, where the plough was hard to use, hoe agriculture continued.

But the new technology increased inequality in the countryside. Buddhist texts mention landless agricultural labourers, small peasants and large landholders, called gahapati. In Tamil texts: vellalar (large landowners), uzhavar (ploughmen) and adimai (slaves).

From the early centuries CE, kings made land grants, often to Brahmanas (as agraharas), recorded in inscriptions. Historians debate why: perhaps to extend farming into new areas, or because kings were losing control and tried to win allies. More grain, but more inequality.