Farming, trade and guilds

Farming under the Mauryas. The state carefully ran the economy:

• village land was divided into individual holdings, with common pastures for cattle and groves on the edges;
• forests were cleared for farming, but some kinds of forest were protected by law;
• the basic land tax was usually one-sixth of the harvest.

Kauṭilya sorted land for taxing: cultivated land, waste or fallow land, high and dry land, sown fields and groves.

Crops grown included several kinds of rice, pulses, wheat, linseed, mustard, saffron, sugarcane, vegetables and fruits.

After the Mauryas, farming stayed the backbone of the economy:

• the Buddhist Milindapañho describes eight stages of farm work, from preparing and weeding fields to harvesting and winnowing;
• the Deccan's black soil was good for cotton;
• the Amarakoṣha, a Sanskrit dictionary, has a chapter on forests, crops, plants and manure;
• Sangam texts praise the Chera land's jackfruit, pepper and turmeric, and describe ragi and sugarcane fields.

Water for the fields. Rudradaman's Junagadh inscription says that Puṣhyagupta, a governor of Chandragupta Maurya, built a dam on Sudarshana Lake near Girnar in Saurāṣhṭra. The Cholas built canals, lakes and tanks joined by channels; Karikala Chola's Grand Anicut (Kallanai) on the Kaveri is still in use today.

"Why carve a dam into a rock inscription?" Because irrigation meant good harvests, and harvests meant tax revenue. Building water works was something a ruler was proud of.

Trade. The Arthaśhāstra says Magadha traded textiles, gems, coral, pearls, metals and minerals with north, central and south India. Salt production was strictly controlled by the state. The state also kept trade routes safe and stopped adulteration (mixing in cheap stuff), to protect buyers.

By about the 6th century BCE, two great land routes had appeared (Fig. 5.12):

• Uttarāpatha, the northern route;
• Dakṣhiṇāpatha, the southern route.

They carried goods, people and ideas, and linked inland towns to coastal ports.

Ports such as Muziris, Kāveripaṭṭinam, Arikameḍu and Masulipaṭnam grew busy. By the early centuries CE, India's trade with Rome had grown a lot, by sea and overland through Central Asia. The Silappadikāram mentions routes from Kanchipuram to Poompuhar (Kaveripattinam) and from Kanchipuram to Kanyakumari.

Guilds (śhreṇīs) were associations of people in the same craft or trade. They grew after the mahājanapadas, when silver punch-marked coins came into use. The Jātakas mention eighteen kinds of guilds. A guild:

• checked the quality of goods;
• often fixed prices, to protect both makers and buyers;
• had its own courts to discipline members;
• worked as a bank, a lender and a trustee (looking after money for others).

A guild as a bank: the Nāśhik cave inscription (2nd century CE). Uṣhavadāta, son-in-law of the Śhaka king Nahapāna, gave a cave to the Buddhist saṁgha and deposited money with weavers' guilds. The guilds paid a fixed interest, and the interest paid for the monks' needs. The money itself stayed safe: a permanent fund.

Crafts flourished: textiles of silk, cotton, wool and linen came from centres such as Mathurā, Kāśhī and Kāmarūpa. And at Sanchi, an inscription on the southern gateway credits the guild of ivory workers of Vidiśhā with carving its sculptures.