Age of the Buddha

The new technique and the use of force

enabled some people to possess large stretches of land which needed a good

number of slaves and hired laborers. In Vedic times people, cultivated their

fields with the help of their family members, there is no word for wage earner

in Vedic literature. But slaves and wage earners engaged in cultivation became

a regular feature in the age of the Buddha.

In the Maurya period they worked on large

state farms. Probably 150,000 people captured in Kalinga by Asoka were drafted

for work in farms and mines. But .by and large slaves in ancient India were

meant for domestic work. Generally the small peasant occasionally aided by

slaves, and hired laborers played the dominant role in production.

With the new technique peasants, artisans,

hired laborers and agricultural slaves produced much more than they needed for

their subsistence. A good part of this produce was collected from them by

princes and priests. For regular Collection administrative and religious

methods were devised. The king appointed tax collectors to assess and collect

taxes.

But it, was also important to convince

people of the necessity of obeying the raja, paying him taxes and offering

gifts to the priests. For this purpose the vane system was devised. According to

it members of the three higher varnas or social orders were distinguished

ritually from those of the fourth Varna.

Vedic studies

The twice born were entitled to Vedic

studies and investiture with the sacred thread, and the fourth Varna or the

sudras were excluded from it. They were meant for serving the higher orders,

and some lawgivers reserved slavery only for the sudras. Thus the twice born

can be called citizens and the sudras noncitizens. But there grew distinctions

between citizen and citizen in the ranks of the twice born.

The brahmaness were not allowed to take to

the plough and manual work Gradually the contempt of the higher varnas for

manual work reached such limits that they developed hatred for the hands that

practiced crafts and thus came to look upon some manual laborers as

untouchables. The more a person withdrew from physical labor, the purer he came

to be considered.

The visas, although members of the twice

born group, worked as peasants, herdsmen and artisans and later as traders. What

is more important, they were the principal taxpayers whose payments maintained

the Kshatriyas and brahmaness. The Varna system authorized the Kshatriya to

collect taxes from the peasants and tolls from traders and artisans, which

enabled him to pay his priests and employees in cash and kind.