Agriculture and Cattle-keeping

Agriculture is the most important productive source in a peasant society but is natural for people of diverse social groups to participate in this activity. Mahanama Sakya describes to his younger brother Anuradha the duties incumbent on a person who is engaged in agricultural activities. Mahanama describes the entire agricultural operations from ploughing the field to winnowing the chaff and separating the grains. He was member of the ruling extended kin group, and it is most likely that he would be performing only managerial and proprietary functions in his ancestral farm. The income from his farm must have been substantial so as to be able to let his younger brother live in luxury (sukhulo), and also therefore must indicate a big land holding.^[1]

The Mallas of Kusinara are found referring to their gama khetta (agricultural lands).^[2] We find brahmana farmer Bharadvaja ploughing his land, which requires 500 ploughshares. He says to the Budha with pride that he ploughs, sows and eats. Perhaps Bharadvaja wanted to imply from this settlement that the Buddha was incapable of doing constructive work such agriculture.^[3] When Mendaka the gahapati’s slave ploughs with one ploughshare seven furrows miraculously come from it.^[4] We find two farmer brother who, while ploughing the land, are struck by lightning and consequently die along with their four oxen.^[5] This instance makes us aware of the fact that ploughing is carried by free men farmers and not by a slave as in earlier case. Kasi (agriculture) is considered a high vocation.^[6] Whenever these three occupations-agriculture, trading, trading and cattle-keeping ² are mentioned, agriculture is always given precedence over the others.^[7]

In the Vasettha sutta, one who lives by cattle-keeping (gorakkham upajivati) is called a kassaka (a farmer).^[8] This may have been so since both the vacations are connected with food producing activities. However, cattle-keeping seems to have been a specialized vocation for some at least. Gopaka Moggalana brahmana and Dhaniya are the two examples in point. Both of them make their living by keeping cattle.^[9]

Before retirement, a gahapati had to hand over the responsibilities to his successors. Potaliya gahapati says that he has handed over to his sons as their inheritance, all that he had of his property and has now retired from the active participation in the day-to-day affairs. This idea of giving up is denoted by the word “voharasmucchedam”.^[10] Buddha says that gahapati or gahapatiputta, to become a monk, has to forsake his fortune, small or great, and his circle of extended kin, group, however few or many and on the yellow robe.^[11] He has thus to clear all secular ties.

The Vinaya gives another definition of the term gahapati. It says, “Excepting the king, he who is in the king’s service, and brahmana, he who remains is called a gahapati.^[12] But this definition is also contradicted by the actual use in which the term has been used in the text. Thus we find the existence of brahmana gahapatis.

We may define occupation for our purpose as a set of activities designed to produce a livelihood. The following criteria shall used in deciding whether or not an activity (or a set of activities) may be called an occupation. The foremost one is that we shall ascertain the specialization involved in it. Such specialization usually involves the acquisition of skill or of a period of apprenticeship. But it may also be based on the possession of the appropriate ritual or, social status by the person who engages in it. This status may again be achievable or ascribed. Socially, we shall consider whether a number of separately mentioned activities, which are similar in other respects (though not identical) and carry the same ritual and social connotations, can in fact be grouped under a single occupational label or not. This would be useful, especially where the prolificity of terms indicating activities denotes veriety in material culture but not so much in the social organization. For instance, ambapa laka (keeper of a mango orchard) and jambupalaka (keeper of a rose-apple orchard) mentioned in one single social context do not enhance our knowledge even if we differentiate between amba and jambu. In such cases, it would be more reasonable to group both together and call it one occupation. Our analysis is not so much concerned with the variety of fruits as with the social position of the palakas (the keepers) of fruit orchards vis-à-vis other occupations.

The texts mention a variety of productive and distributive activities through the descriptive terms which refer to the men engaged in such activities. For instance, pottery as an activity is shown through the term kumbhakara. Such terms are listed to make our task simpler and to proceed with their material and socio-economic implications through examining the various contexts in which they occur. These “activity-denoting” terms are called as occupations. We shall group those terms which do not add to our knowledge in the socio-economic context under one generic occupation and deal with as such.

The most important of the terms concerned with occupations is sippa. Sometimes, it is translated as craft.^[13] Its use in the instance where a brahmana living by various crafts (puthusippena) is called a sippiko^[14] and it denotes the term as a generic one. In another place sippas are divided into high and low. The high sippas are specified as counting coins (mudda), accounting (ganana) and writing (lekhana); the low ones are the leather worker (cammakara), the reed-worker (nalakara), the potter (kumbhakara), the tailor (pesakara). The barber (nahapita).^[15] Also Jivaka in desiring to learn a sippa chooses medicine.^[16] In yet another context a low caste acrobat, while talking to his assistant (antevasi), calls their activity a sippa.^[17] With reference to this, farming and cattle rearing (kasigorakkha) and trading (vanijja) are referred to as vocations (kammam).^[18] In yet another place sippa is differentiated from farming (kasiya) trading (vanijjaya) cattle-rearing (gorakkhena), bowmanship (insithena), the king’s service (rajaporisena), and mendicancy (bhikkhacariyaya).^[19] It is obvious, therefore, that the term denotes what may be called professions, manufacturing crafts such as those of the potter and reed-worker, the service crafts such as that of the barber, and lastly entertainment, which is better described as an art.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Vinaya.II.179-80; compare Digha Nikaya.III.93, where the definition of khattiya is “Lord of the field”, khettanam patiti kho khattiyo.

[2]:

Digha Nikaya.I.166.

[3]:

Santutta Nikaya.I.172.

[4]:

Vinaya.I.240, eken nangalena kasantassa satta sitayo gacchanti.

[5]:

Digha Nikaya.II.131, dve kassaka bhataro hata cattaro ca balivaddha.

[6]:

Vinaya.IV.6.

[7]:

Majjhima Nikaya.I.85; Vinaya.IV.6.

[8]:

Ibid., 464 (Nalanda Edition).

[9]:

Ibid., 185-86; Sutta Nipata, 24-25 verses.

[10]:

Majjhima Nikaya.II.359.

[11]:

Digha Nikaya.I.61.

[12]:

Vinaya.III.222; I.B. Horner, Book of the Discipline, II.67.

[13]:

I.B. Horner, Book of the Discipline, II, 1976.

[14]:

Sutta Nipata, 613, Verse.

[15]:

Vinaya, IV.6-7.

[16]:

Ibid., I.369.

[17]:

Samyutta Nikaya.V.169.

[18]:

Vinaya.IV.6-7.

[19]:

Anguttara Nikaya.III.225.