Ancient India: Villages, Towns, and Trade

• Chapter 8 discusses villages, towns, and trade in ancient times; it focuses on the use of iron tools, agriculture, irrigation, village life, coinage, cities, and trade routes.

Iron Tools and Agriculture

• Iron use is taken for granted today, but it became common in the subcontinent around 3000 years ago.
• Large collections of iron tools and weapons have been found in megalithic burials.
• Around 2500 years ago, iron tools like axes and ploughshares increased agricultural production via forest clearing.
• Irrigation, including canals, wells, tanks, and artificial lakes, augmented new tools and transplantation to boost production.

Village Life

• Kings and kingdoms relied on flourishing villages for support.
• Southern and northern India had at least three types of people in villages.
• Vellalar: large landowners in the Tamil region.
• Uzhavar: ordinary ploughmen.
• Kadaisiyar and adimai: landless laborers, including slaves.
• The village headman in the northern part of the country was known as the grama bhojaka; the position was hereditary, held by the same family for generations.
• The grama bhojaka was often the largest landowner who used slaves and hired workers for cultivation; the king used the grama bhojaka to collect taxes and as a judge or policeman.
• Independent farmers known as grihapatis were usually smaller landowners.
• Dasa karmakara were men and women who did not own land and earned a living by working on others' fields.
• Villages also had blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, and weavers.
• The Sangam literature is made up of some of the earliest Tamil works that were composed around 2300 years ago; the texts were composed and compiled in assemblies of poets in Madurai.

Coins and Exchange

• Archaeologists have found thousands of coins from this period.
• The earliest coins, used for about 500 years, were punch-marked coins.
• Punch-marked coins were generally rectangular, square, or round, either cut from metal sheets or made of flattened metal globules, stamped with symbols using dies or punches.
• Other means of transactions included bartering.

Cities

• Mathura, an important settlement for over 2500 years, was at the crossroads of major travel and trade routes.
• The city had fortifications, shrines, Buddhist monasteries, Jaina shrines, and was a center for Krishna worship.
• Inscriptions on stone slabs and statues in Mathura record gifts to monasteries and shrines by kings, queens, officers, merchants, and craftspersons, including goldsmiths, blacksmiths, weavers, basket makers garland makers, and perfumers.
• Mathura became the second capital of the Kushanas around 2000 years ago.
• Archaeological finds show evidence for crafts like the Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW), extremely fine pottery found in the northern subcontinent; cloth manufacture was also important.
• Trade centers for textiles included Varanasi in the north and Madurai in the south, where both men and women worked.

Shrenis

• Craftspersons and merchants formed associations known as shrenis.
• Shrenis provided training, raw materials, and distributed finished products; merchant shrenis organized trade.
• Shrenis also functioned as banks, accepting deposits and using the money for investments or to support religious institutions like monasteries.

Arikamedu

• Arikamedu, a coastal settlement (modern Puducherry), existed between 2200 and 1900 years ago, serving as a port for unloading goods from distant lands.
• A massive brick structure that may have been a warehouse existed there.
• Pottery from the Mediterranean region, like amphorae and Arretine Ware, has been found at the site.
• Arretine Ware was stamped red-glazed pottery made by pressing wet clay into a mold.
• Other finds: locally made Roman-designed pottery, Roman lamps, glassware, gems, dyeing vats, and evidence for bead making.
• Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions have also been discovered on pottery shards .

Trade

• Imports into Barygaza included wine, copper, tin, lead, coral, topaz, cloth, gold and silver coins.
• Exports from Barygaza included plants from the Himalayas, ivory, agate, carnelian, cotton, silk, and perfumes.
• South India was renowned for gold, spices (especially pepper which was valued in the Roman Empire as "black gold"), and precious stones.
• Traders transported goods to Rome by sea and land via caravans.
• Many Roman gold coins have been discovered in South India, suggesting significant trade activity.
• Trade is described in the Sangam poems that transported goods to Puhar, a port city on the east coast, that included horses, black pepper, gems/gold, sandalwood, pearls, corals, crops from the Ganga/Kaveri, foodstuffs from Sri Lanka, and pottery from Myanmar.

Kingdoms along the Coasts

• Traders explored sea routes along the coasts and across the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, using monsoon winds.
• The southern subcontinent, marked by a long coastline, hills, plateaus, and river valleys, had the fertile Kaveri River valley.
• Chiefs and kings controlled the river valleys and coasts; they were called muvendar, a Tamil word for the three chiefs as heads of three ruling families.
• The families were the Cholas, Cheras, and Pandyas who became powerful around 2300 years ago.
• Each chief had two centers of power including one inland and one coastal; Puhar (Kaveripattinam), the Chola port, and Madurai, the Pandya capital, were important cities.
• The chiefs did not collect regular taxes but received gifts from the people, conducted military expeditions, and collected tribute from neighboring areas.
• They distributed wealth among family, soldiers, and poets, who in turn wrote poems in praise of the chiefs.
• Chiefs were rewarded with precious stones, gold, horses, elephants, chariots, and fine cloth.
• Approximately 200 years later, the Satavahanas became powerful in western India; Gautamiputra Shri Satakarni was one of the most important rulers.
• Satavahana rulers were known as lords of the dakshinapatha/route leading to the south. The rulers sent their army to the eastern, western, and southern coasts.

Silk Route and the Kushanas

• Some kings tried to control portions of the Silk Route to benefit from taxes, tributes, and gifts.
• The rulers protected traders crossing kingdoms from robber attacks.
• The Kushanas, ruling over central Asia and north-west India around 2000 years ago, were best known for controlling the Silk Route.
• Their major power centers were Peshawar and Mathura.
• During their rule, a Silk Route branch extended from Central Asia to seaports at the mouth of the river Indus, enabling silk to be shipped westwards to the Roman Empire.

Explore ancient Indian villages, towns, and trade in chapter 8. Learn about iron tools, agriculture, irrigation, village life, coinage, cities, and trade routes. Discover how iron tools and irrigation boosted agricultural production, supporting the kingdoms.