Agriculture of Ancient India
"The chief occupation of the people was agriculture. They ploughed the ground, the plough being drawn by two oxen fastened to the yoke with hempen or leather traces and driven…
From: 2000 B.C.E. To: 500 C.E.
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The chief occupation of the people was agriculture. They ploughed the ground, the plough being drawn by two oxen fastened to the yoke with hempen or leather traces and driven with a goad. The ploughshare was made of iron, which supplanted the older ploughshare made of khadira wood.
The ploughmen sang merrily to the steers while ploughing; they bedewed the furrow with ghi and honey before sowing. The fields were watered by means of irrigation canals, from wells or lakes, or by raising water from wells by means of wooden or metal buckets tied to a rope pulled round a stone pulley. They kept away birds from robbing them of the growing corn by uttering loud cries. They reaped the fields with sickles and stacked the sheaves near, leaving three sheaves, to the good goblins that guarded the field. Four sheaves were tied together and hung in the house to propitiate the goddess of the house.
They threshed them on threshing-floors, winnowed the corn in winnowing baskets and then carted it to their homes and stored it in granaries. It was measured before being stored, the unit of measure being called khari.
Agriculture was followed not merely for providing one’s own family with food but as a means of acquiring wealth. For when ploughing was commenced, they recited the mantra “Let the plough, lance-pointed, well-lying, with well-smoothed handle, turn up cow, sheep, an on-going chariot, and a plump wench.”
The enemies of the agriculturalists were rodents, insects, and demons, which were exorcised by means of spells. A great number of them are named, e.g., tarda, samanka, upakvasa, vagha, but cannot be identified.
In the ponds for storing water, the lotus was grown; lotus ponds were much desiderated. Fruit is frequently referred to and therefore fruit-gardens were maintained.
The poets of this age were not hampered by the rhetorical conventions of a later time with regard to the choice of poetical images, and we find that the work of the cultivator furnished them with metaphors.
Sacrifice to the gods is figuratively described as agriculture. “Lay on the yokes, and fasten well the traces. Formed is the furrow; sow the seed within it. Through song we may find hearing fraught with plenty: near to the ripened grain approach the sickle; wise, through desire of bliss from gods, the skilful bind that traces fast, and lay the yokes on either side. Arrange the buckets in their place: securely fasten on the straps. We will pour forth the well that hath a copious stream, fair-flowing well that never fails.”
Iyengar, P.T. Srinivas. Life in Ancient India. Srinivasa Varadachari, 1912.
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