Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW)
Social and Material Life
1. The NBPW phase also marks the beginning of the use of money in the sub-continent, as early series of punch-marked coins have been excavated from NBPW sites. Along with metal money, burnt bricks and ring wells too appeared in the middle of the NBPW phase.
2. During C. 600-300 BCE, there was significant expansion in the number and size of village settlements, towns, and corresponding population growth in the Ganga Valley. Numerous villages and towns are mentioned n the Pali and Sanskrit texts. There was a great degree of differentiation in case of towns:
(I) pura or nagara meant a fortified town or city;
(II) nigama referred to a market town which was at an intermediate level between grana and nagara1;
(III) rajdhani referred to capital city;
(IV) nagarka was a small town and
(V) mahanagara was a big city.
some of the prominent towns (mahanagaras) were Kashi, Kaushambi, Rajgriha, Pataliputra, Shravasti, Ayodhya, Vaishali, Champa and Kapilavastu.
3. Not only were these towns seats of government, but they also served as major hubs of trade and commerce and were inhabited by many artisans and merchants who were organized into their respective guilds. The setthi was a high level businessman, associated with trade and money lending. Both artisans and merchants lived in fixed localities in towns known as vessas (merchant streets). Generally, crafts were hereditary and the son used to learn his family trade from his father.
4. Craft products like textile goods, ivory products , pots, etc., were exported over long distances by merchants. All the major cities were situated on river banks and trade routes, and were connected with each other. The two major trans-regional routes of the time were known as Uttarapatha (of northern India, stretching from the north-west across the Indo-Gangetic plains to the port city of Tamralipti on the Bay of Bengal) and Dakshinapatha (of southern India, stretching from Pataliputra in Magadha to Pratishthana on the Godavari, and connected to ports on the western coast). The internal trade routes joined the external trade routes, and there are evidences of flourishing trade of the subcontinent along both eastern (Bengal with Myanmar) and western (Taxila with Afghanistan, Iran and Mesopotamia) regions.
5. The major items of import included precious stones such as gold, lapis lazuli, jade, silver, etc., while finished crafts, textile goods, sandalwood and pearls were major items of export.
6. Pali texts also mention sea travel and trade. Custom officials (Kammikas) and toll officials called (Shaulkika/Shulkadhyaksha) levied taxes on merchandise, and special royal officials called Rajabhatas were deputed to safeguard the lives and property of travellers.
7. Trade was facilitated by use of money termed Nishka and Satamana. The earliest coins are punch-marked (called so as pieces of metals were punched with certain marks such as hill, tree, bull, fish, crecent, elephant, etc.) and made of silver, though a few copper coins are also found. The Pali texts further refer to the plentiful use of money and its use to pay wages and prices. Panini's Ashtadhyayi also mentions wage (vetan) and wage earners (vaitanika).
8. Both towns and villages mutually supported each other as the non-agriculturists living in towns were fed by the agriculturists living in villages, and in return, artisans and traders living in towns made tools, cloth, etc., available to rural folk. The Pali texts (especially the Vinay Pi taka) suggests three types of villages (grama):
(I) Typical villages, inhabited by various castes, communities and headed by a headman called gramabhojaka, gramini or gramakas. The majority of the villages belonged to this category. The village headman enjoyed considerable importance and had direct links with the kings. They not only collected taxes from the villagers, but also maintained law and order in their locality.
(II) Suburban villages, which were in the nature of craft villages. For example, carpenters' village (vaddhaki-grama), reed makers' village (nalakara-grama), salt makers' village (lonakara-grama) and chariot makers' villages are mentioned in the texts of the period. These villages served as markets for other villages and linked the towns with the countryside.
(III) Border villages (aramika-grama), which were situated on the periphery of the countryside and merged into forests. People living in these villages were mainly hunters and fowlers, who mostly lived on primitive substance methods like food gathering.
9. The village lands were divided into cultivable plots and were allotted family-wise, though the size of land holdings varied. The plots were cultivated by the family on its own as well as with hired agricultural labourers (dasa-kammakara). Rich peasants were known as 'Gahapati'. Irrigation channels were dug collectively under the supervision of villages headman.
10. One-sixth (1/6) of the produce was paid by peasants as tax, which was collected by royal agents. There were generally no intermediaries between peasants and the state, though some villages were granted to Brahmanas and big merchants for their own use. It should be noted that the beneficiaries were granted only the revenue of these lands and not administrative authority.
11. There was an emergence of the notion of private property, as there are references to the gift and sale of land.
12. It is equally noteworthy that during this period, because of the use of the iron ploughshare and good fertility of alluvial soil, agriculture made great advances. Perhaps for the first time, there was land and agrarian expansion, which aided in the emergence of an advanced food-producing economy. Rice was the staple cereal and paddy transplantation was widely practiced. Along with rice, barley, pulses, millets, cotton and sugarcane were also produced. The excavated site of Atranjikhera (in U.P.) provides valuable information about the transition from rural to urban life.
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