AGRICULTURE IN ANCIENT INDIA AND ITS SOClAL ASPECTS
Dr.(Mrs.) Radha Krishnamurthy

   Food is very essential for creation and sustenance of life. Ancient Indian texts like the Upanishads identify food with Brahman and declare that through food comes the end of all bondages and ignorance. All these references prove that our forefathers stressed the importance of consuming good food which was possible only by means of proper cultivation of food articles. Thus agriculture or the art of cultivation became the primary profession of man ever since the dawn of civilization.

   Thousands of years ago man was gathering food and earned his livelihood by hunting and fishing. Due to environmental and climatic changes man's instinct for survival gave him fresh idea of cultivating food and stay in one place to pursue nobler aspirations and ambitions of life. This marked the beginning of agriculture in the social history of man. This revolutionary transition from food gathering stage to food producing stage changed the structure of human society leading to the formation of different social groups, social relations, thoughts, values, etc. Agriculture led to technological progress also and many professional groups came into existence.

   Plenty of information on agriculture is available from ancient and medieval texts which reveal that agriculture was practised as a noble profession and that ancient Indians had intimate knowledge of all agricultural operations. Many technical books were written exclusively on agriculture which prove the fact that best attention was bestowed upon agriculture by all classes of people -from the ruling class to peasant class.

   After presenting an introductory background, an attempt has been made in this paper to bring to light many factors related to agriculture like classification of lands according to ecological conditions and biological potential, utilisation of almost all types of lands, rotation of crops, importance of rain, religious invocation of raingod, prediction of rainfall in different regions, planetary influence, meteorology, climatology etc., as gathered from different texts. Other techniques like artificial irrigation, ploughing the field, sowing the seeds, treatment of seeds, manuring, importance of supervision in agriculture and other operations are all discussed briefly.

   Agriculture was practised as an integral part of life and through the examples of agricultural operations many social and moral values were imbibed in society. An humble attempt has been made to bring out a few more important features related to agriculture in Ancient India along with its social and religious aspects.

 
About the Author :-

                     Dr. (Mrs.) RADHA KRISHNAMURTHY
M.A. (Hindi), M.A. (Sanskrit)
    Ph.D .(Hindi), Ph.D .(Sanskrit)

Lecturer for the last 30 years.
Now Reader & Head of the Deptt., of Sanskrit.
Engaged in research for the past 25 years.
Recognised teacher for Ph.D.
Has contributed several research papers and popular articles in English, Sanskrit, Kannada and Hindi.
Presently Editor. Prachar Vani published by the Karnatak Mahila Hindi Seva Samiti, Bangalore.

 

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