COMMERCIAL RELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST 7
I. Agricultural Organization :
Very early we find the ancient Hindoos living a village life : Each village consisted of from 30 to 1000 families. No isolated houses were to be found but they clustered together. Agriculture is known as the highest occupation and the Indian proverb puts the merchantman second to the farmer and the soldier occupies the last place in social gradation.
Land was cultivated by the farmer and his families and some times by hired labour. “The traditional feeling was apparently against land transfer”. Yet we see that land was rented out for cultivation. Independent landholder was regarded respectfully but work on the farm of a capitalist was greatly disapproved. There is no evidence to definite say whether or not there was feudalism in village community.
There was a great deal of co-operation among villagers for building and repairing roads and tanks and municipal buildings:
“The sovereign claimed an annual tilha on raw produce. This was levied, and in kind amounted to 1/6,1/8,1/10 or
1/12.” “Grain, pulse, and sugarcane were the chief products : vegetables, possibly also fruit and flowers were cultivated. Rice was reckoned as the staple article of food.”
Agriculture was a common occupation for even we see the Brahmin figuring as a goatherd and both as a small and large landholder without losing his caste. The love of the ancient Hindoo and for that matter of the modern for agriculture transcends that of the ancient Greek and is just manifested in the worship of the cow.
The Hindoo devotion to the Cow has been an enigma to most of the foreigners and above all has been an efficient lore in the hands of those half-baked theological failures who go to India to conduct their missionary propaganda for blackmailing the Hindoo.
The origin of cow worship is as much economic as that Roman practice of not offering wine to the Gods from unpruned vines. The cow and for that matter all draft animals, is the soul of the farmers. The cow gives birth to oxen which are absolutely