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The Coming of Feudalism in Post-Maurya Times
Page: 3/8
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The Rise of the Self-Sufficient Village Economy
The individual producers who resulted from this falling mode of production,
settled in the scattered villages throughout the countryside. In the absence of
good means of communications. The village now began to get the characteristic of
being itself self-sufficient closed economic unit which produced all its
required commodities internally. Without any exchange or trade. While trade did
exist it was a much smaller and irregular scale than it was in the Mauryan
times. Thus while in Europe the coming of feudal relations in the middle ages
saw the rise of craftsmen-guilds, in India the rise of feudal relations was
marked by the disintegration of the Shreni guilds.
Rise of a Class of Hereditary Revenue Collectors - the Feudal Lords
This shifting of economic activity was accompanied by the shifting of
political power to the rising class of village feudatory revenue collectors who
stood one above the other in a hierarchy in place of the salaried bureaucrats
who collected revenue for the Mauryan State. In the changed circumstances the
practice that was gaining ground was of appointing revenue collectors who would
not be paid a salary by the king but who would be entitled to a share in the
revenue collected by him. Thus the position of a revenue collector changed from
being that of a salaried employee of the king to that of a petty chieftain
himself. Such hereditary revenue collectors were called "Samant". They
also maintained a fighting force which could be called upon by the king when
needed to defend or attack other kingdoms. The Samants were the feudal nobility.
The Caste System with its hereditary occupational structure led to superb specialization.
Craftsmanship in the making of jewellery
from jade and other semi-precious stones
reached unparalleled heights in Medieval India.
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