Feudalism in Ancient India

With the introduction of Marxist method of analysis in the study of ancient history of India,
the political and economic aspects of the period have been revalued and the question of the
feudalism in ancient India has once again come into surface. Scholars have talked about the
class struggle and feudalism in ancient India and told us about the existence of slave society
in later Vedic period.

In fact, the production system of Asia had some special characteristics of the system. Those
were:

the state controlled irrigation system,

The Asian system of production had many differences with what was followed in Ancient
India. India during that period had private ownership of land as well and there was a ruling
class also, clustering round the king, who used to grasp the surplus money from the people.
Archaeological excavations have proved that there were planned urbanization as well and
hence the old theory of Asian economic system has been rejected. Now the social structure
of ancient India is being studied from the angle of historical materialism and Dialectical
materialism.

In a vast country like India where there are so many languages and varied environment, the
stages of social mobility or social progress could never have uniformity. Indian society had
never depended absolutely on the labour of the slave, who in the ancient period was known
as the Sudras and the member of slaves also were limited only a few. However, during
the post-later Vedic era there might have slaves who played a significant part in the
Mauryan economic system. He preferred to call it a Vaishya Sudra society. The Sudras too
were not slaves. The higher castes too tried to grasp the surplus money from the people.
Thus the Indian feudal system cannot be compared with that of Europe. In fact, there were
some changes in the social system of India at that period where in there was an inter
mixing or interaction between the Brahmanical ideology and the tribal culture and
following this interaction the tribal life was greatly influenced by the agrarian rural
economy of those days.

Feudalism in India practically began with the early medieval period, when the villages
became almost self-sufficient owing to slanginess in urbanization and commercial activities
during the fag end of the Gupta period. During the first century the Indian kings began to
donate land freely to the Brahmins, scholars and religious institutions conferring the
ownership of the land and the right to collect revenues thereof on them. This had enabled
them to make a direct link and control over the peasantrya system which Kosambi called
a super imposed feudalism. It increased in its volume during the reign of Guptas
and Harsha Vardhana, and a new class of land owners emerged who began to exploit the
cultivators. He called this system-feudalism from the bottom as a result of which the
agrarian economy had suffered much.

Some scholars believe that feudalism began when the kings started donating lands to the
Brahmans, temples and the monasteries which increased in its volume during the time of
the Guptas. During this period many of the densely populated villages along with all their
cultivable lands, revenues, executive and judicial rights, freedom from royal interference
and right to enjoy money collected from the fees and fines and confiscations were gifted to
the Brahmans or religious institutions.

Later on the same type of gifts were made to the soldiers. With the growth of regional self-
sufficient economic system this religious and secular gifts gained popularity. As a result of
this self-sufficient economic system both the urban life and commerce deteriorated and the
amount of coin also deteriorated.
As feudalism developed community right on land diminished. The pasture-land, marshes
and forests-all were gifted. A middle order land owner class emerged. The peasant lost his
right of free movement and was forced to pay heavy taxes and do forced labour. He
became a slave. There was the possibility of further transfer of land and in reality
that .happened too. By 6th century A.D. production fell causing fall in commercial activities
and the growth of self-sufficient economy. In such an economy coins became scarce and
hence the priests and the royal servants began to collect their revenues through land
revenue causing the peasant to face further hardship and exploitation.

What is feudalism?

In Europeans sense, feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations
among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals, and
fiefs. However, in context with ancient India, the system gradually developed from the
beginning of the land grants.
The practice of making land grants to the Brahmanas was a custom, sanctified by the
injunctions laid down in the Dharmashashtras, Epics and Puranas. The Anusasana
Parva of the Mahabharata devotes a whole chapter to the praise of making gifts of land
(Bhumidanaprasamsa).
The Land Grants & Administrative Rights

The early Pali texts of the pre-Maurya period refer to the villages granted to the Brahmanas
by the rulers of Kosala and Magadha. A term used for such grants was Brahamdeyya.
Earliest Land Grants

The earliest land grants belonging to the first century BC were given to the Buddhist priests
and Brahmanas and other religious establishments. However, in the post-Guptas period
even administrative officials were granted land. The landed beneficiaries were given both
powers of taxation and coercion, leading to the disintegration of the central authority. The
secular recipients of the grants and the autonomous holders of land are generally termed
as fief holders and free holders. The major outcome was decentralization.
However, the Earliest epigraphic record of a land grants in India is a Saatavahana
inscription of the first century BC, which refers to the grant of a village as a gift in
 the Ashvamedha Sacrifice. However, it is not clear, whether the administrative or revenue
rights of these lands were also given to those priests or not. It has been guessed that the
administrative rights were perhaps given up for the first time in the grants made to
Buddhist monks by the Satavahana ruler Gautamiputra Satakarni in the second century
AD. Such a land grant included the rights that :
The royal troops could not enter such land granted

The government officials and district police was not supposed to disturb such lands.
Changes in Land Grants

From the period of later Mauryas, the land grants included the transfer of all sources of
revenue, and the surrender of police and administrative functions. The grants of the second
century AD mention that the transfer of the kings control only over salt, which implies that
he retained certain other sources of revenue. But in some other grants, it was recorded that
the donor (King) gave up his control over almost all sources of revenue, including
pastures, mines including hidden treasures and deposits.
Then, the donor not only abandoned his revenues but also the right to govern the
inhabitants of the villages that were granted. This practice became more prevalent in the
Gupta period. There are many instances of grants of apparently settled villages made to the
Brahmanas during the Gupta era. In such grants, the residents, including the cultivators and
artisans, were expressly asked by their respective rulers not only to pay the customary
taxes to the donees, but also to obey their commands. All this provides clear evidence of
the surrender of the administrative power of the state.
One of the important aspect of the Kings sovereignty was that he used to retain the rights of
the punishing the culprits. In the Post-Gupta times, the king made over to the Brahmanas
not only this right, but also his right to punish all offences against family, property, person,
etc.
Implications of Land Grants

We see that, by giving such privileges, the state was bound to disintegrate. Out of the seven
organs of the state power mentioned in literary and epigraphic sources, taxation system
and coercive power based on the army are rightly regarded as two vital elements. If they
are abandoned, the state power disintegrates. This was the system created by the grants
 made to the Brahmins. The land was granted for as long as the existence of the sun and the
moon, which implies the permanent break-up of the integrity of the state.
The above discussion makes it clear that in the Post-Gupta period, the Brahamdeyya
carried freedom from taxes , Administrative freedom and also the freedom from
punishments (Abhayantarasiddhi). The widespread practice of making land grants in the
Gupta period paved the way for the rise of Brahmin feudatories, who performed
administrative functions not under the authority of the royal officers but almost
independently. What was implicit in earlier grants became explicit in grants from about
1000AD; and well recognised in the administrative systems of the Turks.
The implications were many but the major implication was the creation of powerful
intermediatories wielding considerable economic and political power. As the number of the
land-owning Brahmins went up, some of them gradually shed their priestly functions and
turned their chief attention to the management of land. Thus, their case secular functions
became more important than religious functions. The comprehensive competence based on
centralised control, which was the hallmark of the Maurya state gave way
to decentralisation in the post-Maurya and Gupta periods. The functions of the
collection of taxes, levy of forced labour, regulation of mines, agriculture, etc., together with
those of the maintenance of law and order, and defence which w re hitherto performed by
the state officials, were now systematically abandoned, first to the priestly class and later to
the warrior class.
Thus, the main implications of the Indian Feudalism in early medieval period are as
follows:
Political decentralization: The seed of decentralization that was sown in the form of
Land grants turned into a vividly branched political organization made up semi-
autonomous rulers, Samantas, Mahasamantas and others such as Rajpurushas.

Emergence of new landed intermediatories: The emergence of landed intermediaries-

Changes in agrarian relations: Free vaishya peasants dominated the agrarian structure
in early historical India and labour services provided by the Shudra. But, from the sixth
century AD onwards the peasants stuck to the land granted to the beneficiaries because
they were asked not to leave the village granted to the beneficiaries or migrate to tax-free
village. This resulted in the immobility of the population and isolation from the rest of the
world. Its implication was very profound such as development of localized customs,
languages and rituals.