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Rural Expansion in Early Medieval India. A Linguistic Assessment

The transformation of the ancient social pattern in India has been a subject of serious studies [cf. Kosambi 1956; Sharma 1965, Njammasch 1984 etc.]. In the present paper I am going to pinpoint one of the most intricating phenomenon of the forming new pattern. As R. S. Sharma rightly observes the birth of regional kingdoms came along with a demand of new material resources that covered the increasing expenditures of the rulers they spent on the army, patronising art and literature, promoting religion and last but not least the administrative staff. These resources were provided by the surplus in agricultural production and directly by the peasantry [Sharma 1980, 157 and 161]. This process took place in frame of a territorial expansion and bringing under cultivation vast territories on the outskirts of the former existing settlements or in the so-called tribalbelt where the agriculturists were placed under the control of religious beneficiaries, especially the brâhmanas [cf. Sharma 1974]. These brâhmanas acted as agricultural experts, missionaries of a more developed technique [Kosambi 1970, 173] and were accordingly alloted the land to live in [Njammasch 1984, 114—120]. One may ask what kind of technical change can be ascribed to the period. According to Njammasch the evolution of tools, the rotation of crops, the use of manure, the application of ploughs furnished with heavy iron share, the growth of the cultivation of cotton, sugarcane, oil-seeds and spices, the progress in irrigation especially by using wells are the main symptoms of this progress [Njammasch 1985, 169]. Elsewhere she remarks that towards the end of early medieval times "the greatest part of the ruling class became altogether separated from the soil (Boden) and had no more interest in the improvement of agricultural technology." [Njammasch 1984, 151]. Sharma summarizes the changes thus: a kind of big plough (brhadhala) is recorded in a tenth-century inscription from the Ajmer area; a punder is found in the territory of the late Pala kingdom ; progress in irrigation techniques, paddy transplantation, preparation of fertilizers; observance of weather conditions, precise knowledge of cereals [Sharma 1987, 173—174]. Let us see the data behind these statements. Source material for early medieval India is fairly one-sided. Apart from the meagre archaeological evidence yielded exclusively by Indian plastic arts we are compelled to rely on linguistic data only. The Käeya