Debt: The First 5000 Years - autonomous learning

THE MIDDLE AGES 255
They did it above all by seizing control of the administration of
law. The Dharmasastra, law-codes produced by Brahmin scholars between
roughly 200 BC and 400 AD, give us a good idea of the new vision
of society. In it, old ideas like the Vedic conception of a debt to gods,
sages, and ancestors were resuscitated-but now, they applied only and
specifically to Brahmins, whose duty and privilege it was to stand in for
all humanity before the forces that controlled the universe.11 Far from
being required to attain learning, members of the inferior classes were
forbidden to do so: the Laws of Manu, for instance, set down that any
Sudra (the lowest caste, assigned to farming and material production)
who so much as listened in on the teaching of the law or sacred texts
should have molten lead poured into their ears; on the occasion of a
repeat offense, have their tongues cut out.12 At the same time Brahmins,
however ferociously they guarded their privileges, also adopted aspects
of once-radical Buddhist and Jain ideas like karma, reincarnation, and
ahimsa. Brahmins were expected to refrain from any sort of physical
violence, and even to become vegetarians. In alliance with representatives
of the old warrior caste, they also managed to win control of most
of the land in the ancient villages. Artisans and craftsmen fleeing the
decline or destruction of cities often ended up as suppliant refugees,
and, gradually, low-caste clients. The result were increasingly complex
local patronage systems in the countryside--jajmani systems, as they
came to be known-where the refugees provided services for the landowning
castes, who took on many of the roles once held by the state,
providing protection and justice, extracting labor dues, and so on-but
also protected local communities from actual royal representatives.13
This latter function is crucial. Foreign visitors were later to be
awed by the self-sufficiency of the traditional Indian village, with its
elaborate system of landowning castes, farmers, and such "service
castes" as barbers, smiths, tanners, drummers, and washermen, all arranged
in hierarchical order, each seen as making its own unique and
necessary contribution to their little society, all of it typically operating
entirely without the use of metal currency. It was only possible
for those reduced to the status of Sudras and Untouchables to have
a chance of accepting their lowly position because the exaction of local
landlords was, again, on nothing like the same scale as that under
earlier governments-under which villagers had to support cities of upwards
of a million people--and because the village community became
an effective means of holding the state and its representatives at least
partially at bay.
We don't know the mechanisms that brought this world about, but
the role of debt was surely significant. The creation of thousands of