14 ms·

In ancient times, right until the attacks by Islamist marauders and "civilized" Britishers, none of what you have mentioned were an issue. Your statement reeks

In ancient times, right until the attacks by Islamist marauders and "civilized" Britishers, none of what you have mentioned were an issue. Your statement reeks of colonialist attitudes of seeing natives of other lands as some sort of brutes and degenerates living in destitution in poverty. In India, Every village was in the vicinity of a water source. Every village had a temple, with a large pond. Massaging with oil and flour based cleansing was the staple of almost every household. Oils and Flours were cheap. Most of agricultural products were cheap in India. Portable water was not an issue, because industrialization did not yet happen and most water sources (and hundreds of wells dug around the country) would have clean, drinking water. Did you think a thousand years ago, people used water filters? The only filter that was used was a fine threaded cloth. Fuel for cooking food, as with any country in those times was usually wood, husk or similar material. > barely able to feed themselves Yeah, no. Leaving aside a few famines here and there, India was mostly self sufficient and had plentiful of food. In fact, selling food was considered the gravest sin. It was codified in societal practices that a householder should try to feed at-least one from outside before he has his food. Food donation was considered the highest ideal, even greater than money. > barely a roof over their heads. Most of the population lived in thatched huts or wood beam supported houses constructed from soil based cement like stuff. I assume this was true all over the world. >You are the peasant. No lands for you, you aren't a lord or lady, you're a peon like 99.999% of people. Almost no middle class, and you aren't upper! You're lower class. This is just an ignorant thing to say, without having any knowledge of world history, forget about Indian history. Also reeks of extreme contempt. If you are not aware, this was how most of the world lived. Lower class was the norm. We are now living in an age of disproportionate luxury.

b112 4y ago
[flagged]
- kumarvvr 4y ago
  - b112 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - weakfish 4y ago
      Nobody said you were. You’d know this, if you read the full comment :-)
  - palmetieri2000 4y ago
    I learned a lot from your replies to that individual, so thanks for the efforts even if the target recipient doesn't appreciate them.
    - fastball 4y ago
      He mostly seems to be making it up so I wouldn't assume you learned too much.
      - kumarvvr 4y ago
        Sorry, making up what?
        fastball 4y ago
        You made a bunch of claims, someone asked you for a source, you gave them one, someone actually read the source, and it seems that source didn't really match up with your claims. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32364750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32364750
      - palmetieri2000 4y ago
        I've read the other comments and I feel comfortable with my statement. Things I learned from the original comment that I feel extremely comfortable believing: 1. Indian cleaning customs that were prevalent until recently. 2. Two traditional herbs I had never heard of before. 3. The practice of oiling and massaging with sesame seed oil and the greengram flour practice too.
- nemothekid 4y ago
  >I stopped reading here. But he's right; I don't know if I would call it colonialist, but you are applying your current perspective of how the poor lives to a culture extremely far removed from our own. I think our current situation of extremely disproportional wealth is a new phenomenon and we should be careful in blindly applying our current viewpoints backwards. India has always been an extremely fertile and arable continent; it isn't far fatched that being massaged in oil could have been widespread.
  - badpun 4y ago
    Fertile and arable lands just lead to more population density, they don’t improve living standards.
  - Max-q 4y ago
    > I think our current situation of extremely disproportional wealth is a new phenomenon Isn’t it more an old phenomenon coming back? All over Europe you had the kings, which were very rich, under them a rich upper class with big houses and staff, tradesmen as the middle class and peasants doing all the work living in extreme poverty.
    - eru 4y ago
      > [...] tradesmen as the middle class and peasants doing all the work living in extreme poverty. That's a weird view. (Urban) tradesmen were sort-of next to peasants, not above them. And many parts of Europe had quite wealthy peasants during many periods.
  - pedrosorio 4y ago
    > it isn't far fatched that being massaged in oil could have been widespread someone was doing the massaging, and it wasn't the same people who were being massaged
- apocolyps6 4y ago
  How many generations ago did you write that comment?
- kingkawn 4y ago
  You’re changing the subject to avoid the truth of what he’s saying. Logic can absorb any input. Set aside defensiveness to see more of the world through these peaceful and difficult challenges to the worldview.
zeroonetwothree 4y ago
Do you have a source for this? I’d be surprised if we know this much detail and accuracy about how peasants lived hundreds of years ago.
- kumarvvr 4y ago
  https://indianculture.gov.in/ebooks/daily-life-ancient-india-approximately-200-bc-ad-700 https://indianculture.gov.in/ebooks/daily-life-ancient-india... A book by a westerner.
  - nwiswell 4y ago
    Very good. Page 68: > In ancient times, distinction was made between several different categories of farmers. There were those who cultivated their own land, those who had it cultivated by wage-earning laborers, and those who leased their land to 'metayers', farmers who paid rent in kind, in this case half the harvest and crop. There were few big landlords, and the largest estates nearly all belonged to the king, that is to say, the State in fact. The temples, too, recieved vast properties as gifts and had them developed by hired labourers and staff. But these were exceptions, and most of the land was parcelled out in small lots, sometimes only big enough to feed a single family. Many small farmers, however, chose to work the land on a 'united family' basis, under the direction of a head of the family, pooling fields, cattle, agricultural implements, harvests, crops, and grazing-grounds. Under this system, they avoided fragmentation of the family property, and to some extent, they guarded against risks and responsibilities. > Theirs was not an easy life. The vagaries of the climate often brought seasonal catastrophe: tornadoes devastated the fields, drought scorched the land, floods wiped out whole crops. Apart from these natural hazards, there was the problem of the laws of hospitality, which were rigorously applicable and cost the farmers dearly; the most onerous of these obligations involved the provision of food and fodder for the king and his suite during the course of their cross-country tours of inspection. On such occasions, the absolute right of the king and his dignitaries to provision and stores from the local peasants might well reduce these communities to penury during a bad year, with no hope of replenishing their empty granaries before the following harvest. > To natural calamities and unavoidable obligations had to be added the burden of taxation. Taxes were numerous and were applied to collective enterprises as well as to individuals. The peasant had to pay not only a basic tax amounting to twenty-five or thirty per cent of the produce of his land at the moment when it was in full yield, but also a periodical (probably annual) contribution based on his income. He had to pay his share of the general tax levied by the State on his village, as well as special taxes that were set against the services rendered by the State to the rural population -- protection against theft in pasturages and fields, the cost of land-surveying, irrigation works, the upkeep and repair of canals. Fruit, herbage, honey and wood were all taxable. If the farmer was not the owner of the land he worked, he was liable to pay rentals or other concessionary fees in addition to the obligatory payment of communal dues and tolls. Under some reigns, tax and duty rates reached such heights that quite often villages would be abandoned by their entire peasant population, who preferred to risk bringing new land under cultivation in some other region rather than submit to such exorbitant demands. Lest we think these ancient peasants ever actually had it good before the foreigners showed up. And regarding your assertions about how plentiful water was before industrialization, Page 63-64: > We are told that, in ancient times, these canals were kept full either 'by hand', that is with the aid of water-skins or a balance-pole (tula), or else by transporting water on the backs of animals, or by using a bucket-chain. An ingenious system, still used in present times, was worked by oxen climbing up a gently sloping artificial ridge and descending it time after time, in so doing hauling up from a well on each occasion a leather bucket filled with water which was emptied into a supply-canal. The canals were excavated communally and served sometimes as demarcation lines between two neighbouring properties. It seems that the use of this commonly owned water often gave rise to keen disputes, and that it was not uncommon for the course to be diverted in the direction of one village's fields at the expense of another's. In such a case, violent quarrels resulted which developed occasionally into pitched battles between rival villagers, and the disagreement had to be brought before the local council for adjudication. Finally, a portrait of village life, Page 126: > Village houses were lower and more modest than town ones; their outer walls were covered with a mixture of lime, earth and cow-dung, the last being considered a purifcative agent. The shops were more like street-stalls, and the crowd that passed by their displays were of more humble stock: farmers returning from the fields, pushing ahead of them a small flock of skinny sheep; ragged foragers, grey with chaff, a sickle stuck through their belt, carrying home trusses of hay tied around their hips; women balancing on their heads large bundles of forage rolled inside a mat, to be used as animal fodder; porters trotting along, laden with baskets suspended from each end of a pole carried across the shoulders. Then there were artisans in the process of delivering their merchandise, pedlars transporting their gimcrackery in a bag, strolling players looking for a suitable place to present their turns. Cattle mingled freely with the human throng. Heavy wagons drawn by bullocks (gramasakaia or go-ratha) rolled along the main streets; these were (as they still are today) massive wooden constructions built by the village carpenter, who followed time-honoured traditions in the matter of design. The body was relatively shallow, balanced on two large, heavy, creaking wheels with protruding hubs. A shaft with a yoke at its end was designed to harness a pair of hump-backed bullocks, the yoke resting on their necks between the nape and the dorsal hump; long wooden pegs, carefully carved and painted, were stuck through the yoke, one on each side of the beast's neck, enclosing it, with the additional means of a halter. In addition, their nostrils were pierced and a cord was passed through them, this being intended as a check on their fiery temperament. Their tails were carefully tied flat against their flanks, so that the swishing would not annoy the driver. The latter, squatting at the front of the wagon, his feet on the shaft, guided the team with the aid of a simple whip consisting of a stick and a plaited cord. These vehicles were surmounted by hooped ribs covered by matting, and were used particularly for transporting grain at harvest time; the peasant's entire family, out in the fields, sought respite from the hot sun by sitting under its awning. > Apart from local and seasonal feast days (see pp. 144-8), rural existence offered only very rare distractions, and each day heralded the same repetitive rhythm of the farmer's routine. While the men worked in the fields, the housewives went about their daily chores and artisans followed their particular craft. Peace did not invariably reign between villagers, or even between villages, and Buddhist tales often mention the sometimes hilarious and bawdy quarrels which provided the only relief from the monotony of daily life.
ETH_start 4y ago
This is not true. We have reliable indicators of pre-modern poverty levels [1], and they were indeed brutal. India (in the mythical pre-invasion period) was no exception. [2] >>Most of the population lived in thatched huts or wood beam supported houses constructed from soil based cement like stuff. I assume this was true all over the world. This is what extreme poverty (pervasive in pre-modern times, aand still present today in the poorest regions of the world) looks like: "Official reports for Burgundy between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries are full of 'references to people [sleeping] on straw... with no bed or furniture' who were only separated 'from the pigs by a screen'." - Civilization & Capitalism [3] [1] https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty [2] https://theunbrokenwindow.com/Development/MADDISON%20The%20World%20Economy--A%20Millennial.pdf https://theunbrokenwindow.com/Development/MADDISON%20The%20W... [3] https://archive.org/stream/fernand-braudel-the-structure-of-everyday-life/Fernand%20Braudel%20-%20The%20Structure%20of%20Everyday%20Life_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/fernand-braudel-the-structure-of-...
- kumarvvr 4y ago
  Depends on what you mean by poverty. I mean, how does one even measure it a 1000 years ago. I am suspicious of these reports. Every country has a history of good times and bad times. However, the culture of India is unique in the sense that the most strongest unit was the collective society and cultural practices (food donation being held as the highest ideal, practical prohibition of sale of food, a multitude of rituals for householders wherein donation of money, clothes, grain, etc was part of the ritual, societal support for disabled persons, etc). This led to a fairly decent life and times. Were there not people in extreme poverty, sure. Was the whole country in poverty, surely not.
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    We can see in markers of extreme poverty in remains of people who died in pre-modern times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_bioarchaeology# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_bioarchaeology# >>Anne L. Grauer, Professor of Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago, assessed the presence of porotic hyperostosis and periosteal reactions in the population (n=1,014) from St. Helen-on-the-Walls in York, England. She used porotic hyperostosis and periosteal reactions to examine health and disease in urban medieval England. Grauer discovered that 58% of the population displayed evidence of porotic hyperostosis and 21.5% displayed evidence of periosteal reactions.[6] Without industrial civilization, the amount of labor people do is not sufficient for most of the comforts of modern life, like insulated and waterproof shelter, sanitary pads, diapers, vaccines, bandages, regular laundrying of clothing, etc etc.
Frost1x 4y ago
>Portable water was not an issue, because industrialization did not yet happen and most water sources (and hundreds of wells dug around the country) would have clean, drinking water. Did you think a thousand years ago, people used water filters? Potable water hasn't been an issue strictly introduced by industrialization, it was exacerbated by increased population density in areas where water sources were more likely to be contaminated. There are plenty of nasty biological contaminates out there that make water non-potable: various bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc. as well as inorganics like lead leaching that led to bad water sources (not to mention droughts). Potable water has always been an issue (to this day), industrialization agreeably added new issues although it also introduced water processing science to make non-potable waters potable in many places. We should celebrate modern industrialized water processing, not shun it.
- stavros 4y ago
  Did they mean potable, or portable? You don't need potable water to wash your feet, but you do need it to be in your house somehow, I guess...
justanorherhack 4y ago
If it was a cultural value to feed people outside of the home before yourself and food donation was a cultural promoted ideology then that means there were lots of people to feed..
- smogcutter 4y ago
  Yup, afaik these kinds of horizontal gifting relationships were about a) surplus being essentially impossible to store or accumulate as capital so you might as well give it away, and b) modest insurance against bad times - what goes around comes around.
- kumarvvr 4y ago
  I wouldn't characterize it as that. Population was low enough, compared to food production. Feeding people is a cultural norm in India, rooted in the scriptures that ones hunger should not be a cause for doing business. The highest ideal in Hinduism is "Sarve jana, sukhino bhavanthu" (All living things should be happy) The reverse logic in your statement is also pertinent, in that if there was a lot of feeding going on, then there was a lot of food available. Indian norms and culture emphasizes on moving away from materialism and advocates for distribution of wealth. Greed is frowned upon and actively discouraged in a society. Wealthy are encouraged to perform rituals and festivals and distribute their wealth. India is the only civilization in the world where there are written references to kings of large sections of the country, leaving aside all their pomp and glory and going off into forests for meditation and penance. Mind you, they were not failures or banished. They voluntarily gave up their luxuries in search of the ultimate meaning of life. Indian civilization is a complex layered society where philosophy of life is seeped permanently in daily language, customs, cultures, practices, rituals and history. That the ultimate goal of life is not wealth, but of discovering the true nature of ourselves, the true nature of this world, the illusion that it is, is emphasized in every aspect of life. Take the example of the word "punyatma". It is an adjective used for someone who is pious and does good deeds. Similar to "Good samaritan". However, the word is a combination of two words "Punya" (Fruits of good deeds) and "Aatma" (Soul). The implication, and our philosophical belief is that the soul is eternal and is bound to re-births. And the fruits of our actions are tied to our soul, and that there is no escape from getting the results of your actions (good or bad alike).
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
>In ancient times, right until the attacks by Islamist marauders and "civilized" Britishers, none of what you have mentioned were an issue. My assumption, when applied to India, would be that it would be an issue for the untouchables caste? >If you are not aware, this was how most of the world lived. Lower class was the norm. We are now living in an age of disproportionate luxury. Even so it still seems unlikely that every member of the society would be able to enjoy these amenities, the question really becomes at which cutoff point is one too poor to do so, and how much of the society was that poor?
- andrekandre 4y ago
  > My assumption, when applied to India, would be that it would be an issue for the untouchables caste? afaik untouchables as a concept was mostly enacted around (british) colonial rule (when they instituted the caste system we see even to today), so might not apply to the time period they are talking about... (happy to be corrected on this if i misunderstand)
  - unmole 4y ago
    > afaik untouchables as a concept was mostly enacted around (british) colonial rule (when they instituted the caste system we see even to today), so might not apply to the time period they are talking about... This is revisionist nonsense. Ancient texts, both sacred and secular both describe a extant caste system.
    - msravi 4y ago
      Um, no, they don't. They describe a jaati system, and a varna system, both of which do not take the same meaning as caste. The british conflated the two, and invented caste. The jaati system was a system of hereditary professional guilds - so you'd have different jaatis for accountants (Kulkarnis for example), farmers (Vokkaligas), teachers (Upaadhyayas), etc. The professional skill was jealously guarded and generally not open to outsiders. And then you had the varna system which literally means category. This categorized people into 4 categories - Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras based on their nature and actions, NOT profession. This was not hereditary. The british had zero idea of this, conflated jaati and varna into "caste" and made it rigid by bringing out voluminous reports that classified each jaati into a varna!
firecall 4y ago
Thankyou! Great responses! :-)
politelemon 4y ago
> In ancient times, right until the attacks by Islamist marauders and "civilized" Britishers, none of what you have mentioned were an issue. Your statement reeks of colonialist attitudes of seeing natives of other lands as some sort of brutes and degenerates living in destitution in poverty. Your statements reek of nationalism and revisionist history, viewing the past through black-and-white-and-rose tinted glasses, and passing blame onto 'evil foreigners' for current problems. It's mind boggling that you think anyone would lap these statements up.
- Vetch 4y ago
  The original phrasing could be worked on but it's not so far out as you say either. > passing blame for current problems Humans think we're special but we're still slightly more complicated networked state machines. This means the issue of metastability, where a pathological state is entered and maintains even with the triggering stimulus removed, due to sustaining effects such as fitness criteria given rampant corruption, is real. Control and dynamical systems theory is as applicable to human systems as it is to traffic networks or distributed systems. This isn't to say current problems are solely because of past inequities but worth recognizing that once entered into, exiting by solutions which entail solving challenging coordination problems are extremely difficult to obtain. > black-and-white-and-rose tinted glasses I know next to nothing about Indian history but what they says sounds plausible even if causality for present is more involved. I have at least heard of the famous Indus Valley Civilization and its emphasis on baths, scientific precocity, exceptional levels of egalitarianism, pacifism and influence on subsequent Indian civilization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_civilisation#Post-Harappan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_civilisation#Post...
  - BbzzbB 4y ago
    Disclaimer: I know way too little about history of present-day India, I'm not looking to argue with anyone. But is what you're linking what GP is talking of? Because this is over 2k years old, while it's interesting it doesn't validate or invalidate living conditions of pre-colonial India. Wouldn't it be like linking to an article on propsperity from peak Roman empire when discussing much more recent feudalist Europe? Roman influence on Europe (and beyond) abound, but some early positive characteristics of it's statehood have been long gone by medieval times. And I thought the thread was on recent(ish) history.
dTal 4y ago
>Food donation was considered the highest ideal, even greater than money That doesn't sound like the kind of norm that would develop in a society where nobody has to worry about getting enough to eat.

b112 4y ago

[flagged]

kumarvvr 4y ago
- b112 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - weakfish 4y ago
    Nobody said you were. You’d know this, if you read the full comment :-)
- palmetieri2000 4y ago
  I learned a lot from your replies to that individual, so thanks for the efforts even if the target recipient doesn't appreciate them.
  - fastball 4y ago
    He mostly seems to be making it up so I wouldn't assume you learned too much.
    - kumarvvr 4y ago
      Sorry, making up what?
      - fastball 4y ago
        You made a bunch of claims, someone asked you for a source, you gave them one, someone actually read the source, and it seems that source didn't really match up with your claims. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32364750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32364750
    - palmetieri2000 4y ago
      I've read the other comments and I feel comfortable with my statement. Things I learned from the original comment that I feel extremely comfortable believing: 1. Indian cleaning customs that were prevalent until recently. 2. Two traditional herbs I had never heard of before. 3. The practice of oiling and massaging with sesame seed oil and the greengram flour practice too.
nemothekid 4y ago
>I stopped reading here. But he's right; I don't know if I would call it colonialist, but you are applying your current perspective of how the poor lives to a culture extremely far removed from our own. I think our current situation of extremely disproportional wealth is a new phenomenon and we should be careful in blindly applying our current viewpoints backwards. India has always been an extremely fertile and arable continent; it isn't far fatched that being massaged in oil could have been widespread.
- badpun 4y ago
  Fertile and arable lands just lead to more population density, they don’t improve living standards.
- Max-q 4y ago
  > I think our current situation of extremely disproportional wealth is a new phenomenon Isn’t it more an old phenomenon coming back? All over Europe you had the kings, which were very rich, under them a rich upper class with big houses and staff, tradesmen as the middle class and peasants doing all the work living in extreme poverty.
  - eru 4y ago
    > [...] tradesmen as the middle class and peasants doing all the work living in extreme poverty. That's a weird view. (Urban) tradesmen were sort-of next to peasants, not above them. And many parts of Europe had quite wealthy peasants during many periods.
- pedrosorio 4y ago
  > it isn't far fatched that being massaged in oil could have been widespread someone was doing the massaging, and it wasn't the same people who were being massaged
apocolyps6 4y ago
How many generations ago did you write that comment?
kingkawn 4y ago
You’re changing the subject to avoid the truth of what he’s saying. Logic can absorb any input. Set aside defensiveness to see more of the world through these peaceful and difficult challenges to the worldview.

zeroonetwothree 4y ago

Do you have a source for this? I’d be surprised if we know this much detail and accuracy about how peasants lived hundreds of years ago.

kumarvvr 4y ago
https://indianculture.gov.in/ebooks/daily-life-ancient-india-approximately-200-bc-ad-700 https://indianculture.gov.in/ebooks/daily-life-ancient-india... A book by a westerner.
- nwiswell 4y ago
  Very good. Page 68: > In ancient times, distinction was made between several different categories of farmers. There were those who cultivated their own land, those who had it cultivated by wage-earning laborers, and those who leased their land to 'metayers', farmers who paid rent in kind, in this case half the harvest and crop. There were few big landlords, and the largest estates nearly all belonged to the king, that is to say, the State in fact. The temples, too, recieved vast properties as gifts and had them developed by hired labourers and staff. But these were exceptions, and most of the land was parcelled out in small lots, sometimes only big enough to feed a single family. Many small farmers, however, chose to work the land on a 'united family' basis, under the direction of a head of the family, pooling fields, cattle, agricultural implements, harvests, crops, and grazing-grounds. Under this system, they avoided fragmentation of the family property, and to some extent, they guarded against risks and responsibilities. > Theirs was not an easy life. The vagaries of the climate often brought seasonal catastrophe: tornadoes devastated the fields, drought scorched the land, floods wiped out whole crops. Apart from these natural hazards, there was the problem of the laws of hospitality, which were rigorously applicable and cost the farmers dearly; the most onerous of these obligations involved the provision of food and fodder for the king and his suite during the course of their cross-country tours of inspection. On such occasions, the absolute right of the king and his dignitaries to provision and stores from the local peasants might well reduce these communities to penury during a bad year, with no hope of replenishing their empty granaries before the following harvest. > To natural calamities and unavoidable obligations had to be added the burden of taxation. Taxes were numerous and were applied to collective enterprises as well as to individuals. The peasant had to pay not only a basic tax amounting to twenty-five or thirty per cent of the produce of his land at the moment when it was in full yield, but also a periodical (probably annual) contribution based on his income. He had to pay his share of the general tax levied by the State on his village, as well as special taxes that were set against the services rendered by the State to the rural population -- protection against theft in pasturages and fields, the cost of land-surveying, irrigation works, the upkeep and repair of canals. Fruit, herbage, honey and wood were all taxable. If the farmer was not the owner of the land he worked, he was liable to pay rentals or other concessionary fees in addition to the obligatory payment of communal dues and tolls. Under some reigns, tax and duty rates reached such heights that quite often villages would be abandoned by their entire peasant population, who preferred to risk bringing new land under cultivation in some other region rather than submit to such exorbitant demands. Lest we think these ancient peasants ever actually had it good before the foreigners showed up. And regarding your assertions about how plentiful water was before industrialization, Page 63-64: > We are told that, in ancient times, these canals were kept full either 'by hand', that is with the aid of water-skins or a balance-pole (tula), or else by transporting water on the backs of animals, or by using a bucket-chain. An ingenious system, still used in present times, was worked by oxen climbing up a gently sloping artificial ridge and descending it time after time, in so doing hauling up from a well on each occasion a leather bucket filled with water which was emptied into a supply-canal. The canals were excavated communally and served sometimes as demarcation lines between two neighbouring properties. It seems that the use of this commonly owned water often gave rise to keen disputes, and that it was not uncommon for the course to be diverted in the direction of one village's fields at the expense of another's. In such a case, violent quarrels resulted which developed occasionally into pitched battles between rival villagers, and the disagreement had to be brought before the local council for adjudication. Finally, a portrait of village life, Page 126: > Village houses were lower and more modest than town ones; their outer walls were covered with a mixture of lime, earth and cow-dung, the last being considered a purifcative agent. The shops were more like street-stalls, and the crowd that passed by their displays were of more humble stock: farmers returning from the fields, pushing ahead of them a small flock of skinny sheep; ragged foragers, grey with chaff, a sickle stuck through their belt, carrying home trusses of hay tied around their hips; women balancing on their heads large bundles of forage rolled inside a mat, to be used as animal fodder; porters trotting along, laden with baskets suspended from each end of a pole carried across the shoulders. Then there were artisans in the process of delivering their merchandise, pedlars transporting their gimcrackery in a bag, strolling players looking for a suitable place to present their turns. Cattle mingled freely with the human throng. Heavy wagons drawn by bullocks (gramasakaia or go-ratha) rolled along the main streets; these were (as they still are today) massive wooden constructions built by the village carpenter, who followed time-honoured traditions in the matter of design. The body was relatively shallow, balanced on two large, heavy, creaking wheels with protruding hubs. A shaft with a yoke at its end was designed to harness a pair of hump-backed bullocks, the yoke resting on their necks between the nape and the dorsal hump; long wooden pegs, carefully carved and painted, were stuck through the yoke, one on each side of the beast's neck, enclosing it, with the additional means of a halter. In addition, their nostrils were pierced and a cord was passed through them, this being intended as a check on their fiery temperament. Their tails were carefully tied flat against their flanks, so that the swishing would not annoy the driver. The latter, squatting at the front of the wagon, his feet on the shaft, guided the team with the aid of a simple whip consisting of a stick and a plaited cord. These vehicles were surmounted by hooped ribs covered by matting, and were used particularly for transporting grain at harvest time; the peasant's entire family, out in the fields, sought respite from the hot sun by sitting under its awning. > Apart from local and seasonal feast days (see pp. 144-8), rural existence offered only very rare distractions, and each day heralded the same repetitive rhythm of the farmer's routine. While the men worked in the fields, the housewives went about their daily chores and artisans followed their particular craft. Peace did not invariably reign between villagers, or even between villages, and Buddhist tales often mention the sometimes hilarious and bawdy quarrels which provided the only relief from the monotony of daily life.

ETH_start 4y ago

This is not true. We have reliable indicators of pre-modern poverty levels [1], and they were indeed brutal. India (in the mythical pre-invasion period) was no exception. [2] >>Most of the population lived in thatched huts or wood beam supported houses constructed from soil based cement like stuff. I assume this was true all over the world. This is what extreme poverty (pervasive in pre-modern times, aand still present today in the poorest regions of the world) looks like: "Official reports for Burgundy between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries are full of 'references to people [sleeping] on straw... with no bed or furniture' who were only separated 'from the pigs by a screen'." - Civilization & Capitalism [3] [1] https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty [2] https://theunbrokenwindow.com/Development/MADDISON%20The%20World%20Economy--A%20Millennial.pdf https://theunbrokenwindow.com/Development/MADDISON%20The%20W... [3] https://archive.org/stream/fernand-braudel-the-structure-of-everyday-life/Fernand%20Braudel%20-%20The%20Structure%20of%20Everyday%20Life_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/fernand-braudel-the-structure-of-...

kumarvvr 4y ago
Depends on what you mean by poverty. I mean, how does one even measure it a 1000 years ago. I am suspicious of these reports. Every country has a history of good times and bad times. However, the culture of India is unique in the sense that the most strongest unit was the collective society and cultural practices (food donation being held as the highest ideal, practical prohibition of sale of food, a multitude of rituals for householders wherein donation of money, clothes, grain, etc was part of the ritual, societal support for disabled persons, etc). This led to a fairly decent life and times. Were there not people in extreme poverty, sure. Was the whole country in poverty, surely not.
- ETH_start 4y ago
  We can see in markers of extreme poverty in remains of people who died in pre-modern times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_bioarchaeology# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_bioarchaeology# >>Anne L. Grauer, Professor of Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago, assessed the presence of porotic hyperostosis and periosteal reactions in the population (n=1,014) from St. Helen-on-the-Walls in York, England. She used porotic hyperostosis and periosteal reactions to examine health and disease in urban medieval England. Grauer discovered that 58% of the population displayed evidence of porotic hyperostosis and 21.5% displayed evidence of periosteal reactions.[6] Without industrial civilization, the amount of labor people do is not sufficient for most of the comforts of modern life, like insulated and waterproof shelter, sanitary pads, diapers, vaccines, bandages, regular laundrying of clothing, etc etc.

Frost1x 4y ago

>Portable water was not an issue, because industrialization did not yet happen and most water sources (and hundreds of wells dug around the country) would have clean, drinking water. Did you think a thousand years ago, people used water filters? Potable water hasn't been an issue strictly introduced by industrialization, it was exacerbated by increased population density in areas where water sources were more likely to be contaminated. There are plenty of nasty biological contaminates out there that make water non-potable: various bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc. as well as inorganics like lead leaching that led to bad water sources (not to mention droughts). Potable water has always been an issue (to this day), industrialization agreeably added new issues although it also introduced water processing science to make non-potable waters potable in many places. We should celebrate modern industrialized water processing, not shun it.

stavros 4y ago
Did they mean potable, or portable? You don't need potable water to wash your feet, but you do need it to be in your house somehow, I guess...

justanorherhack 4y ago

If it was a cultural value to feed people outside of the home before yourself and food donation was a cultural promoted ideology then that means there were lots of people to feed..

smogcutter 4y ago
Yup, afaik these kinds of horizontal gifting relationships were about a) surplus being essentially impossible to store or accumulate as capital so you might as well give it away, and b) modest insurance against bad times - what goes around comes around.
kumarvvr 4y ago
I wouldn't characterize it as that. Population was low enough, compared to food production. Feeding people is a cultural norm in India, rooted in the scriptures that ones hunger should not be a cause for doing business. The highest ideal in Hinduism is "Sarve jana, sukhino bhavanthu" (All living things should be happy) The reverse logic in your statement is also pertinent, in that if there was a lot of feeding going on, then there was a lot of food available. Indian norms and culture emphasizes on moving away from materialism and advocates for distribution of wealth. Greed is frowned upon and actively discouraged in a society. Wealthy are encouraged to perform rituals and festivals and distribute their wealth. India is the only civilization in the world where there are written references to kings of large sections of the country, leaving aside all their pomp and glory and going off into forests for meditation and penance. Mind you, they were not failures or banished. They voluntarily gave up their luxuries in search of the ultimate meaning of life. Indian civilization is a complex layered society where philosophy of life is seeped permanently in daily language, customs, cultures, practices, rituals and history. That the ultimate goal of life is not wealth, but of discovering the true nature of ourselves, the true nature of this world, the illusion that it is, is emphasized in every aspect of life. Take the example of the word "punyatma". It is an adjective used for someone who is pious and does good deeds. Similar to "Good samaritan". However, the word is a combination of two words "Punya" (Fruits of good deeds) and "Aatma" (Soul). The implication, and our philosophical belief is that the soul is eternal and is bound to re-births. And the fruits of our actions are tied to our soul, and that there is no escape from getting the results of your actions (good or bad alike).

bryanrasmussen 4y ago

>In ancient times, right until the attacks by Islamist marauders and "civilized" Britishers, none of what you have mentioned were an issue. My assumption, when applied to India, would be that it would be an issue for the untouchables caste? >If you are not aware, this was how most of the world lived. Lower class was the norm. We are now living in an age of disproportionate luxury. Even so it still seems unlikely that every member of the society would be able to enjoy these amenities, the question really becomes at which cutoff point is one too poor to do so, and how much of the society was that poor?

andrekandre 4y ago
> My assumption, when applied to India, would be that it would be an issue for the untouchables caste? afaik untouchables as a concept was mostly enacted around (british) colonial rule (when they instituted the caste system we see even to today), so might not apply to the time period they are talking about... (happy to be corrected on this if i misunderstand)
- unmole 4y ago
  > afaik untouchables as a concept was mostly enacted around (british) colonial rule (when they instituted the caste system we see even to today), so might not apply to the time period they are talking about... This is revisionist nonsense. Ancient texts, both sacred and secular both describe a extant caste system.
  - msravi 4y ago
    Um, no, they don't. They describe a jaati system, and a varna system, both of which do not take the same meaning as caste. The british conflated the two, and invented caste. The jaati system was a system of hereditary professional guilds - so you'd have different jaatis for accountants (Kulkarnis for example), farmers (Vokkaligas), teachers (Upaadhyayas), etc. The professional skill was jealously guarded and generally not open to outsiders. And then you had the varna system which literally means category. This categorized people into 4 categories - Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras based on their nature and actions, NOT profession. This was not hereditary. The british had zero idea of this, conflated jaati and varna into "caste" and made it rigid by bringing out voluminous reports that classified each jaati into a varna!

firecall 4y ago

Thankyou! Great responses! :-)

politelemon 4y ago

> In ancient times, right until the attacks by Islamist marauders and "civilized" Britishers, none of what you have mentioned were an issue. Your statement reeks of colonialist attitudes of seeing natives of other lands as some sort of brutes and degenerates living in destitution in poverty. Your statements reek of nationalism and revisionist history, viewing the past through black-and-white-and-rose tinted glasses, and passing blame onto 'evil foreigners' for current problems. It's mind boggling that you think anyone would lap these statements up.

Vetch 4y ago
The original phrasing could be worked on but it's not so far out as you say either. > passing blame for current problems Humans think we're special but we're still slightly more complicated networked state machines. This means the issue of metastability, where a pathological state is entered and maintains even with the triggering stimulus removed, due to sustaining effects such as fitness criteria given rampant corruption, is real. Control and dynamical systems theory is as applicable to human systems as it is to traffic networks or distributed systems. This isn't to say current problems are solely because of past inequities but worth recognizing that once entered into, exiting by solutions which entail solving challenging coordination problems are extremely difficult to obtain. > black-and-white-and-rose tinted glasses I know next to nothing about Indian history but what they says sounds plausible even if causality for present is more involved. I have at least heard of the famous Indus Valley Civilization and its emphasis on baths, scientific precocity, exceptional levels of egalitarianism, pacifism and influence on subsequent Indian civilization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_civilisation#Post-Harappan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_civilisation#Post...
- BbzzbB 4y ago
  Disclaimer: I know way too little about history of present-day India, I'm not looking to argue with anyone. But is what you're linking what GP is talking of? Because this is over 2k years old, while it's interesting it doesn't validate or invalidate living conditions of pre-colonial India. Wouldn't it be like linking to an article on propsperity from peak Roman empire when discussing much more recent feudalist Europe? Roman influence on Europe (and beyond) abound, but some early positive characteristics of it's statehood have been long gone by medieval times. And I thought the thread was on recent(ish) history.

dTal 4y ago

>Food donation was considered the highest ideal, even greater than money That doesn't sound like the kind of norm that would develop in a society where nobody has to worry about getting enough to eat.