________________
148
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JULY, 1924
That the author was particularly keen about the means to acquire wealth is manifest throughout his book. Let us, for example, consider what he recommends regarding the selection of a bride. One of the main considerations was that the bride was to be one born in a rich family. That wealth was practically the summum bonum in life is evident when we find him giving definite instructions to the ideal wife who was to be, what we may term, an "economist." "If the husband spent too much or made an inproper expenditure, she way to advise him."11 The wife was to consider the annual income, and incur expenditure accordingly ;12 and, during her husband's absence, she was not only to be attentive to the proper expenditure over items of daily and occasional occurrence, but she was also to increase the wealth of the family by purchases and sales economically carried on, by employing honest and obedient servants and by reducing expenditure through her own intelligent efforts 13 .
Definite instructions are given in the Kama Sutra how expenditure could be reduced by the wife, by the timely securing of utensils for domestic use-as earthenware and metallic verheis, baskets, wooden and leather articles at proper places; and by the timely deposit! of salt, oil and scents. This care for economy is carried to the minutest details, e.g., "from the curd that remains after their daily consumption, she should extract its essence ; as also oil froin oil-seeds, sugar and jaggery from sugarcane; spinning of the thread from cotton and weaving cloth with them, the securing of 'Sikya' of ropes or strings or barks, looking after pounding and grinding of paddy, etc." In all these she was to be expert.14 Further, "knowledge of the wages of servants and their disbursements, the care of cultivation and welfare of cattle ; knowledge of constructing conveyances, looking after sheep, etc., the reckoning of daily income and expenditure and making up a total of them "-all these constituted the duties of an ideal wife and show that the author was not at all unmindful of the economies of life.
Vatsyayana has also laid down instructions as to the ways of earning money. 16 These are
(1) Receiving gifts in the case of Brahmans. (2) Conquest in the case of Ksatriyas. (3) Buying and selling in the case of Vaisyas.
(4) Wages for work done in the case of Sodras.
A list of professional men has also been given, viz. washermen, barber, flowerman, dealers in scents, vendor of wine, mendicant, cowherd, supplier of betel-leaves, goldsmith, story-teller, priest and buffoon. Just as king AjAtasatru gave to Buddha a list of persons ministering to the needs of the king, evidently we have here also a list of men whom the gay lothario needed, and as such this list does not contain the names of all professional men who constituted the society of the time. But even then, the list, incomplete as it is, gives us A glimpse of the society of that age.
The side-lights which these quotations give us, are indeed incomplete, but they prove at least that ancient Indians and their Acharyas specially, did not devote themselves exclusively to the study of philosophy only, neglecting all mundane things. The economic ideas of the ancient Indian teachers may be crude and mixed up with the treatment of other subjects--their delineation may be unscientific, but they furnish us with clear germs of much serious boonomic thought which can be disintegrated and analysed as more or less pure economio ideas.
11 14
IV. 1. 14. IV, 1. 33.
13 16
IV. 1. 32. 1.4.1,
13 26
Ibid. 1. 6. 37,38.
