Vital Villages, Thriving Towns

(a) Vellalar was a word used for large landowners in Tamil.

Regional landowners were known as ‘Vellalar’ in Tamil Nadu.

(b) Slaves and workers.

The village headman known as ‘grama bhojaka’ were often the largest land owner and they had slaves or hired workers to cultivate their land.

(c) Uzhavar

The ordinary ploughman were known as ‘uzhavar’ and landless labourers, including slaves, were known as ‘kadaisiyar’ and ‘adimai’ in tamil.

(d) Smaller

The independent landowners with small land holdings were called grihapatis.

Gramabhojaka was the village headman and often the largest landowner. He used the slaves and hired workers to cultivate his lands. He collected taxes from the villagers on behalf of the king. He was a powerful village personnel, sometimes he functioned as a judge and sometimes as a policeman.

Craftsmen like carpenters, weavers, potters, blacksmith etc. were presumably present in both villages and cities. These were important workers and provided good and services for day to day functioning of any settlement.

The archaeologists found rows of pots or ceramic rings arranged one on top of the other, known as ring wells. They were used as toilets in some cases, and as drains and garbage dumps, and were usually found in individual houses.

The punched marked were given this name because the designs were punched on metals like silver or copper.

Mathura has been an important settlement for more than 2500 years with several shrines within the fortified city. There were Buddhist monasteries, Jain shrines and it was an important centre for the worship for Lord Krishna.

Shrenis was an association of craftsmen and merchants. These shrenis of craftspersons provided training, procured raw material, and distributed the finished product. Then shrenis of merchants organized the trade.

The iron tools on page 87 are tongs, axes, and sickle as shown in the picture below respectively. Of these, sickle would have been important for agriculture, axe would have been important for chopping trees and tongs would have been used by a blacksmith for making tools from hot iron.

The drainage system in our locality is the advanced version of the drainage system in the old cities that were read about. In the old times, mud bricks and thatch were used which could not be sustained for long, while in modern times more durable building material like concrete and metal pipes are used.

I have seen crafts person like cobblers, carpenter, and blacksmith in the city and villages. In cities, cobblerS are a common sight and one could be found sitting at almost every corner. He mends shoes by stitching the torn leather or pasting the flapping sole. In villages, they produce handmade shoes and chappals from leather and sell them in urban markets for a good price.

The men and women who live my city go to offices in big buildings. Most of them work with multinational companies which have their offices in many cities across the world. The work is done on the computers. In the old city of Mathura, the village people worked to provide food items to the city dwellers and travels since Mathura was an important urban center at the intersection of two major trade and travel route.

The only similarity between these two places is that both are busy cities. However, while people in Mathura were doing good in old days, people in my city in modern times are providing mostly services with the help of internet.

I would see large ships coming and going from the port. It would is a busy place with everybody hurrying around. People would be busy buying the imported items from the merchants. Slaves would be loading the ships with ivory, agate, carnelian, cotton, silk, perfumes other precious items native to Barygaza for trade oversees. There would also be fishermen going about their work with nets and hooks. The king with his royal procession may also be there to look around the activities of the port, receiving gifts from merchants and giving alms to the poor.