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Dr. Anita Singh,BHU,Varanasi
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ISBN 13 : 978-81-908511-3-8
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Printed By MPASVO Press
Published By MPASVO Maneesha Publication
B 32/16 A-Fla.2/1,Gopalkunj Nariya,Lanka,Varanasi
Dedicated to My Father
Raj Narain Singh
Contents
Acknowledgement
Introduction i-iv
1. Historiographical Shifts in the Studies 1-7
of Female Slaves in Early India
2. Evolution and Development of Slavery 8-25
in Early India
3. Different Types of Female Slaves and 26-56
their Functions in Early India
4. Social Attitude towards Female Salves 57-84
and Slavery
Conclusion 85-90
Bibliography 91-96
Acknowledgement
This book is the result of my observation during my thesis
study on ‘Economic Condition of Women in Ancient India’ that
female slaves were a significant section of early Indian society
but their role and contribution have not been properly recognized
till now. This was a neglected branch of indological studies and
an independent study on this topic was called for.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to Professor Laxman Rai,
Head of Department of History, B.H.U for his constant motivation
and encouragement. I would like to thank Professor Anand
Shankar Singh, Professor Sumitra Gupta, and Professor R.P.Singh
for their blessings and good wishes for the completion of this
book. I am extremely grateful to my sir Professor J.S.Mishra for
his valuable suggestions.
My father Raj Narain Singh has always been a source of
inspiration for me. This book could see the light only because of
my husband Sandeep Kumar Singh. But for his emotional support
and wonderful management, this book would not have been
possible. Lastly I have a sense of guilt feeling as I have completed
this book in a time which I should have otherwise spent on my
newly born baby. Words are ill-suited to articulate feelings, more
so, when the load of feelings is greater than the words could
convey.
Introduction
This book is an effort of searching the identity of the
female slaves of early India based on historical perspective to
assign them a rightful place in the early Indian history so that
they are visible on historical stage. In history reading we often
come across such common expressions as the king and queen
and their number of dasis…. so on and so forth. We easily
recognize the king or queen and talk about them many times but
we fail to take notice of the dasis surrounding them. This is our
elitist outlook which fails to identify with the masses. The writings
of early India have been elite in nature and female slave labour
got only a passing reference in the role of assisting their masters.
It was a partial representation from above as only women of high
birth could find their way in the historical literature. History should
be depiction of masses not just the classes and in this light this
work would help in restoring the rightful place to lower order
women of early India.
The sources relied on for this book are largely textual but
with a critical analysis along with the epigraphic corroboration.
The literary sources include the secular and non-secular literature
e.g Vedic and allied literature, the Sanskrit epics, the Buddhist
texts, the Dharmasutras, the Arthasastras etc. There are some
limitations of these sources as early Indian literatures are didactic
and normative in nature with respect to women. These literature
project an ideal concept of womanhood. On the otherhand the
epigraphic records offer us variations and even deviations from
the norms of literature. The historical investigation of epigraphic
records speaks of real women in place of ideal women, those
figuring in epigraphic records are real women in flesh and blood,
who once walked on the stage of history. The actual history is
interplay between the two, one is incomplete without the other.
The early socio-philosophical texts needs to be re-emphasized
and reinterpreted to recover and restore the lost Indian tradition
and assigning a rightful place to real Indian women.
The reasons for choosing the ‘dasis’ as the subject matter
of the study is to make a complete study of dasis as an independent
identity of early India. The emergence of dasis had brought
significant changes in the socio-economic and religious rights
and status of Arya women and had left a deep impact on the early
Indian society. In the Vedic age dasis outnumbered the dasas in
strength and gradually they had a distinct economic role to play
in early societies. It was a huge section of working class which
was earning its livelihood on its own and was not dependent on
the male counterpart. The dasis were given in large numbers as
gift to brahamanas in dana and dakshina as it was necessary for
them to go thorough the process of aryanisation or acculturation
and it is possible that the agency for this diffusion was the priests.
The fact that the dasis were a significant section of the society
becomes obvious as ancient lawgivers had to frame special laws
for them to safeguard their interests as they were conscious about
the vulnerability of the dasis position. The concern of the ancient
smrtikaras is commendable as they were quite affectionate towards
the dasis.
The objective of writing this book is for the removal of
invisibility of women labour force and identifying the problems
specific to them. Either the female slave labour was invisible in
the academic writings or if at all visible it wasn’t recognized by
the scholars and if recognized then it was undervalued when
compared to men’s work. The early writings were endocentric in
Introduction
ii
approach. The economic theories and methodologies kept
women’s work out of its domain largely because it couldn’t be
measured in monetary terms and it was not strictly based on the
laws of conventional principle of demand and supply. Identifying
and recognizing the household tasks are still beyond the preview
of the research models and methodologies. The tool of research
needs to be modified and changed as these are woefully inadequate
to incorporate the female slave labour. There is need to change
the paradigm to study the lower order women labour of early
Indian societies.
Historically speaking women were always the equal
partners with men in the production-distribution processes. In
early Indian societies the women labour force was caste and class
bound. With the emergence of class societies and stratification
women economic role didn’t disappear but under went a change.
The creation of patriarchy did have some amount of community
and clan control over women and their sexuality but not on all
women in general e.g. Rgvedic society was divided in women of
conquering tribes i.e Aryan women and women of conquered
tribes i.e dasis. Aryan women of high birth came to withdraw
from the public production processes and their place in the
economy was taken over by the dasis who were free to engage in
any kind of economic activities. The labour and sex of dasis was
under the control of Aryans which replaced the Aryan women
labour and consequently the Aryan women receded to domestic
chores upholding the ideal concept of womanhood. The dasis
couldn’t afford to follow this Aryan model of womanhood as they
had to labour out for their livelihood. The increasing dependence
on agriculture as the major source of food, shifted the scene of
food production from outside the households to the fields, the
labour of the subjugated people including the dasis was extracted
to work in the land and this enabled the Aryan women to be
restricted to the households.
Historians have generally associated the dasis with the
domestic and low kind of tasks which didn’t require necessary
iii Introduction
skill and thus their economic activities hardly found place in
historical records. But in present globalized world the outlook
has changed towards these jobs of household. My contention is
that the dasis household duties were equally valuable as any other
economic activity and that they were not just confined to
household domestic chores but they were engaged in many other
open field tasks too. Dasi labour was available for agriculture
sector and they were employed in royal establishments in different
roles, engaged with the dasas in different manufacturing sectors
of early Indian society.
There is a need to change the perception and outlook while
studying lower class women at work in order to give a reasoned
account of their role in early Indian societies. It’s often difficult
to draw a line of demarcation between the female slave or a maid
servant or a social class (sudras) as they overlap each other in the
early Indian society.
Even in the globalized world the domestic work is not
seen as a real occupation even when domestic work absorbs a
significant proportion of the total workforce. In India of the total
domestic workers population nearly 90% of them are women.
They account for more than 12% of the women workers in urban
India. Even today the domestic workers are not covered under
any legislation. The society must be encouraged to recognize their
importance and contribution to the economy. In India even to this
day the domestic workers are not covered in any of the labour
laws, a legislation that addresses the rights of the domestic workers
is indispensable and for this the mindset of the society needs to
be changed.
Introduction
iv
1
Historiographical Shifts in the Studies of
Female Slaves in Early India
Dasi (female slaves) performing servile labour is a
common expression of our ancient texts which drew my attention
to delineate the historiographical shifts in the studies made so far
on female slaves of early India. Scholars have been writing on
the status and position of slaves in early Indian societies and quite
a number of articles in different journals and chapters on slavery
have been coming forth hither to. In this chapter an attempt has
been made to put forward the trends of history writing on female
slaves in ancient India.
The institution of slavery was universally prevailing in
societies across the world in different modes and forms. Dasis in
India were a working section carrying out different functions of
the society. Early lawgivers were conscious about the vulnerability
of this working class and made enough provisions to safeguard
their rights and interests. The legal protection extended to female
slaves is elaborately dealt with by ancient smrtikaras which also
reveals that they must have been in great number that drew
attention of the early thinkers. Female slaves were engaged in
different tasks and based on their nature of work they had different
nomenclatures. Historians have till now looked upon the dasis
work as works of low nature which didn’t demand any skill and
proficiency, but on the basis of this very work being performed
by the present day women they are considered emancipated and
empowered. If this is the case then early women slaves were
equally empowered as the women of contemporary society. In
the recent years scholars have come to recognize the domestic
tasks of women in the role of wives and mothers as their labour
contribution. There is a need to change the paradigm of research
studies to incorporate the women labour within the four walls of
the household as this could not be measured in monetary terms
and did not fit in the conventional laws of demand and supply of
economic discipline. In this light the dasis performing many of
the domestic chores assumes greater significance.
There is a need to change the outlook towards the dasis
and accord them their rightful place in early historical writings.
Although in recent decades there is a trend of subaltern studies of
historical writing (from below) but this seems to have had least
impact on the studies being made on the dasis of early India. We
need to study dasis both on gender lines and as labour class of the
early society. The early history writing was elite in nature and
dasis as servile labour class got only a passing reference in the
role of assisting their overlords. If they were to be looked upon
from gender point even then ‘women studies’ as a stream of studies
has appeared relatively late in the decade of 80’s and 90’s. It was
only daughters, wives and widow with whom early writers were
obsessed with i.e., women in family institution and viewing this
as an index of their status in Hindu civilization broad
generalizations have been made so far about the women’s
condition in early India. The reason for this is that early historians
were chiefly preoccupied with brahmanical sources as a result
only women of high birth could find their way into the history
books. It was a partial view from the above, for them society
constituted of only daughters, wives and widows. Of late limited
attempts are made to focus on women outside the domesticity,
women other than the royalty i.e the female labour class of early
societies. Dasis were a significant section of ancient India and
only an analytical microscopic study of this subordinate and
2 Female Slaves in Early India
marginal section would do justice to them in understanding their
psychology and their socio-economic position in early India.
‘Slavery’ became the point of attraction because of
industrialization in Europe where slavery was abolished by
adopting legislative measures and colonial India followed the
shoot. An attempt to trace the historicity of slavery was made
then on. Another factor that gave encouragement to studies of
slaves was the emergence of the industrial working class interalia
including women workers. Prior to independence, women
workers in ancient India didn’t find a place for exclusive study
among Indian scholars, who were generally influenced by
nationalism. Even the British impearlist and colonial outlook
didn’t allow western scholars and British historians to work on
the working class of ancient India, but the emergence of trade
unions, organizations and the freedom struggle motivated some
Indian scholars such as N.C.Bandopadhaya1, Prannath2 who have
thrown light to some extent on female labourers along with dasis.
Bandopadhaya has opined that most of the dasa and dasis were
domestic servants and were probably well treated, though violence
to them was not illegal. S.N.Basu3 in his article has put emphasis
on domestic slavery at the time of Jatakas. Female slaves were
mostly studied in the light of modern maid servants; a parallel of
them was sought in the dasis of early India. They failed to
recognize that female slaves had numerous duties outside the
domesticity. Right from the Vedic age onwards female slaves can
be noticed labouring out in agriculture fields and participated in
the productive processes of the society. In 1940, A.N.Bose4 made
the first attempt to make an independent study and according to
him female slaves were often kept for enjoyment and sometimes
it is difficult to demarcate them from prostitutes or concubines.
So far as the treatment is concerned, he opined that the horrible
and inhumane treatment meted out to female slaves by their
masters5. Even Bose’s study doesn’t reflect scientific vigour as
the conclusions drawn are inadequate as this was not the general
feature but some instances quoted out of proportion because there
Historiographical Shifts in The Studies of Female Slaves in Early India 3
are numerous instances of dasis being well cared for and treated
by their masters. B.C.Law6 in his article has thrown ample light
on different kinds of slavery based on Vidhurapandita Jataka,
Manusamhita, Arthasastra, Jain literature. S.A.Dange’s7 work is
remarkable for he has attempted to depict the role of women and
their participation and control of productive processes.
Any study of slaves/female slaves would be incomplete
without going through R.S.Sharma’s8 book ‘Sudras in Ancient
India’ wherein he has raised some basic issues as to whether dasa/
dasis always belonged to the sudra caste as very often sudras
were reduced to slaves, ‘there is evidence to show that the dasas
mostly belonged to the sudra varna. This can be deduced from
the phrase, suddo va sudda-daso va9, which is used by the Buddha
to define the position of the sudra after his enumeration of the
first three varnas10. For R.S.Sharma it means the sudra, who is a
slave, but not all slaves were sudras as men and women of high
birth might be reduced to slavery. K.M.Saran11 in his book fails
bitterly to do any kind justice to the title as the author’s undue
reliance on Arthasastra lacks historical objectivity. The author
has covered the entire range of dasis in just a paragraph. On the
other hand D.R.Chanana’s12 work is a pioneer step to bring forth
a complete picture of the institution of slavery based on pali texts,
epic literature and the Arthasastra. He has made a through study
of female slaves and their origin, types of slaves, their mode of
payment etc. Except for this book only articles and chapters
devoted to slavery have been put forward by the early historians.
D.D.Kosambi13 in his work states that a social formation based
on the slave mode of production in the classical European sense
never existed in India at any period and the importance of chattel
slavery in the relations of production as the supply of labour for
production was negligible. Marxist scholars were of the opinion
that slavery didn’t constitute the main basis of production at any
stage.
P.C.Jain14 seems to throw significant light on dasis as a
labour class in ancient India. L.Gopal15 discusses that there is
4 Female Slaves in Early India
nothing to show that the slaves (dasi-dasi) were exclusively used
for economic enterprises or that upon them depended the
economic life of the times. Rekha Rani Sharma16 has presented
Kautilya as a very liberal lawgiver who took a bold step to abolish
this institution of slavery, “Kautilya’s ideas on slavery reflect a
revolution of the slaves for freedom and a systematic attempt to
abolish this institution for all in a secular state.’’ I disagree with
her derivation of Kautilya as his legal provisions are more to
provide legal security and protection rather than freedom to slaves.
Saroj Gulati17 has dealt women slaves with an analytical approach.
By the mid eighties the women’s liberation movement
had gained momentum and the current phase of debate on women
empowerment is a by product of an urbanized middle class in
academic circles and as a consequence of it the women working
class was recognized gradually as a subject of women studies.
The article of Uma Chakaravarty18 was an attempt in this direction;
she draws our attention to a host of problems associated with
early dasis. She talks about the predominance of women slaves
over male slaves in Vedic period. According to her the dana (gift)
of dasis in huge numbers to the brahamanas was made because
dasis provided cheap labour, they were producers and replenishers
of the declining stock of the Aryans, thus it was necessary for
them to go through a process of acculturation and aryanisation.
The article of Lavkush Dwiedi19 extends an exhaustive list of
dasis in premedieval age and throws enough light on their status
in the society, master and dasi relationship, functions performed
by them, different kind of dasis found in the premedieaval age
and a comparison with the female slaves of the west. Another
crucial work is that of A.K.Tyagi 20which while providing a
detailed list of women workers is actually talking about the female
slaves in ancient India. The line of demarcation between the dasis
and labouring class is not very clear. If his callousness in putting
up the reference is to be ignored then it is an extremely useful
piece of literature for the study of female slaves in early India.
Historiographical Shifts in The Studies of Female Slaves in Early India 5
