Crafts and Technology in Ancient India (From the Earliest Times to the Gupta Period)

The present work attempts to deal with the history of crafts and technology starting from the pre historic and proto-historic peridos of India down to the age of the Imperial Guptas on the basis of available literary and archaeological evidence. The term 'craft' has been used here in a broad sense which includes all the activities that produced or modified objects by manual means and with the use of medhcnical aids like tools, etc. Technology' here means a systematic knowledge and action usually of the industrial process but applicable to any recurrent acivity. It is closely related to science and engineering and also deals with tools and techniques for the purpose of accomplishing a specified function with knowledge and skill. This definition of technology, suggested by Sherwood and Maynard, has been followed in this work. Crafts and Technology played a pivotal role in constructing the socioeconomic and cultural history of India. The study of crafts and technology therefore is a vast subject and it has drawn attention of the historians and archaeologists in India and aborad. some Monographs on ancient ats and crafts has been published. But there is no comprehensive work on the subject in ancient India on broad perspectives.

Dr. A.S. Ray (born in 1966) is a young dynamic Research Scholar in the month discplinary field of History of Science. Aftr his Post Graduation in Ancient Indian History and Culture from the University of Calcutta, he joined the institute of Assistant in a project entitled "Textile and Weaving Technology in Ancient India," sponsored by the Indian National Science Academy. He also experienced in a project entitled, Listing of Momuments (buildings of architectural and/or Historical Importance) in Calcuta, sponsored by the Directorate of Archaeology, Govt. of West Bengal. Dr. Ray published some papers both in English and Bengali of National Repute. He has also contributed quite a number of articles in the Cultural Encyclopaedia of Ancient India, Manohar Publications, New Delhi. He also edited a popular Bengali Panchali, named Dasrathi Rayer Panchali, Mahesh Publication, Calcutta. He is at presently teaching History a the K.A.V. Higher Secondary, Calcuta. The present work, his Ph.D. thesis has been acclaimed as an outstanding work of great merit in a challenging new field.

This is a revised version of a Thesis approved for the Ph.D. degree of the Calcutta University. I avail myself of the opportunity. to express my deepest sense of gratitude to my revered teacher Dr. Narendra Nath Bhattacharya (Department of Ancient Indian History and Culture, University of Calcutta), for the valuable guidence and kind supervision that I received from him all along the progress of this work. My debt is entirely to him. Responsibility for errors and inadequacies is, of course, solely mine.

Difficulties in this study have been many. The work needed a multidisciplinary approach involving Literary, Archaeology, Indology, Crafts and Technology. My experience in various projects enabled me to take up this work. My short association with late professor Debi Prasad Chattopadhyay in a project also help me acquire knowledge about this subject. Also my experiences in two project of the Institute of Historical Studies and Directorate of State Archaeology.

falsodeemit my duty to acknowledge my sense of in-debtedness to Prof. Nirmalendu Mukherjee of South City College, Calcutta, and Dr. Asok Dutta, Senior Lecturer of the Dept. of Archaeology, University of Calcutta, for their valuable suggestions. My sincere thanks are to Prof. B. N. Mukherjee, Late Prof. Kalyan Kumar Dasgupta, Dr. Asok Bhattacharya, Dr. Dipak Ranjan Das, Dr. Ranabir Chakravarti, Prof. Suresh Chand Bhattacharya all of them in the Dept. of A. I. H. C., Calcutta University, who have helped me in many ways.

The present work attempts to deal with the history of crafts and technology starting from the pre-historic and proto-historic periods of India down to the age of the Imperial Guptas on the basis of available literary and archaeological evidence. The term 'craft' has been used here in a broad sense which includes all the activities that produced or modified objects by manual means and with the use of machanical aids like tools, etc. Technology' here means a systematic knowledge and action usually of the industrial process but applicable to any recurrent activity. It is closely related to science and engineering and also deals with tools and techniques for the purpose of accomplishing a specified function with knowledge and skill. This definition of technology, suggested by Sherwood and Maynard, has been followed in this work. Crafts and Technology played a pivoted role in constructing the Socio-economic and cultural history of India. The study of crafts and technology therefore is a vast subject and it has drawn attention the historians and anchaeologist in India and abroad. Some Monographs on ancient arts and crafts has been published. But there is no comprehensive work on the subject in ancient India on broad perspectives.

Indian Social History bassed on Buddhist Jatakas which was published at 1920. At the same time Rhys Davids wrote a monograph on Ancient Indian economic history (1921). Ramesh Chandra Majumder has shown in his Corporate Life in Ancient India (1919), the condition of corporate guilds in ancient India which was not mentioned by Rhys Davids. In 1925 Dr. Narayan Chandra Bandopadhyay discussed some economic aspects of craft and technology in his Economic Life and Progress in Ancient India. From 1910 onwards Anand K. Coomarswamy touched on the arts and crafts of India and Cylone in many of his works. Atindra Nath Basu in his Social and Rural Economy of Northern India (two Vols. 1942-45) intensively discussed economic conditions emphasising on crafts, industries from 200 B.C. to 200 A.D.

In 1957 Proí. S. K. Maity published his work on economic condition in the northern India of the Gupta period and devoted a full chapter on Gupta industrial and guild-oriented professions of the time. In 1968 the Allchins published their important monograph Birth of India Civilization in which they devoted a full chapter on crafts and technology of the Pre-historic and Proto historic period of India. Prof. B. N. Mukherjee in his Monograph the Economic Factors in Kusana History (1970) also discussed the general economic condition of the Kusana period in details in which there was work for crafts and technology. In 1966 R.S. Sharma in his 'Light on early Indian Society and Economy' had thrown light on certain aspects of crafts and technology. In 1971 D.P. Agrawal published his Copper Bronze Age Technology in which he elaborately discussed various aspect of ancient metal technology.

In 1979 chemist and archaeologist, H.C. Bharadwaj published his Aspect of Ancient Technology which elaborately presented different aspect of metal technology of ancient India based on material collected from different archaeological excavations. In 1984 Kameswar Prasad wrote in his Cities, Crafts and Commerce under the Kusanas dealt elaborately with crafts, craftsman, crafts-guild based on Jatakas and other sources concerning the Kusana Period. In the same year Brajdeo Prasad Roy also published his Later Vedic Economy in which he discussed arts and crafts of the Vedic Period, based on later Vedic Literature. In 1982 Radhakrishna Chaudhury Published his Economic History of Ancient India in which he had discussed various aspects of end industry against the background of general economic history of ancient India.

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