Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/61

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requisite to make life very enjoyable. ⁴⁵The husbandmen themselves, with their wives and children, live in the country, and entirely avoid going into town. ⁴⁶They pay a land-tribute to the king, because all India is the property of the crown, and no private person is permitted to own land. Besides the land-tribute, they pay into the royal treasury a fourth part of the produce of the soil.

⁴⁷The third caste consists of the Neatherds and Shepherds,^{[ref 1]} and in general of all herdsmen who neither settle in towns nor in villages, but live in tents. By hunting and trapping they clear the country of noxious birds and wild beasts. As they apply themselves eagerly and assiduously to this pursuit, they free India from the pests with which it abounds,—all sorts of wild beasts, and birds which devour the seeds sown by the husbandmen.^{[ref 2]}

(41.) ⁴⁸The fourth caste consists of the Artizans.^{[ref 3]} Of these some are armourers, while others make the implements which husbandmen and others find useful in their different callings. This class is not only exempted from paying

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1. Βουκόλοι καὶ ποιμένες καὶ καθόλου πάντες οἱ νομέες, Diod. Ποιμένες καὶ θηρευταί, Strab. Ποιμένες τε καὶ βουκόλοι, Arr.
2. Shepherds and hunters were not a caste of Hindus, but were probably tribes like the Abhirs or Ahîrs, Dhangars, &c.—ED.
3. Τεχνίται.