Agri-History Bulletin No.9
Foreword
In the year 1920, Sri Dasharatha Shastri, a resident of Savner village (near Nagpur), published the Hindi translation of a Sanskrit treatise, Krishi-shasanam. This text gives important information on ancient agriculture practices and is now a rare text. Krishi-Parashar is the main reference treatise on which Krishi-shasanam is based.
An old manuscript of Dasharatha Shastri's Marathi translation was in the possession of Dr VB Rahudkar, a scholar in Agri-science from Nagpur. Dr Rahudkar does not remember the name of the translator. He sent the manuscript to us. We decided to publish this in different langvages. This is the English Edition.
Preface
In ancient times, India was considered to be the wealthiest nation in the world. This prosperity resulted out of various occupations such as agriculture, cattle rearing and weaving (Textile industry). Cattle were the true wealth of the ancient Indian kings. There is a mention of Raja Virat, the king of Matsya Desh, in the Mahabharata. He was renowned for his Go-Dhan (vast cattle-wealth). Duryodhan invaded Virat's kingdom to abduct his cattle. During that era, India exported several spices, cotton and silk cloth and sandalwood to the Roman Empire, Gold coins belonging to the Roman Empire have been found in Paithan. Innumerable kings from other lands invaded and plundered India. The King of Macedonia, Alexander the Great (BC 336-323) was the first invader. Later, the Arabs, Turks, Afghans, Pathans, Portuguese, Dutch, French and the British invaded India and established their rule. In the ancient times, several dynasties such as Maurya, Satvahana, Yadav, Vakataka, Rashtrakuta, Chalukya, Chola, Pallava, Pandyan, Vijaynagar, Hoysala, and Kakatiya ruled over India. During this era, governance was based on Chanakya's Artha-Shastra (BC 321). Seetadhyaksha was the person in charge of the governance of Agri-Department. Essentially, he had to be well-versed in Agri-Science. He built several irrigation facilities such as lakes, canals and wells. The government provided seeds, animals and money to the needy farmers and they had to repay the government. Agriculture tax was waived during the times of drought. Concessions were given to those, who brought new land under cultivation. The government encouraged tree-planting and manufacture of agricultural tools and also compensated for losses which occurred due to theft, labour, unrestrained animals, wild animals, disease or drought and even losses occurred due to the invasions of the enemy army. Hence, during this era, agriculture developed and prospered and as a result, the farmers were happy.
The Sultan and the Mughals made Delhi their capital city and this was the beginning of decline in agriculture. The Muslims were a pleasure-seeking lot and they exploited poor farmers to fulfill their aspirations. Agricultural development came to a halt and as a result, droughts occurred repeatedly. To cite an example: Raja Bhoj of Dhar (reigned c. 1010-1055 CE) had created a huge lake for irrigation, by constructing an embankment on River Betwa near Bhopal. The Muslim army destroyed this dam and ruined the lake. The British rulers too were no exception. They exploited the Indian farmers. The British government forced them to cultivate raw material required for the Industry in England. The farmers in Bengal were forced to grow Indigo instead of grains, because the cloth-mills in Manchester needed blue dye. The British banned Indian handlooms in order to sell their own cloth, manufactured in Manchester. In the eighteenth century, India often suffered from terrible droughts. In order to find a solution to this problem, Dr. Volker, a British agriculturist was sent from England.
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