Iron Ploughshare and Farming

Plough agriculture, possibly with the iron ploughshare was initiated in western Uttar Pradesh around 600 B.C. or later. Perhaps in the middle of the first millennium B.C. or even later, an iron share belonging to the last phase of the PGW has been found at Jathera in Eta district. At Kausambi, another iron share belonging to the NBP level has been found. Further advancement of the new agriculturists helped in spreading their knowledge in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar around 600-300 B.C. It has been shown earlier that the literary texts of pre-Maurya times comprise several terms indicating ‘iron share’. Though the Vinaha pitaka is rather late, it talks of it in more specific terms. To quote from it: ‘As a ploughshare heated the live-long day if placed in water sizzles and hisses and sends forth steam and smoke, so did this sugar when placed in the water sizzle and hiss and send forth steam and smoke.^[1] The iron axe, share, sickle and other implements cleared the jungles and led to the foundation of large-scale settlements, and new agricultural techniques were introduced, but the existing social and ideological make-up of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were not in favour of these developments. The primitive people lived in sparsely inhabited upland areas and practiced hoe agriculture and for adopting the new ways of agriculture by them, much introductory work had to be done.

There was confrontation between the social and material culture of the people living on the fringes of the Aryan culture in the north-east and using polished tools and weapons of stone supplemented by a little copper on the iron-using people on the other. Aborigines and non-Aryans who was the neolitic-chalcolithic people of the east were able to cultivate small patches of land in the upland regions by burning the forest and then cutting the trees. Rice and small millets were produced by their hoe and dibbling stick and the bullocks, cow dung, carts, etc. had no role to play in it. Their agriculture was not dependent upon animal husbandry. They tamed cattle for non-vegetarian food and not for dairy produce and agriculture, as it still done in Palamau by the Nagesias. This was in practice in the Allahabad zone by some megalithic people. Numerous bone fragments of domesticated animals including oxen, sheep and pigs^[2] have been found in the megaliths at Kotia, situated on the Belan river. ‘Some of the bones bore cut-marks indicated intentional slaughter of animals.^[3]