took the form of exports; grain was traded to the Near East
in exchange for consumer goods such as cookware as well as
for luxury items such as decorative sculpture.
Harappan society seems to have been structured around
an upper class and a lower class based on ownership of land.
It may have had kings, but no palaces or other indications of
royalty have been found. Some areas of the Harappans’ cit-
ies and towns had large houses with big walls and spacious
interiors, while other areas crowded together small houses
along narrow streets. Based on diff erences in housing, some
historians have theorized that the economy had a big division
between rich and poor, with a small elite group controlling
the wealth generated by the economy. Some also suggest that
the division was so great that the lower class was made up of
slaves of the upper class. Others speculate that the diff erences
between social classes may have arisen from a diff erence be-
tween owners of large estates and owners of small farms, or
they may have resulted from hereditary social status, with
the upper class being nobility and the lower class peasants. In
any case, the Harappans plainly had an economy advanced
enough to have the means to pay people to care for the cit-
ies. Sewers, streets, walls, fortifi cations, and granaries were
well maintained until about 1800 b.c.e., when the economy of
the Harappan culture seems to have begun a decline, perhaps
caused by natural disasters, invading nomads, or both.
Th e Harappans fueled an extensive trading empire and
were well known to the Sumerians of the Near East, who
called them Meluhha. Ships from the Harappans sailed to
Dilmun, modern Bahrain, where they traded for goods made
in the Near East. During the reign of Sumer’s Sargon I (r.
2334–2279 b.c.e.) Harappan ships routinely sailed up the Ti-
gris and Euphrates rivers to dock at major cities.
THE VAISHYAS AND SUDRAS
Th e next city-building culture did not arise in India until the
900s b.c.e., when the nomadic Vedic people began settling,
though they did not become a fully agricultural society until
about 500 b.c.e. By 1500 b.c.e. some of the nomadic peoples
of central and northern Asia had developed the practice of
waiting until aft er harvest time and then raiding towns and
villages to steal food and other valuables. Th is behavior was a
constant factor in weakening the ancient Asian economies of
India, China, and Korea.
By 500 b.c.e. India was divided into numerous small
kingdoms. Complex economies developed in northern In-
dia, giving rise to a cash economy, meaning an economy
based not on barter but on the use of money to make pur-
chases. Th e Vedic culture that dominated northern India
had brought with it a system of social classes that became
the castes of India. Under this system the third-highest caste
was the Vaishya, who were in charge of money lending, ag-
riculture, and trade. Th ey paid higher taxes than the other
castes because one of their duties was to create wealth to
give to the higher castes—the Brahmans, or priests, and the
Kshatriyas, or warriors and rulers. Th e Vaishyas resented
being third-class people and having to pay higher taxes
than everyone else, so during the Maurya Dynasty many
of them adopted Buddhism, which advocated social equal-
ity. Th e fourth caste was the Sudra, a group that included
craft speople. Th e men were blacksmiths, carpenters, and
potters, while the women were basket makers and weavers
of textiles. Perhaps either gender could have made garlands,
which were important ornaments.
Farmers were of the Vaishya caste, and they led diffi cult
lives, burdened by high taxes and usually allowed to work
only small plots of land. Th e big estates tended to be owned
by kings and temples, and they were worked by Vaishyas,
who were little more than slaves. Th eir main crop was rice,
but they also cultivated wheat, barley, and cotton mostly in
northern India, and sugarcane, peas, and beans mostly in
southern India. Th ey raised sheep, cattle, and buff alo. Rec-
ognizing the importance of keeping their agricultural econo-
mies strong, Indian governments usually gave farmers seeds
when the farmers needed them, and they lent farmers oxen,
tools, and even money.
Large towns had public markets where farmers could sell
their produce and where shops sold the products of the Su-
dras and goods imported by the Vaishyas. Merchants sold oil
for lamps, perfumes, and spices. Some owned taverns, where
government agents would spy on the patrons to see who was
spending lavishly and therefore might not have paid all his
taxes. Th e Mauryan government developed a bureaucracy de-
voted to keeping track of people and their wealth.
People paid for goods with gold and silver coins. Each
coin was marked with a code that identifi ed where it had been
minted, which allowed governments to identify who might be
minting underweight coins, which by law were supposed con-
tain a certain weight of gold, silver, or copper. Underweight
coins could cause infl ation, because sellers would fi gure out
that certain coins were underweight and would therefore de-
mand more of them for their goods. A high number of un-
derweight coins could cause people to lose faith in the coins,
perhaps turning to bartering for their goods. Th is could lead
to a collapse of the cash economy, which in turn would cause
m a ny bu s i ne s s e s t o go b a n k r up t. G ove r n me nt s a l s o k e p t t r a c k
of the movements of merchants and how they were treated.
Villages, towns, and cities were expected to protect foreign
merchants and sometimes were required to reimburse a mer-
chant for the value of his goods if he was robbed by bandits
while in their territories.INDIAN FOREIGN TRADE
During the Maurya Dynasty, India opened up extensive for-
eign trade routes. Th e Mauryans traded with people from
the east coast of Africa, the Near East, Greece, Rome, and
China. Alexander the Great’s invasion of northwestern India
in 326 b.c.e. made wide-ranging contacts with Western cul-
tures. Beginning with the reign of Augustus Caesar in Rome
(27 b.c.e.–14 c.e.) Indian kingdoms sent ambassadors to the
Roman court, seeking to expand and protect trade relations358 economy: Asia and the Pacific