This is what PrabhavatiGupta states in her inscription:
PrabhavatiGupta... commands the gramakutumbinas (householders/peasants living in the village).
Brahmanas and others living in the village of Danguna...
"Be it known to you that on the twelfth (lunar day) of the bright (fortnight) of Karttika, we have, in order to increase out religious merit donated this village with the pouring out of water, to the Acharya (teacher) Chanalasvamin... You should obey all (his) commands....
We confer on (him) the following exemptions typical of an agarhara... (this village is) not to be entered by soldiers and policemen; (it is) exempt from (the obligation to provide) grass, (animal) hides as seats, and charcoal (to touring royal officers); exempt form (the royal prerogative of) purchasing fermenting liquors and digging (salt); exempt from (the right to) mines and khadira trees; exempt form (the obligation to supply) flowers and milk; (it id donated) together with (the right to) hidden treasures and deposits (and) together with major and minor taxes...."
This charter has been written in the thirteenth (regnal) year. (It has been) engraved by Chakradasa.
The Harshacharita is a biography of Harshavardhana, the ruler of Kanauj (seep Map 3), composed in Sanskrit by his court poet, Banabhatta (c. seventh century CE). This is an excerpt form the text and extremely rare representation of life in a settlement on the outskirts of a forest in the Vindhyas:
The outskirts being for the most part forest, many parcels of rice-land, threshing ground and arable land were being apportioned by small farmers... it was mainly spade culture... owing to the difficulty of ploughing the sparsely scattered fields covered with grass, with their few clear spaces, their black soil stiff as black iron....
There were people moving along with bundles of bark... countless sacks of plucked flowers,... loads of flax and hemp bundles, quantities of honey, peacocks' tail feathers, wreaths of wax, logs, and grass. Village wives hastened en route for neighbouring villages, all intent on thoughts of sale and bearing on their heads baskets filled with various gathered forest fruits.
How would you classify the people described in the text in terms of their occupations?
10 - marks question
Source 8
Prabhavati Gupta... commands the gramakutumbinas (householders/peasants living in the village).
Brahmanas and others living in the village of Danguna...
"Be it known to you that on the twelfth (lunar day) of the bright (fortnight) of Karttika, we have, in order to increase out religious merit donated this village with the pouring out of water, to the Acharya (teacher) Chanalasvamin... You should obey all (his) commands....
We confer on (him) the following exemptions typical of an agarhara... (this village is) not to be entered by soldiers and policemen; (it is) exempt from (the obligation to provide) grass, (animal) hides as seats, and charcoal (to touring royal officers); exempt form (the royal prerogative of) purchasing fermenting liquors and digging (salt); exempt from (the right to) mines and khadira trees; exempt form (the obligation to supply) flowers and milk; (it id donated) together with (the right to) hidden treasures and deposits (and) together with major and minor taxes...."
This charter has been written in the thirteenth (regnal) year. (It has been) engraved by Chakradasa.
What were the things produced in the village?
Source 7
The outskirts being for the most part forest, many parcels of rice-land, threshing ground and arable land were being apportioned by small farmers... it was mainly spade culture... owing to the difficulty of ploughing the sparsely scattered fields covered with grass, with their few clear spaces, their black soil stiff as black iron....
There were people moving along with bundles of bark... countless sacks of plucked flowers,... loads of flax and hemp bundles, quantities of honey, peacocks' tail feathers, wreaths of wax, logs, and grass. Village wives hastened en route for neighbouring villages, all intent on thoughts of sale and bearing on their heads baskets filled with various gathered forest fruits.
How would you classify the people described in the text in terms of their occupations?