Economy of Ancient Tamil Country - Personal Wealth

Personal Wealth

How wealth was assessed varied from one community to another. Farmers counted the number of ploughshares owned and among the pastoral folk it was the number of cows. Wealth was distributed unequally among the people, leading to distinct economic classes - the rich, the poor and the middle class. The nobility, state officers, export traders and court poets formed the wealthy class. Most agriculturists and inland merchants made up the middle class. The lowest class consisted of labourers and wandering minstrels. It was believed that this economic division of people was the result of a divine arrangement; the poor people were made to feel that their miserable condition was due to their past sins, tivinai, and was inevitable. The extreme opulence of some people as well as the abject poverty of some others are clearly portrayed in the contemporary literature. Most of the rich spent a part of their wealth on charity, the king's philanthropy setting an example. It was believed that one needed to accumulate wealth in order to give donations and perform righteous obligations. Sometimes, the men of the household undertook a long journey to the north of the Venkata Hill or the northern boundary of Tamilakam, to earn wealth. One possible region that they might have gone to is the Mysore region, where the gold mines were getting famous. F. R. Allchin, who has discussed the antiquity of gold mining in the Deccan, says that the high period of mining in South India was the last centuries of the pre-Christian era and the first two centuries of the Christian era, which coincides with the Sangam period.