Small tanks and food security in ancient SL
Prof. W. I. SIRIWEERA
Small village tanks laid the foundation for an agrarian society based
on a ‘one-tank one village’ ecological pattern in the initial stages of
state formation in Sri Lanka.
Topographical surveyors of the latter part of the nineteenth century
have observed that there was one small village reservoir in each square
mile in the South-Eastern part of the island. Even at present there are
about 15,000 small village tanks all over the Dry Zone out of which
around 8,500 have been put into use.
|
‘One-tank
one village’ |
Although the main chronicles are silent on small tanks, the
inscriptions in the first three centuries of the Christian era alone
refer to more than 150 such small tanks. Along with medium scale
reservoirs such as Abhayaweva, Nuvaraweva and Tisaweva in Anuradhapura;
and large reservoirs such as Kalaweva, Minneri and Parakramasamudra,
thousands of small village tanks functioned effectively until the middle
of the thirteenth century. The most important aspect of these large,
medium and small village reservoirs was interconnection of many of the
reservoirs through an intricate network of canals.
Food security
This chain of interconnected irrigation complexes provided food
security to a large population in the Dry Zone. It also provided most of
the protein requirements as inland fisheries was an important economic
activity. Reservoir and canal fishing was so important that there were
carefully drafted rules and regulations related to fishing. For
instance, the fifth century Pali commentary Samanthapasadika while
discussing ‘ownership’ states that when someone was fishing in a canal,
if a fish jumped into the air and if another caught it in the air with
hands, the ownership of such fish rested not on the fisherman but on the
person who caught it in the air. It was not considered a theft.
A question that poses itself as relevant is whether agriculture,
fishing and such other economic activity related to large, medium and
small tanks resulted in full food security in all eras of history?
Although there was food security during most periods of the Dry Zone
civilization, there also have been sporadic famines, not less than a
dozen in number recorded in the chronicles such as the Mahavamsa. Some
of these have been local ones and difficulty in transporting grain to
affected areas was the cause of hardships. In this context 1998 Nobel
Prize winner for Economics-Amatya Sen’s ‘Theory of Entitlement’
profounded in relation to famines in Bengal in the nineteenth century
may be applicable with modifications to some famines in the ancient Sri
Lankan Dry Zone as well
Uncertainty of food production
But there were also a few serious famines affecting the whole
country. For example, the famine called the Baminitiya Saya which
occurred for several years after 109 B.C was serious that a considerable
number of Buddhist monks died while 24,000 monks left the island to seek
refuge in India. The famine continued for several years and monasteries
in Anuradhapura were abandoned. This major famine and other not so
serious famines took place approximately over a period of fifteen
centuries and considering this length of time they may not give a true
picture of food production and food security in ancient Sri Lanka.
Yet, irrespective of the development of an intricate irrigation
system in the Dry Zone, there had always been uncertainty of food
production due to many factors of which the fluctuation of weather
conditions was an important one. The fifth century Pali commentary,
Sammoha Vinodini refers to the storage of grain in the monasteries at
Tissamaharama and Situlpavuva sufficient to sustain 24,000 monks for
three months. This indicates that either there was a substantial surplus
of food during certain seasons or that there was an uncertainty of food
supply in certain years.
Inscriptions of the fourth century A.D. indicate that grain deposited
in mercantile guilds earned an annual interest as high as 50 percent for
rice and 25 percent for other cereals. This implies that there was a
market demand for grain at various times depending on the vagaries of
weather.
Whatever it is, the average peasant lived at low subsistence level.
His plight is lucidly described in the thirteenth century classic
Pujavali which states that after each harvest by labouring hard, what
was left to the cultivator of the soil and his family was barely
sufficient for him to subsist on until the next harvest.
On the other hand, with the extensive network of reservoirs and
canals in the Dry Zone, agricultural production was sufficient to
sustain the population during most of the eras of the Dry Zone
civilization. The large scale construction of dagobas and monastic
complexes, as well as other magnificent monuments with exquisite
sculptures, and the building of an intricate and imposing irrigation
system would not have been possible if there had not been an appreciable
quantity of surplus food to be appropriated by the ruling elite.
Export of rice
The popular belief that rice was exported from Sri Lanka also needs
to be examined in this context. There is only one solitary reference in
the South Indian Sangam text, Pattinapalai, one of the ten idylls of the
Pattupattu, written in the second century A.D. which indicates that
foodstuffs were exported to South India from Sri Lanka (Illattunavu).
Perhaps foodstuffs referred to here included rice and during times of
scarcity, South India may have imported rice from Sri Lanka. But, such
references do not indicate the general prosperity of one country as
compared with the other.
The ninth century Muslim traveller, Ibn Khurdadbeh refers to the
import of rice to Sri Lanka from South India. Another Muslim writer
Al-Idrisi stated in the eleventh century, that Jirbatam was a port in
South India which exported rice to Sri Lanka. In these instances too, it
is unwise to conclude that rice was frequently imported to Sri Lanka
from South India. It may be reasonable to conclude from such sporadic
and divergent references that during times of crop failures and demand
in either country, trade in rice was carried in between India and Sri
Lanka.
Self-sufficiency
An important point regarding the self-sufficiency of the ancient
village also needs to be raised here. The ideas of some of the early
British administrator scholars on Asia inspired Karl Marx’s view on the
‘Asiatic Mode of Production’ characterized by self-sufficient village
economy. The patriotic or nationalist bias of Asian writers too have
resulted in an exaggerated and out of proportion account of the
self-sufficiency of the Asian village.
But it is important to note that although grain supplies were
available some of the essential commodities such as salt, metal and
metal implements were not produced in all Asian villages.
In Sri Lanka frequently metals and metal products had to be brought
into many of the villages from few producing and manufacturing areas.
Salt had to be transported to the interior from the coastal centres.
Some of the other needs of the village community which could not be met
locally too had to be supplied by outsiders which necessitated money
exchange or barter. The pedlar or hawker who constantly moved about
between the regions played an important role in supplying light weight
commodities such as clothes, rings, necklaces and bracelets to the
villagers.
By the middle of the thirteenth century, the great cities of
Anuradhapura and Polonnaruva had been almost abandoned, the Rajarata
civilization had collapsed and the efficiency of the major reservoirs
and thousands of small tanks had declined. The patches of water retained
in tanks provided some form of food security to settlers remaining in
the Dry Zone. But the neglect of irrigation system and concomitant
spread of diseases resulted in rapid thinning of population. By the end
of the fifteenth century only the ruins of the old cities and the silted
reservoirs remained as stark reminders of the once flourishing Dry Zone
civilization.
The Dry Zone began to be exploited and populated once again only
after the restoration of reservoirs from the end of the nineteenth
century and the establishment of colonization schemes from the beginning
of the twentieth century particularly after 1931.
|