Debt (82 page)

69.
In Christianity, at least in the Augustinian tradition, this is quite explicit: the material world does not in any sense partake of God; God is not in it; it was simply made by Him
(De civitate dei
4. 12)—this radical separation of spirit and nature being—according to Henri Frankfort (1948:342–44)—a peculiarity of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. That same Augustinian tradition, though, also drew on Plato to insist that reason, on the other hand—the abstract principle which allows us to understand such things, and which is entirely separate from matter
—does
partake of the divine (see Hoitenga 1991:112–14, for the conflict in Augustine’s own ideas here).

70.
Shell’s essay “The Ring of Gyges” (1978) has already been cited in the last chapter, in my discussion of Plato; Seaford 1998, 2004.

71.
This is based on the fact that Miletus was one of the cities, if not the first city, to produce coins of small enough denominations that they could be used for everyday transactions (Kraay 1964:67).

72.
Heraclitus was from the nearby Ionian city of Ephesus and Pythagoras originally from the Ionian island of Samos. After Ionia was incorporated into the Persian empire, large numbers of Ionians fled to southern Italy, which then became the center of Greek philosophy, again, at just the period when the Greek cities there became thoroughly monetarized. Athens became the center of Greek philosophy only in the fifth century, which is also when Athens was militarily dominant and the Athenian “owl” coinage became the main international currency of the Eastern Mediterranean.

73.
Or as Seaford (2004:208) puts it, echoing Anaximander’s description of his primal substance, “a distinct, eternal, impersonal, all-embracing, unlimited, homogeneous, eternally moving, abstract, regulating substance, destination for all things as well as their origin” (or, at least, “all things” that were available for purchase.)

74.
Seaford 2004:136–46; see Picard 1975; Wallace 1987; Harris 2008a:10. Purely “fiduciary” money is of course what a metallist would call “fiat” or “token” money, or a Keynesian, “chartal money.” Despite Finley’s arguments to the contrary (1980:141, 196), just about all ancient money was fiduciary to some extent. It’s easy to see why coins would ordinarily circulate at a higher face value than their weight in gold or silver, since the price of the latter would tend to fluctuate, but the moment the coin’s face value was lower than that of its metal content, there would be no reason not to melt it down.

75.
In the case of truly large states like the Roman or Mauryan empires, inflation did eventually result, but the full effects were not felt for at least a century (see Ingham 2002:101–4, Kessler & Temin 2008, Harris 2008b for some good discussions of the Roman situation.)

76.
Seaford 2004:138–39.

77.
I am partly inspired here by Marcel Mauss’s arguments about of the concept of substance (Allen 1998).

78.
Hence, as we’ll see Aristotle’s position that a coin was only a social convention
(Nicomachean Ethics
1133a29–31) remained very much a minority view in the ancient world. It did become the predominant view later, in the Middle Ages.

79.
He is known as PĀyĀsi in the Buddhist scriptures, Paesi in the Jaina (see Bronkhorst 2007:143–159 for a good discussion of these earliest Indian materialists; for the later materialist school, to which Kautilya is said to belong, see Chattopadhyaya 1994. Jaspers (1951:135), writing of India, notes the appearance of “all philosophical trends, including skepticism and materialism, sophistry and nihilism”—a significant list, since it’s obviously not a list of “all” philosophical trends at all, but only the most materialist.

80.
In
The Republic
it is rejected out of hand. In India, as I’ve argued, the Hindu tradition only appears to embrace it. Buddhists, Jains, and other oppositional philosophies didn’t use the term at all.

81.
Philo of Alexandria, writing around the time of Christ, says of the Essenes: “not a single slave is to be found among them, but all are free, exchanging services with each other, and they denounce the owners of slaves, not merely for their injustice in outraging the law of equality, but also for their impiety in annulling the statute of nature”
(Quod omnis probus liber sit
79). The Therapeutae, another Jewish group, group rejected all forms of property, but looked on slavery “to be a thing absolutely and wholly contrary to nature, for nature has created all men free” (De
Vita Contemplativa
70). The similarity to Roman law ideas is notable. Jewish groups are unusually well documented; if similar sects existed in, say, Thrace, or Numidia, we probably wouldn’t know.

82.
Later legend had it that his father was a king and he grew up in a palace, but the Sakya “king” of the time was in fact a elected and rotating position (Kosambi 1965:96).

1.
Coins produced by the barbarian successor states generally did not have a great deal of gold or silver in them; as a result they tended to circulate only within the principality of the king or baron who issued them and were largely useless for trade.

2.
Dockés (1979:62–70) provides a good overview of the situation—literally, since current understandings of the extent of Roman slave estates in France are based largely on aerial photography. Over time even the free communities largely ended up in debt peonage of one sort or another, or bound to the land as serfs (in Latin,
coloni)
.

3.
As we’ve seen, Kosambi saw Magadha as a peak of monetarization. R.S. Sharma (2001:119–62) argues that coinage remained commonplace under the Guptas (280 to 550 ad) but then abruptly disappeared almost everywhere thereafter. However, even if he is right that the total number of coins in circulation did not diminish until then, he himself points out (ibid:143) that the total population of the Ganges Plain almost tripled over this period, so even this would mark a steady decline.

4.
For an overview: R.S. Sharma 1965, Kane 1968 III:411–61, Chatterjee 1971. Schopen (1994) especially emphasizes that the techniques grow more sophisticated over the course of the Middle Ages, for instance, developing bookkeeping techniques for combining compound interest with partial repayments.

5.
Documents on the regulation of monastic affairs pay a great deal of attention to the details: how when the money was lent out, contracts would be signed, sealed, and deposited in the temple before
witnesses; how a surety or pledge worth twice the amount of the loan should be turned over, how “devout lay brothers” should be assigned to manage the investment, and so forth (Schopen 1994).

6.
From the Arab
dinar
, which in turn derives from the Roman
denarius
. It is unclear whether such sums were actually paid in coins at this point: one early monastic manual, for example, speaking of objects that might be relegated to the Inexhaustible Treasuries and thus put out at interest, mentions “gold and silver, whether in the form of coins, finished or raw, in large or small quantities, pure or alloyed, or whether in the form of utensils, finished or unfinished” (MahĀsĀmghika Vinaya, in Gernet 1956 [1995:165]).

7.
Fleet 1888: 260–62, as translated in Schopen 1994:532–33. One need hardly remark on the irony of this emphasis on eternity emerging within Buddhism, a religion founded on the recognition of the impermanence of all worldly attachments.

8.
The commercial loans are documented from an inscription at the West Indian monastery at Karle (Levi 1938: 145; Gernet 1956 [1995:164]; Barreau 1961:444–47), the assemblies from later Tamil temples (Ayyar 1982:40–68, R.S. Sharma 1965.) It is not clear whether some of these were commercial loans, or more like the later Buddhist custom of
jisa
still current in Tibet, Bhutan, and Mongolia, where an individual, or collective, or group of families wishing to support a specific ceremony or, say, an educational project might receive a 500-rupee loan “in perpetuity” and then be expected to provide 800 rupees a year to organize the ceremony. The responsibilities are then inherited, though the “loan” can be transferred (Miller 1961, Murphy 1961).

9.
Kalhana,
Rajatarangini
7.1091–98; see Basham 1948, Riepe 1961:44n49.) The monks were apparently Ajivkas, who still existed at this time.

10.
Naskar 1996, R.S. Sharma 2001:45–66, on the Puranic description of the “Kali age,” which seems to be the way later Brahmins referred to the period from roughly Alexander’s reign to the early Middle Ages, a period of insecurity and unrest when foreign dynasties ruled much of India, and caste hierarchies were widely challenged or rejected.

11.
Manusmrti 8.5.257. Significantly, the debt to other humans vanishes entirely in these texts.

12.
Manusmrti 8.5.270–72. A Sudra’s tongue would also be cut off for insulting a member of the twice-born castes (8.270).

13.
R.S. Sharma 1958, 1987, Chauhan 2003.

14.
“A Sudra, though emancipated by his master, is not released from a state of servitude, for a state which is natural to him, by whom can he be divested?” (Manusmrti, YĀjñavalkya Smrti 8.5.419), or even “Sudras must be reduced to slavery, either by purchase or without purchase, because they were created by God for the sake or serving others (8.5.413).

15.
Kautilya allowed 60 percent for commercial loans, 120 percent “for enterprises that involve journeys through forests,” and twice that for those that involve shipping goods by sea
(Arthasastra
3.11; one later code, YĀjñavalkya Smrti 2.38 follows this.)

16.
YĀjñavalkya Smrti 2.37, Manusmrti 8.143, Visnusmrti 5.6.2, see Kane 1968 III:421.

17.
R.S. Sharma 1965:68. Similarly, early law-codes specified that anyone who defaulted on a debt should be reborn as a slave or even a domestic animal in their creditor’s household: one later Chinese Buddhist text was even more exact, specifying that for each eight wen defaulted, one must spend one day as an ox, or for each seven, one day as a horse (Zhuang Chun in Peng 1994:244n17)

18.
Dumont (1966).

19.
Gyan Prakash (2003:184) makes this point for the colonial period: when one-time caste hierarchies began to be treated instead as matters of debt bondage, subordinates turned into persons who
had equal rights, but whose rights were temporarily “suspended.”

20.
To be fair, one could also argue that indebted peasants are also likely to be in command of more resources, and thus be more capable of organizing a rebellion. We know very little about popular insurrections in Medieval India (though see Guha (1999). Palat (1986, 1988:205–15; Kosambi 1996:392–93), but the total number of such revolts seems to have been relatively low in comparison to Europe and certainly in comparison to China, where rebellion was almost ceaseless.

21.
“No one knows just how many rebellions have taken place in Chinese history. From the official record there were several thousand incidents within just three years from 613 to 615 ad, probably one thousand events a year (Wei Z. ad 656: ch. “Report of the Imperial Historians”). According to Parsons, during the period 1629–44, there were as many as 234,185 insurrections in China, averaging 43 events per day, or 1.8 outbreaks per hour” (Deng 1999:220).

22.
Following Deng (1999).

23.
Huang 1999:231.

24.
These loans appear to have been an extension of the logic of the state granaries, which stockpiled food; some to sell at strategic moments to keep prices low, some to distribute free in times of famine; some to loan at low interest to provide an alternative to usurers.

25.
Huang op cit; cf. Zhuoyun & Dull 1980:22–24. For his complex currency reforms: Peng 1994:111–14.

26.
Generally, interest rates were set at a maximum of 20 percent and compound interest was banned. Chinese authorities eventually also adopted the Indian principle that interest should not be allowed to exceed the principal (Cartier 1988:28; Yang 1971:92–103).

27.
Braudel 1979; Wallerstein 1991, 2001.

28.
I am here especially following the work of Boy Bin Wong (1997, 2002; also Mielants 2001, 2007.) Granted, most Braudelans only see later dynasties like the Ming as fully embodying this principle, but I think it can be projected backwards.

29.
So, for instance, while markets themselves were considered beneficial, the government also systematically intervened to prevent price fluctuations, stockpiling commodities when they were cheap and releasing them if prices rose. There were periods of Chinese history when rulers made common cause with merchants, but the result was usually a major popular backlash (Deng 1999:146).

30.
Pommeranz 1998, Goldstone 2002 for an introduction to the vast literature on comparative standards of living. India was actually doing rather well also for most of its history.

31.
Zürcher 1958:282.

32.
Gernet 1956 (1999: 241–42); for the following discussion see Gernet 1960, Jan 1965, Kieschnick 1997, Benn 1998, 2007.

33.
Tsan-ning (919-1001 ad) quoted in Jan 1965:263. Others appealed to the history of bodhisattvas and pious kings who had made gifts of their own bodies, such as the king who, in time of famine, leapt to his death to be transformed into a mountain of flesh, replete with thousands of heads, eyes, lips, teeth, and tongues, which for ten thousand years only grew larger no matter how much of it humans and animals ingested (Benn 2007:95, 108; cf. Ohnuma 2007).

34.
Tu Mu, cited in Gernet 1956 (1995:245).

35.
This might come as something of a surprise, since the phrase is used so often in contemporary Western popular usage, “karmic debt” becoming something of a New Age cliché. But it seems to strike a much more intuitive chord with Euro-Americans than it ever did in India. Despite the close association of debt and sin in the Indian tradition, most early Buddhist schools avoided the concept—largely because it implied a continuity of the self, which they saw as ephemeral and ultimately illusory. The exception were the Sammitiya, called “personalists” as they
did believe in an enduring self, who developed the notion of aviprĀāśa, whereby the results of good or bad actions—karma—“endure like a sheet of paper on which a debt is inscribed” as an unconscious element of the self that passes from one life to another (Lamotte 1997:22–24, 86–90; Lusthaus 2002:209–10). The idea might have died with that sect had it not been taken up by the famous Mahayana philosopher NĀgĀrjuna, who compared it to an “imperishable promissory note” (Kalupahana 1991:54–55, 249; Pasadika 1997). His MĀdhyamaka school in turn became the Sanlun or “Three Treatise” school in China; the notion of karmic debt was taken up in particular by the “Three Stages” or “Three Levels” school created the monk Hsin-Hsing (540–94 ad) (Hubbard 2001).