Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (6.1988/1991)

THE ARD-PLOUGH IN ANCIENT AND
EARLY MEDIEVAL INDIA
REMARKS ON ITS HISTORY BASED ON LINGUISTIC
AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE
By
Gyula Wojtilla

Ard-plough remains are totally lacking at
early farming sites from the epi-palaeolithic-
neolithic periods. The existence of stone
blades, querns and storage vessels indicates an
organised agriculture; however, the Diara
land flood plain could be exploited for culti-
vation without a plough (From Hunting ...
1980, 189).
The situation at great cultural centres at the
dawn of history is rather complicated. Al-
though cultivation of land has been known in
Baluchistan since the 8th millennium BC
(Tosi 1982 83, 37 and 94) excavations did not
produce traces of ploughing or the remains of
the ard-plough. The inhabitants of the Indus
Civilization produced grain on a large scale
(Wheeler 1968, 34-35), and kept oxen and
buffaloes. Their favourite draught-animal,
the humped bull, was fit for yoking to an ard-
plough. Nevertheless neither a complete ard-
plough nor its parts have turned up (Allchin-
Allchin 1968, 260-61). The only object that
evoked the idea of an ard-plough was a
roughly chipped implement with a double-
sloped edge; however, it probably served for
ceremonial purposes (Mackay 1938, 397 and
Plate CVL56). On the other hand the finding
of a grid of furrows at Kalibangan, dated to
the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, pro-
vides a basis for postulating the use of an ard-
plough. According to B.B. Lal such a pattern

is produced even today by cultivators of the
same district when they tie a funnel to the ard
and drop the seed through it into the furrow,
before the soil is turned over on top of it
(Steensberg 1971, 241 and Steensberg 1989,
68). There is a seal depicting a seeder-ard-like
object from Lothal (Fig. 1). Its unusual shape
raises serious doubt about its function (Rand-
hawa 1980, 157 and Fig. 79).
There are two models of ard-ploughs from
these times. A plough-like terracotta, size
7x19,7 cm, from Mohenjodaro, dates to
around 2300 BC. There is no sign that it had a