Bennett estimated that the approximate population of the world in AD 1000 was 275,000,000 (Valentey, 1978). In five hundred years time, from AD 1000 to 1500, it grew by 171 millions only (Table 5.1). This gives an average annual growth rate of .00096 and a doubling time of 729 years.

LACK OF INTEREST IN POPULATION THEORY

The slow rate of population growth of ancient society explains why the early philosophers and planners gave little importance to the population size and density. If for the philosophers and planners, the population is more or less. A constant, it cannot be part of their theory of change or progress. Economists of development would find little interest in a constant. Only sometimes it appears in planning for a city state in hypothesizing a relationship between size and density of population and quality of life in the city (in the context of fixed resources). Indian religious literature equates increasing burden of asuras on earth with kaliyuga , the age of sin, meaning thereby that uncontrolled population can produce normlessness and misery. Population became an issue at the end of 18^th and particularly after the World War II because it started growing at an unprecedented rate.