Amazingly Efficient Trade Logistics in Ancient India

 

Silk route was a network of many roads that merchants used for the trade of silk, and spices. for exchange with not only China, but also with Japan, Persia, and many other countries. It was prominent till the end of the Kushan Empire in India which then was replaced by safer sea routes. China has started revive of the ancient silk route. (December 28, 2016   http://www.iiiem.in/blog/amazingly-efficient-trade-logistics-in-ancient-india/)

The Grand route, or the Grand Trunk Road or the G.T Road was bulit during the Mauryan Empireand Sher Shah Suri extended the road to great length during the sixteenth century.. from the modern day Bangladesh in the east to Afghanistan in the west. ‘The route was a lifeline to facilitate uninterrupted trade between India and Western Asia.’

 ‘Over 90% of the trade was via sea routes from a large number of ports like Lothal in the present day Gujarat, to Surat, Sopara , Vizag ontrading to the Mediterranean Sea and to many Southeast Asian countries for saling gold, spices, cotton, and many more goods that are valuable. They were taken to Mesopotamia, Egypt, Africa, Arabian Peninsula and many other regions of the world via sea routes across the Indian Ocean. during the rule of Pallavas, Cholas and the Chalukyas The trade reached its pinnacle. http://www.iiiem.in/blog/amazingly-efficient-trade-logistics-in-ancient-india/)

Following list will make the subject more pointed :

India had Imports like

Raw Materials

• Gold: Afghanistan and Karnataka
• Silver: Afghanistan and Iran
• Copper: Oman, Baluchistan and Rajasthan
• Lead: East or south India
• Lapis lazuli: Baluchistan and Afghanistan
• Fuchsite: Northern Karnataka
• Amethyst: Maharashtra
• Agate: Baluchistan and Gujarat
• Chalcedony: Baluchistan and Gujarat
• Carnelian: Baluchistan and Gujarat
• Jade: Central Asia
• Turquoise: Baluchistan and Iran
• Shell: Gujarat, Karachi and Oman
• Ivory: Gujarat and Punjab
• Mother of Pearl: Oman
• Wool: Mesopotamia
• Incense: Mesopotamia

Manufactured Goods

• Carved chlorite containers: Baluchistan and Iran
• Green schist containers: Baluchistan and Iran
• Fuchsite containers: Baluchistan and Afghanistan

Exports

Raw Materials

• Gold: Mesopotamia
• Silver: Mesopotamia
• Bronze: Mesopotamia
• Ebony
• Ivory: Oman
• Indigo: Oman
• Wood: Oman
• Livestock: Oman
• Grain: Oman
• Fresh fruit: Oman

Manufactured Goods

• Carnelian beads: Mesopotamia
• Shell inlays: Mesopotamia
• Shell bangles: Mesopotamia
• Lapis lazuli: Mesopotamia
• Bone inlays
• Clarified Butter: Oman
• Pickled vegetables: Oman
• Pickled fruits: Oman
• Honey: Oman
• Chert weights: Oman
• Wine: Oman

Manufactured Objects

• Gold
• beads
• pendants
• amulets
• brooches
• needles
• ornaments
• Silver
• large utensils
• buckles
• Ivory
• combs
• carved cylinders (for seals, small sticks and pins)
• Shell
• beads
• bracelets
• decorative inlays
• Steatite beads
• bracelets
• buttons
• vessels
• faience
• amulets
• sealings
• Faience bangles
• rings
• miniature animals
• pots
• Terracotta
• animals
• toy carts
• whistles
• rattles
• birds and animals
• gamesmen
• discs
• beads
• Agate
• beads
• Carnelian
• beads
• Chalcedony weights

Manufacturing Areas
Kalibangan

• steatite beads

Saraikhola

• lapis lazuli beads

Chanhudaro

• shell and bone artefacts

Dholavira

• carnelian bead processing

Lothal

Mehergarh

• painted pottery
• steatite ornaments
• faience ornaments
• metal tools
• agate and carnelian beads
• inlaid objects

Harappan Ports

• Lothal
• Sutkagen-dor
• Sotka-koh
• Balakot

Chalcolithic   http://www.ancientindia.co.uk/staff/resources/background/bg23/home.htmlFollowing table gives how cities grew in anient India

 

Typesite

Settlement

Houses

Features

Artefacts

Early Indus

Mundigak II

Compact

Well Hearths

Handmade pottery; crude stone isc seal

Mundigak III

Cemetery at the foot of the mound outside the living area

Wheel made pottery; increase in copper and bronze; TC figures and stone seals

Mundigak IV

Town

Defence walls; square bastions; use of sun dried bricks

Amri IA

No structures

Ditches

Handmade pottery; copper and bronze

3450 B.C.

Amri IB

Mud brick buildings of many rooms; bricks of irregular sizes; footings of stone; storage jars on house floors

Cattle, sheep, goat, donkey and gazelle

3240 B.C.

Amri IC

Mud brick and stone houses; rectangular houses (16x3 m) with paved floors and doors.

Multiple cellular compartments (1m2) probably grain stores

Wheel made pottery; bone tools; TC animal figures

3180-2520 BC

Kot Diji

Defence walls (4-5m high)-lower course is limestone rubble while upper course is of mud brick

Located in agriculturally productive land Defence walls probably for floods

Wheel made pottery; copper

2600-2480 BC

Rehman Dheri Size 22 ha. Pop 12000

Earliest town plan

Grid pattern of town with roads running nw-se

Beads; wheat and barley grains; cattle, sheep and goats

Lewan Dar Dariz

Factory site availability of raw materials

Specialised stone tools; beads,

Tarakai Qila

Wheat and barley, lentils, field peas, water buffalo

2920-2550 BC

Kalibangan

Use of dried brick and stone for domestic structures and defence walls; standardisation of bricks 3:2:1

Hearths; above and below ground ovens; Ploughed field surface with furrow in 2 directions

Shell; beads; copper; steatite

Harappa  Pop 23,500

Burnt bricks mainly used for drains, wells and bathrooms. Sun dried bricks used mainly for fillings. Size 28 x 14 x 7 cm; 4:2:1. Timber used for flat roofs and as frames or lacing for brickwork. 5 basic house plans ranging from single room tenements to houses with courtyards and up to 12 rooms to great houses with several dozen rooms and several courtyards. Nearly all large houses had private wells. Hearths common in rooms; bathrooms in every house with chutes leading to drainage channels. First floor bathrooms also built. Brick stairways provided access to the upper floors. Houses built with a perimeter wall and adjacent houses were separated by a narrow space of land.

Citadel mound and lower town surrounded by a massive brick wall. Citadel had square towers and bastions. Lower town for the general population. Granary with areas for threshing grains. Barrack like group of single roomed tenements were for the poorer classes.

Mohenjodaro Pop. 35,000-41,000

Barrack like group of single roomed tenements were for the poorer classes. Range of shops and craft workshops-potters, dyers, metal workers, shell ornament makers and bead makers shops Great Bath - 12 x 7x 3 m. Stairs leading into the bath have timber treads set in bitumen. Floor of sawn bricks set on edge in gypsum mortar with a layer of bitumen sealer sandwiched between the inner and outer brick skins. Water supplied by a large well. Set of rooms surround the bath. Granary

2100-1900 BC

Lothal

Trading station and dock. Centre of carnelian bead manufacture

Dock is a rectangle basin with a spillway and locking device to control the inflow of tidal wave and permit automatic desilting of the channels. Raised platforms with ventilating channels were probably granaries or warehouses. Specialist workshops- copper, gold and beads.

Chanhudaro

Centre of carnelian bead manufacture.

2200-1700 BC

Kalibangan

Separate fortifications for both the citadel and lower town. No public drains but only soakage jars embedded in the streets.

Occupation

1809–1813

1901

Spinners

10.3

–

Spinners / Weavers

2.3

1.3

Other Industrial

9.0

7.2

TOTAL

21.6

8.5

 

 

British East India Company rule (1764–1857) over 250 million acres (1,000,000 km2), or 35 percent of Indian domain. Indirect rule was established on  buffer states.

Ray (2009) explains when did the industry begin to decay, what was the extent of its decay during the early 19th century, and why it happened.  Ray uses the industry's market performance and its consumption of raw materials and emphasizes that the decline actually started in the mid-1820 s and reached a crisis by 1860, when 563,000 workers lost their jobs. ‘The industry shrank by about 28% by 1850 and just survived as British policies depressed the industry's exports, but suggests its decay is better explained by technological innovations in Britain.’

“Many historians point to colonization as a major factor in both India's deindustrialization and Britain's Industrial Revolution.^{[55][56][57][77]} 

The capital amassed from Bengal following its 1757 conquest supported investment in British industries such as textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution as well as increasing British wealth, while contributing to deindustrialization and famines in Bengal;^{[55][56][57][54]} following the British conquest, a devastating famine broke out in Bengal in the early 1770s, killing a third of the Bengali population and 5 percent of the national population.^[78] Colonization forced the large Indian market to open to British goods, which could be sold in India without tariffs or duties, compared to heavily taxed local Indian producers. In Britain protectionist policies such as high tariffs restricted Indian textile sales. By contrast, raw cotton was imported without tariffs to British factories which manufactured textiles and sold them back to India. British economic policies gave them a monopoly over India's large market and cotton resources.^[79][66][80] India served as both a significant supplier of raw goods to British manufacturers and a large captive market for British manufactured goods.^[81]”

Bengal was still a major exporter of cotton cloth to the Americas and the Indian Ocean in 1811, However, Bengali exports declined over the course of the early 19th century, as British imports to Bengal increased, from 25% in 1811 to 93% in 1840.^[82] 

Stephen Broadberry and Bishnupriya Gupta gave the following comparative estimates for Indian and UK populations and GDP per capita during 1600–1871 in terms of 1990 international dollars.^[25][84][85]

Year	India ($)	UK ($)	Ratio (%)	India population (m)	UK population (m)
1600	782	1,104	72	142	5
1650	736	904	83	142	5.8
1700	719	1,477	49.3	164	8.8
1751	661	1,678	39.9	190	9.2
1801	639	2,142	32.6	207	16.3
1811	609	2,093	29.6	215	18.5
1821	580	2,090	28.2	205	21.0
1831	585	2,176	26.6	216	24.1
1841	584	2,380	24.6	212	26.9
1851	586	2,721	21.9	232	27.5
1861	554	3,065	18.0	244	29.1
1871	526	3,629	14.5	256	31.6

However, Parthasarathi criticised the per-capita GDP estimates from Broadberry and Gupta.^[27][4] Workers in the textile industry, for example, earned more in Bengal and Mysore than they did in Britain, while agricultural labour in Britain had to work longer hours to earn the same amount as in Mysore.^[5] Others such as Andre Gunder Frank, Robert A. Denemark, Kenneth Pomeranz and Amiya Kumar Bagchi also criticised estimates that showed low per-capita income and GDP growth rates in Asia (especially China and India) prior to the 19th century, pointing to later research that found significantly higher per-capita income and growth rates in China and India during that period.^[86]

Economic historian Sashi Sivramkrishna estimates Mysore's average per-capita income in the late 18th century to be five times higher than subsistence,^[27] i.e. five times higher than $400 (1990 international dollars),^[63] or $2,000 per capita. In comparison, the highest national per-capita incomes in 1820 were $1,838 for the Netherlands and $1,706 for Britain.^[64] According to economic historian Paul Bairoch, India as well as China had a higher GDP per capita than Europe in 1750.^[87][88] For 1750, Bairoch estimated the GNP per capita for the Western world to be $182 in 1960 US dollars ($804 in 1990 dollars) and for the non-Western world to be $188 in 1960 dollars ($830 in 1990 dollars), exceeded by both China and India.^[89] Other estimates he gives include $150–190 for England in 1700 and $160–210 for India in 1800.^[90] Bairoch estimated that it was only after 1800 that Western European per-capita income pulled ahead.^[91]