Guild, Shreni, and the genious India model.of personal and collective growth as well as emancipation

 

 

Guild, Shreni and decentralization :

 

 

(Belshaw states that Role differentiation and division of labour are characteristic of market systems. One force in market systems is that a seller can dispose of his stock at times when he has a surplus in relation to his immediate consumption requirements, buying it production is not being harvested. The market acts with a warehouse or storage function; but this is possible only if seasons are reasonably durable and some group takes on the function of holding stocks. The last condition is more important in the development of trade and is predicated on role differentiation between the producer and the trader. Many traders operate on a fairly restricted circuit with limited capital and with local goods only. But the network effect of trading is extended by the establishment of othe roles based upon modest increases of capital and handling of stocks of more complex origin.

Trade can flourish only if the agricultural economy of the region is capable of providing a firm base for it or else if the profit margin is large enough to pay for the purchase of food. In spite of its overall low productivity, the upper basins of the major river valleys of the western Deccan offer fertile tracts for cultivation and it is precisely within these areas that we find the earliest monastic establishments, e.g. Nasik in the Godavari Valley and Nadsur and Bhaja in the Bhima Valley.

Nasik may have witnessed the first attempts by the Satavahanas to exploit and agricultural base in the Deccan. The grants of villages to monasteries and Brahmans may be seen against the backdrop of the expanding rural economy at this time and the need of the state to monitor new settlements and their development. Religions institutions of which monasteries were the most developed were amply suited to the consolidation and integration of agricultural settlements on account of their ability to forge channels of communication. These channels could not only be used to popularize improved methods of agriculture and croping patterns, but also to reinforce the authority of the state. It was perhaps for this purpose of supervising and maintaining control that the Satvahanas gifted villages to the Sangha. As corroborative evidence a Nasik enscription of Gautamuputra Satakarni may be cited.

These early attempts by the state to use the agricultural potential of the western Deccan led to agricultural development in other sertile tracts of the region i.e. the ulhas basin on the west coast and the upper Bhima and Krishna valleys. Examples from ancient societies show that there was a close connection between landed wealth and commercial capital and it was the possession of the former that made large-scale investment in trade and money lending possible. From the first century A.D. onwards, there are increasing numbers of inscription recording donations of the land by lay devotees and later on by the bhikkhus as well. The first century A.D. was obviously an era of prosperity for the Satavahanas principally the region of Gautamputra Satakarni

Interestingly, the majority of enscriptions recording donations of land are at Junner. Situated at the head of Nanaghat, Junnar lies in a broad flat valley on the right bank of the kukdi, a tributary of the Ghod. Investment in land seems therefore to have been a natural corollary. Fifteen nivartanas of land in puvanada gama were gifted by palapa to the Aparajita sect. There are so many references to the donations of land.

An inscription in cave VIII at Nasik dated A. D. 100 mentions that the cave was a gift of Mugudasa of the lay community of Cetikas. To that cave Dhamanadin gave a field (kehta) in western kanhahini and the income from the field was to provide clothes for the monks living in the cave.

At kanheri, a negama of kalyan is known to have made a perptual endowment of kheta in the village of Saphau. Out of the revenue from land money was to be given to monks residing in the cave.

At kanheri, a knegama of Kalyan is known to have made a perpetual endownment of a kheta in the village of Saphau. Out of the revenue from land money was to be given to monks residing in the cave.

In so far as the institutionalization of a redistributive mode of economic integration was concerned, they provided authority for the validation of the new social configuration. At the same time they afforeded symbolic statements about the nature of society and so doing, defined the status relationship of its component parts.

Another significant factor is that trade was important for the monastic economics also and that monetized exchange did take place. Monasteries had to purchase the cloth that they needed. It also seems likely that cash transactions were required for the purchase of raw materials for the repair of buildings, and for labour. The cash money that the monastery needed for its expenses was derived from the sale for produce from monastic estates and from investments like money deposited in guild which brought in a regular income in interest.

B. Trade Routes

Land Routes: Ptolemy calls Indo-Scythia specifying that region thus the “The ports east of Indo-Scythia along the course of Larike and there in the interior to the west of the river Namacos (Narmada) is a mart of commerce, the city of Barygaza (Broach). To the east of the river (Namados- Narmada) (were the towns) Agrinagara, Siripalla, Bammagours, Sazantion, Zerogerei, Ozene (the capital of Tiastenes) Minagara, Tatoura, Nasika.

Larike the Lari of Masudi, was the Greek Version of Lardesa (Latadesa) Barygaza, later known as Broach, is about two miles on the northern side of the Narmada. The following reidentifications of the other towns mentioned by Ptolemy have been suggested. Agrinagara – Agar about 30 miles on the north-east of Ujjain Seripalla – near Hampi, Bammogoura- Pavangrah, Sazantion – Sanjitra(Sanjana) some distance from the upper end of the Gulf of Cambay, Ozene-Ujjain, Minagara – Minnagara-Minnagara south-west of Ujjain, Tiatoura (?) and Nasika Nasik. If the mention of these towns can be taken to an implication of approaches by road, then it may be suggested that there must have existed, at least in the second century A.D. a route from Nasik via Ujjain to Barygaza or Broach. Rock Edict IV also refers to it. The Dhamma Mahamatras were appointed to find their way unto the uttermost limits of the barbarian countries for the benefit and pleasures of all classes “through Kamt (ocha) (kambhoja) (Gand) hara Narastika (?) Peterika (Paithan) and elsewhere Neither the appointment the movement nor the missions of these officials to these regions would have been possible unless convenient land routes leading to them had existed. The land routes to kambhoja and Gandhara were accessible form India by road.

During the western ksatrapas it would not be illogical to infer that this route, being within the sphere of their sovererignty, must have been the main route for commercial traffic. One of Nasik cave inscriptions had recorded now usavadatta, son-in-law of kind ksaharata Nahapana got 8 Brahmanas at Prabhasa Pattana married at his own expense, constructed quadrangles, houses and halting places at Bharukaccha (Broach) Dasapura (Mandasor in Malwa) Goverdhana (Nasik) and Sorparaga the modern Sopara near Vasai.

In the light of this inscription, from Ujjain, the capital, there must have been a route to Samnath Patan (Prabhas Patan) via Mandsor Broach and Sopara upto Nasin. This road proceeded still further during the Satavahans upto kalyana on the west coast and to Dhanakataka or Dharnikotta on the east coast when Gotamiputra exterminated the dynasty of Nahapana.

The Sakas had their metropolis at Ujjain; the younger branch of th eSatavahanas had their capital at Paithan and the elder branch at Dhanakataka. The first two statements are corroborated by Ptolemy, who has noted that ozene (Ujjain) was the capital of Tiastenes (Castana) during his time and Paithan was the capital of Pulumay from A.D. 130 to 154 and at Dharanikataka (Dharanikotta) in the GunturDistrict of Andhra Pradesh. The road must therefore have proceeded from Nasik via Kalyan Paithan and Tagara which incidentally continued to be a place of importance for a long period.

The inscriptions of the first and second centuries throw some light though indirectly, in regard to the position of the lines of communication in western India. We have records of the gifts of several Buddhist devotees at Karle Kanheri and Bharhut indicating the localities from which they hailed.

At Karle donations were made by several votaries from various localities during the kstrapas and the Satvahanas. A rock mansion was completed there for the setthi Bhuta Pala from Vaijayanti (Banavasi) Gifts fo a door by one sudhata a perfumer the opening of a cave by a carpenter sani the erection of a pillar by the yona (Greek) Sihadaya of another pillar by one Mitra-devanaka, all hailing from Dhenukataka (Dharnikotta) were made at Karle. Usavadatta son-in-law of the ksatrapa Nahapana, who had made gifts on the banks of the river Banas which in north Gujaral, passes, Palanpur and falls into the Rann of kutch and also at the tritha of prabhasa (Praphasa or somnathpattana in kathiawar) granted the village of karajika for the support of the ascetios dwelling in the caves at Valtivaka (Karle king siri Pulumayi presented a village to this community of monks at the some place.

These gifts of devotees empty their movements from the localities they hailed, to Karle which must have been accessible to all of them by road. Thus they could have come to Karle from sopara, the banks of the Banas River in north Gujarat PrabhasPatan in Kathiawar, Banavasi in North kanara and Dharanikota in Andhra Pradesh.

At Kanheri a gift was made during the reign of Raja Gotami Siriyana Satakani by the lay worshipper Aparena from Kalyani A present was made by another lay disciple from kuda near Rajapuri in Ratnagiri district, Maharashtra state. Another lay worshipper from kalyan made at Nasik. One more disciple, hailing from Dattamitri in lower Sind, also offered a present at Nasik. From these presents it may be concluded that kanheri must have been approachable by road from Kuda, Kalyan, and Nasik in Maharashtra and also from Dattamitri in lower Sind. Thus Karle could be approached form northern Gujarat and Kathiwar, from North Canara and A.P. being reachable from the banks of the river Banas, Prabhas Patan, Sopara Banvase & Dharanikotta.

Thus there was a well-unit network of inter- communication of road system

Ptolemy furnishes details of land routes in eastern Deccan. Among the enland cities of the Masoloi (Modern Mausalipatam) only koroungkala can be observed as evidently alluding to Warangal while their metropolis, which is early times, was Dhanakataka (Dharanikotta) was earlier known as Pityandra.

The self-sufficiency and isolation of gamas and janapada were broken by active trade and long highways of commerce intersecting between them.

The central route of North-South Pratisthana Sravsti is what was followed by the pupils of Bavari accurately described in the Suttanipata – i.e. from Patithana of Alaka to Mahissati, Ujjani Gonaddha Vedisa, Vanasabhaya, Kosambi, Saketa, Savatthi, Setavya and kapilavatthu. Southward from kapilavatthu and withing the middle Ganges valley this route was extended to kusinara mandira pava the city of wealth Vesali of Magadha and to the beauti9ful Rock Temple (Pasanika cetya) the destinations of the party (Vv. 1011-13) It went further south to Pataligama (later pataliputta) Nalanda, Rajagaha and probably Gaya During his last ministering tour from Rajagaha to Kusinara, Buddha crossed the Ganges at Pataligama and made eleven haltings besides that at vesali at gamas and nagaras (Dn. II Suttanata XVI 81 ff)  The main route had its branches and offshoots. The nisada country located in the north of Avanti at the of the Vindhyas had its connecting roads with kosala and Vidarbha (mbh III 61.21.23) and with cedi (64.131) along which carvans are found plying. The first must have converged with the great Ujjayini Ayodha road and the other two were possibly lined with theis through Ujjayiru. But the foremost ancillary routes of the Pratisthana –Sravasti system were those connecting its northen and southern portions to great western seaport of Bharukaccha

According to the periplus much cotton cloth was brought down to Barygaza from the metropolis of Abiria called Minnagara or the city of the Sakas (i.e. Ujjayini) From Ozene” are brought down all thigs needed for the welfare of the country about Barygaza and many things for our trade; agate and carnelian, Indian muslin, and mallow cloth and much ordinary cloth. In the south Bharukaccha was connected by means of cart tracks with the Godavari road leading to pratisthana and Tagara. There are brought down to Barygaza from these places by wagons and through great tracks without roads (because of the hills) from paethan carnelian in great quantity and from Tagara much common clothe all kinds of muslin and mallow cloth and other merchandise brought there locally from the regions along the sea-coast (Eastern Coast)

SEABORNE TRADE AND TRADE ROUTES

While inland trade moves mainly along roads and rivers, foreign trade was carried across the seas. Evidences of bold sea-voyages come from the earliest literary references of the Rgveda. The early smrti worus while laying these under severe strictures for Brahmanas only show the futile attempt to arrest a practice which had come to stay. Baudhayana prescribes loss of caste to transgressors and manu exludes them from entertainment at the sraddhas. But the former admits” Now the customs peculiar to the North are, to deal in wool, to drink rum to sell animals that have teeth in the upper and in the lower jaws. To follow the trade of arms, to go to sea a clear evidence of the commercial activities of the people of Sind and the Punjab across the Indian Ocean. Expert voyagers (Samudrayanakusalah) are recognized in Manu’s code ad respectable enough to be authorized to fix the rate of interest on money lent on bottom apparently no stigma attaching to them. In the Ramayana a boat in mid-sea loaded with heavy cargo is an aptmetaphor Surgariva gives instructions to his emissaries sent in search of sita to include islands, mountains and seaports in the quest. In a verse of the Digha merchants are known to have crossed the ocean drear, making a solid path across the pools. In the Anuguttara voyages lasting for six months are well-known facts (Presumably with haltings) made in ships which could be drawn up on shore in winter. The Jataka verse is sufficiently familiar with a ship full-rigged for distant seas to use it as a metaphor.

To meet the demands of sailors, ship-building had to be cultivated as a separate industry. Qualities of wood were investigated, technicalities of construction were perfected and the art was studied as a separate branch of science. The yakatakalpataru, Sanskrit work on certain industrial products of India makes as elaborate classification of ships of different size and shape giving technical names to each and their parts and quotes from a lost earlier work of Bhoja on the various qualities of wood used. In the Ramayana Guha’s boats are fited with massive bells ans banners well-piloted and well-knit quite for to meet the killows and the blasts. During Alexander’s invasion, the zthroi ran huge dockyards and supplied to the invader galleys of 30 oars and transport vessels.

The Vessels were sufficiently big and strong to carry a heavy cargo. Guha’s flotilla carried besides men, chariots, horses, bulls and carts although elephants had to be swam across. The fleet supplied to Alexander by the ship-builders on the Hydaspes whose strength is computed differently by the Greek writers between 800 and 2000 accommodate 8000 troops, several thousand horses and vast quantities of supplies. The ship which took prince Vijaya to Celyon had 800 passengers according to the Mahavamso. The fresco presentation at Ajanta of his landing shows horses and elephants carried in these boats. In the Katakas the tonnage is given at 500. In the Samkha Jataka a rescue vessel at sea measures 8 usabhax 4 usabha x 20 yattlula. According to Pliny the tonnage is 3000 anaphora (cub. Ft. of water) or 75 tons.

There were big ship-owners who kept their vessels at parts and took merchants with their wares to their destination charging freight for the transit. Manu lays down the freight charges along rivers but says that there is no settled rate for the seas showing that here also free bargain regined supreme and that regulation was futile sometimes there were joint owners resembling a shipping agency, and Manu lays a law that they are collectively responsible for the damage caused by their fault to passenger goods. In the Arthasastra as well which provides for the hiring out of state vessels to merchants and to fishers of pearls and conch-shells, there is a similar law that hire charges are to remitted and losses made good if the ship foundered from their own defct.

There were expert professional pilots who lent themselves for hire to shippers or to merchants. In the great seaport towns were organised guilds or srenis under a shipper (niyyamakajetthaka) who took charge of vessels at the requisition of sea-going traders and pliec their calling from father to son. It is not known whether the ancient pilots were acquainted with the mariners’ compass. The Pali word maccha-yantra has been supposed to be for that instrument and a round device at the prow of a ship in Borobdur sculpture has been identified to it. For ascertaining directions the mariners observed the stars at night. They took direction- giving crows (disakaka) on board and like the ancient Phonicians and Babylonians let them off when they lost sight of land. The coast was found in the direction taken by the bird.

Ships set sail from the Pattana or Pattanagama generally sea-port but sometimes also a river port having direct access to sea. The Malabar and the Coromondal coasts were dotted with such sea-port catalogued with their busy traffic in the Periplus. In the north, the most flourshing sea-port was Bharukaccha.” In the kingdomd of Bharu on the estuary of the Narmada. A little south of it was suparaka formed by the ocean the south. At kashapas command to accomodiate parasurama after he had exterminated the kastriyas. A third north western sea-port figures large in the periplus named Barbaricum at the mouth of the Indus. More ancient than these was Roruka, the capital of Savira Its exact location is not known but must have been somewhere on the Gulf of Cutch. The Jatakas mention another western port named karambiya about which no further information is available. What Bharukaccha was in the west, Tamralipti was in the east. It commanded the mouth of the Ganges and from there the eastern seaborne trade of the rich janapadas on the valleys of the Ganges and Jumna. There must have been other prosperous sea-ports on the delta of the Ganges and the Mahanadi serving as the outlets for the specialized industries of Bengal and Orissa. But the overseas trade beyond Tamralipti both to the East and to the South is a sealed book to us.

About the beginning of the Christian era Indian shipping was sufficiently expanded to reach all the known ranges of the commercial world. The periplus is an eloquently testimony to the fareaching western trae, china and its silk begins to be prominent in Indian literature from this time and the milindpanha, a contemporary work, overs that the ship-port embraks, in the high seas and asails to Bengal, Malay, China, Gujarat, Kathiawad, Alexandria, koromandel coast and the East Indies or to any other place where the ships congregate.

The earliest trade communication in the west was with Mesopotamia Kennedy makes out the case for Babylonian commerce from Bharukaccha and suparaka at the latest before the century B.C.

Indo-mesopotamian commerce had three routes a searoute along the coasts of sind , Gedrosia and Iran, another a mixed water and land- route from Gandhara and Bactria along the cxus and across the caspian and the Black seas and a third overland route from Sind through Iran. Iran was thus highway of Indo-Babylonian trade- the sea route passing through its territorial waters, the land route through its soil. It figures in India’s commercial horizon from much earlier times than the 7th century B.C. A route across the high sea between India and its coasts is supposed to have existed in the days of Buddha from the Chinese legand embodied in the Dipavamsa relating the founding of a colony from Ceylon on the presian gulf. Through the eatern compaigns of dcyrus (558-30 B.C.) the medo-persian kingdom was brought into more or less direct contact with India. Probably the Indus valley had a favourable balance of a trade in the 5th century B.C, with Persia and other countries so as to enable it to pay Darius every year 360 Euboic talents of gold dust working out to 9 tons and 5 cwts.

In the days of the Periplus coastal voyagae from Broach to Euphrates was a regular affair of merchants. To the parts of the Persian Gulf Viz, Apologus and Ommana large vessels are regularly sent from Barygaza loaded with copper and sandlewood and timbers of teakwood and logs of blackwood and ebony. From these parts there are exported to Barygaza and also to Arabia, many pearls, but inferior to those of India purple, clothing after the fashion of the place, wine a great quantity of dates gold and slaves. The trace which at present centres at Bahrein has almost the same list of imports and exports.

As the approach to the Euphrates lay through persian waters, so the way to the Nile and the mediterranean led through the Arabian Agatharicides (177 B.C.) quaoted by Greek writers, describes sataca (Yemen) as holding the monopoly of the Indian trade. From the great marts of Muza (Mokha), Cana (BirAli) and moscha (2 mi east of taka) on the southern coast Arab ship-owners and sea-farers traded with the somali coasts and with baryagaza “sending their own ship there” in competition with the Egyptian Greeks (Peri 21, 27) They brought from Damirica and Barygaza cloth, wheat and sesame oil and if the season was late they wintered at the harbour of moscha exchanging those all over the Sakhalitic country. An important halting place between India and Arabia was dioscording or socotra, the island of all races and the centre of international trade not far from the time of Abraham. Egyptians, Africans, Arabians and Inclians from the gulfs of cutch and combay met here to exchange their cargo and settle colonies so that at the time of the periplus the inhabitants were a mixture of Arabs and Indians and Greeks, The voyagers from Damirica and Barygaza bring in rice and wheat and Indian cloth, and a few female slaves, and they take for their exhange cargos a great quantity of tortoise-shell.

Beyond Socotra and Arabia, the mediterranean route passed along the somail and Berber coasts. In the periplus malao (the Berber country) is described as a great intermediary mart between India and Egypt

From the district of Ariaca across the sea, there are imported Indian iron and steel and Indian cotton cloth; the broad cloth called monakhe and that called sagmatogene and girdles and coats of skin and mallow-coloured cloth. And a few muslins and coloured lac. Other imports were Indian copal and the places across this sea, from aricaca and Barygaza, bringing to these far-side market-towns the products sesame oil, cotton cloth and girdles, and honey from the reed called sakkhari. Some make the voyage especially to these market towns, and others exchange their cargoes while sailing along the coast.

The important thing to be noted here is that these agricultural products, were regularly shipped, in Indian vessels, from the gulf of combay; that these vessels exhanged their cargoes at cape Guardafui and proceeded along the coasts, some southward, but most westward, and that according to 25, ocelis at the entrance to the Red sea was their terminus, the Arats for bidding them to trade beyond. Between India and cape Guardafui they appearently enjoyed the bulk of trade, shared to some extent by Arabian shipping and quite recently by Greek ships from Egypt, on the Somali coast they shared the trade in an incidental way and they receive their return cargoes at Ocelis way; and they received their return cargoes at ocelis and shared none of the Red Sea trade, which in former times the Arabs of Yemen had monopolised, but in the days of ptolemles the Egyptians had largely taken over.