The
remainder
of this cir.
Cambridge History of India - v1
A wealthy, pious
Brāhman takes to trade to be better able to afford his charitable gifts”.
Brāhmans engaged personally in trading without such pretext", taking
service as archers', as the servant of an archer who had been a weavers, as
low-caste trapperse, and as low-caste carriage-makers? .
Again,, among the middle classes, we find not a few instances
revealing anything but caste-bound heredity and groove, to wit, parents
discussing the best profession for their son :-writing, reckoning, or
money-changing (rūpa ? ), no reference being made to the father's trades ; a
(low-class) deer-trapper becoming the protege and then the 'inseparable
friend' of a rich young Setthi, without a hint of social barriers' ; a weaver
looking on his handicraft as a mere make-shift, and changing it off-hand
for that of an archer10 ; a pious farmer and his son, with equally little
ado, turning to the low trade of rush weavingál ; a young man of good
family but penniless, starting on his career by selling a dead mouse
for cat's meat at a 'farthing,' turning his capital and his hands to every
variety of job, and finally buying up a ship's cargo, with his signet-ring
pledged as security, and winning both a profit 200 per cent and the hand of
the Setthi's daughter12.
This freedom of initiative and mobility in trade and labour finds
further exemplification in the enterprise of a settlement (gama) of wood-
workers13. Failing to carry out the orders for which prepayment had
been made, they were summoned to fulfil their contract. But they,
instead of “abiding in their lot,' as General Walker the economist said
of their descendants, 'with oriental stoicism and fatalism14,' made ‘a
mighty ship' secretly, and emigrated with their families, slipping down the
Ganges by night, and so out to sea, till they reached a fertile island.
Stories, all of these, not history ; nevertheless they serve to illustrate
the degree to which labour and capital were mobile at the time, at
least, when these stories were incorporated in the Buddhist canon, and
before that. And they show that social divisions and economic occupations
were very far from coinciding. There was plenty of pride of birth, which
made intermarriage and eating together between certain ranks an act more
or less disgraceful to those reckoning themselves as socially higher. And
sons, especially perhaps among artisans, tended to follow the paternal
industry. This was all.
The trade of the trader, dealer, or middleman (vānija) may well have
1 Psalms of tho Brethorn, 17 ! Vanavaccha).
2 Jāt. IV, 15 f.
3 Ib. V, 22, 471.
4 16. III 219 ; V, 127 f.
5 1b, I, 356 f.
6 16. II, 200; VI, 170 fi. 7 1b. IV, 207 f.
8 V'in 1,77 (Mah. I, 49, 1); IV, 128 (Pāc. LXIV,128). 9 Jāl. III, 49 ff. 10 16. II, 87.
11 lb. IV, 318, 1: 16. 1, 120 ff. 13 Jāt. IV, 159. 14 I he Wages Question, p. 177.
## p. 188 (#222) ############################################
188
(ch.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
1
been largely hereditary? . Traditional good-will handed on here would prove
specially effective in commanding confidence, and thus be a stronger
incentive than the force a tergo of caste-rule. There is, however, no instance
as yet produced from early Buddhist documents pointing to any corporate
organisation of the nature of a gild or Hansa league? . The hundred or so of
merchants who, in the Chullaka-Setthi Jātaka", come to buy up the cargo of
a newly arrived ship, are apparently each trying to 'score off his own bat’
no less than the pushful youth who forestalled them. Nor is there any hint
of syndicate or federation or other agreement existing between the 500
dealers who are fellow passengers on board the ill-fated ships in the Valā-
hassa and Pandara Jātakas? ; or the 700 who were lucky enough to secure
Suppāraka as their pilot5, beyond the fact that there was concerted action in
chartering one and the same vessel. Among merchants travelling by land,
however, the rank of satthavāha or caravan-leader seems to imply some sort
of federation. This position was apparently hereditary, and to be a jetthaka
or elder, in this capacity, on an expedition, apparently implied that other
merchants (vānija) with their carts and caravan-followers, were accompany-
ing the satthavāha, and looking to him for directions as to halts, watering,
precautions against brigands, and even as to routes, fording, etc. Subordi-
nation, however, was not always ensured? , and the institution does not
warrant the inference of any fuller syndicalism among traders.
Partnerships in commerce, either permanent, or on specified occasions
only, are frequently mentioned : the former, in the Kutavāņijas and Mahā.
vānija' Jātakas, the latter in the Pāyāsi Suttantal' and the Serivānija Jātaka'l.
In the Jarudzpāna Jātakal? there is, if not explicit statement, room for
assuming concerted commercial action on a more extensive scale, both in the
birth-story and also in its introductory episode. The caravan in question,
consisting of an indefinite number of traders (in the birth-story, under a
jetthaka', accumulate and expɔrt goods at the same time, and apparently
share the treasure trove, or the profits therefrom. In the episode the firm
also wait upon the Buddha with gifts before and after their journey. These
were traders of Sāvatthī, of the class who are elsewhere described as acting so
unanimously under Anāthapiņdika, himself a great travelling merchant. The
Guttila Jātaka13, again, shows concerted action, in work and play, on the part
1 Jāt. II, 287; III, 198. It is noteworthy that mining and miners nerer came on
in the Jātaka scenes.
The compound vaniggrāma is rendered 'merchants' guild' in Macdonell's
Sanskrit Dictionary.
3 Jāt. I ,122. 4 16. I1,128 ; V, 75. 5 16. IV,138 ff, ; cf. also VI, 34.
6 Fick p. 178 ; D. II, 342 f. ; cf. Jāt. I, 93, 7 16. I, 108, 363 ; II, 295 ; III, 200.
8 Jāt. 1,404 also II 181. 9 16. JV,350. 10 D. II, 342.
11 Jāt. I, 111.
12 1b. II, 294 ff.
13 Ib, II, 218 ; cf. 1, 121 for concerted action between dealers in freights.
>
## p. 189 (#223) ############################################
VIII)
TRADE BY SEA
189
of Benares trades. It is conceivable, however, that the travelling in
company may have been undertaken as much for mutual convenience in
the chartering of a common ship, or the employment of a single band of
forest-guards, as for the prevention of mutual under-selling or the cornering
of any wares. Merchants are represented, at least as often, as travelling
with their own caravan alone. Thus in the first Jātaka? two traders,
about to convey commodities to some distant city, agree which shall start
first. The one thinks that, if he arrive first, he will get a better, because
non-competitive price; the other, also holding that competition is killing
work (lit. 'price-fixing is like robbing men of life'), prefers to sell at the
price fixed, under circumstances favourable to the dealer, by his predeces-
sor, and yields him a start.
The little aperçus which we obtain from the Jātakas of the range and
objective of such merchants' voyages are so interesting as side-lights on
early trafficking as to create regret at their scantiness. The overland
caravans are sometimes represented as going 'east and west'}, and across
deserts that took days, or rather nights to cross, a 'land-pilot' (thala.
niyyāmaka) steering during the cooler hours of darkness by the stars.
Drought, famine, wild beasts, robbers, and demons are enumerated as the
dangers severally besetting this or that desert route. Such caravans may
have been bound from Benares, the chief industrial and commercial centre
in early Buddhist days, across the deserts of Rājputāna westward to the
sea ports of Bharukaccha, the modern Broach and the sea board of Sovīra
(the Sophir, or Ophir, of the Septuagint ? ), and its capital Roruva? or Rorukas
Westward of these ports there was traffic with Babylon, or Bāveru.
At a later date, say, at the beginning of the first century A. D. the
chief objective of Indian sea-going trade is given in the Milinda' as
follows :
As a shipowner who has become wealthy by constantly levying freight in some
seaport town, will be able to traverse the high seas, and go to Vanga or Takkola, or
China or Sovira, or Surat, or Alexandria, or the Kormoandel coast, or Further India,
or any other place where ships do congregate.
Tamil poems testify to the flourishing state of Kāviri-pațținam (Kamara
in Periplus, Khabari of Ptolemy), capital of Chõla, on the Kāveri river, at
about the same period as a centre of international trade especially frequented
by Yavana (Yona, Ionian) merchants10. According to the Jātaka it was
1 On a local 'corner in hay'see Jāt. I, 121.
2 16. I, 99; cf. 194, 270, 354, 368, 413 ; II, 109, 335 ; III, 200, 403 ; IV, 15 f. ;
V, 22, 164.
3 16. I, 98 f. 4 16. J, 107. 5 16. I, 99. 6 1b. III, 188; IV, 137 ; Dip.
IX, 26.
7 16, III. 470.
8 D. II, 235 ; Divy. 544.
9 Milinda panha 359 ; trans. 11, 269 (S. B. E. XXXVI).
13 Kanakasabhai, The Tamils 1800 years ago, quoted by Subba Rao (v. Biblio.
graphy), p. 81 f. On Chola see Malavamsa XXI, 13.
## p. 190 (#224) ############################################
190
( ch.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
practicable to attain to any of these ports starting from up the Ganges, not
only from Champā (or Bhāgalpur, about 350 miles from the sea) but even
from Benares. Thus the defaulting woodwrights mentioned abovel reach
an ocean island from the latter city ; Prince Mahājanaka sets out for
Suvannabhumi from Champā? , and Mahinda travels by water from Patna
to Tāmalitti, and on to Ceylon? . It is true that the world Samudda sea, is
occasionally applied to the Ganges, nevertheless, if the foregoing stories be
compared with the Sankha Jātaka', it becomes probable that the open sea
is meant in both. In this the hero, while shipwrecked, washes out his
mouth with the salt water of the waves during his self-imposed fast.
Again, in the Silānisamsa Jātaka, a sea-fairy as helmsman brings 'passen-
gers for India' by ships ‘from off the sea to Benares by river. Other
traders are found coasting round India from Bharukaccha to Suņnvaa-
bhūmi? , doubtless putting in at a Ceylon port ; for Ceylon was another
bourne of oversea commerce, and one associated with perils around which
Odyssean legends had grown ups. The vessels, according to Jātaka tales,
seem to have been constructed on a fairly large scale, for we read of
hundreds' embarking on them, merchants or emigrants. The numbers
have of course no statistical value ; but the current conceptions of shipping
capacity are at least interesting.
The nature of the exports and imports is seldom specified. The gold
which was exported to Persia as early at least as the time of Darius
Hystaspes, finds no explicit mention in the Jātakas. Gems of various
kinds are named as the quest of special sea-farers anxious to discover a
fortune'. 'Silks, muslins, the finer sorts of cloth, cutlery and armour,
brocades, embrcideries and rugs, perfumes and drugs, ivory and ivory-
work, jewelry and gold (seldom silver) : - these were the main articles in
which the merchant dealt '10.
As to the inland routes, the Jātakas tell of Anāthapiņdika's caravans
travelling S. E. from Sāvatthi to Rājagaba and back (about 300 miles),
and also to the borders,' probably towards Gandhārala. The route in the
former journey was apparently planned to secure easy fording of the
rivers by following 'the foot of the mountains to a point north of Vesāli
and only then turning south to the Ganges'13.
1 Jät. IV, 159.
2 16. VI, 34 f.
3 l'in. IJI, 338 (Saman apāsādikā)
4 Jäl. I, 227 ff. ; IV, 167 f. ;VI, 158, but cf. M. I, 493 ; S. II, 32, where sāgara
is added,
5 Jāt. IV, 15-17.
6 16. II, 112.
7 16. III, 188.
8 1b. II, 127 ff. The name Lankā dces not occur Tambapanni. dipa. . . probably
meant for Ceylon. ' Buddhist India, 105.
9 Jāt IV, 21, 139-41.
13 Rh. D. Buddhist India, p. 18; Fick, op. cit. , 174.
11 Jāt I, 92, 348.
1: 16. 1, 377 f.
13 Biddh. Ind. 103. The road followed by the Buddha on his last ministering
tour is from Rājagaha to Kusirā'ā, crossing the Ganges at Patna, with balts at iwelve
intermediate towns (gāmas or nagaras), including V'esālī.
The remainder of this cir.
cuitous route to Sāvattbi 'ay W. N. W. D. II, Suttanta XVI 81 ff.
## p. 191 (#225) ############################################
VIII )
BAZAARS
. 191
>
Another route south-west from Sāvatthi to Patitthāna', with six chief
halting places, is given in the Sutta Nipáta, verses 1011. 134. From east to
west, traffic, as we have seen, was largely by river, boats going up the
Ganges to Sahajāti', and up the Jumna to Kosambi'. Further westward
the journey would again be overland to Sind, whence came large imports
in horses and assess, and to Sovira and its ports. Northward lay the great
trade route connecting India with Central and Western Asia, by way of
Taxila in Gandhāra (Pāli Takkasilā), near Rawalpindi? , and presumably
also of Sāgala in the Punjab. This great road and its southern connexions
with the leading cities of the Ganges valley must have been, even in early
Buddhistic days, relatively immune from dangers. Instances abound in the
Jātakas of the sons of nobles and Brāhmans faringº, unattended and un-
armed1, to Takkasilā to be educated at this famous seat of Brāhmanical
and other learning!
There were no bridges over the rivers of India. The setu or causeway
of Buddhist metaphor! 2 is a raised dyke built over shoal water13. Only
firding-places and ferries for crossing rivers are mentioned in Buddhist
literaturels, and cart-ferries in Manu 15.
Food-stuffs for the towns were apparently brought only to the gates,
while workshop and bazaar occupied, to a large extent at least, their own
special streets within 16. Thus there was a fishmonger's village at a gate of
Sāvatthi", greengrocery is sold at the four gates of Uttara-Pañchāla18, and
venison at the cross-roads (singhāțaka) outside Benares10.
The slaughter-houses (sūnā) mentioned in the Vinaya20 were pre-
sumably outside also, and near them the poor man and the king's chef
bought their mealºl, unless by singhātika we understand street-corners as
1 Paithan, See map and p. 30 Buddh. Ind.
2 Cf. the list in Spence Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, 334.
3 Vin. Texts, III, 401.
4 Id. p. 382.
5 Jāt, I, 124, 178, 181 ; II, 31, 287 ; cf. Hopkins, J. A. 0. S. XIII, 257, 372 ;
Fick, op. cit. 176.
6 Vimānn-vatthu (Comm. ) 336,
? J. H. Marshall, Archaeological Discoveries at Taxila (1913); Guide Taxila
(1918).
8 Of these the route to Rājagaha lay past Sāketa. Vin. Texts II, 176 (Mah.
VIII, 1, 8).
9 Jät, I, 259; II, 85, 282, 41! ; V, 457, etc. , etc.
10 Ib, II, 277.
11 Bühler, Indian Studies, No. 3. Fick, op. cit, 62 ; Vin. Texts II, (174 f. (Mah.
VIII, 1, 6 ff. ).
12 E. g. Thera-gåthâ, ver. 7, 615, 762 ; M. J, 134 A, I, 220 ; II, 115 ; Dh, S. ,
$299.
13 Vin Texls II, 104 (Mah. VI, 28, 12 f. )=D, IT, 89.
14 Jāt, III, 228.
15 VIII, 404 ff. (S. B. E. XXV. )
16 V'. sup. , p. 185 ; Buddh. Ind. 76.
17 Psalms of the Brethren, 166 : cf. Ját. I, 361 ; "they went for alms to a village
ust outside the gates of Benares, where they had plenty to eat. '
18 Jåt. IV, 445.
19 16. III, 49 ; cf. M. I, 58 ; III, 91,
:0 Mah. VI, 10 ; Cull. V. X, 10, 4.
21 Jāt, V. 458 ; VI, 62.
>
>
## p. 192 (#226) ############################################
192
[CH.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
9
the places where meat was sold'. The great city of Mithilā was, according
to the Maha-ummagga Jātaka, composed in part of four suburbs extending
beyond each of its four gates, and called not gāmas, but nigamas. These
were named respectively East, South, West, and North Yavamajjhako,
translated by Cowell and Rouse 'market-town'? The workshop in the
'? .
street was open to view, so that the bhikkhu coming in to town or village
for alms, could see fletcher and carriage builder at work, no less than he
could watch the peasnt in the field. 3 Arrows and carriages and other
articles for sale were displayed in the āpaņa', or fixed shop, or, it might be,
stored within the antarā paņa. In these or in the portable stock-in-trade
of the hawkers, retail trading constituted a means of livlihood, independ-
ently, it might be, of productive industry. The application, judgment,
cleverness, and 'connexion of the successful shopkeeper? are discussed in
the Nikāyas, and among trades five are ethically proscribed for lay
believers :-daggers, slaves, flesh, strong drink, poisons.
Textile fabrics10 groceries and oil", greengroceries! ? , grain13. perfumes
and flowersli articles of gold and jewelry15, are among the items sold in
the bazars of Jātaka stories and Vinaya allusions, and for the sale of
strong liquors there were the taverns (pānāgāra, āpāna)16. But there is no
such clear reference made either to a market-place in the town, or to
seasonal market-days or fairs. Such an institution at the hath, or barter
fair, taking place on the borders of adjacent districts, finds, curiously en-
ough, no mention in the Jātaka-book, though as the late Wm. Irvine wrote,
'it is to this day universal to my personal knowledge, from Patna to Delhi,
and, I believe, from Calcutta to Peshawar. ' The fétes often alluded to? ?
do not appear to have included any kind of market12.
The act of exchange between producer and consumer, or between
either and a middleman, was both before and during the age when the
Jātaka-book was compiled, a 'free' bargain, a transaction unregulated,
with one notable exception, by any system of statute-fixed prices. Supply
1 But cf. Psalms of the Brethren, 254 ; 'out of the four gates to the cross roads. '
2 Jāt. VI. 330 (trans. p. 157) ; Cunningham, Stūpa of Bhārhut, 53. On these
bas-reliefs, the Jātaka is called Yara majjhaki ya.
3 Psalms of the Brethren, 24.
4 Jāt. II, 267 ; IV, 488 ; VI, 29 ; Vin. IV, 248 ; cf. Cull, V. X, 10, 4 Cf. Apaņa
as the name of a nigama, M. I, 359, 447 ; S. N. , Sela-Sutta (called a Brāhman gama, Ps8.
of the Brethren, 310),
5 Jāt. I, 55, 350; III, 406.
6 16. I, 111 f. , 205 ; II, 424; III, 21, 282 f.
7 Ā paņika pāpaņika.
8 A. I, 115 f.
9 A. III, 208.
10 l’in. IV, 250 f. 11 16. ; IV, 248-9. 12 Jāt. I, 411. 13 16. II, 267.
14 16. I, 290 f. ; IV, 82, ; VI, 336 ; l'in. Texts, III, 343
;
15 Jāt. IV, 228.
16 16. 1, 251 f. ; VI, 268 f. ; VI, 328 ; cf. Dhp. Comm. III, 66.
17 Jāt. I, 423 ; III, 446 : Dialogues I, 7, n. 4,
18 Market' and 'market-place' are frequently used by translators, but rather
inſei entially than as literal renderings.
## p. 193 (#227) ############################################
VIII ]
MEANS OF EXCHANGE
193
>
a
was hampered by slow transport, by individualistic production, and by
primitive machinery. But it was left free for the producer and dealer to
prevail by competition', and also by adulteration', and to bring about an
equation with a demand which was largely compact of customary usage and
relatively unaffected by the swifter fluctuations termed fashion.
Instances of price-haggling are not rare, and we have already noticed
the dealer's sense of the wear and tear of it, and a case of that more
developed competition which we know as 'dealing in futures. The outlay
in this case, for a carriage, a pavilion at the Benares docks, men (purisā),
and ushers (pātihārā), must have cut deep into his last profit of 1,000 coins,
but he was 20,000 per cent, to the good as the result of it! After this the
profit of 200 and 400 per cent. reaped by other traders falls a little flat, and
such economic thrills only revive when we consider the well-known story of
the fancy price obtained by Prince Jeta for his grove near Sāvatthi
from the pious merchant Anāthapiņdiika, limited only by the number of
coins (metal uncertain) required to cover the soil? .
At the same time custom may very well have settled price to a great
extent. “My wife is sometimes as meek as a 100-price slavegirl® reveals a
customary price. For the royal household, at least, prices were fixed
without appeal by th3 court valuer (agghakāraka) who stood between the
two fires of offending the king if he valued the goods submitted at their
full cost, or price as demanded, and of driving away tradesmen if he refused
bribes and cheapened the ware3º. On the other hand the king might
disgust him by too niggardly a bonuso. It may also have been the duty
of this official to assess the duty of one-twentieth on each consignment of
native merchandise imported into a city, and of one-tenth, plus a sample,
on each foreign import, as stated in the law-books of Manull, Gautama12,
and Baudhayānal3. Such octrois are alluded to in one Jātaka, where the
king remits to a subject the duty collected at the gates of his capital14.
Finally, it may have been his to assess merchants for their specific com-
mutation of the rājakāriya, namely, one article sold per month to the king
at a discount (arghāpacayena15).
The 'sample' mentioned above is suggestive of a surviving payment
made in kind. That the ancient systems of barter and of reckoning values
by cows or by rice-measures had for the most part been replaced by the use
1 Cf. Jät. III, 282 f.
3 Cf, 1b, 220.
3 Ib. I, 111 f. , 195 ; II, 222, 289, 424 f.
4 16. I, 99.
5 Ib. I, 121 f.
6 Ib. I, 109; cf. IV, 2.
7 Vin.
Brāhman takes to trade to be better able to afford his charitable gifts”.
Brāhmans engaged personally in trading without such pretext", taking
service as archers', as the servant of an archer who had been a weavers, as
low-caste trapperse, and as low-caste carriage-makers? .
Again,, among the middle classes, we find not a few instances
revealing anything but caste-bound heredity and groove, to wit, parents
discussing the best profession for their son :-writing, reckoning, or
money-changing (rūpa ? ), no reference being made to the father's trades ; a
(low-class) deer-trapper becoming the protege and then the 'inseparable
friend' of a rich young Setthi, without a hint of social barriers' ; a weaver
looking on his handicraft as a mere make-shift, and changing it off-hand
for that of an archer10 ; a pious farmer and his son, with equally little
ado, turning to the low trade of rush weavingál ; a young man of good
family but penniless, starting on his career by selling a dead mouse
for cat's meat at a 'farthing,' turning his capital and his hands to every
variety of job, and finally buying up a ship's cargo, with his signet-ring
pledged as security, and winning both a profit 200 per cent and the hand of
the Setthi's daughter12.
This freedom of initiative and mobility in trade and labour finds
further exemplification in the enterprise of a settlement (gama) of wood-
workers13. Failing to carry out the orders for which prepayment had
been made, they were summoned to fulfil their contract. But they,
instead of “abiding in their lot,' as General Walker the economist said
of their descendants, 'with oriental stoicism and fatalism14,' made ‘a
mighty ship' secretly, and emigrated with their families, slipping down the
Ganges by night, and so out to sea, till they reached a fertile island.
Stories, all of these, not history ; nevertheless they serve to illustrate
the degree to which labour and capital were mobile at the time, at
least, when these stories were incorporated in the Buddhist canon, and
before that. And they show that social divisions and economic occupations
were very far from coinciding. There was plenty of pride of birth, which
made intermarriage and eating together between certain ranks an act more
or less disgraceful to those reckoning themselves as socially higher. And
sons, especially perhaps among artisans, tended to follow the paternal
industry. This was all.
The trade of the trader, dealer, or middleman (vānija) may well have
1 Psalms of tho Brethorn, 17 ! Vanavaccha).
2 Jāt. IV, 15 f.
3 Ib. V, 22, 471.
4 16. III 219 ; V, 127 f.
5 1b, I, 356 f.
6 16. II, 200; VI, 170 fi. 7 1b. IV, 207 f.
8 V'in 1,77 (Mah. I, 49, 1); IV, 128 (Pāc. LXIV,128). 9 Jāl. III, 49 ff. 10 16. II, 87.
11 lb. IV, 318, 1: 16. 1, 120 ff. 13 Jāt. IV, 159. 14 I he Wages Question, p. 177.
## p. 188 (#222) ############################################
188
(ch.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
1
been largely hereditary? . Traditional good-will handed on here would prove
specially effective in commanding confidence, and thus be a stronger
incentive than the force a tergo of caste-rule. There is, however, no instance
as yet produced from early Buddhist documents pointing to any corporate
organisation of the nature of a gild or Hansa league? . The hundred or so of
merchants who, in the Chullaka-Setthi Jātaka", come to buy up the cargo of
a newly arrived ship, are apparently each trying to 'score off his own bat’
no less than the pushful youth who forestalled them. Nor is there any hint
of syndicate or federation or other agreement existing between the 500
dealers who are fellow passengers on board the ill-fated ships in the Valā-
hassa and Pandara Jātakas? ; or the 700 who were lucky enough to secure
Suppāraka as their pilot5, beyond the fact that there was concerted action in
chartering one and the same vessel. Among merchants travelling by land,
however, the rank of satthavāha or caravan-leader seems to imply some sort
of federation. This position was apparently hereditary, and to be a jetthaka
or elder, in this capacity, on an expedition, apparently implied that other
merchants (vānija) with their carts and caravan-followers, were accompany-
ing the satthavāha, and looking to him for directions as to halts, watering,
precautions against brigands, and even as to routes, fording, etc. Subordi-
nation, however, was not always ensured? , and the institution does not
warrant the inference of any fuller syndicalism among traders.
Partnerships in commerce, either permanent, or on specified occasions
only, are frequently mentioned : the former, in the Kutavāņijas and Mahā.
vānija' Jātakas, the latter in the Pāyāsi Suttantal' and the Serivānija Jātaka'l.
In the Jarudzpāna Jātakal? there is, if not explicit statement, room for
assuming concerted commercial action on a more extensive scale, both in the
birth-story and also in its introductory episode. The caravan in question,
consisting of an indefinite number of traders (in the birth-story, under a
jetthaka', accumulate and expɔrt goods at the same time, and apparently
share the treasure trove, or the profits therefrom. In the episode the firm
also wait upon the Buddha with gifts before and after their journey. These
were traders of Sāvatthī, of the class who are elsewhere described as acting so
unanimously under Anāthapiņdika, himself a great travelling merchant. The
Guttila Jātaka13, again, shows concerted action, in work and play, on the part
1 Jāt. II, 287; III, 198. It is noteworthy that mining and miners nerer came on
in the Jātaka scenes.
The compound vaniggrāma is rendered 'merchants' guild' in Macdonell's
Sanskrit Dictionary.
3 Jāt. I ,122. 4 16. I1,128 ; V, 75. 5 16. IV,138 ff, ; cf. also VI, 34.
6 Fick p. 178 ; D. II, 342 f. ; cf. Jāt. I, 93, 7 16. I, 108, 363 ; II, 295 ; III, 200.
8 Jāt. 1,404 also II 181. 9 16. JV,350. 10 D. II, 342.
11 Jāt. I, 111.
12 1b. II, 294 ff.
13 Ib, II, 218 ; cf. 1, 121 for concerted action between dealers in freights.
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## p. 189 (#223) ############################################
VIII)
TRADE BY SEA
189
of Benares trades. It is conceivable, however, that the travelling in
company may have been undertaken as much for mutual convenience in
the chartering of a common ship, or the employment of a single band of
forest-guards, as for the prevention of mutual under-selling or the cornering
of any wares. Merchants are represented, at least as often, as travelling
with their own caravan alone. Thus in the first Jātaka? two traders,
about to convey commodities to some distant city, agree which shall start
first. The one thinks that, if he arrive first, he will get a better, because
non-competitive price; the other, also holding that competition is killing
work (lit. 'price-fixing is like robbing men of life'), prefers to sell at the
price fixed, under circumstances favourable to the dealer, by his predeces-
sor, and yields him a start.
The little aperçus which we obtain from the Jātakas of the range and
objective of such merchants' voyages are so interesting as side-lights on
early trafficking as to create regret at their scantiness. The overland
caravans are sometimes represented as going 'east and west'}, and across
deserts that took days, or rather nights to cross, a 'land-pilot' (thala.
niyyāmaka) steering during the cooler hours of darkness by the stars.
Drought, famine, wild beasts, robbers, and demons are enumerated as the
dangers severally besetting this or that desert route. Such caravans may
have been bound from Benares, the chief industrial and commercial centre
in early Buddhist days, across the deserts of Rājputāna westward to the
sea ports of Bharukaccha, the modern Broach and the sea board of Sovīra
(the Sophir, or Ophir, of the Septuagint ? ), and its capital Roruva? or Rorukas
Westward of these ports there was traffic with Babylon, or Bāveru.
At a later date, say, at the beginning of the first century A. D. the
chief objective of Indian sea-going trade is given in the Milinda' as
follows :
As a shipowner who has become wealthy by constantly levying freight in some
seaport town, will be able to traverse the high seas, and go to Vanga or Takkola, or
China or Sovira, or Surat, or Alexandria, or the Kormoandel coast, or Further India,
or any other place where ships do congregate.
Tamil poems testify to the flourishing state of Kāviri-pațținam (Kamara
in Periplus, Khabari of Ptolemy), capital of Chõla, on the Kāveri river, at
about the same period as a centre of international trade especially frequented
by Yavana (Yona, Ionian) merchants10. According to the Jātaka it was
1 On a local 'corner in hay'see Jāt. I, 121.
2 16. I, 99; cf. 194, 270, 354, 368, 413 ; II, 109, 335 ; III, 200, 403 ; IV, 15 f. ;
V, 22, 164.
3 16. I, 98 f. 4 16. J, 107. 5 16. I, 99. 6 1b. III, 188; IV, 137 ; Dip.
IX, 26.
7 16, III. 470.
8 D. II, 235 ; Divy. 544.
9 Milinda panha 359 ; trans. 11, 269 (S. B. E. XXXVI).
13 Kanakasabhai, The Tamils 1800 years ago, quoted by Subba Rao (v. Biblio.
graphy), p. 81 f. On Chola see Malavamsa XXI, 13.
## p. 190 (#224) ############################################
190
( ch.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
practicable to attain to any of these ports starting from up the Ganges, not
only from Champā (or Bhāgalpur, about 350 miles from the sea) but even
from Benares. Thus the defaulting woodwrights mentioned abovel reach
an ocean island from the latter city ; Prince Mahājanaka sets out for
Suvannabhumi from Champā? , and Mahinda travels by water from Patna
to Tāmalitti, and on to Ceylon? . It is true that the world Samudda sea, is
occasionally applied to the Ganges, nevertheless, if the foregoing stories be
compared with the Sankha Jātaka', it becomes probable that the open sea
is meant in both. In this the hero, while shipwrecked, washes out his
mouth with the salt water of the waves during his self-imposed fast.
Again, in the Silānisamsa Jātaka, a sea-fairy as helmsman brings 'passen-
gers for India' by ships ‘from off the sea to Benares by river. Other
traders are found coasting round India from Bharukaccha to Suņnvaa-
bhūmi? , doubtless putting in at a Ceylon port ; for Ceylon was another
bourne of oversea commerce, and one associated with perils around which
Odyssean legends had grown ups. The vessels, according to Jātaka tales,
seem to have been constructed on a fairly large scale, for we read of
hundreds' embarking on them, merchants or emigrants. The numbers
have of course no statistical value ; but the current conceptions of shipping
capacity are at least interesting.
The nature of the exports and imports is seldom specified. The gold
which was exported to Persia as early at least as the time of Darius
Hystaspes, finds no explicit mention in the Jātakas. Gems of various
kinds are named as the quest of special sea-farers anxious to discover a
fortune'. 'Silks, muslins, the finer sorts of cloth, cutlery and armour,
brocades, embrcideries and rugs, perfumes and drugs, ivory and ivory-
work, jewelry and gold (seldom silver) : - these were the main articles in
which the merchant dealt '10.
As to the inland routes, the Jātakas tell of Anāthapiņdika's caravans
travelling S. E. from Sāvatthi to Rājagaba and back (about 300 miles),
and also to the borders,' probably towards Gandhārala. The route in the
former journey was apparently planned to secure easy fording of the
rivers by following 'the foot of the mountains to a point north of Vesāli
and only then turning south to the Ganges'13.
1 Jät. IV, 159.
2 16. VI, 34 f.
3 l'in. IJI, 338 (Saman apāsādikā)
4 Jäl. I, 227 ff. ; IV, 167 f. ;VI, 158, but cf. M. I, 493 ; S. II, 32, where sāgara
is added,
5 Jāt. IV, 15-17.
6 16. II, 112.
7 16. III, 188.
8 1b. II, 127 ff. The name Lankā dces not occur Tambapanni. dipa. . . probably
meant for Ceylon. ' Buddhist India, 105.
9 Jāt IV, 21, 139-41.
13 Rh. D. Buddhist India, p. 18; Fick, op. cit. , 174.
11 Jāt I, 92, 348.
1: 16. 1, 377 f.
13 Biddh. Ind. 103. The road followed by the Buddha on his last ministering
tour is from Rājagaha to Kusirā'ā, crossing the Ganges at Patna, with balts at iwelve
intermediate towns (gāmas or nagaras), including V'esālī.
The remainder of this cir.
cuitous route to Sāvattbi 'ay W. N. W. D. II, Suttanta XVI 81 ff.
## p. 191 (#225) ############################################
VIII )
BAZAARS
. 191
>
Another route south-west from Sāvatthi to Patitthāna', with six chief
halting places, is given in the Sutta Nipáta, verses 1011. 134. From east to
west, traffic, as we have seen, was largely by river, boats going up the
Ganges to Sahajāti', and up the Jumna to Kosambi'. Further westward
the journey would again be overland to Sind, whence came large imports
in horses and assess, and to Sovira and its ports. Northward lay the great
trade route connecting India with Central and Western Asia, by way of
Taxila in Gandhāra (Pāli Takkasilā), near Rawalpindi? , and presumably
also of Sāgala in the Punjab. This great road and its southern connexions
with the leading cities of the Ganges valley must have been, even in early
Buddhistic days, relatively immune from dangers. Instances abound in the
Jātakas of the sons of nobles and Brāhmans faringº, unattended and un-
armed1, to Takkasilā to be educated at this famous seat of Brāhmanical
and other learning!
There were no bridges over the rivers of India. The setu or causeway
of Buddhist metaphor! 2 is a raised dyke built over shoal water13. Only
firding-places and ferries for crossing rivers are mentioned in Buddhist
literaturels, and cart-ferries in Manu 15.
Food-stuffs for the towns were apparently brought only to the gates,
while workshop and bazaar occupied, to a large extent at least, their own
special streets within 16. Thus there was a fishmonger's village at a gate of
Sāvatthi", greengrocery is sold at the four gates of Uttara-Pañchāla18, and
venison at the cross-roads (singhāțaka) outside Benares10.
The slaughter-houses (sūnā) mentioned in the Vinaya20 were pre-
sumably outside also, and near them the poor man and the king's chef
bought their mealºl, unless by singhātika we understand street-corners as
1 Paithan, See map and p. 30 Buddh. Ind.
2 Cf. the list in Spence Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, 334.
3 Vin. Texts, III, 401.
4 Id. p. 382.
5 Jāt, I, 124, 178, 181 ; II, 31, 287 ; cf. Hopkins, J. A. 0. S. XIII, 257, 372 ;
Fick, op. cit. 176.
6 Vimānn-vatthu (Comm. ) 336,
? J. H. Marshall, Archaeological Discoveries at Taxila (1913); Guide Taxila
(1918).
8 Of these the route to Rājagaha lay past Sāketa. Vin. Texts II, 176 (Mah.
VIII, 1, 8).
9 Jät, I, 259; II, 85, 282, 41! ; V, 457, etc. , etc.
10 Ib, II, 277.
11 Bühler, Indian Studies, No. 3. Fick, op. cit, 62 ; Vin. Texts II, (174 f. (Mah.
VIII, 1, 6 ff. ).
12 E. g. Thera-gåthâ, ver. 7, 615, 762 ; M. J, 134 A, I, 220 ; II, 115 ; Dh, S. ,
$299.
13 Vin Texls II, 104 (Mah. VI, 28, 12 f. )=D, IT, 89.
14 Jāt, III, 228.
15 VIII, 404 ff. (S. B. E. XXV. )
16 V'. sup. , p. 185 ; Buddh. Ind. 76.
17 Psalms of the Brethren, 166 : cf. Ját. I, 361 ; "they went for alms to a village
ust outside the gates of Benares, where they had plenty to eat. '
18 Jåt. IV, 445.
19 16. III, 49 ; cf. M. I, 58 ; III, 91,
:0 Mah. VI, 10 ; Cull. V. X, 10, 4.
21 Jāt, V. 458 ; VI, 62.
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## p. 192 (#226) ############################################
192
[CH.
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
9
the places where meat was sold'. The great city of Mithilā was, according
to the Maha-ummagga Jātaka, composed in part of four suburbs extending
beyond each of its four gates, and called not gāmas, but nigamas. These
were named respectively East, South, West, and North Yavamajjhako,
translated by Cowell and Rouse 'market-town'? The workshop in the
'? .
street was open to view, so that the bhikkhu coming in to town or village
for alms, could see fletcher and carriage builder at work, no less than he
could watch the peasnt in the field. 3 Arrows and carriages and other
articles for sale were displayed in the āpaņa', or fixed shop, or, it might be,
stored within the antarā paņa. In these or in the portable stock-in-trade
of the hawkers, retail trading constituted a means of livlihood, independ-
ently, it might be, of productive industry. The application, judgment,
cleverness, and 'connexion of the successful shopkeeper? are discussed in
the Nikāyas, and among trades five are ethically proscribed for lay
believers :-daggers, slaves, flesh, strong drink, poisons.
Textile fabrics10 groceries and oil", greengroceries! ? , grain13. perfumes
and flowersli articles of gold and jewelry15, are among the items sold in
the bazars of Jātaka stories and Vinaya allusions, and for the sale of
strong liquors there were the taverns (pānāgāra, āpāna)16. But there is no
such clear reference made either to a market-place in the town, or to
seasonal market-days or fairs. Such an institution at the hath, or barter
fair, taking place on the borders of adjacent districts, finds, curiously en-
ough, no mention in the Jātaka-book, though as the late Wm. Irvine wrote,
'it is to this day universal to my personal knowledge, from Patna to Delhi,
and, I believe, from Calcutta to Peshawar. ' The fétes often alluded to? ?
do not appear to have included any kind of market12.
The act of exchange between producer and consumer, or between
either and a middleman, was both before and during the age when the
Jātaka-book was compiled, a 'free' bargain, a transaction unregulated,
with one notable exception, by any system of statute-fixed prices. Supply
1 But cf. Psalms of the Brethren, 254 ; 'out of the four gates to the cross roads. '
2 Jāt. VI. 330 (trans. p. 157) ; Cunningham, Stūpa of Bhārhut, 53. On these
bas-reliefs, the Jātaka is called Yara majjhaki ya.
3 Psalms of the Brethren, 24.
4 Jāt. II, 267 ; IV, 488 ; VI, 29 ; Vin. IV, 248 ; cf. Cull, V. X, 10, 4 Cf. Apaņa
as the name of a nigama, M. I, 359, 447 ; S. N. , Sela-Sutta (called a Brāhman gama, Ps8.
of the Brethren, 310),
5 Jāt. I, 55, 350; III, 406.
6 16. I, 111 f. , 205 ; II, 424; III, 21, 282 f.
7 Ā paņika pāpaņika.
8 A. I, 115 f.
9 A. III, 208.
10 l’in. IV, 250 f. 11 16. ; IV, 248-9. 12 Jāt. I, 411. 13 16. II, 267.
14 16. I, 290 f. ; IV, 82, ; VI, 336 ; l'in. Texts, III, 343
;
15 Jāt. IV, 228.
16 16. 1, 251 f. ; VI, 268 f. ; VI, 328 ; cf. Dhp. Comm. III, 66.
17 Jāt. I, 423 ; III, 446 : Dialogues I, 7, n. 4,
18 Market' and 'market-place' are frequently used by translators, but rather
inſei entially than as literal renderings.
## p. 193 (#227) ############################################
VIII ]
MEANS OF EXCHANGE
193
>
a
was hampered by slow transport, by individualistic production, and by
primitive machinery. But it was left free for the producer and dealer to
prevail by competition', and also by adulteration', and to bring about an
equation with a demand which was largely compact of customary usage and
relatively unaffected by the swifter fluctuations termed fashion.
Instances of price-haggling are not rare, and we have already noticed
the dealer's sense of the wear and tear of it, and a case of that more
developed competition which we know as 'dealing in futures. The outlay
in this case, for a carriage, a pavilion at the Benares docks, men (purisā),
and ushers (pātihārā), must have cut deep into his last profit of 1,000 coins,
but he was 20,000 per cent, to the good as the result of it! After this the
profit of 200 and 400 per cent. reaped by other traders falls a little flat, and
such economic thrills only revive when we consider the well-known story of
the fancy price obtained by Prince Jeta for his grove near Sāvatthi
from the pious merchant Anāthapiņdiika, limited only by the number of
coins (metal uncertain) required to cover the soil? .
At the same time custom may very well have settled price to a great
extent. “My wife is sometimes as meek as a 100-price slavegirl® reveals a
customary price. For the royal household, at least, prices were fixed
without appeal by th3 court valuer (agghakāraka) who stood between the
two fires of offending the king if he valued the goods submitted at their
full cost, or price as demanded, and of driving away tradesmen if he refused
bribes and cheapened the ware3º. On the other hand the king might
disgust him by too niggardly a bonuso. It may also have been the duty
of this official to assess the duty of one-twentieth on each consignment of
native merchandise imported into a city, and of one-tenth, plus a sample,
on each foreign import, as stated in the law-books of Manull, Gautama12,
and Baudhayānal3. Such octrois are alluded to in one Jātaka, where the
king remits to a subject the duty collected at the gates of his capital14.
Finally, it may have been his to assess merchants for their specific com-
mutation of the rājakāriya, namely, one article sold per month to the king
at a discount (arghāpacayena15).
The 'sample' mentioned above is suggestive of a surviving payment
made in kind. That the ancient systems of barter and of reckoning values
by cows or by rice-measures had for the most part been replaced by the use
1 Cf. Jät. III, 282 f.
3 Cf, 1b, 220.
3 Ib. I, 111 f. , 195 ; II, 222, 289, 424 f.
4 16. I, 99.
5 Ib. I, 121 f.
6 Ib. I, 109; cf. IV, 2.
7 Vin.
