The Economic History of India

THE ECONOMIC HISTORY OF INDIA
The Economic History of India.indd 1 04/07/23 11:53 AM

THE ECONOMIC HISTORY OF INDIA
Historiographical Issues and Perspectives:

Essays in Honour of
Professor Ranabir Chakravarti
Editors
R. Mahalakshmi and Suchandra Ghosh

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CONTENTS
List of Tables, Maps and Figures vii

Acknowledgements ix
Introduction, R. Mahalakshmi and Suchandra Ghosh 1
I. Trade, Traders and Maritime Networks

1. Merchants, Artisans and the Political Processes in Central
India (Gleanings from the Epigraphs of the Guptas and THeir
n Subordinates), Ashish Kumar 15
2. Vaṇikas and Śreṣṭhīs in Odisha from the Epigraphic Perspective
(6th to 14th Centuries), Sabarni Pramanik Nayak 34
3. Nagaram and Ainūṟṟuvar: A Reconsideration of Their Relations,
Y. Subbarayalu 51
4. Salt in Early India: A Socioeconomic Appraisal, Susmita Basu
Majumdar 64
5. Drugs and Potions: Exploring the Early History of Medicine in
India from an Economic History Perspective, Nupur Dasgupta 80
6. Exchanging Coins at Barygaza, Periplus 49 and the Devaluation
of the Kārṣāpaṇa, Federico De Romanis 110
7. ‘No Importance and No Value’? Geniza Sources on Personal
Shopping and the ‘Economy of Regard’, Elizabeth Lambourn 122
8. Insights into Global Maritime Trade around 1600, Angela
Schottenhammer 161
II. Land-Grants, Agriculture and the State

9. What Is an Early Historic Land-Grant? Economics, Diplomatics
and an Indian Epigraphic Form, Meera Visvanathan 203
10. The State, Village Communities and the Agrarian Order in
Early Medieval Western Deccan, Shyam Narayan Lal 231
al 11. Political Economy in the Hill States of Brahmapura–
Kārttikeyapura in Central Himalaya (c. 6th–10th Centuries ce),
Dev Kumar Jhanjh 259
12. Agrarian Expansion, Irrigation and Trade in Agrarian
Commodities in Early Medieval Karnataka, Malini Adiga 281
III. Settlements, Landscapes and Regional Formations

13. Early Historic Cultural Landscapes of the Periyar and Vaigai
Valleys in South India and the Afro-Eurasian–Indian Ocean
World Interactions, V. Selvakumar 333

vi Contents
14. Barygaza/Bharukaccha: A Long-Range History of the Port,

Suchandra Ghosh 369
15. Reading the Multilayered Material Culture through Artefacts
from Hathab, Gujarat (4th Century bce to 6th Century ce),
Krishnendu Ray 392
16. Contextualising Samataṭa–Harikela in THeir Political and
Economic Scenario and Exchange Relations with Kāmarūpa
and China, Priyam Barooah 405
About Ranabir Chakravarti 427

Publications of Ranabir Chakravarti428
About the Editors and Contributors439
Index447

LIST OF TABLES, MAPS AND FIGURES
Tables
3.1: Ainūṟṟuvar Centres Shown in Map 3.1 53
7.1: Items Dispatched to Abraham Ben Yiju in Malabar
at No Charge 127
7.2: Items Dispatched to Malabar and Charged to
Abraham Ben Yiju 135
9.1: Exemptions Granted in Gotamīputa Sātakaṇi’s
Inscriptions210
10.1: Details of the House of Mānapura 233
10.2: A Brief Description of Charters 239
12.1: Bēlūr Taluka Inscriptional References to Settlements 284
12.2: Yelaburga Taluka Inscriptional References to Settlements 296
12.3: Mysore Taluka Inscriptional References to Settlements 306
13.1: Traders and Trade Guilds, Settlements and Landscapes in
Tamil–Brahmi Inscriptions 347
Maps
3.1: Ainūṟṟuvar Centres in Tamil Area, c. 1000 ce 53
3.2: Ainūṟṟuvar and Nagaram Centres 54
3.3: Nagaram Zones of Pirānmalai Inscription 57
13.1: Map of South India with the Vaigai and
Periyar River Valleys 334
13.2: Early Historic Settlements in the Periyar River Valley 338
13.3: Important Early Historic Settlements in the Vaigai
River Valley 343
13.4: Archaeological Sites in the Vaigai Valley 344
Figures
1.1: The Genealogy of the Nigama Lineage/Family 22
8.1: List of Books, Extract from an Inventory List of Goods of
Agustín Sánchez, Surgeon of the Galleon San Martín 168
8.2: ‘Remedios Para Dolor de Los Hijado y de Colico’
(Remedies against Pain of the Liver and Colics), in Libro
de los secretos del reverendo Don Alexo Piamontes, 1595 169
8.3: ‘Jarabes’, in Libro de los secretos del reverendo Don Alexo
Piamontes 170
8.4: Compendio de la salud humana (1494), by Johannes
de Ketham 172

viii List of Tables, Maps and Figures
8.5: Extract from the Will of Doña Ysabel de Barreto 184

8.6: Extract of the List of Possessions from the Will of Doña
Ysabel de Barreto 185

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This volume in honour of our dear colleague and friend Professor

Ranabir Chakravarti has been almost five years in the making. Initially
planned for publication in end-2021, COVID-19 put paid to our best
intentions. We were able to pick up the threads only in early 2022,
and since then there has been a flurry of communication with our
contributors and the publishers. We wish to thank all the contributors,
without whose active support and cooperation this volume would not
have seen the light of day.
We lost Professor B.D. Chattopadhyaya, whose support and affection
has sustained us over the years, in mid-2022. He was happy to know of
this project although age and health prevented him from contributing
here. We remember him as we complete this project, knowing that he
would have fully appreciated the final product.
We would like to thank the following young scholars who have
helped us immensely, at different points of time in the course of our
work: Ms. Ujjwal Yadav (University of Hyderabad), Dr. Dev Kumar
Jhanjh (Azim Premji University, Bhopal), Mr. Navoneel Ray (JNU) and
Ms. Trisha (JNU).
Mr. Chandra Sekhar at Bloomsbury has been all one could ask for
in a publisher—patient yet firm, demanding yet accommodating. We
are very thankful to him and his team. We’d also like to express our
thanks to Mr. Len Haokip for his valuable help in the final stages of the
production of this volume.
The value of collaborative effort lies in the broad canvas that becomes
available to us. We hope to have made such a canvas available to our
readers as well.
ix

INTRODUCTION
Economic history is generally situated at the intersection between history

and economics, each with its distinct disciplinary methods and interpretive
frameworks, often stereotyped as explaining specific phenomena as
opposed to delivering generalisations respectively.1 The significance of
economic history in the Indian context was established by the nationalist
historians who presented stringent critiques of colonial interpretations of
India’s past, and several remarkable works related to different aspects such
as land and revenue systems, agriculture, trade, crafts and technology were
published.2 It was in the post-Independence period that a detailed analysis
of the social order, expressed as modes of production, was undertaken,
primarily under the influence of Marxist ideas. D.D. Kosambi, one of the
pioneers of the historical materialist approach to the study of Indian history,
argued that ‘Marxism is not a substitute for thinking, but a tool of analysis
which must be used, with a certain minimum of skill and understanding,
upon the proper material.’3 Mapping changes in the means and relations
of production was seen as the bedrock of history, and, in the Indian case,
broad historical phases were identified that did not necessarily draw upon
the European historical frameworks, and, even where they did, there was
no exact correspondence with it.4
1 Lamoreaux, Naomi, ‘The Future of Economic History Must be

Interdisciplinary’, The Journal of Economic History, 75:4, 2015, p. 1251. Also
see other articles in the special set of essays in the same volume, under the
title ‘The Future of Economic History’, pp. 1228–1257.
2 Sharma, R.S. and D.N. Jha, ‘The Economic History of India up to AD
1200: Trends and Prospects’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of
the Orient, 17:1, 1978; Habib, Irfan, ‘Economics and the Historians’, Social
Scientist, 2009, 37:5/6, p. 3.
3 Kosambi, D.D., ‘Marxism and Ancient Indian Culture’, in History and
Society: Problems of Interpretation, ed. Anees Jahan Syed, University of
Bombay, Bombay, 1985, p. 78.
4 Sharma and Jha, ‘The Economic History of India’, pp. 64–6. For a masterly
critique of the Euro-centric models as the basis for periodization in Indian
history, see, Chattopadhyaya, B.D., ‘Introduction’, The Making of Early
Medieval India, 1992.

2 The Economic History of India
It is here that the key concepts of exchange and value were seen as
central to historical transformation, and tied to these was the notion of
surplus. The dictionary meaning suggests that surplus is production in
excess of what is needed by an individual, and hence that which is available
for exchange.5 For historians, drawing upon a Marxist understanding,
the ability of the state to appropriate the surplus that was being produced
determined its historical significance.6 Thus, the emergence of a settled
agrarian society in the mid-Ganga valley in the early first millennium
bce was understood as a result of the expropriation of surplus by a newly
emerging elite, laying the foundations for the growth of a full-fledged
state structure.7 The issue of exchange in terms of value ascription to
commodities, development of trading networks and markets, beginnings
of monetisation and the emergence of vibrant urban economies been
identified variously. The specific contexts, the nature of exchanges and
their influences on cultures have been studied in detail; for instance, in
the Harappan context in the third millennium bce, in the middle of the
first millennium bce in North India, as well as at the turn of the first
millennium ce in western and peninsular India.8
The most interesting discussion on economic history in ancient India
has related to the question of decline of long-distance trade in the first
millennium ce and the possible impact of this on socioeconomic life.
This has been seen as leading to the emergence of feudalism in terms of
5 https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/surplus_1
6 Habib, ‘Economics and the Historians’, p. 5.
7 Sharma, R.S., Material Culture and Social Formations in the Mid Ganga Valley.
8 For the Harappan context, see, Ratnagar, Shireen, Encounters: The Westerly
Trade of the Harappa Civilization, 1981; Eden, Christopher, ‘Dynamics
of Trade in the Ancient Mesopotamian “World System”’, American
Anthropologist, 94:1 (Mar., 1992), pp. 118–139; Kenoyer, Jonathan M., ‘Birth
of a Civilization’, Archaeology, Vol. 51, No. 1 (January/February 1998), pp.
54–61; Wright, Rita P., The Ancient Indus: Urbanism, Economy and Society,
2010. For the 6th century bce, see, Sharma, R.S., Material Culture and
Social Formations; Ghosh, A., The City in Early Historical India, IIAS, Simla,
1973; Thakur, V.K., Urbanisation in Ancient India, Abhinava, Delhi, 1981;
Basant, P.K., The City and the Country in Early India, Primus, Delhi, 2012.
For western and peninsular India, see, Morrisson, Kathleen D., ‘Trade,
Urbanism, and Agricultural Expansion: Buddhist Monastic Institutions and
the State in the Early Historic Western Deccan’, World Archaeology, Vol. 27,
No. 2, Buddhist Archaeology (Oct., 1995), pp. 203–221; Champakalakshmi,
R., Trade, Ideology and Urbanization: South India, OUP, Delhi, 1996;
Gurukkal, Rajan, Social Formations of Early South India, OUP, Delhi, 2010.

Introduction 3
the decentralisation of state apparatuses, decay of cities and towns and

proliferation of rural settlements through the disbursement of land-
grants to various politico-administrative functionaries.9 An alternate
view has critiqued this position, and has broached the idea of different
transregional, regional and local exchange networks that are revealed
by texts and inscriptions of this period, and to understand different
kinds of settlement patterns and forms of urbanism that were emerging
in the latter half of the first millennium ce.10 It has been posited that,
rather than viewing these processes as a breakdown of earlier politico-
economic structures, this may be seen as the result of political processes
involving the integration of polities and localities, leading to a regional
state formation. In the past four decades, such an integrative approach
to the study of regional formations from around the 6th century ce
has gained currency, and studies on different regions such as Chamba,
Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Karnataka and the western and central
Himalayas have suggested that the development and expansion of
agrarian society, and of trade and urbanism, were context specific in
terms of the pace of development and the institutional and cultural
impact these processes had on society.11
Ranabir Chakravarti stands tall among those who have contributed
to a deeper and more nuanced understanding of some of these processes,
particularly from an economic-history perspective. This volume is a
tribute to his immense scholarship, and the contributions cover a diverse
range of subjects pertaining to his field of interest. His engagement with
issues and historiography, as well as his rigorous analysis of a variety of
9 The writings of R.S. Sharma present the best exposition on these themes:
Indian Feudalism, 1965; Urban Decay in India, 1987; Early Medieval Indian
Society: A Study in Feudalization, 2001. Also see, Jha, D.N., ‘Introduction’,
in Jha (ed.), The Feudal Order: State, Society, and Ideology in Early Medieval
India, Manohar, Delhi, 2000.
10 Chattopadhyaya, B.D., The Making of Early Medieval India, OUP, Delhi,
2012 (1994), pp. xxxii–xxxvii, 7–20.
11 Champakalakshmi, R., Trade, Ideology and Urbanization; Talbot, Cynthia,
Precolonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval
Andhra, OUP, USA, 2001; Adiga, Malini, The Making of Southern Karnataka:
Society, Polity and Culture in the Early Medieval Period, Orient Blackswan,
Hyderabad, 2006; Sharma, Mahesh, Western Himalayan Temple Records:
State, Pilgrimage, Ritual and Legality in Chamba, E.J. Brill, Leiden, 2009; Sahu,
B.P., The Changing Gaze: Regions and the Constructions of Early India, OUP,
Delhi, 2012; Kulke, Hermann and B.P. Sahu (eds.), The Routledge Handbook
of the State in Premodern India, Routledge, London, 2022, pp. 261–277.

sources render his work invaluable to scholars of early Indian history.

In the next section, his intellectual development and contribution is
placed in the broader context of debates and discussions on historical
issues that have had far-reaching ramifications for the understanding of
the textured fabric of Indian society.
II
Ranabir Chakravarti’s tryst with early Indian history goes back to 1970
when he joined Government Sanskrit College for his graduation with
honours in ancient Indian and World history. From 1970 until the
present, it has been a long and exciting journey of learning, researching,
teaching and sharing his thoughts in print. While Chakravarti’s claim
to fame stands as an economic and maritime historian, his academic
interests spread to many other areas, which is not limited to a specific
time bracket.
Chakravarti’s initiation to historical studies was as a practitioner
of economic history. His first book is called Warfare for Wealth which
was developed from his doctoral thesis under the supervision of B.N.
Mukherjee, Carmichael Professor of the Department of Ancient Indian
History & Culture, University of Calcutta. In this book, he tried to situate
the dynamic nature of economic life. Mukherjee’s mentoring provided
him a window to the world of primary sources, to bring into play as
diverse sources as possible for the study of a given period, without merely
depending on a single type of evidence. Epigraphic and numismatic data,
the bedrock of most of his researches, would seamlessly mingle with diverse
textual accounts in his researches. Mukherjee remains an inspiration and
Chakravarti calls him a ‘prince among the empiricists’. Reading Romila
Thapar’s ‘Somanatha: Many Voices of a History’, the fact dawned on him
that there could be discordant notes in our sources and, as a historian,
one has to understand the discordance and divergences in the sources.
D.D. Kosambi’s essay ‘Combined Methods of Indology’ was extremely
instructive. Chakravarti’s works betray his command over a variety
of primary sources, particularly in case of North India. This mastery is
reflected also in the appendix which he prepared to update A Source Book
of Indian Civilization in 2000. His sensible and common-sense approach
to history was also formed largely by his association with Narendra Nath
Bhattacharyya, both as a student and a colleague. A careful reading of R.S.
Sharma brought to light the fact that primary sources reflect upon their
time and there is a process. He realised that one has to read early Indian
economic and social history in terms of changes and also continuity.
Sharma’s approach to look at economy and society through the prism of

Introduction 5
stages influenced him. Within the broader theme of economic history,

Chakravarti was gradually being drawn towards history of trade.
However, the real turning point in his academic pursuit was the
result of his interactions with Ashin Dasgupta, who instilled in him an
interest for maritime trade. There are very few practitioners of maritime
history of pre-1500 phase in India and Chakravarti’s engagements with
the Indian Ocean began when Dasgupta initiated him to the joy of
looking at the Indian Ocean not merely for sea trade, but perhaps in
an alternative way from outside the subcontinent and from different
shores. Concurrently, there was a calling into the wide world of ‘letters’,
the Geniza documents written by the Jewish merchants, which were
the voice of the actual players. Chakravarti answered the call and he
can be regarded as a pioneer of Geniza studies in India. He integrated
Indic sources with the Geniza documents and tried to weave a story
of the maritime situation, as in many cases these letters gave a better
understanding of the world of the Indian Ocean.
His vision of this Indian Ocean world was largely enriched
by his close interaction with K.N. Chaudhuri during his days of
Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellowship at SOAS (1988–89). He
immensely benefitted from his regular conversations with Prof. F.R.
Allchin during his Hiriyama (UNESCO) and Smuts Fellowship days in
Cambridge (1993, 1995–96).
From 1990 onwards, the works of B.D. Chattopadhyaya and Romila
Thapar had a profound influence on his thought process, particularly
Thapar’s understanding of the state and Chattopadhyaya’s study on
polity, political processes and aspects of rural settlements. Moreover,
interactions with Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund also left
an indelible mark on him.
Consequently, his understanding of early Indian history and
economic life changed considerably, and this was well reflected in
his introduction to his 2001 edited volume Trade in Early India.
Chakravarti provided a masterly long overview of the field, particularly
foregrounding the importance of economic anthropological studies
which could also be used for understanding early Indian trade. It had a
most useful annotated bibliography at the end. The introduction echoed
the essence of historical research—revisionism. The book demonstrated
that the perception of the past is continually changing and must do so,
as evidence accumulates and new sources become available.
The following year, 2002, saw the publication of his other seminal
work, Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society, which was reprinted
twice and a revised new edition with two new chapters saw the light
of the day in 2020. History of trade with its accompaniment like
merchants and their operations in diverse market places, routes etc.

always interested Chakravarti and this is reflected in this collection.

Reading his works, one could always recognise his questioning of the
long-lasting hackneyed narrative of early Indian trade as exchanges in
exotic, luxurious items in limited quantity. In this book, he argues for
trade in bulk commodities at local and regional levels as well as their
relevance in the international network. The third edition is particularly
significant as two additional essays foregrounds the commercial and
social situation of Gujarat. The enviable linkage between money and
trade in Gujarat over nearly a millennium is critically studied from
the perspective of an economic historian. His thorough reading of
copper plates from Gujarat where we find the active presence of the
vaṇiggrāma (merchant’s organisation) led him to suggest that ‘villages
morphed and had the capacity to absorb multifarious functions, firmly
located in the non-agrarian sector of the economy in the sixth and
seventh century Gujarat’. The crucial connection between riverine and
maritime networks, in case of Bengal and Gujarat, is also focal to his
discussions. He argues for situating the merchants as an instrument
for the continuance of the state society. His critique is against excessive
emphasis on the agrarian expansion through the agency of agrahāra.
At this juncture, it will be in order to mention Chakravarti’s recent
essay, ‘Merchants vis-à-vis the State Society: Reflecting on Some Case
Studies from Early Historic and Threshold Times’. Chakravarti feels that
it is problematic to view integration through the lens of Brahmanical
norms. Regarding his argument on alternative ways of state formation,
Chakravarti opines that the merchant was an important force in the
context of state formation.
Ranabir Chakravarti received the prestigious Membership at the
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton from September 2005 to July
2006. His research in Princeton took the shape of two of his major
publications, the first being the 14th century How to Defeat the Saracens:
Guillelmus Ade, Tractatus Quomodo Sarraceni Sunt Expugnandi by the
Dominican William of Adam. The text was edited and translated by
Giles Constable with Ranabir Chakravarti, Olivia Remie Constable,
Tia Kolbaba and Janet M. Martin. Through a thorough study of this
text, he later demonstrated how the tools of world historical approach
may have bearings on highlighting an Indian Ocean scenario. The other
commendable contribution was as one of the editors of Indo-Judaic
Studies in the Twenty-First Century: A View from the Margin, where he
explored the Indo-Judaic trade contacts.
In 2010, Chakravarti’s foray in writing a book for students, teachers,
scholars and also general readers was particularly guided by the desire
to provide a holistic understanding of early Indian history without
ironing out the debates and issues entrenched in the study of the

Introduction 7
subcontinent. What strikes any discerning reader is the incorporation

of new findings and interpretations. We not only have enormous data
but also lucid interpretations of the data through which the historical
processes clearly come out. Situating the prevailing historical debates
in their contexts, Exploring Early India up to c. AD 1300, presents
balanced assessments and nuanced yet a lucid account of India’s past.
Linkage and interaction between political and socioeconomic history
has been clearly stated in the book. The attempt to bring forth multiple
images of our past and trace a society whose norms and functions
went beyond the well-defined normative texts is quite clear. This book
goes beyond the genre of a textbook. It has not been written following
any particular curriculum. Yet teachers could take recourse to this
book in igniting among students an interest for early India. The latest
edition is embellished with two appendices: ‘The Kushāṇa Political
History’ and ‘Visitors from India to the Island of Socotra, Epigraphic
Evidence’.
Chakravarti was Fellow in Residence, Netherlands Institute for
Advanced Study, Wassenaar, September 2009–January 2010. During
this stint, he worked on the Dutch visuals of the seascape of Indian
harbours, ports, ships and riverine marts and their impacts on the
Indian visuals of river crafts and sea-going vessels. The work took the
shape of an essay ‘Coasts and Interiors of India: Early Modern Indo–
Dutch Cross-Cultural Exchanges’ in 2014.
His latest book, The Pull Towards the Coast and Other Essays: The
Indian Ocean History and the Subcontinent Before 1500 ce, represents
years of persistent research and reflection on his part, which has
appeared previously in a range of scholarly journals and edited volumes.
They are carefully chosen around certain themes and are tied together
in the book by an introduction which takes the discerning readers to
an evocative analysis of what they can expect in the subsequent pages.
The introduction also offers a sharp critical take on Eurocentrism in
maritime studies and the nationalist takeover of Indian historiography
in the recent past where interaction across the Indian Ocean is nowadays
often viewed through the prism of civilisational superiority. The essays
underscore the tangible aspects as well as the cultural hybridity of the
worlds that endure within the expanse of the Indian Ocean. In many
ways, this book is a call to methodological introspection. Chakravarti
takes note of the revisionist historiography which questions the
framework of Global history which marginalised the non-Europeans.
He argues for connections and interconnections of the coast and the
sea, the subcontinent and its adjacent maritime spaces and believes
that the concept of World history is applicable to the case of the Indian
Ocean which is non-Western/non-European.

The book is named after the eighth chapter, ‘The Pull towards the
Coast: Politics and Polity in India (c. 600–1300 ce)’, which points
towards its centrality in the making of the book. Here, Chakravarti
illustrates how one should factor in the institution of land-grants as
impacting coastal areas which resulted in agrarian expansion. The
prospect of prosperity led the inland powers to move towards the
coast, an aspect which historians who focus on agrarian history have
tended to neglect. The political pull towards the coast needs to be seen
as reflecting a desire to control the deltas and port areas and not as
maritime conquest. Economics and the access to strategic resources
have always been the main cause of competition among states. The coast
was transformed into an arena of political interest and Chakravarti’s
plea is to include it under the trajectory of ‘integrative polity’ which
highlights the states’ efforts to expand their influence in new areas and
among new communities by integrating these through various political,
economic and religio-cultural methods. There is a strong affirmation
that the Indian Ocean was not a contested maritime space prior to
1500 ce and Chakravarti asserts that the subcontinent’s pre-modern
pasts should not be understood through the lens of nationalism and
nation state. Increasingly, he has expressed his discomfort with using
the idea of the nation state for understanding the past of a land which
has very strong historical roots prior to the nation state. This discomfort
is drawn from his extensive reading and appreciation of Rabindranath
Tagore, the great litterateur and intellectual of the early 20th century in
India, who repeatedly cautioned us against the dangers of nationalistic
fervour and looking at everything through this prism.
His recently co-edited book, History of Bangladesh: Early Bengal in
Regional Perspectives up to c. 1200 ce, in two volumes (2019), is a labour
of love for Bengal as a historical region, undertaken with Abdul Momin
Chowdhury. His main aim was to talk about the historic land which can
go beyond the parameters of nation state and nationalism. This book
has been regarded as a template for regional studies which gives a sense
of variety.
Over the years, Chakravarti has given us quite a number of insightful
essays on other aspects of economic history, agrarian technology,
marginal social groups, review articles, etc., which were published in
leading national and international journals and edited volumes. He has
especially tried to reveal, through the study of Indian ocean networks,
the accommodation of diversity and plurality, even if with a sense
of difference, in our society. It is not within our means to measure
Chakravarti’s scholarly oeuvre. We can only say that our understanding
of early Indian economic history and maritime history in particular was
shaped and enriched by Ranabir Chakravarti’s works.

Introduction 9
Post retirement, Ranabir Chakravarti desires not to be encumbered

by any official or institutional affiliation. He taught at Visva-Bharati
University, University of Burdwan, University of Calcutta and Jawaharlal
Nehru University (JNU). His loyalty is primarily to his students cutting
across these institutions. There lies his soul. With his joining JNU, his
span became much wider and he was enriched by interactions with
students across the subcontinent. Chakravarti is a bilingual author,
though his emotional attachment to his mother tongue is such that,
given a choice, he would prefer to write in Bangla. Tagore remains his
life-long companion.
III
The chapters in this volume are quite diverse in their span and temporal
spread. This is in a way a testimony to Chakravarti’s wide-ranging
interests. These may be broadly categorised in terms of their thematic
focus, and have, therefore, been arranged accordingly in three sections.
Notwithstanding this separation for the sake of convenience, it may be
pointed out that some of the papers could fit quite easily in more than
one theme.
The majority of the chapters in the volume are focused on an area
most illumined by Chakravarti’s scholarship, and are clustered under the
theme ‘Trade, Traders and Maritime Networks’. Three of the eight articles
grouped here look specifically at the traders in terms of their economic
activities and political reach. Ashish Kumar studies the inscriptions of
four polities that were brought under the political umbrella of the Gupta
between the 4th and 6th centuries ce, namely, the Valkhās, Aulikaras,
the Uchchakalpas and the Parivrājakas. He argues for the significant
role played by merchants and artisans in the integrative process of
state formation in the region. Sabarni Pramanik Nayak investigates the
appearance of the terms vaṇikas and śreṣṭhīs, generally used to denote
ordinary and wealthy merchants respectively, in Odishan records and
suggests, following Ranabir Chakravarti, that status claims and mobility
were not implicit in these categories, and indeed these could vary across
temporal contexts. Also, interrogating terms in the records, this time
from South India, Y. Subbarayalu studies the relationship between the
mercantile organisation, the Ainūṟṟuvar and the urban settlement-
based institution, the nagaram, through a detailed analysis of their
connection. He presents the former as an umbrella organisation that
originated in Aihole in Karnataka, which soon became a supralocal
body bringing together various commercial groups and centres. In the
span of 400 years, he demonstrates the broadening of the Ainūṟṟuvar

through the associations and nomenclature attached to it, and its

presence and significance in a transregional context.
Quotidian life is the mainstay of economic history, yet so many
aspects of it get missed out in historical analysis, and the next two
essays deal with such subjects. One of the most important commodities
in everyday life is salt, and its availability, production and sale through
a study of literary and inscriptional sources is taken up by Susmita Basu
Majumdar. The value of salt lay in its controlled extraction, whereby
it became an important part of exchange networks, with the state also
invested in the production and movement of this ubiquitous commodity,
and levying taxes on it. Nupur Dasgupta draws our attention to yet
another aspect of our daily requirements—drugs and potions that
require the sourcing of specific material in raw and processed form. The
networks of trade that facilitated the movement of such material, the
manufacturing of ‘medicines’ and the rise of medical professionals who
provided an important skilled service in society is a matter that has not
been studied seriously, and Dasgupta uses a wide range of literary and
epigraphic sources to bring to light these developments in the period
between the 3rd century bce and the 6th century ce.
An important issue for the study of economic history is the
ascertaining of value, and coinage in early societies was an important
marker of value ascription in complex exchange relations. Frederico de
Romanis studies the abundant data related to commodities exchanged
and finds that Roman coinage—gold aurei and silver denarii—were
exchanged for local currency at a profit at the port town of Barygaza.
Examining the evidence from the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea as well
as the archaeological evidence related to the reign of the Kṣaharāta/
Kṣatrapa ruler Nahapāna and his son-in-law Uṣavadāta, he calculates
the relative value of the local suvarṇa (gold coins) and kārṣāpaṇa (silver
coins) as well as the drachmas in circulation, and assesses the reasons
for the asymmetries of the Roman and the local coins.
The fascinating essays by Elizabeth Lambourn and Angela
Schottenhammer bring out aspects of connected histories that emerge
through networks of trade in premodern maritime worlds. Lambourn
studies the exchanges between individuals that reveal the intersection
between the domestic and commercial lives of traders. Focusing on
the Geniza record, and specifically on the accounts of commodities
sourced from Aden and Fustat by traders like Abraham Ben Yiju, there
is a complicating of their life worlds through an assessment of gift-
like exchanges of reciprocity. Schottenhammer discusses the maritime
world trade around 1600, which in her analysis had become global,
with specific reference to the Spanish galleon San Diego that sank in
the harbour of Manila, Cavite. She highlights the interconnections

Introduction 11
forged by Spanish and Portuguese merchants and traders between Asia

and the Americas, with the movement of goods and people, as well as
competition, war and violence, becoming a hallmark of the new global
world.
There are four essays grouped under the theme ‘Land-Grants,
Agriculture and the State’. Meera Visvanathan argues that the
identification of form and structure of a land-grant by epigraphists were
generally taken as a given by historians particularly to suit their larger
analysis of social formations. She undertakes a contextual analysis of
three inscriptions composed in Prākṛt and written in Brāhmī from
different temporal locations within the early historic period to point
out specificities with regard to what constitutes a gift of land, and what
could be recognised as a land-grant. Shyam Narayan Lal focuses on the
relationship between the state and rural society as evinced in Rāṣṭrakūṭa
inscriptions issued by the four houses of Mānapura, Vidarbha, Kakka
and Malkhed, between the 5th and 8th centuries ce. He analyses the
gifting of land and villages, as well as the different tiers of authority
visible in the land-grants, and argues for a dynamic and yet fluid view of
state intervention in local contexts. Dev Kumar Jhanjh and Malini Adiga
in their chapters look at wider chronological spans in specific regional
contexts—modern-day Uttarakhand and Karnataka respectively.
Starting with the Paurava records of the 6th–7th centuries ce, which
demonstrate the ‘beginning of a land-grant economy’, Jhanjh flags
issues of agrarian expansion, tax provisions and exemptions, private
ownership of land and the state’s role in facilitating this process over
the next 600 years. A detailed analysis of terms for land, officials and
communities brings to light the complex process of state formation in a
region where the ecology presented significant challenges for politico-
economic integration. Adiga begins with the records of the Kadambas,
and goes on to discuss issues of agrarian expansion, agricultural
commodities and trade, taxation and land ownership, and irrigation
methods as revealed by the inscriptions of the Gaṅgas, Cāḷukya and
Hoysaḷas. The economic transformations reveal an interplay of the
local, regional and even transregional forces as a result of the political
processes at work.
The last theme brings together four essays with a specific focus on
‘Settlements, Landscapes and Regional Formations’. Selvakumar draws
our attention to the Periyar and Vaigai river valleys, from across the
port of Muciri in the former to Azhagankulam in the latter, and the
transformations that occurred because of autochthonous factors
and external stimuli. He particularly draws our attention to the
archaeological excavations in recent times in the region and ties it to
the literary and epigraphical evidence to suggest significant interactions

and influences from the Afro-Eurasian–Indian Ocean world. Landscape

archaeological methods provide a window to understanding places as
settlements of varying size and significance, and their interlinkages,
while the literary descriptions of the aiñtiṇai in the Sangam texts are
also seen as relevant to understanding the larger region in the early
historic context.
Urban centres have been a focus for the economic historian,
particularly understood in terms of the growth of craft specialisation,
commodity production and trade. Ports are a specific kind of
settlement connected to the water and the hinterland, and Suchandra
Ghosh draws our attention to the port of Bharukaccha, called Barygaza
in Greco–Roman sources, to explore its strategic importance in
exchange networks. Her focus is on the peculiar ecological location
of this port in the Narmada delta, on the different commodities that
found their way here from across the land and water routes, and the
continued importance of this town across a vast time period, despite
its apparent fluctuating fortunes vis-à-vis other ports that came up in
the region. Krishnendu Ray also focuses on a settlement in the region,
namely, Hathab—also known as Astakapra/Hastakavapra—which has
yielded several material artefacts that throw light on its importance
in the maritime activities off the Gujarat coast. With the ascent of the
Maitraka dynasty (c. 5th–8th centuries ce), the site also seemed to
have an administrative importance, as seen from their records. Priyam
Barooah’s chapter draws us towards the east, where the two contiguous
sub-regions of Samataṭa and Harikela, which fall partly in modern
Tripura and Bangladesh today, emerged as a political region in the first
millennium ce. Further, she draws our attention to the linkages of this
region with Kāmarūpa (modern Assam) through the procurement of
gold, which was not locally available, and suggests a transregional trade
network that went as far as China via Burma.
Thus, this volume represents a diverse collection of chapters within
the broader theme of economic history, connected to, and in some cases
inspired by, the work of Ranabir Chakravarti, which we hope would
generate interest among a wide range of readers.

I
TRADE, TRADERS AND MARITIME NETWORKS

1
MERCHANTS, ARTISANS AND THE POLITICAL

PROCESSES IN CENTRAL INDIA (GLEANINGS
FROM THE EPIGRAPHS OF THE GUPTAS AND
THEIR SUBORDINATES)
Ashish Kumar
Introduction
The early medieval period that is usually seen as a transition phase

between ancient and medieval period has been characterised either as a
dark age due to an absence of a central Hindu political authority in India1
or as a feudal age, which was connected with political decentralisation,
urban decay and feudalisation of merchants.2 Scholars have rejected the
concept of ‘dark age’ by shifting the focus of historical analysis from
dynastic politics to economic and cultural developments connected with
the formation of regional polities of early medieval India.3 Scholars, for
instance R.S. Sharma, associated with feudal school, have significantly
contributed in dismantling the ‘dark age’ concept; however, the
theoretical model that these scholars have created for the study of early
medieval Indian society connects this phase of India’s history with an
economic and social crisis. In a response to this, B.D. Chattopadhyaya
and Hermann Kulke4 developed the integrative-processual model in the
1980s–90s to explain the formation of several state-polities from obscure
pre-state backgrounds. It is argued that the requirement of resources by
the integrative polities stimulated agriculture expansion through land
donations to Brāhmaṇas, temples and monasteries and it prepared the
ground for the ‘third urbanisation’, which was linked to the emergence
of several urban centres like Pṛthūdaka, Tattānandapura, Sīyaḍoni
and Gopagiri and several local exchange centres called Maṇḍapikās,
Peṇṭhās, Nagaram and Haṭṭas/Haṭṭikas.5 Following Chattopadhyaya and
Kulke, several studies on integrative-polities unravelled the processes
involved in the formation of regional states that have been based on the
integration of people, their cultures and resources;6 the centrality of the
‘king-brāhmaṇa alliance’ in the formation of the regional/sub-regional-
15

polities is highlighted7 and attention has also been drawn to the less
explored role of merchants and artisans in the political processes.8
The period preceding the early medieval period in Indian history
is termed as ‘threshold times’ (dated 300–750 ce) by Romila Thapar,
who defines this phase as having witnessed the maturing of early
historic socioeconomic and political trends that provided a standard
of assessment for subsequent regional polities. The classicism that took
shape as a standard of assessment in the Gupta age (c. 319–550 ce) is
connected with the threshold times9 and the codes of courtly culture that
appeared in the ‘Vākāṭaka-Gupta imperial formation’ are suggested to
have provided inspiration to early medieval regional polities.10 Studies
have shown that the Gupta polity was neither highly centralised nor
was it decentralised; rather, it displayed the elements of both.11 The
Gupta rulers, while retaining mid-Gaṅga valley under their firm control,
promoted the rule of their subordinates in the peripheral areas of their
kingdom. The Gupta rulers integrated both people and territories in
central India through the conquests of several pre-state polities (gaṇa-
saṅghas, āṭavika-rājās, etc.), several of which simultaneously erected their
own monarchical polities and accepted the overlordship of the Gupta
monarchs.12 As several of these subordinate polities of the Guptas had
emerged from pre-state backgrounds, they imitated the Gupta polity
and devised diverse strategies to consolidate their control over their
respective territories; their epigraphs also throw light on the position of
merchants and artisans under them. The epigraphs of the Guptas and
their subordinates suggest a regular movement of merchants and artisans
in central and western India in search of better professional opportunities,
and, in several instances, traders and artisans appear to have embraced
professions other than those sanctioned by their varṇa-jāti.13
This chapter, primarily based on the epigraphic evidences, shifts away
the focus from the king-brāhmaṇa alliance, and it studies the position
of merchants and artisans in the sub-regional polities of the Valkhās (c.
357–487 ce), Aulikaras (c. 397–534 ce), the Uchchakalpas (c. 493–534 ce)
and the Parivrājakas (c. 475/529 ce) by highlighting their varied roles in
the political processes that have had operated under the Guptas and their
subordinates in central India in the middle of the first millennium ce.
The Valkhās and the Aulikaras
The Gupta monarch Samudragupta (c. 335/40–375/80 ce) devised a

strategy to manage the vast territories that he brought under the Gupta
authority through brute force and diplomacy; he promoted the local ruling
houses in the peripheries, while retaining firm control over the core, that

Merchants, Artisans and the Political Processes 17
is, the Gaṅga valley, of the Gupta kingdom, and the key resource areas
of his realm. In Bagh area (Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh), the Valkhā
dynasty came into existence during the reign of Samudragupta and this
ruling house continued to rule during the reign of Chandragupta II
(c. 375/80–414 ce), Kumāragupta I (c. 414–454 ce) and Skandagupta
(c. 454–467 ce). Having emerged from a tribal background, the Valkhā
rulers ruled the area along both the banks of the Narmada River and they
shared boundaries with the Guptas, the Vākāṭakas of the Deccan and the
Śaka-Kṣatrapas of western India. In the area of Vidiśā, Sanakānīka (known
date 401–02 ce)14 ruling house was present as a subordinate of the Guptas15
and another ruling house that was subordinated to the Guptas was the
Aulikara of Daśapura; both of these came into existence either during the
reign of Samudragupta or Chandragupta II from the background of gaṇa-
saṅghas. Sanakānīkas had been rooted in an area that was connected with
Vidiśā, Udaigiri and Sanchi, and, therefore, it witnessed a regular movement
of traders, artisans and pilgrims. Traders from Vidiśā participated in
overland as well as overseas trade—a fact that is supported by the presence
of a person from Vidiśā in Socotra Island in the Arabian Sea in the early
centuries of the Common Era.16 The Aulikaras (c. 397/534 ce), the Valkhās
(c. 357/487 ce) and the Sanakānīkas ruled different parts of Malwa and
acknowledged the Gutpa authority at a time when Samudragutpa and his
successor Chandragupta II were busy in fighting with the Śaka-Kṣatrapas
and the Vākāṭakas. The Gupta–Vākāṭaka conflict, however, was resolved
through a marriage of the Gupta princess Prabhāvati—daughter of
Chandragupta II—and the Vākāṭaka prince Rudrasena II.17
On the other hand, the Śaka-Kṣatrapas, having control over the key
port-towns of Gujarat and the trade corridor of western Malwa, enjoyed
control over inter- and intra-regional trade along Dakṣiṇāpatha, and the
desire to control these resources brought the Guptas in conflict with the
Śaka-Kṣatrapas. It seems that the Gupta monarch Samudragupta first
penetrated into the territories of the Śaka-Kṣatrapas by supporting the
formation of local state polities in Malwa, loyal to the Gupta throne.
While the Aulikaras controlled Daśapura, the Valkhās occupied Bagh
area and the Sanakānīkas were present in Udaigiri (near Vidiśā). In this
way, the key sections of the trade routes connecting the Gaṅga valley,
eastern Malwa and Deccan to Gujarat seacoast via Ujjain were brought
under the Guptas; it had economically weakened the Śaka-Kṣatrapas and
eventually led to their defeat at the hands of Chandragupta II. Once the
Śaka-Kṣatrapas were eliminated and their territories annexed, the Guptas
gained possession of Gujarat seacoast and through it an access to the
Indian oceanic trade.18 The expansion of Gupta authority in western India
immensely benefitted their subordinates, who had been in possession of
the key areas on the inter-regional trade routes in Malwa.

The Valkhā kingdom,19 lying in a buffer zone between the two

mighty political powers—the Guptas in the north and the Vākāṭakas
in the south—came into existence in a region that had been located in
a hilly, forested landscape of Vindhyas in the western parts of central
India. The capital of Valkhā rulers, named after the same dynasty
(Valkhā),20 has been variously identified with modern Bahal or Bāghali
(in Maharashtra), Balkhar (south of Narmada, at a distance of about
8 kilometres from Māhēśvar, Nimar district, Madhya Pradesh)21 and
Balkheda (near Māhēśvar) or Balkhed (near Thikri on the Bombay–
Agra road).22 The possibility of the derivation of the modern name
Bāgh from Valkhā has also been suggested.23 In the Valkhā kingdom,
trader (Āryya-Vāṇijaka),24 potter (Āryyadāsa in Dāsilaka-pallī)25 and
ironmongers/ironsmiths (Lohakārapallikā)26 had been living in villages
and were involved in cultivation. Since several villages in the Valkhā
kingdom have pallī/pallikā as suffix in their names, the origin of these
villages from tribal hamlets is well indicated.27
The importance of artisans in the Valkhā kingdom is clearly
evident from the inscription of the king Bhuluņḍa (366–67 ce) that
records the donation to God Viṣṇu of five villages along with a water
reservoir in the presence of five artisans (paňcha-kārukaṁ).28 The term
paňcha-kārukaṁ could possibly mean ‘five groups of artisans, namely,
goldsmiths, blacksmiths, brassmiths, carpenters and stone masons’,
and they are believed to have been ‘the descendants of the five sons
of Viśvakarmā’.29 The importance of artisans in the Bagh region is well
attested by the presence of a settlement of ironmongers/ironsmiths
(lohakāra). Possibly, the paňcha-kārukaṁ represented the artisan’s
communities of the donated villages, which enjoyed considerable
influence, if not power, over the village activities; therefore, they acted as
a witness of this land-grant ceremony associated with the Viṣṇu shrine.
In a similar manner, artisans (prathama-kulika) along with merchants
(nagara-śrēṣṭhin), caravan traders (sārthavāha) and chief scribe
(prathama-kāyastha) appear prominently in the local administration
of Koṭivarṣa (modern Bangarh, South Dinajpur district, West Bengal)
in Puṇḍravardhana-bhukti under the Gupta rulers (five Damodarpur
inscriptions, c. 443/44 ce–543/544 ce).30 The Valkhā rulers remained
loyal to the Gupta throne up to the reign of Skandagupta; but, after
Skandagupta, when the Guptas’ authority was withdrawn from Gujarat
and western Malwa, the last known Valkhā Mahārāja Subandhu shifted
the capital to Māhiṣmatī (identified with present day Māhēśvar on the
bank of Narmada, Madhya Pradesh)31 and made an attempt to curve
out an autonomous principality. The selection of Māhiṣmatī as a new
capital becomes significant from the fact that this city acted as a fording
point on the bank of the Narmada River for traders and artisans;

and, therefore, control over Māhiṣmatī would have enabled Mahārāja

Subandhu to control the inter-regional trade network. The same is
suggested by Subandhu’s patronage to Buddhist monastic settlement
called Kalāyana (the abode of art) at Bagh, from where remains of
several rock-cut caves with mural paintings are found. This settlement
provided lodging, cloths, food and medical assistance/medicines to
the monks coming from all the four directions.32 An alms house and
hospital at Kalāyana monastery would have equally benefitted the
traders and travellers, other than the monks. The presence of officials
called gamāgamikas, who regularised the entrance and departure of
people into cities33 in the Bagh–Māhiṣmatī area under Subandhu also
indicates people’s regular movement across this area. Evidently, the
Buddhist establishment at Bagh had been a major converging point of
traders and pilgrims due to its location on an inter-regional trade route,
and, by patronising it, Subandhu sought to mobilise resources for his
newfound, however short-lived, autonomous principality.
In the north-west Malwa, the Aulikaras, who had emerged from
Mālava gaṇa-saṅgha background, made Daśapura their capital.
Daśapura, that first appeared in the 2nd century ce in the inscriptions
of Śaka-Kṣatrapas as a tirtha,34 is associated with merchants and
artisans in the epigraphs of the 5th–6th century ce. The ancient
Dakṣiṇāpatha (southern transregional route) that traversed ‘the
Vindhyas and the fertile Malwa Plateau to reach, Vidarbha on the
east and Sopara on the west’,35 linked Daśapura to Ujjayinī and
several other places of western India and Deccan.36 Under the
Aulikara rulers, who are often glorified in the epigraphs of artisans
and merchants, Daśapura flourished as a preeminent urban centre.37
In the reign of the Aulikara king Naravarman (404/05 ce), a resident
of Daśapura named Satya, who is mentioned to have been a son of
Jaya and grandson of Varṇṇavṛiddhi, claims to have acquired his
wealth through lawful means and describes his profuse material and
spiritual wealth as an exemplification of the good qualities (guṇa) of
Naravarman’s administration. Possibly belonging to a bania (trader)
caste,38 Satya in his inscription underlines the favourable conditions
for the growth of local traders in Daśapura and employs the epithet:
‘the follower of Siṁha-vikrānta’ for Mahārāja Naravarman. The term
Siṁha-vikrānta exhibits Naravarman’s subordination to the Gupta
emperor Chandragupta II39 and its use by Satya in his inscription
shows his awareness of the contemporary political conditions.
The economic prosperity of Daśapura under the Aulikaras is further
displayed by the migration of a guild (srēni) of silk weavers to Daśapura
from Lāṭa (also known as Khāndesh situated between the Narmada and
Tapti rivers) during the reign of the Aulikara king Bandhuvarman. Contrary

to earlier views that have connected this guild’s migration with the decline
of overseas trade and economic crisis,40 the epigraphic evidences show that
the migration of the silk weaver’s guild from Lāṭa to Daśapura was not
simply a migration of males in search of career opportunities; rather, it was
a shift of the whole community, including women and children, engaged in
a particular craft of silk weaving.41 Thus, in this case, Daśapura witnessed
a spatial and occupational mobility, which was apparently encouraged as
well as welcomed by Bandhuvarman. It is maintained in the Mandasor
inscription that the virtues of the Aulikara king had drawn the silk weavers
towards Daśapura—a city that was far away from Lāṭa country. The immense
wealth that this guild had at its disposal was used to construct a Sun temple
(437–38 ce) in the western ward of Daśapura and to finance its repair in
473–74 ce.42 If both the dates mentioned in this inscription are taken into
account, then it appears that the silk weavers remained functional for more
than thirty-six years in Daśapura under the Aulikara rulers.
The inscription of silk weavers provides the names of two rulers—
the Gupta monarch Kumāragupta I (c. 414–454 ce) and his subordinate
Bandhuvarman, during whose reign the silk weavers migrated and
settled down in Daśapura. However, when the inscription was actually
composed in 473/74 ce, both the rulers were not in power. Instead, it
was Kumāragupta II, who was the Gupta ruler at that time.43 On the
throne of Daśapura was possibly Prabhākara (known date 467 ce),
who is described as the ‘fire to the trees in the form of the enemies of
the race of the Guptas’ in his inscription.44 The Mandasor inscription
that appears to have transformed the migration of silk weavers into a
crucial event was composed by a Brāhmaṇa named Vatsabhaṭṭi, who
took inspiration from poet Kālidāsa to compose this inscription.45
As it is evident from this inscription, the silk weavers received ample
professional opportunities to continue their earlier profession as
well as to adopt several new occupations such as music, writing of
biographies, storytelling, philosophy, astronomy and martial arts.46 The
new professions adopted by the guild members were typically urban
in nature, and it suggests that the guild members were not ordinary
artisans moving place to place in search of work. The silk weavers
neither abandoned their profession of silk weaving nor did they disband
their guild; rather, the Mandasor inscription highlights the fondness of
the womankind of Daśapura for ‘silken garments’ and credits the silk
weavers for adorning the entire surface of the earth with silk garment.47
Towards the end of the 5th century ce, Narēndra Ādityavardhana
ruled Daśapura and his reign witnessed the extinction of the Gupta
authority over Gujarat and western Malwa due to the expansion
of Alchon Hūṇa’s power under Toramāṇa (reign c. 500–520 ce).48
Ādityavardhana belonged to a different branch of the Aulikaras (different

from the Mahārāja Naravarman)49 and he is suggested to have been a

subordinate of the Hūṇa king Toramāṇa.50 As it is evident from the Sanjeli
inscription (c. 503 ce), a merchant named Gomika from Daśapura had
been a member of a vaṇigrāma, which had its headquarter in a town
called Vadrapālī in Śivabhāgapuraviṣaya (identified with ‘the triangle
formed by Bharukaccha, Khetaka and Malwa’). The member of this
vaṇigrāma traded in agrarian products, for instance, paddy (dhānya),
molasses (guḍa) and cotton (kārpāsa), and they made ‘voluntary cesses
on certain commodities in favour of Viṣṇuava deity, called Jayasvāmī,
whose temple was caused to have been constructed’ in Vadrapālī by the
mother of Mahārāja Mātṛdāsa I.51 In a rapidly changing political situation
of western India due to the Hūṇa–Gupta conflicts, in the early 6th century
ce this donation by the members of vaṇigrāma indicates their attempt to
secure political support to their professional activities from Toramāṇa’s
subordinate ruler. However, the Alchon Hūṇa’s authority over Daśapura
did not last long. Prakāśadharman defeated the Hūṇa king Toramāṇa, and
established an autonomous Aulikara authority over Daśapura (Risthal
inscription 514–15 ce);52 and his successor Yaśodharman (also known as
Viṣṇuvardhana) overpowered Mihirakula.53
Both the rulers, Prakāśadharman and Yaśodharman, are mentioned
to have been served by the members of a naigama family (inhabitant of
nigama54 or in other words merchants), who held high administrative
positions in the Aulikara kingdom. The information gleaned from
the Risthal inscription (514/15 ce)55 and the Mandasor inscription of
Yaśodharman and Viṣṇuvardhana (533/34 ce)56 helps us in creating the
genealogy of this nigama family, which started from a person named
Śaṣthidatta. Śaṣthidatta was the father of Varāhadāsa and grandfather
of Ravikīrti (Fig. 1.1). While Varāhadāsa is mentioned to have been
an incarnate portion of god Hari, Ravikīrti is described to have
combined good actions with worldly professions. Ravikīrti as amātya
had served Prakāśadharman’s father, that is, Rājyavardhan, and he had
three sons—Bhagavaddoṣa, Abhayadatta and Doṣakumbha—from his
wife Bhānuguptā. Bhagavaddoṣa was a minister (rājasthānīya) in the
administration of Prakāśadharman (predecessor of Yaśodharman),
and Abhayadatta served as rājasthānīya under the Aulikara king
Yaśodharman. On the other hand, Dośakūmbha is mentioned to have
been a father of Dakṣa and Dharmadoṣa, and his son Dharmadoṣa
like his brother Abhayadatta had been an rājasthānīya in the
administration of Yaśodharman. Dharmadoṣa is mentioned to have
prevented the intermixing of varṇas in the Aulikara kingdom and
bore the burden of government in accordance with the justice. He
wore royal apparel as a symbol of distinction ‘just as a bull carries a
wrinkled pendulous dew-lap’.57

Fig. 1.1: The Genealogy of the Nigama Lineage/Family
Abhayadatta had died sometime before 533/34 ce and in his memory

Dakṣa is mentioned to have financed the construction of a large well in
Daśapura. Dakṣa, who is described as ‘unwearied in the business-matter
of (his) lord’ (svāmi-kāryyēshv=a-khēdī), appears to have held some
administrative position in the Aulikara kingdom.58 Two fragmentary
inscriptions associated with this nigama family are found at Chittorgarh,
and, based on these, a member of nigama family is suggested to have
been governing Daśapura and Madhyamikā (present-day Nagari near
Chittorgarh) as rājasthānīya apparently under the Aulikaras. Two
persons, Varāha (identical with Varāhadāsa) and Viṣṇudatta, who are
mentioned in these inscriptions, are suggested to have had belonged to
nigama family, and Viṣṇudatta’s affiliation with trade is clearly evident
from the expression vaṇijā(ṁ) śreṣṭho (best among merchants) that is
used in one of the inscriptions for him.59 Even though Dāniel Balogh has
suggested a possible origin of this nigama (naigama) family from the silk
weavers60 (mentioned in the Mandasor inscription of Bandhuvarman
and Kumāragupta I), he does not provide any conclusive evidence in this
regard. Nevertheless, the members of this nigama family undoubtedly
had occupied administrative positions (amātya, rājasthānīya) for several
generations, and they appear to have had looked after the administration
of two important cities, Daśapura and Madhyamikā, particularly at a time
when the Aulikara rulers had been busy fighting the Alchon Hūṇas.61
Seemingly, the political crisis that ensued in western India due to
the Alchon Hūṇa’s invasions had shaken the authority of the Guptas
on the one hand and pushed the local ruling houses to mobilise

available resources to defend their territory in the last quarter of the

5th century ce on the other hand. In this context, the nigama family
adopted administrative posts under the Aulikaras and soon rose
to prominence. In his inscription, Dakṣa has praised the Aulikara
king Yaśodharman for his military achievements and bestowed him
with the titles, namely, rājādhirāja (king of kings) and paramēśvara
(supreme lord). Evidently, by raising the status of the Aulikara king in
his inscription, Dakṣa attempted to raise the status of his own nigama
family. In this way, his inscription is one of the earliest epigraphical
evidences, expressing a desire on the part of a nigama (mercantile)
family of royal officials to construct its own genealogy.
The Parivrājakas and the Uchchakalpas
In spite of having a long peaceful reign, Kumāragupta I witnessed political

turmoil towards the end of his reign, when the Gupta authority was
challenged by the Alchon Hūṇas, the Puṣyamitras (identity unknown)
and the Vākāṭakas. His son and successor Skandagupta resisted all the
Gupta adversaries and protected the Gupta territories; but Skandagupta’s
successors failed to keep Gujarat and western Malwa under their
authority for long. As the Gupta authority weakened in western Malwa,
the Vākāṭakas occupied parts of eastern Madhya Pradesh, from where
inscriptions of Prithivīṣēṇa II’s subordinate Vyāghradēva are found. The
brief period, after the death of Skandagupta and before the accession
of Budhagupta in 476 ce, witnessed a quick succession of the Gupta
rulers, suggesting the absence of a firm central authority. Perhaps this
situation provided an opportunity to Prithivīṣēṇa II (c. 470–90 ce) to
expand his authority, for a brief period, in eastern Madhya Pradesh.
However, situation soon changed and Budhagupta (c. 476–500 ce)
consolidated the Gupta’s hold over eastern Madhya Pradesh with the
support of the Parivrājakas (c. 475/529 ce) and the Uchchakalpas (c.
493/534 ce).62 The earliest known inscription of Parivrājakas belongs
to 475/76 ce and this inscription, like all other Parivrājaka inscriptions,
acknowledges the Gupta supremacy.63 It suggests that sometime prior
to 475/76 ce the Vākātakas lost control over eastern Madhya Pradesh
to the Gupta rulers.
The inscriptions of the Parivrājakas and the Uchchakalpas are found
concentrated in the north-east Madhya Pradesh (in Khoh, Bhumara,
Majhgawam, Karitalai, Katni and Sohawal),64 and the same area had
regularly been traversed by people from the mid-Gaṅga valley for
pilgrimage, trade and hunting.65 The availability of mineral resources
in the form of copper and iron ores as well as diamond bearing

conglomerate at Panna66 would have made this region economically

significant for the Guptas as well as their subordinates. The Parivrājakas
controlled Tripurī district (viṣya),67 which undoubtedly had derived
its name from the famous town of Tripurī. Having a long occupation
history, starting roughly in 500 bce and continuing up to the early
medieval period, this town has yielded archaeological and numismatic
evidences in excavations, which displays the prosperity of Tripurī in
the 5th–6th century ce.68 In the Parivrājaka and the Uchchakalpa
inscriptions, Maṇināga pēṭha, comprising several villages (Ōpāṇi,
Vyāghrapallika and Kācharapallika) and a town (Mānapura), is
mentioned as an important territorial unit, where several officials
(sāndhivigrahika, amātya, lekhaka, dūtaka) managed different tires of
administration.69 Evidently, the Maṇināga pēṭha, that initially had been
a part of a forest tract, appears to have been ‘well settled with rural
agricultural units and combined administrative functions with those of
a crafts and trade centre’ in the Gupta period.70
The Uchchakalpa kings, who ruled some hill tracts of Baghelkhand
area,71 had their capital at Uchchakalpa that is identified with a settlement
named Unchchara (meaning ‘highland’) in Satna district of Madhya
Pradesh.72 The Bhagelkhand, occupying ‘a zone of disengagement
between the Gangetic plain and the Deccan plateau’ in north-eastern
Madhya Pradesh, had been a densely forested hilly tract—famous as
an abode of tigers.73 Having linkages with the Gaṅga valley, the north-
eastern and eastern Madhya Pradesh witnessed the movement of
pilgrims, traders as well as hunters in the early historical period,74 and
such movements continued during the reign of the Uchchakalpa rulers.
The Uchchakalpa rulers appears to have settled down people of diverse
backgrounds through land-grants in their kingdom at a time, when
the Alchon Hūṇas under Toramāṇa had invaded and occupied major
parts of North-west India (Schøyen copper scroll inscription75 and Kura
inscription),76 western and central India (inscriptions from Sanjeli77
and Eran)78 and upper Gaṅga valley (seal inscription from Kauśāmbī).79
The political instability caused by the Gupta–Hūṇa conflicts possibly
pushed the people of diverse backgrounds to migrate to safer places,
and one such safer place they found in the Uchchakalpa kingdom.
In 501–02 ce, Mahārāja Jayanātha created an agrahāra by grating
sixty shares of a place called Kalabhikuṇḍaka grāma to twenty-five
persons, comprising eighteen Brāhmaṇas (forty-one shares), three
Kṣatriyas (seven shares), two Vaishyas (six shares) and two shudras
(six shares). This grant was made after excluding the land measuring
ten halas, which had already been gifted to some other person. This
inscription throws a light on one of the earlier instances, in which people
of all varṇas were settled down by creating an agrahāra settlement.

The Brāhmaṇas, kuṭumbinas (cultivators) and kārukas (artisans) of

Kalabhikuṇḍaka grāma were directed by the king to provide regular
taxes (kara, śulka, bhāga, hiraṇya) and other dues to these donees
(Katni Plates of Jayanatha, 501/502 ce).80 It suggests the migration of
a group of twenty-five people into the Uchchakalpa territory, where
they were established in a village with fiscal and administrative rights.
This grant shows the presence of Vaishyas in Kalabhikuṇḍaka grāma
as beneficiaries of land donation and the same is also suggested by
another Uchchakalpa inscription (Sohawal copperplate inscription,81
510/511 ce) that informs us about a village called Vaiśyavāṭaka.
The Vaiśyavāṭaka is mentioned to have been granted as an agrahāra
to two individuals, named Viśākhadatta and Śakti, who were sons
of Khāthānā of Uttarāpatha. Interestingly, the name of the village
Vaiśyavāṭaka (Vaiśya+vāțaka) possibly referred to a settlement of the
Vaishyas, or a place associated with commercial activities. It reminds
us of Vaiśya-agrahāras mentioned in the epigraphs of the subsequent
centuries, which refer to privileged holdings assigned to certain
Vaishyas.82 The term vāṭaka according to D.C. Sircar was a corrupt
form of pāṭaka and it had often been used as a suffix to the name of
localities.83 From the Sohawal copperplate inscription, it can be further
ascertained that the donees were not Brāhmaṇas; hence, they possibly
were Vaishyas, who had migrated from some place in North India to the
kingdom of the Uchchakalpas. The king Śarvanātha directed the village
inhabitants such as Brāhmaṇas, cultivators and artisans to provide
dues, taxes and services to Viśākhadatta and Śakti. The donees were
also gifted a right to collect ‘taxes on ploughs’ (halikākarasameta).84 The
income from the granted land, which was gifted for perpetuity, was to
be used by the donees for the repair, whenever it would require, of the
broken parts of Kārtikēya Temple as well as for the maintenance of
bali, charu, sattra at the same temple. In addition, commodities such
as perfumes (gandha), incense (dhūpa), garlands (mālya) and lamps
(dīpa) were to be purchased for worship at the temple.85
In 512–13 ce, Mahārāja Śarvanātha split a village called Āśramaka
into four shares; two shares were given to Viṣṇunandin, the third to the
merchant Śaktināga (vaṇija-Śaktināga), son of Svāmināga, and the fourth
share was granted to Kumāranāga and Skandanāga (Khoh copperplate
inscription).86 The suffix ‘nāga’ in the names of Śaktināga, Kumāranāga
and Skandanāga suggests that they all belonged to the same family.87
If not all, at least one member named Śaktināga of this Nāga family
was a trader. This Nāga family built the Viṣṇu shrine and managed to
obtain resources in the form of land-grant from the Uchchakalpa king,
who issued a land-grant charter to these donees with a responsibility
to look after the Viṣhṇu and the Sun temples. They were supposed

to collectively undertake the repair, whenever it would be required,

of the broken parts of these shrines. Like the previous inscription, in
this epigraph also, village inhabitants comprising Brāhmaṇas, artisans
and cultivators were informed as well as directed to pay taxes, tributes
and services to donees regularly. This Nāga family maintained bali,
charu, sattra at the shrines and financed by using the income from the
gifted village the purchase of perfumes, incense, garlands and lamps
for worship at the temples.88 Evidently, the merchants were introduced
in well-populated villages, inhabited by Brāhmaṇas, artisans and
cultivators, from above by the rulers with rights to collect taxes, tributes
and services from villagers. Based on a mutual agreement between the
king and the merchants, the task was assigned to merchants to manage
the temple income from donated villages as well as temple expenditure
on the purchase of diverse commodities.
Conclusion
In the epigraphs of the Guptas and their subordinates, both merchants

and artisans appear regularly. Having impacted by the changing political
landscape of the mid-first millennium ce, several of them gradually
redefined their position in the newly emerged sub-regional polities and
adopted newer roles. The subordinates of the Guptas in central India had
emerged from pre-state background and devised various strategies, for
instance, land-grants to integrate both people and territories under them.
In such a situation, absorption of merchants and artisans either as high-
ranking officials or temple custodians needs to be studied in connection
with the attempts of the Gupta’s subordinates to strengthen their authority
over their newly acquired territories. This trend that became visible in the
Gupta kingdom assumed wider currency in the early medieval period, when
a rapidly growing agrarian society prepared the ground for the ruralisation
of some of the merchants and also for their transformation in some parts of
India into ‘landed magnates’ or ‘rural merchants’.89 At the same time, both
merchants and artisans in several cases embraced administrative posts and
also began managing temple property besides performing their primarily
professional activities in different regional polities.90
Notes
1 Basham, A.L. 1999. ‘Medieval Hindu Kingdoms’. In A Cultural History of

India, edited by A.L. Basham. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 51–59;
Ray, Niharranjan. 1967. ‘General Presidential Address’. In Proceedings of

the Indian History Congress 29, 1–30; Majumdar, R.C., H.C. Raychaudhuri,
and Kalikinkar Datta. 1953. An Advanced History of India. London:
Macmillan & Co Limited, pp. 176, 184, 244.
2 Sharma, R.S. 1980. Indian Feudalism c. AD 300–1200. New Delhi:
Macmillan, pp. v–viii, 58, 225–226. In R.S. Sharma’s view, the land-grants
were the ‘central factor’, causing the transformation of ancient Indian
society into medieval society; Sharma, R.S. 2007. Early Medieval Indian
Society: A Study in Feudalisation. Kolkata: Orient Longman, pp. 16–44.
He highlighted the disassociation of merchants with trade due to their
association with landed property owing of land-grants. D.D. Kosambi
and R.S. Sharma argued that not only merchants were feudalised, that is,
disassociated from trade, due to land-grants, but in some cases activities
of merchants and their professional organisations were also regularised by
rulers through trade charters; Kosambi, D.D. 2011. ‘Indian Feudal Trade
Charters’. In Kosambi: Combined Methods in Indology and Other Writings,
edited by B.D. Chattopadhyaya, 488–495. New Delhi: Oxford University
Press; Sharma, Early Medieval Indian Society, 186–189; Mazumdar, B.P.
2004. ‘Merchants and Landed Aristocracy in the Feudal Economy of
Northern India: Eight to Twelfth Century’. In Land System and Rural
Society in Early India, edited by B.P. Sahu, 142–150. Delhi: Manohar.
3 Sharma, R.S. and D.N. Jha, 1974. ‘The Economic History of India up to AD
1200: Trends and Perspectives’, Journal of the Economic and Social History
of the Orient, 17(1): 66–71; Thapar, Romila. 2002. Early India: From the
Origins to AD 1300. New Delhi: Penguin Books, pp. 1–36; Chattopadhyaya,
B.D. 2011. Studying Early India: Archaeology, Texts, and Historical Issues.
New Delhi: Permanent Black, pp. 232–262.
4 See for a discussion: Kulke, Hermann, 1982. ‘Fragmentation and
Segmentation versus Integration? Reflections on the Concepts of Indian
Feudalism and the Segmentary State in Indian History’, Studies in History
4, no. 2: 237–263; Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 1985. ‘Political Processes and
Structure of Polity in Early Medieval India: Problems of Perspective’,
Social Scientist 13(6): 3–34; Kulke, Hermann, 1993. Kings and Cults: State
Formation and Legitimation in India and Southeast Asia (Delhi: Manohar);
Kulke, Hermann, ed., 1995. The State in India, 1000–1700 (Delhi: Oxford
University Press); Chakravarti, Ranabir, 2002. ‘Book Reviews: D.N. Jha
(ed.), ‘The Feudal Order: State, Society and Ideology in Early Medieval
India’, New Delhi, Manohar, 2000, pp. xi + 539, The Medieval History
Journal 5, no. 1: 161–171; Chakravarti, Ranabir, 2011. Trade in Early India
(New Delhi: Oxford University Press), 72–91; Sahu, B.P., 2015. ‘From
Regional Histories to Histories of the Regions and Beyond,’ in Social
Scientist 43, no. 3–4: 33–47.
5 Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 2012. The Making of Early Medieval India. New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 17–29, 134–159, 163; Chakravarti,
Ranabir. 2007. Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society. New Delhi:
Manohar, pp. 187–200, 201–219.
6 Sahu, B.P. and Hermann Kulke (eds). 2015. Interrogating Political Systems:
Integrative Processes and States in Pre-Modern Indian. New Delhi: Manohar.

7 The expression ‘king-brāhmaṇa alliance’ is used by Upinder Singh to

highlight the key role of this alliance in the political formations of the
post-4th century ce in early India; Singh, Upinder, 2017. Political Violence
in Ancient India (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press),
183. It is argued that the land-grants to Brāhmaṇas had helped the rulers
in the extension of the state authority in outlying areas. While such grants
brought legitimisation to kings, Brāhmaṇa recipients gained control
over land-resources. See for details, Sahu, B.P., 2013. The Changing
Gaze: Regions and the Constructions of Early India. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, pp. 10–11, 62, 69, 202.
8 Chakravarti, Ranabir. 2016. ‘An Emergent Coastal Polity: The Konkan Coast
under the Silaharas (Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries AD)’. In Studies in People’s
History 3(2): 128–137; Chakravarti, Ranabir, 2019. ‘Merchants and State-
Society: Some Case Studies from Early Historic Period and the “Threshold
Times” (c. 600 BC to AD 700)’, Studies in People’s History, 6(2): 119–133.
9 Thapar, Early India, pp. 280–282.
10 Ali, Daud. 2006. Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India.
New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, p. 20.
11 Kumar, Ashish. 2019. ‘Subordinate Rulers under the Gupta Monarchs:
Political Imagination and State Formation in Central and Eastern India’.
In State, Power & Legitimacy: The Gupta Kingdom, edited by Kunal
Chakrabarti and Kanad Sinha, 613–614. New Delhi: Primus Books.
12 See for discussion: Ashish Kumar. 2017. ‘State Formation and Political
Integration: Subordinate Rulers under the Guptas in Central India’, Studies
in People’s History 4(2): 130–145.
13 An inscription from Tumain (435–436 ce) informs us about a merchant
family (sādhu-jan-ādhivāsē) that embraced profession of Kṣatriyas
in Tumbavana. See, Bhandarkar, D.R., et al. (eds and trans). 1981.
Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum-Vol. III: Inscriptions of the early Gupta
Kings. Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 279, and foot note no. 4;
Chakravarti, Ranabir, and Gopal Chandra Sinha. 1985. ‘A Note on the
Tumain Inscription of Kumaragupta I, GE 116’, Indian Museum Bulletin
20: 46–48. In Sanjeli inscriptions, Brāhmaṇas (with names ending with
Śarman/Śarmā) appear to be involved in inter-regional trade as being
a member of a professional organisation of merchants (vaṇigrāma).
Chakravarti, Ranabir, 2008. ‘Three Copper Plates of the Sixth Century
AD: Glimpses of Socioeconomic and Cultural Life in Western India’.
In South Asian Archaeology 1999: Proceedings of the 15th International
Conference of the European Association of South Asian Archaeologists, ed.
Ellen M. Raven. Groningen: Egbert-Forsten, 397.
14 Fleet, J.F. (ed. and trans.). 1970. Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum-III
(Inscriptions of the early Gupta Kings and their successors). Varanasi:
Indological Book House, 21–25.
15 Bhandarkar, D.R. 2019. ‘Identification of the Princes and Territories
Mentioned in the Allahabad Pillar Inscription of Samudragupta’. In State,
Power & Legitimacy: The Gupta Kingdom, edited by Kunal Chakrabarti
and Kanad Sinha, 245. New Delhi: Primus Books.

16 Strauch, Ingo. 2012. Foreign Sailors on Socotra: The Inscriptions and

Drawings from the Cave Hoq. Bremen: Hempen Verlag, p. 345.
17 Chakravarti, Ranabir. 2016. Exploring Early India up to c. AD 1300. New
Delhi: Primus Books, p. 262.
18 Chakravarti, Ranabir, 1986. Warfare for Wealth: Early Indian Perspective.
Calcutta: Firma KLM Private Limited, pp. 133–134.
19 Suchandra Ghosh has characterised the Vālkhās as an early state. Ghosh,
Suchandra, 2015. ‘A Hoard of Copper Plates: Patronage and the Early
Valkhā State’, Studies in History 31(1): 2–3.
20 Ramesh, K.V. and S.P. Tewari (eds and trans). 1990. A Copper-Plate Hoard
of the Gupta Period from Bāgh, Madhya Pradesh. Delhi: Archeological
Survey of India, pp. viii, xxiv–xxv.
21 Ibid.
22 Trivedi, Harihar Vitthal and Mandan Trivedi (eds). 2001. Epigraphs of
Madhya Pradesh. New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, p. 33.
23 Ramesh and Tewari, A Copper-Plate Hoard of the Gupta Period, xxv.
24 Ibid., pp. 65–66.
25 Ibid., pp. 67–68.
26 Ibid., pp. 37–38.
27 Chattopadhyaya, B.D. 1990. Aspects of Rural Settlements and Rural Society
in Early Medieval India. Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi & Company, pp. 2–3.
28 Ramesh and Tewari, A Copper-Plate Hoard of the Gupta Period, pp. 1–3.
29 Ghosh, ‘A Hoard of Copper Plates: Patronage and the Early Valkhā State’, p. 11.
30 Bhandarkar et al., Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum-III, pp. 282–287, 288–
291, 335–339, 342–345, 360–364.
31 Trivedi, and Trivedi, Epigraphs of Madhya Pradesh, 38–39.
32 Mirashi, V.V., ed. 1955. Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. IV—
Inscriptions of the Kalachuri-Chedi Era, Part I. Ootacamund: Government
Epigraphist for India, p. 21.
33 Sircar, D.C. 1966. Indian Epigraphical Glossary. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
p. 109.
34 Senart, E. 1905–06. ‘Nasik Inscription of Nahapāna’, Epigraphia Indica 8,
p. 78.
35 Lahiri, Nayanjot. 1992. The Archaeology of Indian Trade Routes up to c.
200 BC: Resource Use, Resource Access and Lines of Communication. Delhi:
Oxford University Press, p. 400.
36 See Mehta, R.N. and A.M. Thakkar. 1978. The M.S. University Copper
Plates of Toramana. Vadodara: M.S. University Archaeological, Series 14,
pp.14–26.
37 See for a discussion on Daśapura city: Kumar, Ashish, 2016. ‘Imagining
Daśapura, a Tirtha-Nagara: A Hermeneutical Study of an Urban Space’,
Research Journal Social Sciences, 24(1–2): 193–222.
38 Bhandarkar et al. 1981. Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum-Vol. III, 261–
266; Shastri, Haraprasad. 1913–14. ‘Mandasor Inscription of the time of
Naravarman, the Malava Year 461’. Epigraphia Indica, 12: 315–231.
39 Bhandarkar et al., Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum-III, 263, 266.

40 Sharma, R.S. 1987. Urban Decay in India (c. 300–c. 1000). New Delhi:
Munshiram Manoharlal, 154; Sharma, Early Medieval Indian Society, 28;
Basham, A.L. 1993. ‘The Mandasor Inscription of the Silk-Weavers’. In
Essays on the Gupta Culture, edited by Bardwell L. Smith, p. 95. Missouri
(Columbia): South Asia Books.
41 Epigraphs from central India record several instances of the movements
of artisans and guilds in the 5th century ce. An inscription from Tumain
(435–436 ce) records the migration of a merchant family (sādhu-jan-
ādhivāsē) from Vaṭōdaka (Badoh in Bhilsa district, Madhya Pradesh) to
Tumbavana. Chakravarti and Sinha, ‘A Note on the Tumain Inscription
of Kumaragupta I, GE 116’, 46–48. Likewise, the Indor copper-plate
inscription (465–66 ce) informs us about a perpetual investment by
a Brāhmaṇa in the guild of oil-men, which ensured the supply of oil to
the Sun temple at Indrapura (Indore in the Bulandshahar district, Uttar
Pradesh) even after changing its location. Fleet, Corpus Inscriptionum
Indicarum-III, 68–71.
42 Bhandarkar, et al., Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum-III, 325, 328.
43 The reign of Kumāragupta II is usually placed between c. 467 and 475 ce.
Chakravarti, Exploring Early India, up to c. AD 1300, 258–259.
44 Garde, M.B. 1947–48. ‘Mandasor Inscription of Malwa Samvat-524’,
Epigraphia Indica 27: 17.
45 Basham, ‘The Mandasor Inscription of the Silk-Weavers’, 93–94.
46 Bhandarkar et al., Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum-III, 325, 328–329.
47 Ibid.
48 See for a discussion on the presence of the Alchon Huns in India: Kumar,
Ashish, 2021. ‘The Huns (‘Hūṇas’) in India: A Review’, Studies in People’s
History, 8(2): 182–196.
49 See also for a critical analysis of Risthal inscription: Salomon, R., 1989.
‘New Inscriptional Evidence for the History of the Aulikaras of Mandasor’,
Indo–Iranian Journal, 32: 21.
50 Sircar, D.C. 1953–54. ‘Two Inscriptions of Gauri’. Epigraphia Indica, Vol.
30: 120–132.
51 Chakravarti, ‘Three Copper Plates of the Sixth Century AD’, pp. 396–97.
52 Salomon, ‘New Inscriptional Evidence for the History of the Aulikaras of
Mandasor’. pp. 8, 27.
53 Fleet, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum-III, pp. 142–148, 150–152.
54 Sircar, Indian Epigraphical Glossary, p. 210.
55 Ramesh and Tewari, ‘Risthal Inscription of Aulikara Prakasadharman
[Vikrama] Year 572’, pp. 96–103.
56 Fleet, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum-III, 154–158.
57 Ibid., pp. 157–158.
58 Ibid.
59 Balogh, Dāniel, 2019. Inscriptions of the Aulikaras and Their Associates.
Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, Vol. 30: 192–200.
60 Ibid., p. 30.
61 See for more details on the Alchon Hūṇas and their activities in central
India: Kumar. ‘The Huns (‘Hūṇas’) in India: A Review’, 182–196.

62 See for a discussion on the Parivrājaka and the Uchchakalpa polities:

Kumar, Ashish, 2020. ‘Two Rājyas and a Dēvī: State Formation and
Religious Processes in Central India (circa Fifth-Sixth Century ce)’, Indian
Historical Review, Vol. 47(2): 330–346.
63 Kumar, ‘State Formation and Political Integration: Subordinate Rulers
under the Guptas in Central India’, 139–141.
64 Fleet, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum-III, pp. 93, 100, 106, 110, 112, 117,
121, 125, 129, 132, 135; Jain, Usha, 1986. ‘Katni Plates of Jayanatha, Year
182’, Epigraphia Indica, 40(3): 95–97; Halder, R.R., 1927–28. ‘Sohawal
Copper-Plate Inscription of Maharaja Sarvanatha’, Epigraphia Indica, Vol.
19: 127–131.
65 Bharhut (Bharaut in Satna district) has yielded epigraphical records,
which provide details of the visit of devotees from Vidiśā, Pāṭaliputra,
Bhogavardhana, Kauśāmbī and Nasik. Hultzsch, E., 1892. ‘Bharaut
Inscriptions’, The Indian Antiquary, Vol. 21: 225–242. Likewise, Bandhogarh
(in Rewa district) has yielded several inscriptions of merchants and
administrators, coming from distant places like Mathura and Kauśāmbī;
Chakravarti, Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society, 75–91.
66 Ray, H.P. 1989. ‘Early Historical Trade; An Overview,’ Indian Economic and
Social History Review, Vol. 26(4): 442–443.
67 Lal, Hira. 1905–06. ‘Betul Plates of Samkshobha’, Epigraphia Indica, Vol. 8:
284–288.
68 Lal, B.B. (ed.). 1967–1968. Indian Archaeology: A Review. New Delhi:
Archaeological Survey of India, 23–24; Deshpande, M.N. (ed.). 1966–
1967. Indian Archaeology: A Review. New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of
India, 17–19.
69 Fleet, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum-III, pp. 116, 138.
70 Chakravarti, Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society, pp. 204–205.
71 Trivedi and Trivedi, Epigraphs of Madhya Pradesh, p. 47.
72 Sinha, A.M. 1994. Madhya Pradesh District Gazetteers: Satna. Bhopal:
Directorate of Gazetteers & Department of Culture, Government of
Madhya Pradesh, p. 38.
73 Baker, D.E.U. 2007. Baghelkhand, or the Tiger’s Lair: Region and Nation in
Indian History. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 8–9.
74 Ibid., p. 58.
75 De La Vaissière, Étienne. 2007. ‘A Note on the Schøyen Copper Scroll:
Bactrian or Indian?’ Bulletin of the Asia Institute, New Series, 21: 127–130.
76 Bȕhler, G. 1892. ‘The New Inscription of Toramana Saha’, Epigraphia
Indica, 1: 238–241.
77 Chakravarti, ‘Three Copper Plates of the Sixth Century AD’, p. 395.
78 Fleet, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum-III, pp. 158–59.
79 During excavations, two seals of Toramāṇa, with legend: To-ra-mā-ṇa
and Hūṇa-rāja, are found in a Buddhist monastery at Kauśāmbī; Thakur,
Upendra. 1997. The Hūṇs in India. Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series
Office, p. 124.
80 Jain, ‘Katni Plates of Jayanatha, Year 182’, 95–97. Noticeable is the
Paschimabhag inscription of Śrīchandra (circa 925–975 ce) here. This

inscription records the establishment of a large number of Brāhmaṇas,

with revenue exemption, in an area that came to be called Brahmapura.
It was situated near the Maņi River and here several non-Brāhmaṇas
professionals such as artisans and peasants had been settled down
along with some 6,000 Brāhmaṇas through a land-grant. Seemingly,
as Brāhmaṇas were hardly expected to till the land donated to them,
land donations were made to other types of professionals to provide
services to the donee Brāhmaṇas. Significantly, several non-Brāhmaṇa
professionals were granted plots of land larger than those allotted to
several Brāhmaṇas. Implicitly, the real status attributed to some of the
non-Brāhmaṇa professionals ‘was different from their relatively low
ritual position laid down in the varṇa-jāti norms’; Chakravarti, Ranabir.
2014. ‘A Tenth-century Brahmapura in Śrīhaṭṭa and Related Issues’. In The
Complex Heritage of Early India: Essays in Memory of R.S. Sharma, edited
by D.N. Jha. New Delhi: Manohar, pp. 610, 615.
81 Halder, ‘Sohawal Copper-Plate Inscription of Maharaja Sarvanatha’, pp.
127–131.
82 Sircar, Indian Epigraphical Glossary, p. 360.
83 Ibid., p. 367.
84 Halder, ‘Sohawal Copper-Plate Inscription of Maharaja Sarvanatha’, 129–
130; The term halikākara refers to a type of viṣti tax (forced labour), and its
recipients could force the people, having ploughs, to till their fields for free;
Singh, Y.B. 2015. ‘Hālika-Kara: Crystallization of a Practice into a Tax’. In
Essays in Ancient Indian Economic History, edited by B.D. Chattopadhyaya.
Delhi: Indian History Congress in association with Primus Books, pp. 81–
84.
85 Halder, ‘Sohawal Copper-Plate Inscription of Maharaja Sarvanatha’, pp.
129–130.
86 Fleet, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum-III, pp. 125–129.
87 It is noticeable that the Nāgas initially were the forest groups. The
Allahabad inscription of Samudragupta mentions about the Gupta
victory over the Nāga kings such as Nāgadatta, Gaṇapatināga, Nāgasena
in Āryāvarta region. And Chandragupta-II is mentioned to have married
a Nāga princess Kubernāga. The city Nāgapura was also associated with
the Nāgas, and so was the worship of cobra along with the ‘great Hindu
gods like Śiva, Viṣṇu [and] Gaṇeśa’. This information, along with the
information provided by the inscription of the king Śarvanātha (512/513
ce), which talks about a Nāga merchant, indicate the complete absorption
of Nāgas into state society as kings as well as merchants. Following this,
D.D. Kosambi argues that the ‘major historical change in ancient India was
not between dynasties but in the advance of agrarian village settlements
over tribal lands, metamorphosing tribesmen into peasant cultivators, or
guild craftsmen.’ Kosambi, D.D. 2011. ‘The Basis of Ancient Indian History
(I)’. In Kosambi: Combined Methods in Indology and Other Writings, edited
by B.D. Chattopadhyaya. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 312.
88 Halder, ‘Sohawal Copper-Plate Inscription of Maharaja Sarvanatha’, p. 131;
Fleet, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum-III, pp. 128–129.

89 Furui, Ryosuke. 2013. ‘Merchant Groups in Early Medieval Bengal:

With Special Reference to the Rajbhita Stone Inscription of the Time of
Mahipala I, Year 33’, Bulletin of School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol.
73(3): 401.
90 Chakravarti, Ranabir. 2000. ‘Nakhudas and Nauvittakas: Ship-Owning
Merchants in the West Coast of India (c. AD 1000–1500)’, Journal of the
Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 43(1): 41–42; Chakravarti,
Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society, pp. 102–112; Ali, Daud. 2010.
‘Between Market and Court: The Career of two Courtier-Merchants
in the Twelfth-Century Deccan’, Journal of the Economic and Social
History of the Orient, Vol. 53(1–2): 185–211; Kumar, Ashish. 2013.
‘Land, Trade and Administration: Mapping the Changing Relations of
Gahapatis and Setthis with the Buddhist Sangha (c. AD 100–800 AD)’,
Journal of History and Social Sciences, Vol. 4(1): 1–7; available at http://
jhss.org/archivearticleview.php?artid=215 (accessed on 16 March 2018);
Chakravarti, ‘Merchants and State-Society’, 119–133.

2
VAṆIKAS AND ŚREṢṬHĪS IN ODISHA FROM

THE EPIGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE (6TH TO 14TH
CENTURIES)
Sabarni Pramanik Nayak
Inscriptions from the early medieval and medieval contexts, found all
over India, provide information about traders and their commercial
and/or non-commercial activities. In place of the common or all-
encompassing term ‘trader’, we have learnt to use specific terms like
‘investor’, ‘banker’, ‘very rich merchant’, ‘financier’, ‘caravan-merchant’,
‘master mariner’ or ‘ordinary trader’. Their distinctive features have been
pointed out by Ranabir Chakravarti. At the two ends of the spectrum are
śreṣṭhīs—very rich traders, financiers or bankers—and the vaṇikas—the
ordinary merchants1 who were no match for the former. The difference
between the two is notable since the early historic period.2 However, the
word vāṇijaka has also been used as a generic/blanket term to denote
any trader.3 Not all places in the early historic period witnessed the
emergence of seṭṭhis, and there were parts where the term vaṇija was
used to classify the traders.4 In the early medieval context, the śreṣṭhīs
were wealthy and influential, as is found from Chakravarti’s study on the
Konkan.5 Yet, it is also evident from his study that, even if two traders
performed similar works, their status could differ across patio-temporal
contexts. The status of royal merchants was not the same everywhere
and across periods.6 On the whole, there were regional, sub-regional
and locality wise diversities and complexities (if not site-specific), the
causes of which can only be partially guessed. Keeping these factors in
mind, this chapter will study the evolving identities, social positions
and activities of the vaṇikas and śreṣṭhīs in Odisha from the 6th to the
14th century ce. In this context, the then contemporary situation of
two adjoining tracts like Bengal and erstwhile Andhra Pradesh has also
been touched upon. Terms like vaṇika and śreṣṭhī were used in specific
contexts across territories. However, these terms have not entirely lost
their original connotations. To some extent, these understandings
and adaptations were determined by the degree of hierarchy and rank
34

Vaṇikas and Śreṣṭhīs in Odisha 35
consciousness, as well as by the linguistic culture prevailing within that

particular area. Economic characteristics also played an important role.
B.P. Sahu has provided a broad study of the geographical distribution
of the vaṇikas and śreṣṭhīs in the Odishan context. According to him,
traders are mostly known by terms such as vaṇika, vipaṇivaṇika,
śreṣṭhīs and puraśreṣṭhīn. Vaṇikas figure in the inscriptions of the
Khinjali Bhanjas (9th and 10th centuries) and the Somavaṁśīs (10th
and 11th centuries) in central and western Odisha and adjoining
localities. The expression vipanivaṇika—connoting traders in the
market—features in the Baud Plates of Netabhanja. Puraśreṣṭhīs are
seen in the records of the Adi Bhanjas of Khijjingakotta in northern
Odisha, broadly around the 9th and 10th centuries, and śreṣṭhīs are
noticed in the inscriptions of the Somavaṁśīs and later eastern Gaṅgas
in the coastal districts.7 Thus, the variation noted by Sahu is both
dynastic and geographic.
Vaṇikas as Writers and Engravers in Odisha
In Odisha, writing and engraving the charters in which the vaṇikas were
engaged were acts of honour. A 7th century charter found from the
Koraput district of south Odisha mentions the puraśreṣṭha as the official
present, though his name is not given. The same charter also mentions
the name of Hari, the vaṇika-putra, as the engraver.8 Evidently, there
was a difference in status between a puraśreṣṭha and a vaṇika-putra,
though the precise degree is unknown.
The 9th century Dhenkanal Plates of the Śulki king Jayastambha were
engraved (utkīrṇṇa) by the vaṇika Iśvara.9 The 9th century Baud undated
Plates of Raṇabhañjadeva were written by the vaṇika Padmanābha, who
resided at Gandhaṭapāṭi.10 The Deulapedi Plates of the later Bhañja king
Neṭṭabhañjadeva, found from theGanjam district, was engraved by the
vaṇika Malaka or Kamalaka.11 The Antirigram Plates of the later Bhañja
king Jayabhañjadeva (11th–12th centuries) found from the Ganjam
district was written (likhitaṁ) by the Kālapaṇḍita vaṇika Gaṇeśa.12 We
cannot determine their status for want of further information. They
were both traders and smiths, as suggested by Sahu. The word likhitam
(translated as ‘written’) could imply that some of them wrote the words
on the charter and did not engrave it.
Vaṇika-suvarṇakāra
B.P. Sahu pointed out that the charters of the Khiñjali Bhañjas of
Khiñjali maṇḍala (which spread from the Baud–Sonpur area to parts

of the Ganjam district) mention the vaṇiksuvarṇakāra as an engraver.

However, the context is important as the vaṇiksuvarṇakāra is usually
presented as a royal engraver, as the son of the engraver, or even as the
father of the engraver.13 The Kankala Plates of Raṇabhañjadeva found
from the Phulbani district mention the vaṇika-suvarṇakāra Śivanāga,
the son of Pāṇḍi, as an engraver (utkīrṇṇa).14 Śivanāga was known to
have engraved several charters found from Bolangir and Cuttack.15
The Harekrishnapur Plates of Raṇabhañjadeva found from Phulbani
mention vaṇika-suvarṇakāra Jaināga, the son of Pāṇḍi.16 The Aida
Plates of Raṇabhañjadeva, found from Dhenkanal, were engraved by
the vaṇika-suvarṇṇakāra Pāṇḍi, the son of Gonā.17 Goṇa is also known
to have engraved the Utkal University Plates of Raṇabhañjadeva, and
is mentioned there as the akṣaśāli18 and as the son of Viṣṇu.19 Pāṇḍi
was also known to have engraved several other charters from Baud
and Bolangir.20 The Tatarkela Plates of Śilābhañjadeva mention the
term as lāñchhita.21 The Sonepur Plates of Raṇabhañjadeva, found
from Bolangir, were engraved (utkīrṇṇa) by the vaṇika-suvarṇṇakāra
Padmanābha, son of Pāṇḍi.22 These probably dated to the 9th century
ce. The vaṇika-suvarṇakāra Padmanābha was probably the same as
the vaṇika Padmanābha, the inhabitant of Gandhāṭapaṭi in the Baud
undated Plates of Raṇabhañjadeva. The vaṇika-suvarṇakāra was distinct
from and had a higher rank than the ordinary suvarṇakāra. They could
also be from the rank of vaṇika, as the case of Padmanābha suggests.
At least one case shows that they could be in the category of akṣaśāli.
Thus, the artisanal class was not altogether different from the trading
community, especially the vaṇikas, who were engravers. It is difficult to
tell whether they were engaged in the trade of gold. They were certainly
different from those who were associated with land-grants. Sahu has
stated that the Badarahajor Copper Plate of Ranabhanja was engraved
by the vaṇikśreṣṭhīn Paṇḍi, a financier engaged in trade.23 However, he
is also avaṇika-suvarṇakāra.24 They never wrote (likhitam) charters but
some of them registered the grants or sealed them (lāñchhita).
Vaṇikas from Varendrī
The 10th century Odisha State Museum Plates of Neṭṭabhañjadeva–

Pṛthvīkalasa, the Bhañja king of Khiñjali-Maṇḍala, depict the donation
of the Guṇḍapāṭaka village in Nānnākhaṇḍa viṣaya (the boundary of
the gift-village was Uttarapallikā) to the vaṇika Aichhadata. He was
the son of Vapadata, grandson of Apadata and great-grandson of the
vaṇika Gargadata, who belonged to the Kāśyapa gotra and hailed
from Tribhuvanapura, situated in Varendrī.25 In other readings, it was
Ivadata, the son of Vapadata, the grandson of Apadata and the great-

grandson of Gargadata.26 The readings of Tribhuvanapura and Varendrī

are generally accepted, and denote North Bengal. The record was found
somewhere in the Nayagarh tahsil. Though there is ample evidence of the
Brāhmaṇas coming from Madhyadeśa and Puṇḍravardhana to Odisha
in the early medieval times, this is the only charter which discusses the
migration/movement of a vaṇika, and that too from Bengal. It would not
be amiss to have a quick look at the contemporary scenario of Bengal
in general, and Puṇḍravardhana in particular, in terms of the activities
of the trading class. Bengal was long past the days of the nagaraśreṣṭhīs
and the sārthavāhas of the 5th–6th centuries, and the vaṇikas were the
prominent category. This is indicated from the epigraphical scenario,
and mentioned by Ryosuke Furui. Furui has shown that the merchant
class reappeared in the inscriptions of Bengal and the adjoining areas
from the early 9th century onwards. This has been corroborated by
several epigraphs, one of them being the Indian Museum Copper Plate
charter of Dharmapāla, which indicates that members of the merchant
family chose the career of a sāmanta in the 8th century. It records a
royal donation of land plots petitioned by mahāsāmanta Bhadranāga,
the son of mahāsāmanta Uchchaganāga, whose great-grandfather
Balanāga was a sārthavāha. According to Furui, the military activity of
Bhadranāga facilitated this change from sārthavāha to mahāsāmanta.
Besides this, there are some short inscriptions on images and a stone
pillar datable to the period between the 9th and 12th centuries, which
indicate the presence of merchant groups in Eastern Bihar and Samataṭa.
According to Furui, they were less significant than their counterparts
in the 5th–6th century North Bengal. Importantly, these inscriptions
show the images donated by the vaṇikas. Another epigraph found from
Rajbhita in the Rangpur subdivision of Bangladesh, dating from the
reign of Mahīpāla I, throws light on the collective activities of merchant
groups in the 11th century North Bengal through an association called
vaṇiggrāma, constituted by all the merchants belonging to three rural
markets: Deśihaṭṭa, Gauḍahaṭṭa and Jayahaṭṭa. Furui has concluded
that the first was probably for the local merchants, the second for the
merchants of the neighbouring sub-region of Gauḍa and the third was
named after an individual, and has constituents different from the
others.27 The epigraphs of Bengal indicate the presence of vaṇiggrāma
in North Bengal (Puṇḍravardhana) in the 11th century and the vaṇikas
of Samataṭa in the 9th to 10th centuries. Should we situate the vaṇika
family (who were vaṇikas for four generations) against the backdrop of
interregional contact between Bengal and Odisha, or is it an isolated
example? References to this family from Varendrī show that there might
have been similar vaṇika families in North Bengal in the 9th to 10th
centuries. Furui also states that some sectors of merchant groups in

Bengal continued their mercantile activities as a hereditary occupation

in the mostly rural landscape and rural markets called haṭṭas. The
diminished presence of those merchant groups is suggested by the fact
that their donative activities were limited to the donations of images or
pillars, and nothing is found regarding their involvement in donations
and other transactions related to landed properties, as in the case of
their counterparts in the 5th and 6th century North Bengal.28 However,
some members of the vaṇiggrāma could have been related to towns
and, in this context, we can tell that Tribhuvanapura was probably an
unidentifiable urban area in Varendrī. Moreover, the vaṇika of Varendrī
got an entire village in Odisha from the king. Did his status improve
after coming to Odisha? Was he an ordinary trader? These answers
cannot be given, though migrations generally led to the shifting of
status, and the vaṇika developing royal connections cannot be regarded
as a petty trader. Roughly, the continuity of the trading class and vaṇikas
in North Bengal, their association with the urban area and the regional
interconnectivity and linkage in the 10th century are established by the
vaṇika from Tribhuvanapura.
A 7th century charter from Chhattisgarh mentions the grandson
of a vaṇika who was associated with a land-grant. The Mallar Plates
of Śūravala Udīrṇavaira gave away the village of Saṅgama (Tala in
Bilaspur) located in the Dakṣiṇa-rāṣṭra in Mekalā to Narasiṁha, son of
Boṭa and grandson of the merchant (vaṇik) Manoratha, who, with the
permission of the king, gave it away to the god Jayeśvara Bhaṭṭāraka.29
The grandfather of the donee and donor, who was a vaṇika, certainly
existed in the 6th to 7th centuries.
Puraśreṣṭhī/Puraśreṣṭha
The charters of the Adi Bhanjas mentioned puraśreṣṭhī as the town

trader or banker.30 According to B.P. Sahu, puraśreṣṭhīs might be
comparable with rājaśreṣṭhīs in status.31It might also be that they were
like the nagaraśreṣṭhī of the 5th to 6th century Bengal. A 7th century
charter found from the Koraput district of south Odisha refers to the
puraśreṣṭha as the official present, though his name is not given. The
same charter also mentions the name of Hari, the vaṇika-putra, as the
engraver. 32 The 10th century Deogaon Plate of Raṇabhañjadeva, found
from the Keonjhar district, refers to the puraśreṣṭhī Viṣṇudatta among
others who were present at the time of grant.33 The 10th century Kesari
Plate of Śatrubhañjadeva found in the Mayurbhanja district mentions
the puraśreṣṭhī Viṣṇudatta, who was present during the donation of a
village to a Brāhmaṇa hailing from Madhyadeśa.34 The Adipur Plates

of Durjayabhañja (10th–11th centuries) mentions the puraśreṣṭhī

Ddhuvaha.35 The puraśreṣṭhī never wrote or engraved any charter,
though other śreṣṭhīns (in plural) actually did. They occupied a higher
position as bankers.
Śreṣṭhīs as Writers
There is evidence of śreṣṭhīns who wrote charters, but did not engrave
them. The Andhavaram Copper Plate charter of Indravarman from the
7th century, found from Srikakulam in Andhra, was written by a śreṣṭha
named Prabhākara.36 The phrase goes: likhitaṁśreṣṭhaṁ Prabhākarena
(ṇa) śāsanaṁ (nam).37 The 10th century Kudopali Plates from the
time of Mahābhavagupta Bhīmaratha of the Somavaṁśī dynasty, year
13, found from Sambalpur district, mentions Pūrṇṇdatta, son of the
śreṣṭhī Kiraṇa, an inhabitant of Leṇapura, as the writer of the grant.38
The phrase goes: Lênapura-śreṣṭhī-śrī-Kiraṇa-suta-[Pû]rṇṇadat[ê]
naidamtâmvraṁyalikhitaṁ.39 In Odisha, the act of writing on charters
was probably honorable and, therefore, undertaken by the śreṣṭhīs.
The Śreṣṭhī as Sāmanta, Kāṁsakāra and Engraver
The 9th century charter of the Gaṅgas of Śvetaka (Chikiti) also recorded
the names of the śreṣṭhīs. The Ganjam Plates of Pṛthivīvarmadeva were
engraved (utkīrṇṇaṁ) by śrī-sāmanta Svayambhū, the kāṁsārin. But
it was lāñchhitaṁ (registered or fixed with seal) by Śrī Mahādevī.40
The Indian Museum Plates of Indravarman record Svayambhū as
an engraver (utkīrṇṇaṁ). He was the son of Napa, and described as
kāṁsakāra, śreṣṭhī and śrī-sāmanta. It was registered by Gosvaminī.41
The Badakhemundi (also known as Sanakhemundi) Plates of
Indravarman mention as their engraver (utkīrṇa) Svayambhū, the
son of Napa, a kāṁsara-kula-putra, śreṣṭhī and śrī-sāmanta. But it was
registered/sealed by Paramavaiṣṇava Gosvaminī Mahādevī.42 Subrata
Kumar Acharya considers her as an executor, but the exact terminology
for executor is dūtaka, which is also present in the Odishan context.
These charters probably dated to the 9th century. We do not know
why the Ganjam Plates termed Svayambhūasa śreṣṭhī. It denoted the
change of status. Puraśreṣṭhī’s status was probably higher than that of
the sāmanta and the śreṣṭhī.
Yet, not all of the kāṁsakāras were śreṣṭhīs. The engraver
Vimalachandra was described only as kāṁsara-kula-putra,43 Devapila
was only mentioned as a kāṁsakāraka in a charter found from Ganjam44

and the engraver Gogati was mentioned as a sāmanta. Here, the term
lāñchhita has been taken as the fixing of royal seal.45 It is also interesting
to note that, later in the 13th to 14th centuries, we do not find any
evidence of the kāṁsakāras taking the title of śreṣṭhī.
Links between the Śreṣṭhī and the Sādhu
A 12th century Mārkaṇḍeśara temple epigraph during the reign of

Choḍagaṅga indicates the merchants’ involvement in the activities of
the temple. The sadhu Bhīmadeva of Nirola-grāma (on the bank of the
river Baḍanadī in the Ganjam district) received gold for the maintenance
of a perpetual lamp (dīpa-suvarṇam or dīpārthamsuvarṇam) with
an image to be burnt before the god Mārkaṇḍeśara. His son Nāna
shifted the responsibility to Jīvanta-śreṣṭa (śreṣṭhīn) who accepted the
gold (dvīpa-sunā) after the termination of the previous endowment
for the supply of oil for a perpetual lamp.46 The designation sadhu
recalls the term sādhu-prajā, implying the sea-going merchants
(sādhuprajālōkānpramukhīkṛtya).47 Odisha’s cultural contact with
different countries since ancient times, combined with remnants of this
contact still surviving in rituals and festivals of Odisha, suggests that it
does not figure in epigraphs. The śreṣṭa was also probably rich enough.
One of the votive inscriptions (possibly from the 12th century) found
from Lingaraj Temple attests the grant of perpetual lamps by Medama
Devi and her parents for the pleasure of Kṛttivāseśvara (Śiva). For the
maintenance of these grants, a village was donated after purchase by a
śreṣṭhīn.48 This person was also undoubtedly rich.
Evidence of Social Mobility: From Mālākāra to Mālākāra Śreṣṭhīn

in the Urban Landscape of Puri
The association with temples raised people within a particular

community to a higher position and ensured their prosperity.
Jayarāja, for instance, appears in three different inscriptions found
from the Nrishimha Temple located within the Jagannatha Temple
complex at Puri. In the 12th century ce, a donor gave some niṣkas
for the deities Puruṣottama, Balabhadra and Subhadrā and entrusted
the florist or mālaākāra Jayarāja with the duty of supplying garlands
to the said deities.49 Another inscription of Śaka Year 1053 refers to
another donation of 100 gold coins, made to the temple by Srīkaraṇa
Bhīmanātha from Arasavalli (of Srikakulam), which was entrusted to
the kāmpus (cultivators) headed by Jayarāja.50 Again, another 12th-

century inscription shows that, during the rule of Kāmārṇava, three

māḍas of gold and thirty-two māṇas of land in the village of Madhupura
were given away for the maintenance of a perpetual lamp in favour
of the deity Puruṣottama by Surapota and his wife. This gift was also
entrusted to Jayarāja, who then became a mālākāra-śreṣṭhīn.51 In the first
inscription, Jayarāja seems to be only a florist and supplier of garlands.
In the second epigraph, he takes the leadership of the whole kāmpu
community. In the third inscription, he is not an ordinary florist or
mālākāra anymore, but a rich flower-merchant (mālākāra-śreṣṭhīn), if
not a financier who was supervising the gift. Therefore, our assumption
is that Jayarāja gradually improved his position to assume the headship
of the whole cultivating class and emerged as a big merchant. Yet, it is
also very interesting to note that the mālākāras were not known to have
taken the title śreṣṭhī in the later epigraphs.
Śreṣṭhīs Attached to the Haṭṭas
Scholars have noticed that some occupational groups were associated

with the rural market centres or haṭṭas in the 13th–14th centuries
Odisha. I will only discuss the cases of the śreṣṭhīs to show some
features. The Alapur Plates of Narasiṁhadeva II (dated Śaka 1215)
found from Puri district record the donations of village and plot in
Kalamvora viṣaya, Sāilo viṣaya and Saivīra viṣaya to the koṣādhyakṣa
Halāyūdha. The rent-paying subjects attached to the gift land were:
Mādhi śreṣṭhīn (grandson of Bhrati śreṣṭhīn) the potter of Yaitrapaḍā
haṭṭa, Pārakha śreṣṭhīn (son of Jāguli śreṣṭhīn) the tailika or oilman
of Voiroā-gopāpa, Dharmmu śreṣṭhīn (grandson of Kukāmāchaṇḍā)
a relation (kuṭumvīya) of the tailika Gabhu-rāṇā of Uthali.52 The
Kendupatana (Set I) Plates of Narasiṁhadeva II (dated Śaka 1217)
record that the rent-paying subjects attached to the śāsana were:
Unārī śreṣṭhīn, the son of Purāi śreṣṭhīn and grandson of komaṭi
Maṅku śreṣṭhīka who belonged to Dakṣiṇa Jhāḍakhaṇḍa.53 The
Kendupatana (Set II) Plates of Narasiṁhadeva II (dated Śaka 1217)
record the names of sapta-prajā: Keso śreṣṭhīn, an inhabitant of
the Komaṭi-Chchhaṅgulā, belonging to the Jayanagara haṭṭa; the
Kendupatana (Set III) Plates of Narasiṁhadeva II (dated Śaka 1218)
record Kālo śreṣṭhīn, the grandson of Dradāi śreṣṭhīn, a gopāpatailika
of the Vaḍatāladaṇḍā, and Devāi śreṣṭhīn who was the grandson of
the potter (kumbhakāra) Jayadeva śreṣṭhīn of the Saṭha-grāma-nava-
haṭṭa.54 The gift-villages were situated close to the Suvarṇarekhā
nadī/Suvarṇa nadī mentioned twice in the inscription.55 The Puri
Plates of Bhānudeva II (dated Śaka 1234) record the names of Jāgulī

śreṣṭhīn, a telin or oilman of Adhañcha-Okhalā, Kara śreṣṭhīn (son of

Dasuśreṣṭhīn), a telin of Pañcheśata Okhalā and Nārāyaṇa śreṣṭhīn, a
kumbhakāra of Kusupiḍā-haṭṭa.56 The Kaijang Plates of Bhānudeva
III (dated Śaka 1284) record the rent-paying subjects attached to
the śāsana, one of whom was Vāṇasaraśreṣṭhī, a kumbhakāra from
Tentali-maṇḍī-haṭṭa. The last mentioned person was the grandson
of Dāśī śreṣṭhī. The boundary villages were: Pitāpaḍā, Emaṇī grāma,
Tulasī grāma, Kesarīpura grāma and Tayoraḍā grāma.57
Śreṣṭhīs as Kumbhakāras and Telin/Tailikas
These inscriptions strikingly indicate that the śreṣṭhīs of the 13th

to 14th centuries in Odisha, or the persons who used the suffix
śreṣṭhī in Odisha during that period, were oilmen and potters. Does
this imply that, during this time, the suffix śreṣṭhī was found only
among these groups? Is it a mere coincidence, or did the śreṣṭhīs of
Odisha actually deal in these specific commodities during the 14th
century? No goldsmith, betel-leaf dealer, weaver or blacksmith was
found to be a śreṣṭhī, and nor were the mālākāras or kāṁsakāras,
who were actually promoted to the rank of śreṣṭhīs earlier. The
Srikakulam-Vishakhapatnam territories of Andhra, which had
the closest link with Odisha, had an organisation of oilmen who
enjoyed a prominent status. It is not known whether a portion of
oilmen śreṣṭhīs enjoyed social prominence in Odisha. However, the
oilmen and potters acting as rent-paying subjects could in no way
be regarded as rich financiers or bankers. We cannot even compare
them to the earlier śreṣṭhīs, who were writers of charters or probably
acted as royal engravers.
The Problem of Komaṭi Śreṣṭhīs from Andhra
This chapter will now discuss the two śreṣṭhīs—one the grandson of
komaṭi in the Kendupatana (Set I) Plates of Narasiṁhadeva II (dated
Śaka 1217) and, the other, an inhabitant of the Komaṭi-Chchhaṅgulā
in Kendupatana (Set II) Plates of the same king (dated Śaka 1217)
mentioned earlier. Importantly, we do not know the specific articles
they dealt in. Komaṭis were a prominent trading group from Andhra.
In the later period, komaṭis are known from the Lakṣmi Narasiṁha
Temple of Simhachalam in Vishakhapatnam: Lakuma, as suppliers
of garlands (Śaka Year 1300),58 Mādhava nāyaka as suppliers of
garlands (Śaka Year 1307),59 seṭṭi of Oḍḍādi as the donors of water

pitchers (Śaka Year 1327),60 seṭṭi of Siṃhagiri as donors of perpetual

lamps (Śaka Year 1335),61 Īśvara veharā, son of Māṅki seṭṭi and
grandson of komaṭi Valli seṭṭi of Nandapura, as the donors of lamps,
cash and cows (Śaka Year 1338),62 seṭṭi of Jantarunāṃṭi (Yantarnāḍu)
as the donors of lamps and cows (Śaka Year 1340),63 seṭṭi of Poṭnūri
Pāṭanā as the donors of lamps, cows and cash to the cowherd
(Śaka Year 1342),64 kumuti as sellers of plantains and mentions of
kumuṭisāhi (residence of the kumuṭis).65 Here, the komatis appeared
to be well-to-do persons. Komaṭi-Chchhaṅgulā in Kendupatana in
Odisha was also probably the dwelling place of affluent komatis, and
their concentration in one place probably suggests their unity and
predominance; there might have been a certain kind of seclusion
due to language and culture. What is interesting is that the area of
Srikakulam—which is between Vishakhapatnam and Odisha—did
not yield any evidence of a komaṭi. This suggests that rather than a
gradual spread to each corner of Odisha, the community migrated
from their original territory in Andhra. The dates of the epigraphs
too suggest that the komaṭis were active in the last decade of the 13th
century (1292 ce) in Odisha, where they probably inhabited specific
pockets around Kendupatna. On the other hand, the komaṭis of
Vishakhapatnam territories begin to figure nearly eighty years
later. Thus, the komaṭi śreṣṭhīs of Odisha might have come from the
large urban areas of Oḍḍādi, Siṃhagiri, Nandapura, Jantarunāṃṭi
(Yantarnāḍu) or Poṭnūri Pāṭanā in Vishakhapatnam, but there is
also the possibility that they came from the Telengana area through
Chhattisgarh. However, komaṭis were not the only Telugu-speaking
people who were present in Odisha. Puri has yielded several
inscriptions in Telugu in the 12th–13th centuries.66
What is very interesting is that, in the 1921 Madras Presidency
documentation of the distribution of castes, the komatis were present
in Ganjam district.67 Some scholars have taken the presence of Kaliṅga
komatis in the villages of Vijaynagar and Bobbili as proof of the
immigration of people of Oriya origin into the north coastal Andhra
villages.68 The matter is debatable. However, the 14th century inscriptions
from Odisha first give us the evidence of the presence of komaṭi śreṣṭhīs.
It is also notable that, apart from ‘śreṣṭhī’, the komaṭis are not known to
have taken any other title in Odisha.
Did the komatis not deal in specific commodities? Did they not like
to be addressed as oilmen or potters? Were they not yet placed in a rank
in Odishan society, which was itself in a state of fluidity? Was the status
they enjoyed in Telangana or Vishakhapatnam higher than what they
were assigned later in Odisha? Did the komati śreṣṭhīs of Odisha enjoy

higher status than the śreṣṭhīs who were not komatis? These questions
require further research.
Sāṃtāla/Sāntāla Gotra: Mentions of the Śreṣṭhī and the Seṭṭi
Though not concerning the geographical boundary of present

Odisha, three inscriptions, one from Srikakulam and two from
Vishakhapatnam, shed light on the implication of the terms śreṣṭhī and
seṭṭi. They show that, in several cases, there was no distinction between
śreṣṭhī and seṭṭi in the eyes of people and in the epigraphic culture. In
the Śrīkūrmam inscription, Śaka Year 1178, a certain Vaḍḍi śreṣṭhī,
the son of Vayyana śreṣṭhī of Sāntāla gotra is mentioned.69 Another is
mentioned in the Simhachalam Temple Inscription of Śaka Year 1192
as Vayyana seṭṭi of the Sāṃtāla gotra, and son of Āku seṭṭi.70 Another of
Śaka Year 1330 mentions Siṅgama seṭṭi, son of Ovala seṭṭi of Oḍḍādi,
belonging to Sāntāla gotra.71 The reference to the same gotra and yet
two different words (śreṣṭhī and seṭṭi) indicates that there was probably
no difference between the two. Śrīkūrmam in the Srikakulam area was
the northernmost point of the eastern coast of India in the 13th century
where a śreṣṭhī could also be called a seṭṭi. To its north, the designation
was always śreṣṭhī.
Vaṇikas and Śreṣṭhīs in Andhra
It has been observed that, compared to coastal Odisha, the Godavari–

Krishna deltaic zone and adjacent areas have yielded richer materials
for trading activities, including the ship-type coins in the lower Krishna
valley and the epigraphic references to nāvika (sailor) and mahānāvika
(master mariner) from Guntupalli and Ghantasala among others.72 Sahu
has also noticed that, except the reference to Kamala vanavaṇiksthāna,
there is no reference to the merchants of higher ranks like mahānāvika,
mahāsārthavāha, paṭṭanasvāmī or seṭṭipaṭṭanasvāmī in Odisha as there
are in Andhra, or their equivalents elsewhere.73
Coastal Andhra maintained the original connotation of the term
śreṣṭhī and vaṇika till the 10th century ce, and the term vaṇika was nearly
absent here except in an instance where a very rich seṭṭi was referred to
as the son of a vaṇiyu. The inscription concerned is the 9th-century
Ahadanakaram Plate, issued during the time of the Eastern Chālukyan
king Viṣṇuvardhana V (847–848 ce), alias Kali Viṣṇuvardhana. This
plate mentions Gajn͂ abu seṭhi, who was the son of a vaniyu (vaṇika)
or ordinary trader of Achchhakur̤ r̤ a (in southernmost Andhra or

Tamil territory). He was the only seṭhi mentioned in the grant, which
refers to a number of mahānāvikas and mahāsārthavāhas. Gajn͂ abu’s
agents were present among the administrators of Reṇḍuvāḍalapaṭṭana
as well as among the ūri-svāmuḷ of Prithivīpallavapaṭṭana (one
mahāsārthavāha),74 both of which were probably fluvial ports. In the
10th century ce, Polayana (introduced as vaiśyeśvara and seṭṭi), the son
of Kundeya (who was vaiśyādhīpa and śreṣṭhī) and grandson of Divākara
(a mahāsārthavāha of Oreyūr), received from the eastern Chālukyan
king the tax-free gift of the village Kākumrānu in the Oṁgêru-mārga
viṣaya (in Bapatla of Guntur). Polayana also built a Śiva temple called
Chālukya Bhīmeśvaraat Prayāga.75 Though he was a seṭṭi, he undertook
long journeys like the sārthavāhas from Uraiyur in Tamil territory to
Prayāga on the bank of the Ganges. The Eastern Chālukyan king Amma
II, while donating a village in Guntur to the Jain temples in the 10th
century, addressed śreṣṭhīn among the other officials.76 He addressed
one particular financier whose name is not given, but was one of his
sāmantas.
In the interior Rayalseema territory, the 7th-century Dimmaguḍi
stone inscription of Vikramāditya, the king of the Chālukyas of Bādami,
refers to Agusēṭi, who was associated with a donation in Anantapur.77
The name of Śrī Vabila Chandeya seṭṭi is inscribed on a hero-stone near
a Śiva temple in Devapatla of Rayachoti taluka of Cuddappah region.78
We do not know whether their status was similar to the sreṣṭhī/seṭṭi of
coastal Andhra.
In Telangana, the śreṣṭhīs were prominent. In the 10th century
Vēmulavāḍa of the Karimnagar region, there are references to nava-
śreṣṭhīnaḥ (nine śreṣṭhīs) and Chandra śreṣṭhī who witnessed a grant
to a Sun temple (Āditya-gṛha) given by Arikēsari II, the Chālukya
king of Vēmulavāḍa.79 We do not know if the status of Chandra
śreṣṭhī was higher than the rest because he was the only śreṣṭhī whose
name is given. Does this point to a hierarchy even within the ranks of
śreṣṭhīs or was Chandra śreṣṭhī the leader of the community? Ranking
within the śreṣṭhī community also appears to have been prevalent in
Odisha.
After the 10th century, seṭṭi denoted rich and petty merchants alike
in the same place. The names of the members of the organisations of
traders as well as the names of individual traders started to be suffixed
by seṭṭi. The term vaṇika and its equivalent is very rare. On the other
hand, the northern Andhra or earlier Kaliṅga territory, which came
under the rule of the Odishan kings, also yielded a number of epigraphs
which show the donations of land, cash and articles by the persons with
the names suffixed by seṭṭi, and some of the seṭṭis received villages too.
This requires a separate study. Overall, the matter of prestige attached to

the denomination seṭṭi probably encouraged traders to take this name

suffix towards the latter part of the early medieval period. It is also not
improbable that seṭṭi had already started to be used as a generic term
for trader.
Conclusion
According to B.P. Sahu, denying caste hierarchies does not necessarily

negate the social order or hierarchies themselves.80 He has also noticed
that castes and stratified societies have historically evolved across
localities and regions, and that they have a regional specificity.81 The
period under study indicated the slow emergence of a stratified society,
but the stratification was not rigid at all. We do not know to what extent
the interplay of lineage, family and occupations contributed to the
evolution of social order and the relative role of each of these factors in
shaping and reshaping this order. In the Odishan context, even within
the class of potters or oilmen, people entered from different regions.
Vaṇikas gradually disappeared from the scene, though we find terms
like vipaṇi-vaṇika in one inscription. The prestige originally attached to
the designation śreṣṭhī probably inspired the merchants to be addressed
as such.
If the term vaṇika was common in Bengal, Bihar, Odisha and
Chhattisgarh, the term śreṣṭhī/seṭṭi was familiar in Odisha and Andhra.
The Odishan situation from the 6th to the 14th centuries show that
neither the vaṇikas nor the śreṣṭhīs were a homogenous group. Some
vaṇikas were not ordinary, while not all śreṣṭhīs were very rich. The
order in each of these categories were ever-evolving due to the practices
followed by respective dynasties, geographical specificity, the entry of
new communities, the emergence of temple urbanism and other factors.
Therefore, in a region like Odisha, vaṇika and śreṣṭhī cannot be treated
as polar opposites.
Notes
1 Chakravarti, Ranabir. 2002. Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society. New
Delhi: Manohar, p. 24.
2 Chakravarti, Ranabir. 1995. ‘Merchants and Other Donors in Ancient
Bandhogarh’. South Asian Studies, Volume 11; Ranabir Chakravarti has
noted that the negama and vāṇijaka, who were the major donors at ancient
Bandhogarh, did enjoy the prosperity and prestige generally associated
with a gahapati and a seṭṭi.

3 Chakravarti, Ranabir. Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society, 80.

4 Chakravarti, Ranabir. 2001. Trade in Early India. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, p. 51; He has pointed out the non-mention of seṭṭhis in
Aṣṭādhyayī and the usage of the generic term vaṇij to denote a merchant.
According to Chakravarti, this is because the Pāṇini’s native land around
Sialkot in north-west probably did not witness the emergence of the
millionaire merchant comparable to the seṭṭhis of the middle Gaṅga valley.
Yet, he has observed that different types of vaṇij have been mentioned by
Pāṇini: go-vaṇija, aśvavaṇija, Gāndhārīvaṇija and Madravaṇija.
5 Chakravarti, Ranabir. 1998. ‘Coastal Trade and Voyages in Konkan: The
Early Medieval Scenario’. The Indian Economic and Social History Review,
35(2): 117–120.
6 Chakravarti, Ranabir. 2002. Rājaśreṣṭhī, op. cit., pp. 102–112.
7 Sahu, Bhairabi Prasad. 2019. ‘Trade and Traders: An Exploration into
Trading Communities and Their Activities in Early Medieval Odisha’.
Studies in People’s History, 6(2): 138–139.
8 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. 2014. ‘Khillingar Plates of Kalyāṇadevī of the
Time of Rāṇaka Dānārṇava’. Copper-Plate Inscriptions of Odisha—A
Descriptive Catalogue (Circa Fourth Century to Sixteenth Century ce). New
Delhi: DK Printworld, no. 5: 164–166.
9 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Dhenkanal Plate of Jayastambha’, no. 4: 374–375.
10 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Baud Undated Plates of Raṇabhañjadeva’, no.
23: 317–318.
11 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Deulapedialso Known As Jurada) Plates of
Neṭṭabhañjadeva’, no. 2: 345–346.
12 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Antirigram Plates of Jayabhañjadeva’, Year 3, no.
6: 350–352.
13 Sahu, Bhairabi Prasad. 2013. ‘Varṇa, Jāti and the Shaping of Early Oriya
Society’. In The Changing Gaze Regions and the Constructions of Early
India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 69–70.
14 Subrata Kumar Acharya. ‘Kankala (Also Known As Phulbani) Plates of
Raṇabhañjadeva’, Year 28, op. cit., Vol. 15: 308–309.
15 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Sonepur Plates of Śatrubhañjadeva’, Vol. 4:
294–296; ‘Binka (also known as Tasapaikera) Plates of Raṇabhañjadeva’,
Year 16, 302–303; ‘Patna Museum Plates of Raṇabhañjadeva, Year 22(?)’,
no. 11: 304–305; ‘Chakradharpur (also known as Dasapalla) Plates of
Raṇabhañjadeva’, Year 24, no. 12: 305–306; ‘Baud (also known as Jagati)
Plates of Raṇabhañjadeva’, Year 26, no. 14: 307–308.
16 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Harekrishnapur (also known as Phulbani) Plates
of Raṇabhañjadeva’, Year 50, no. 17: 310–311.
17 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Aida (also known as Odisha State Museum)
Plates of Raṇabhañjadeva’, Year 50, no. 18: 311–312.
18 For a discussion on akṣaśālin, see Jhanjh, Dev Kumar. 2017. Akṣaśālika,
Akṣaśālin and Suvarṇakāra As The Engravers Of Copper Plate Charters
Of Odisha (c. 7th–11th Centuries ce), Proceedings of the Indian History
Congress Seventy Eighth Session, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. New Delhi:
Indian History Congress, pp. 117–126.

19 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Utkal University Plates of Raṇabhañjadeva’, Year

10, op. cit., no. 8, 301.
20 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Badhigram Plates (B) of Śatrubhañja’, Year 14,
no. 2: 292–293; ‘Odisha State Museum of Śilābhañjadeva’, Year 11, no.
5: 296–297; ‘Tatarkela Plates of Śilābhañjadeva’, Year 19, no. 6: 297–299;
‘Badarahajor Plate of Raṇabhañjadeva’, year 7, no. 7: 299–301.
21 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Tatarkela Plates of Śilābhañjadeva’, Year 19, no.
6: 297–299.
22 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Sonepur (also known as Singhara) Plates of
Raṇabhañjadeva’, Year 50, no. 19: 312–313.
23 Sahu, Bhairabi Prasad. 2019. op. cit., 139.
24 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Badarahajor Plates of Raṇabhañjadeva’, Year 7,
op. cit., no. 7: 299–301.
25 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Odisha State Museum Plates of Neṭṭabhañjadeva-
Pṛthvīkalasa’, no. 38: 334–335.
26 Tripathy, Snigdha. 2010. ‘Orissa Museum Copper Plate Charter of
Neṭṭabhañjadeva’, In Descriptive Topographical Catalogue of Orissan
Inscriptions. New Delhi: Manohar.
27 Furui, Ryosuke. 2013. ‘Merchant Groups of Early Medieval Bengal:
With Special Reference to the Rajbhita Stone Inscription of the Time of
Mahīpāla I’, Year 33. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies,
vol. 76(03): 391–412.
28 Ibid., pp. 402–403.
29 Mitra Shastri, Ajay. 1995. ‘The Mallar Plates of ŚūravalaUdīrṇavaira’, year
8. Inscriptions Of The Śarabhapurīyas, Pāṇḍuvaṁśins and Somavaṁśins,
Part II, Inscriptions. New Delhi: Indian Council of Historical Research;
and New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 80–85.
30 Sahu, Bhairabi Prasad. 2013. op. cit., p. 68.
31 Sahu, Bhairabi Prasad. 2019. op. cit., pp. 143–144.
32 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Khillingar Plates of Kalyāṇadevī of the Time of
Rāṇaka Dānārṇava’, op. cit., no. 5: 164–166.
33 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Deogaon Plate of Raṇabhañjadeva’, no. 11,
362–363.
34 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Kesari Plates of Śatrubhañjadeva’, no. 12, 363–
364.
35 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Adipur Plate of Durjayabhañja’, no. 16, 367–368.
36 Tripathy, Snigdha. 2010. ‘Andhavaram Copper Plate Charter of
Indravarman’, Year 133. Descriptive Topographical Catalogue of Orissan
Inscriptions. New Delhi: Manohar, New Delhi, no. 24, 618–619.
37 Subrahmanyam, S. 1987. ‘Andhavaram Plates of Indravarman’. EI XXX
1953–54: 37–42.
38 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Kudopali Plates of the Time of Mahābhavagupta
Bhīmaratha’, Year 13, op. cit., no. 30: 264–265.
39 Kielhorn, F. 1979. ‘Kudopali Plates of the Time of Mahâ-Bhavagupta II’. EI
IV 1896–97: 254–259.
40 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Ganjam Plates of Pṛthivīvarmadeva’, op. cit.,
no. 15: 186–187.

41 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Indian Museum Plates of Indravarman’, no. 16:

187–188.
42 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Badakhemundi (also known as Sanakhemundi)
Plates of Indravarman’, no. 17: 188–189.
43 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Badakhemundi Plates (C) of Bhūpendravarman’,
Year 13, no. 14: 185–186.
44 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Bhismagiri (also known as Madras Museum)
Plates of Indravarman’, no. 12: 183–184.
45 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Ganjam Plates of Jayavarman of the time of
Unmattakeśarī’, Year 13, no. 10: 180–182.
46 Sircar, D.C. 1987. ‘Puri Inscription of Chodaganga’. EI XXXIII (1959–60):
181–185.
47 Sircar, D.C. 1987. ‘Algum Inscription of Anantavarman: Regnal Year 62’. EI
XXIX (1951–52): 44–48.
49 Tripathy, Snigdha. ‘Nṛsiṃha Temple Inscription’, op. cit., no. 23: 409.
50 Tripathy, Snigdha. ‘Nṛsiṃha Temple Inscription’, Śaka 1053, no. 25: 410.
51 Tripathy, Snigdha. ‘Nṛsiṃha Temple Inscription of the Time of
Kāmārṇava’, Year 5, no. 38: 417.
52 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Alapur Plates of Narasiṁhadeva II’, Ś. 1215 no.
46, op. cit: 484–488.
53 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Kendupatana (Set I) Plates of Narasiṁhadeva
II’, Ś. 1217 and ‘Aṅka 21’, no. 47: 488–491.
54 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Kendupatana (Set III) Plates of Narasiṁhadeva
II’, Ś. 1218, no. 49: 493–495.
55 Tripathy, Snigdha. ‘Kendupatna Copper Plate Charter of Narasiṁhadeva
II’, Śaka Year 1218 (Set C), op. cit., no. 3: 276–278.
56 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Puri (also known as Punjabi Matha) Plates of
Bhānudeva II’, Ś. 1234, op. cit., no. 51: 498–501.
57 Acharya, Subrata Kumar. ‘Kaijang Plates of Bhānudeva III’, Ś. 1284, no. 52:
501–502.
58 Tripathy, Snigdha. ‘Lakṣmī-Narasiṃha Temple Inscription’, Śaka Year
1300, op. cit., no. 254: 1019–1020.
1307, no. 295: 1103.
1327, no. 399: 1103.
1327, no. 412: 1110.
1327, no. 431: 1121.
1340, no. 441: 1127–1128.
1342, no. 446: 1130–1131.
65 Tripathy, Snigdha. ‘Lakṣmī-Narasiṃha Temple Inscription of the Time of
Kapileśvaradeva’, Year 38 (?), no. 488: 1155–1156.

66 Nayak, Sabarni Pramanik. 2017. ‘Puri: A Journey Through Temple

Inscriptions (12th–15th Centuries ce)’. Pratnatattva, Journal of the Dept.
of Archaeology Jahangirnagar University, vol. 23: 3.
67 Srinivasulu, K. 2002. Caste, Class and Social Articulation in Andhra
Pradesh: Mapping Differential Regional Trajectories, Working Paper 179.
London: Overseas Development Institute, p. 5.
68 Alpana Pandey. 2015. Medieval Andhra: A Socio-Historical Perspective.
India: Partridge Publishing.
69 Tripathy, Snigdha. ‘Śrīkūrmam Inscription’, Śaka Year 1178, op. cit., no.
217: 795–796.
1192, no. 77: 914.
1330, no. 405: 1106.
73 Ibid., pp. 143–144.
74 Murthy, K.V. Rameshand, and S.S. Ramachandra Murthy. 2008. ‘The
Ahadanakaram Plates: A Critical Study’. Studies in Indian Epigraphy, JESI:
124–132.
75 Sastry, P.V. Parabrahma. 1974. ‘The Kakumranu Grant of Chalukya Bhima
I’. Epigraphia Andhrica, Vol. III: 16–28.
76 Krishnarao, B.V. 1984. ‘Masulipatnam Plates of Ammaraja II’. EI XXIV
1937–38: 268–278.
77 Padigar, Shrinivas V. 2010. ‘Dimmaguḍi Stone Inscription of Vikramāditya
I’. Inscriptions of the Calukyas of Bādāmi (c 543–757 AD). Bangalore:
Indian Council of Historical Research, no. 55: 97.
78 Parabrahma Sastry, P.V. 1977. ‘Devapatla-1 Inscription’. Inscriptions of
Andhra Pradesh, Cuddappah District, no. 77: 82–83.
79 Suryanarayana, Kolleru. 1993. Inscriptions of The Minor Chalukyan
Dynasties of Andhra Pradesh. New Delhi: Mittal Publications, pp. 10–14.
80 Sahu, Bhairabi Prasad. 2013. op. cit., 61.
81 Ibid., p. 62.

3
NAGARAM AND AINŪṞṞUVAR: A

RECONSIDERATION OF THEIR RELATIONS
Y. Subbarayalu
The structure and functioning of the nagaram and the Ainūṟṟuvar1

itinerant trade organisation in medieval South India have been
discussed in various contexts by scholars using mainly Kannada and
Tamil inscriptions.2 It is, however, the special study of Kenneth R. Hall
(1980) on the nagaram that has initiated fresh debates on the nature
of its relations to the Ainūṟṟuvar organisation.3 In his view, there was
at least one nagaram in each nāḍu (micro region) of the Chola period,
acting as the marketing centre of the respective nāḍu, besides being a
local administrative (tax-collecting) agency of the Chola government.
From 11th century onwards, when the itinerant merchant guild called
Ainūṟṟuvar became active, the nagarams acted as the meeting point
for the traders of that guild with the local merchants. He stressed that
the key to a nagaram’s administrative position was its ability to link
surrounding villages in a nāḍu into a community of exchange in which
the nagaram dominated its own sphere of interest, that is, commercial
exchange.4 He thought that a nagaram was a designated centre of
exchange where itinerant and local commercial networks intersected.
And he emphasised his view, without any supporting evidence, that
there existed an inherent hostility between the itinerant merchants
and the local communities and hence the itinerant merchants were
permitted to deal with the local merchants only at the designated
centres and were not to deal directly with the rural producers.5
In spite of some disputable points in his propositions, he has
highlighted the importance of nagaram for the study of the trade and
economy of the medieval times.6 The name nagaram (or nakaram) is
found from the 8th century onwards in South Indian inscriptions to
denote a commercial place but it was confined in the early stages to
a few political centres like Aihoḷe (in Karnataka), Kāñchipuram and
Māmallapuram (Tamil Nadu). It becomes more conspicuous during the
next two centuries and nearly fifteen of the known nagaram centres in
the central parts of the Chola territory (comprising Chōḻa-maṇḍalam
51

and Naḍuvil-nāḍu) are already known to inscriptions by 1000 ce.

During the imperial phase of the Chola state (985–1100), the number
increased to about fifty. By the end of the Chola rule, the total number
was about ninety-five, spread over some two hundred and fifteen
nāḍus.7 Most of the nagaram settlements are named after some king or
sometimes a queen.8 That means that, like in the case of the brahmadēya
settlements, they were mostly created by royal initiative one way or the
other. Their names are distinguished generally by their suffix puram
(Parāntaka-puram) and in some cases by the suffix paṭṭinam (or
paṭṭanam).9 Besides the nagarams, there were also commercial quarters
or streets, called aṅgāḍi in some big Brāhmaṇa villages.
The rise of nagarams is found to be a parallel process to the rise of the
two big states, the Chola in the Tamil country and the Raṣṭrakuṭa followed
by the Chalukya in the Kannada area. Interestingly, this is more or less
the time of the spread of the Ainūṟṟuvar organisation over the peninsular
India. The widespread activities of the Ainūṟṟuvar body are understood to
a great extent from the past studies.10 Though its exact origins are not yet
clear, it is usually traced to the town of Aihoḷe in Karnataka on the basis of
two late 8th century inscriptions and also from the frequent references to
Aihoḷe in the eulogy of the body.11 If so, there is no information relating
to the Ainūṟṟuvar for the subsequent hundred years, as the body surfaces
again only about 900 or a little later in inscriptions.12 From the wording
of the eulogy met with in some Tamil inscriptions of the 10th and 11th
centuries, it may be said it was originally composed in Kannada language
(with a mixture of Sanskrit) and was subsequently adopted in Tamil and
Telugu inscriptions. That would show that the concept of a supra-local
trade network or organisation must have taken shape in the Kannada
area only.13 During the early decades of the 10th century, information
relating to this body is seen in several inscriptions from widely separated
locations, even in the extreme south of Tamil Nadu (Map 3.1 and Table
3.1), indicating the vast spread of its activities within a century or so.14
It is possible to suggest that the increase of warfare between the states of
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and expansion of their political arenas might
have triggered the supra-local commercial activities.
It is interesting to note that there is some piece of evidence to say
that the settlements of Ainūṟṟuvar were encouraged by the rulers. An
inscription of the Chola king Parāntaka I dated 929 records that the
king gave some tax concession to the Vaḷañjiyar Ainūṟṟuvar, who had
settled newly in a commercial quarter of Tañjāvūr, the capital city.15
The form ‘Vaḷañjiyar Ainūṟṟuvar’16 is usually found in the early stage
instead of ‘Ayyāvoḷe Ainūṟṟuvar’. Some of the places where the early
Ainūṟṟuvar inscriptions are found to be already thriving nagarams like
Vālikaṇḍapuram in Tiruchirappalli district (Map 3.2). This nagaram

MAPS, SUBBARAYALU, chapter 3.pdf 1 14/04/23 10:28 AM
Map 3.1: Ainūṟṟuvar Centres in Tamil Area, c. 1000 ce

MAP 3.1: AINURRUVAR CENTRES IN TAMIL AREA, c. 1000 CE
0 40 80 160 Kilometers
(
! ainurruvar
#
* anjuvannam
Kāṇai
!
(
Pandalayini Kollam
#
* Vālikaṇḍapuram
(
!
Kāḷipaṭṭi Tirvēḷvikkuṭi
Nāgayanallūr(
! (Kōnērirājapuram
!
( !
! (
Veḷḷiyaṇai ( Lālguḍi
! (!
! (
(
! (
! (
! Tañjāvūr Nagapattinam
Mēlnaṅgavaram (
! #
*
Vēdāraṇyam
Muniyantai !
(
Mahotaiyarpattanam (
!
#
*
Tittandatanapuram
#
*
Kamudi
(
!
Kollam Karavantapuram Mantai

#
* (
! #
*
Irukkantuṟai
(
!
SOURCE: BY THE AUTHOR

Source: Author.
Table 3.1: Ainūṟṟuvar Centres Shown in Map 3.1

Site (modern) District Reference
Muniyantai Pudukkottai IPS, no. 61
Kamudi Ramnad ARE, 1975, no. 96
Tañjāvūr Tanjavur GKI, pp. 69–72
Kōnērirājapuram -do- SII, XIX, no. 280
Tirvēḷvikkuṭi -do- SII, XIX, no. 170, 459
Tiruviḍaimarutūr -do- SII, XIX, no. 4
Vēdāraṇyam -do- SII, XIX, no. 216
Kāḷipaṭṭi Tiruchirappalli Avanam, 11, p. 24
Veḷḷiyaṇai -do- Avanam, 11, p. 25
Mēlnaṅgavaram -do- Avanam, 10, pp. 16–17
Tiruveḷḷarai -do- Avanam, 20, p. 9
Lālguḍi -do- Varalaru, 26, p. 17
Srinivāsanallūr -do- SII, XIII, no. 26
Vālikaṇḍapuram -do- ARE, 1964–65, no. 308
Nāgayanallūr -do- Avanam, 12, p. 14
Karavantapuram Tirunelveli EI, XXIII, no. 43D
Irukkantuṟai Tuttukkudi Avanam, 28, p. 35
Kāṇai Viluppuram Avanam, 11, p. 21

13.2.pdf 1 14/04/23 12:09 PM
Map 3.2: Ainūṟṟuvar and Nagaram

MAP 3.2 AINURRUVAR Centres
AND NAGARAM CENTRES
Tirunāvalūr
#
Chōḻa-Uttama-Puram
Vālikaṇṭa-Puram #
#
!
H
Kāḷipaṭṭi Tirvēḷvikkuṭi
H
! Maṉṉuperum-Paḻuvūr ! H
Nāgayanallūr #
H
! TiruviḍaimarutūrKōnērirājapuram
Srinivāsanallūr Tiruveḷḷarai H
!
H
! H
! # ! H
Ara-Puram Paḻaiyāṟu
Mēlnaṅgavaram Lālguḍi # #
Āyirattaḷi
Veḷḷiyaṇai
H
! H #Allūr ##
! H
!
Nakar ##Tañjāvūr
#Karuntiṭṭaikkuṭi
H
! Nagapattinam
!
Koṭumpāḷūr
#
Vēdāraṇyam
Muniyantai
H
!
H
!
H
! Ainurruvar Sites
Tittandatanapuram # Nakaram Centres
0 20 40 80 Kilometers !
SOURCE: BY THE AUTHOR

Source: Author.
had more than one commercial group like the Sankarapāḍi (oil
merchants), Sēnaiyār (betel merchants?) and also Maṇigrāmam in the
9th and 10th centuries.17 There are also some cases of Brāhmaṇa villages
being centres of the Vaḷañjiyar. In this regard, an inscription, datable
to early 10th century, of the Brāhmaṇa village Tiruvēlvikkuḍi in East
Tañjavūr District, gives an important piece of information about the
vaḷañjiyar. It says that the vaḷañjiyar used to gather at the village and
disperse (periodically). Though the purpose is not mentioned, it must
have been only for commercial exchange. This inscription records a gift
made by them to the local temple.18
One of the problems that ensue from the work of Hall and other
studies is to ascertain the exact relation of the itinerant organisation,
Ainūṟṟuvar and the nagarams. Their interrelations may be clarified to a
great extent from the inscriptions of the Ainūṟṟuvar. Some of them are
quite long and detailed and refer to a number of the component bodies
in the eulogy portion. Those inscriptions fall into two broad categories:
for convenience, one may be called Eṟivīrapaṭṭinam (EVP for short)
and the other as Paṭṭanapaguti, from their contents.

Nagaram and Ainūṟṟuvar 55
The EVP inscriptions mostly belong to about a hundred years

between about 1050 and 1150. So far, they are known from twenty odd
places, including four from Sri Lanka. An analysis of those inscriptions
shows that they have almost same kind of information with some
local variations.19 In all of them, the designation Eṟivīrapaṭṭinam is
given to an old town to mark an extraordinary occasion of bravery.
That is to honour the brave act of some warriors or guards (vīrar)20
of the Ainūṟṟuvar body in saving the merchants or sometimes their
own comrades from the clutches of some enemies. The conferment of
the EVP designation entailed some special privileges to the particular
hero or heroes in the town. In some instances, these brave acts are
reported to have taken place in quite distant places from the particular
town. That would show that the guards were generally on the move,
accompanying the merchants wherever they went. But, at the same
time, it is clear that they were rooted in the local towns as indicated
by the privileges they enjoyed in some specified towns. Hall thought
that Eṟivīra-paṭṭinam were major hinterland emporia with which
the itinerant merchants developed special relationships. Further, he
asserted that the EVP assumed a commercial importance between the
nagaram, which were primarily centres for the exchange of goods of
local origin, and the paṭṭinam of the coast, which were clearly centres
for the exchange of foreign merchandise, a position which allowed the
EVP to participate in both realms of commercial exchange.21 Actually,
the available evidence is definite that EVP had no such special
commercial stance; it was like any other nagaram in that respect.22
Moreover, there is no clue in these inscriptions to differentiate the
local merchants from the itinerant merchants if the difference really
existed. In most of them, the signatories are found to be only their
guards, most of whom have some attributes or titles flaunting their
fighting skills.
The information available in the Paṭṭanapakuti inscriptions is more
useful in this regard. The term paṭṭanapakuti means a portion (pakuti)
of the paṭṭanam. It was made up of some voluntary levies on the
transacted merchandise contributed for a common religious charity.
These inscriptions are available in the Kannaḍa area from 11th century
onwards while in the Tamil area they are mostly met with in the 13th
century. Some of them are quite long, like the often-quoted Beḷagāmi
inscription in Kannada23 and the Pirānmalai inscription in Tamil.24
The Pirānmalai inscription, datable to early half of the 13th century,
has four sections: (1) a small eulogy of the Ainūṟṟuvar, (2) enumeration
of the names and locations of the component trading groups, (3) the
decision of the assembly fixing their voluntary contributions for a
temple charity, (4) and the signatories to the decision. The first section

starts with a short Sanskrit passage saying that it is a charter (śāsanam)

of Chitramēḻi and also of the Ainūṟṟuvar. In most inscriptions of the
13th century, it is a convention to associate the name of the Chitramēḻi
or the supra-local assembly of the agrarian groups, even though the
actual people who played the leading role on the particular occasions
were the merchants of the Ainūṟṟuvar body. The second section tells
that the merchants were carrying on their business according to the
code of their assembly (samaya dharma) in all the eighteen paṭṭinam,
thirty-two vēḷāpuram, sixty-four kaḍigai-tāvaḷam and they were
composed of Cheṭṭi, Cheṭṭi-vīraputtiran, Kavaṟai, chāmuṇḍēśvari, ōlai-
vāriyaṉ, the twelve paṇicheymakkaḷ.25 Then follows the statement:
(1) ‘We, the 18-vishayam of the entire world from the four directions;
and we, the Ainūṟṟuvar of the thousand directions who transact in
the longer and shorter routes (vaṭṭai); and we the Ainūṟṟuvar of the
thousand directions who deal in exports and imports; and we, the
Ainūṟṟuvar of the thousand directions who deal in rare or temporary
routes; and we, the Ainūṟṟuvar of the thousand directions who
transact in religious centres (aṟangaḷ tarangaḷ)’.26
(2) and we, the nagaram of Aruvi-mānagaram alias Kulasēkara-
paṭṭanam in Kēraḷachinga-vaḷanāḍu; [and eight more nagarams from
different nāḍus, namely, nagaram of Eṟimaḍai-nallūr Vaḍamaṭṭai,
Pudutteru alias Chēranārāyaṇa-puram, Koḍumbāḷūr, Tirukkōṭṭiyūr-
maṇiyambalam, Aḷakāpuram alias Cheḻiyanārāyaṇa-puram,
Sundarapāṇḍiya-puram, Aḷagai-mānagaram alias Jayangoṇḍachōḻa-
perunderu and Maṇḍalikan-gambīra-perunderu];
(3) and we, the nagarams of the twelve towns including
Jayangoṇḍachōḻa-puram;
(4) and we, of the nagarams of Karuvūr, Kaṇṇapuram, Paṭṭāli,
Talaiyūr, Irācharācha-puram, and Kīṟanūr, [all of us] decided as follows:
[Section 3]
‘As the temple of Mārgavakaitītta-mudaliyār at the foothills
of Tirukkoḍungunṟam (same as Pirānmalai, the find spot of the
inscription) in Tirumalai-nāḍu, with its tank, maṭha, etc., is under
the regular protection of the Eighteen Vishayam, all of us met in the
courtyard of this temple and decided unanimously this charity deed27
to last forever.’
The decision was to contribute some fixed levies on their merchandise

to the temple for meeting the expenses of daily services, renovation
works, maintenance of the maṭha, etc. The rates of the levies are given
for several articles. For example, in the case of salt, one kāsu on each
poti load of salt, half a kāsu on each pākkam load, half a kāsu on each

13.3.pdf 1 14/04/23 12:11 PM
Map 3.3: Nagaram Zones of Pirānmalai Inscription

#
#
* #*
*
0 30 60 120 Kilometers
#
* #
*
#
*
#
*
#
*
Pandalayini Kollam
! #
*
#
* #
*
G4 #
*
#
* *
#
* #
#
* #
*#*
Mukuntanūr #
*
# #
* #
*
Paṭṭāli #
*
# #
*# #
*
#
* *
Kaṇṇapuram Karuvūr G2 #
*
G3 # # #
*
#
*
#
* #
* #
*
#
*
#
* ###
***
#
*
#
*
#
*
Koṟṟaṉūr #
* #
*
#
*#
* #
*
# #
*
Rājarājapuram
#
* #
*
#
* #
* Nagapattinam
#
* # #
*
# #
* #
* * !
#
* #
*
#
*
#
*
Vaṭatāḻyūr
#
*
# * #
# *
#
*
Tuvarankuricci
G1 #
#
*
#
*
#
Mahotaiyarpattanam *
Piranmalai #
* #
*
!
#
*
#
* #* ^
Eṟipaṭai-nallūr
# #
#
*
* # *
Aruviyūr#
*#
*
Pulla-maṅkalam
#
* #
*
#
*#* #
* # * #
#
* #
*
Aḷakaimānakar *
#
*
##
** #
* #
*
ZONE #
* #
*
#
* Tittandatanapuram
#
*
Nadu !
#
*
#
*#
#
* #
* *
^ Piranmalai Temple
#
* #
*
#
* Nagaram Centres #
*
#
* ##
**
! anjuvannam
#
* #
* #
* #
*
#
*
MAP 3.3: NAGARAM ZONES OF PIRANMALAI INSCRIPTION SOURCE: BY THE AUTHOR

Source: Author.
headload and ten kāsu for each cartload. Subsequently, rates are given
for rice, different pulses, oil seeds, herbs, iron, cotton, cloth, wool, wax,
honey, sandal and other aromatic substances, cattle, horse, elephant.
Section 4 gives the names of the signatories. First, some sixty people
sign on behalf of the first mentioned nine nagarams (indicated in Map
3.3 as G1). Next are found those representing the second group of
nagarams, specified as the twelve nagarams (G2 in the map). Following
this, the signatories for Karuvūr and other towns, which form the third
group (G3) are mentioned. The last one is the signature of a horse
merchant (kudirai-cheṭṭi). Though his place is not mentioned, he must
be a merchant from Kerala (G4).
It may be observed that even though the first group in the above
assembly is mentioned as comprising some Ainūṟṟuvar bodies from
wide areas, there is no signatory specifically representing those bodies.
All those signed represented only one or other of some twenty-seven
nagarams (forming G1 to G3) which are mentioned by their specific
names and nāḍu location. The obvious inference would be that the
Ainūṟṟuvar were none other than the collection of the different
nagarams, in this case the twenty-seven nagarams which met in the
Pirānmalai temple.
Another inscription of about 1280 from Sarkār Periyapāḷayam28 in
Coimbatore District, which is located in the centre of the Kongu region
and within the locality, covered by the third group (G3) of nagarams
noted above, may be compared with the Pirānmalai one for more
clarity. It is also a paṭṭanapakuti inscription engraved within half a

century of the Pirānmalai one, recording contribution of some dues on

different merchandise to the temple by the Ainūṟṟuvar. Here, the larger
groups of the assembly are mentioned as follows:
The several nagarams of Malai-maṇḍalam, the Eighteen Vishayam

of the four directions, the big assembly (niravi)29 of the Eighteen
Vishayam, and the big assembly of the Five Hundred (Aiññūṟṟavar),
the nāṭṭu-cheṭṭis and taḷam-cheṭṭis, ‘our boys’ (nam piḷḷai), namely,
the sixty-four vanguard warriors, and the vīra-koḍiyār.
After fixing the paṭṭanapakuti rates on different merchandise, the

assembly authorised their accountant to arrange for the collection
of the levies on all the routes for the benefit of the temple (where the
inscription is put up).
In the enumeration section of this record, no specific nagaram
is mentioned other than the ‘several (unnamed) nagarams’ of Malai-
maṇḍalam. But about thirty nagarams are mentioned in the signatory
portion. They include Ērāḷa-puram and a few other nagarams30 of Malai-
maṇḍalam (G4 in Map 3.2) besides the nagarams of Pāṇḍi-maṇḍalam
(G1) and some others (of G2 and G3) mentioned in the Pirānmalai
inscription. Altogether, fifty-four persons have signed the document as
representatives of those nagarams.31
These and other inscriptions of this kind are clear on one point.
That is, the itinerant bodies cannot be envisaged separately from
the nagarams. Though the eighteen-vishayam, the Ainūṟṟuvar, etc.32
certainly look like superior bodies, they do not exist independent of
the nagaram centres. The nagaram centres themselves had a hierarchy
according to the size and composition of the merchants and their
associates. The eulogistic preamble found in most Ayyavoḷe inscriptions
mention them as paṭṭinam, vēḷā-puram and kaḍigai-tāvaḷam (ghaṭika-
sthāna in Sanskrit), obviously according to their order of importance.
Paṭṭinam (or Paṭṭanam) was usually the name of a coastal town in earlier
times. From the 11th century, it is used as a common denomination for
all commercial places and it also forms an alternative for the place name
suffix puram. The term vēḷā-puram is a synonym for the term vēlākula,
found on the Konkan coast and elsewhere33 and denoted harbour
towns. A specific reference to a Vēḷāpuram as a suburb of a Paṭṭinam
is found in the Tamil inscription at the famous port town of Bārus in
Sumatra.34 Kaḍigai-tāvaḷam is the third category. Ghaṭika-sthāna is the
Sanskrit equivalent found mostly in Kannaḍa inscriptions. Tāvaḷam
is used in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu to denote a place of periodical
market or fair. 35 Kaḍigai, the prefixing attribute, means ‘protected’.36
Either it was a separate settlement on trade routes or part of a town.37

The Cheṭṭis and other merchant groups and their associates (artisans
and guards) are said to reside in all the above-mentioned settlements
(paṭṭanam, vēḷāpuram and tāvaḷam) and carry on their commercial
activities and at the same time claim to be part of the Ainūṟṟuvar. This
is quite clear from Section 2 in the Pirānmalai inscription. Therefore,
it may not be not wrong to suggest that there were in each nagaram a
number of merchants who themselves were long-distance or itinerant
traders. These itinerant members might have swelled up over time.
The names of the merchants of the different nagarams found in the
Pirānmalai and Sarkār Periyapāḷayam inscriptions considered above
give us some clues in this regard. These names suggest that many of the
merchants who are part of the present towns were originally outsiders.
Either they or their forefathers must have migrated to the present town
from other places. This can be inferred from the place names that are
part of their names. Usually, during the Chola period the elite people
of the society, particularly the landholding persons, used to add to their
names the names of villages where they had some landed property38: For
example, Uṟattūr-uḍaiyān Aḷakaikkōnār is to be taken as the one whose
given name is Aḷakaikkōnār and who has some property rights (uḍaiyān)
in Uṟattūr. He is found to be a signatory on behalf of the town Aruvi-
mānagaram; that is, he is a merchant of Aruvimānagaram. His preference
to Uṟattūr instead of his present residential village in writing his name is
to be explained that Uṟattūr had become a sort of family name by now.
One of his forefathers might have migrated from Uṟattūr to the present
place and settled there permanently. Using this logic, we find that many
of the twenty-seven merchants of Aruvi-mānagaram39 as such migrant
people from some twenty outside villages. Many of those villages can be
identified as places in the Kaveri delta and other places to the north and
south. The commercial activities of the Ainūṟṟuvar organisation might
have caused this sort of spatial mobility of the merchants.
The following conclusion can be arrived at from the above facts.
The concept of a supra-local trade organisation linking all the existing
commercial groups and centres seems to have come up about 800 ce
in Aihoḷe, an important religious and cultural centre of the Chalukyas
of Badami. Soon this body, called Ayyavoḷe Ainūṟṟuvar/Aynūrvaru
named Aihoḷe, created an origin myth of its own as part of its eulogy and
also its own code of conduct (samaya dharma), which were repeatedly
mentioned in its records put up on various occasions in different places in
peninsular India and also in Sri Lanka and South-east Asia. This concept
of a supra-local body was introduced to the Tamil country by the itinerant
merchants from Kannada area. The growth of Raṣṭrakuṭa, Chalukya and
Chola states from the 9th century onwards should have encouraged
the supra-local, long-distance trade activities, interlinking most of the

existing commercial centres, nagarams and others. Thereafter, whenever

the merchants of the different commercial centres met in large fairs and
market-centres, they did so under the banner of the ‘Ainūṟṟuvar of the
Thousand Directions’ (or the other synonymous usages like Eighteen
Vishayam and Nānādēsi). Actually, the Ainūṟṟuvar as a big trade
organisation cannot be said to have ever possessed a concrete structure of
its own without its component units, namely, the trading groups hailing
from various commercial centres. It was a sort of potential formation to
bring together the pre-existing commercial groups under one umbrella
for supra-local activities. There is no evidence to think that it had a
permanent headquarters either at Aihoḷe or elsewhere. Symbolically only
they related themselves to this town by claiming the Paramēśvari (Durga)
of that town as their patron deity and sometimes calling themselves as the
lords of Ayyāvoḷe (Ayyāvoḷe-puravarādīśvara).40 The different groups
of merchants who identified themselves with this ‘superior’ body were
only residing in the individual commercial centres, nagaram, paṭṭinam,
etc. When they stepped out of their towns to meet and transact with the
merchants of other towns, far and near, they identified themselves as
members of the Ainūṟṟuvar organisation.41
Notes
1 This body is variously mentioned in inscriptions as Ainūṟṟuvar (Ainūrvaru

in Kannada), Ayyāvoḷe (or Ayyavoḷe) Ainūrruvar, Ainūṟṟuvar of the
Thousand Directions, etc.
2 Nilakanta Sastri, K.A. 1932. ‘A Tamil Merchant-Guild in Sumatra’,
Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land-, en Volkenkunde, LXXII (2) (1932), pp.
314–327 (Reprinted in Idem, South India and South-East Asia (Geetha Book
House, Mysore, 1978), pp. 236–247; K.R. Venkatarama Ayyar, ‘Medieval
Trade, Craft and Merchant Guilds in South India’, Journal of Indian
History, 25, part 1 (1947), pp. 269–280; K.V. Subramanya Aiyer, ‘Largest
Provincial Organisations in Ancient India’, Quarterly Journal of the Mythic
Society (New Series), 45 (1954): 29–47, 70–98, 270–286; 46 (1955): 8–22;
G.S. Dikshit, Local Self-Government in Karnataka, Karnataka University,
Dharwar, 1964, pp. 29–35, 140–178; K. Indrapala, ‘South Indian Mercantile
Communities in Ceylon, circa 950–1250’, The Ceylon Journal of Historical
and Social Studies, (n.s.), vol. 1, no. 2 (1971), pp. 101–113.
3 Kenneth R. Hall. 1980. Trade and Statecraft in the Age of the Colas. New
Delhi: Abhinav Publications.
4 Ibid., pp. 105–106.
5 Ibid., pp. 124–125.
6 Several conclusions of his need revision as he has depended on the cursory
information provided in Annual Reports on Epigraphy and also on some
wrong translations of the texts. Some of them have been noticed in Meera

Abraham. 1988. Two Medieval Merchant Guilds of south India, New Delhi:
Manohar; R. Champakalakshmi. 1996. Trade, Ideology and Urbanization:
South India 300 BC to AD 1300, Delhi; Ranabir Chakravarti. 2007. Trade
and Traders in Early Indian Society. New Delhi: Manohar, p. 213.
7 The number of nagarams in this area was put at twenty-five in Y.
Subbarayalu. 1973. Political Geography of the Chola Country, Madras. I
have since revised the statistics after checking all the inscriptions available
until now.
8 A few old nagarams, like Koḍumbāḷūr, are exceptions to this rule and they
are not distinguished by any special name.
9 In Chola area, the suffix paṭṭinam is rarely used while in the Pandya area it
becomes popular in the 12th and 13th centuries.
10 The latest study of the Ainūṟṟuvar problem is Noboru Karashima and
Y. Subbarayalu ‘Ainurruvar: A Supra-local Organization of South
Indian and Sri Lankan Merchants’, in Noboru Karashima (ed.), Ancient
and Medieval Commercial Activities in the Indian Ocean: Testimony of
Inscriptions and Ceramic-sherds, Taisho University, Tokyo, 2002, pp. 72–
88. (Reproduced in a modified form in Noboru Karashima, South Indian
Society in Transition: Ancient to Medieval, New Delhi, 2009, pp. 199–223.)
The present paper is an extension of that study.
11 Indian Antiquary, VIII (1873), p. 287; SII, XV, no. 463. These inscriptions,
however, refer only to an assembly of ‘five hundred chaturvēdi brahmaṇas’.
One of them refers to two additional bodies, namely ‘eight nagaram’ and
‘120 ūrāḷi’. There is no other clue to link this Brāhmaṇa assembly to the
merchant body of 500 (Ainūṟṟuvar).
12 This is with reference to the Tamil area only. A similar investigation for the
early developments has not so far been made in the Kannada area.
13 It is possible to argue that the activities of the itinerant Maṇigrāma guild
that had been there already paved the way for this concept. The Maṇigrāma
guild is met with in Karnataka from 6th century onwards and seems, as
suggested by D.D. Kosambi, to be the extension of the vaṇiggrāma that
was active in earlier centuries in the north and particularly in Western
Deccan; Chakravarti, Ranabir. 2007. Trade and Traders in Early Indian
Society, pp. 26–27; Subbarayalu, Y. 2015. ‘Trade Guilds of South India up
to the Tenth Century’, Studies in People’s History, Vol. 2,1: 21–26.
14 These places, many of which have been discovered during the past three
decades, are found in Tiruchirappalli and Tanjavur districts in the Kaveri
delta, Ramnad and Tirunelveli districts in the south. Earlier the only
place known to scholars was Munisandai in Pudukkottai district and so
it was believed that the Pudukkottai area had been the main centre of
the Ainūṟṟuvar from the beginninng. Meera Abraham (1988: 45–51) has
made a long unconvincing thesis in this regard using mostly evidence
relating to later-day migration of some Kannada pastoral community to
this locality.
15 L. Thiyagarajan (ed.). 2017. Inscriptions of Gangaikondacholapuram, G.K.
Puram, pp. 69–72; For some unknown reasons, the stone plaque carrying
the inscription had been shifted from Tañjāvur to the present find spot at

Gangikoṇḍachōḻapuram, the new Chola capital city that was founded in

about 1027.
16 In Kannada, it was called Baḷañjigaru (SII, IX, pt. i, no. 172) or Baṇajigaru.
17 Annual Report on Epigraphy, 1943–44, no. 238, 243, 247; Ibid., 1964–65,
no. 305–309.
18 SII, XIX, no. 459. Though in the particular passage the vaḷañjiyar and the
Ainūṟṟuvar (of the thousand directions) are mentioned separately, the
subsequent passage would suggest that both the names denoted one and
the same body.
19 Y. Subbarayalu, South India under the Cholas, 2012, pp. 188–206.
20 There are found several other synonyms: eṟi-vīrar, poṟkoṭi-vīrar, vīra-
koṭiyāṟ, etc.
21 Hall, op.cit., p. 143.
22 The Kannada inscription he cited for this conclusion is not an EVP
inscription; it is a paṭṭanapakuti record and just praises the particular
Paṭṭanam as the chief among ‘the twelve Paṭṭanams’.
23 Epigraphia Carnatica, VII, Sh. 118; see K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, op.cit., for a
detailed study of this record.
24 The senior Epigraphist-scholar K.V. Subramanya Aiyer first highlighted
the importance of this and some other related inscriptions in his
‘Largest Provincial Organisations in Ancient India’ (op.cit). He made an
authoritative translation of this inscription and explained the technical
expressions in detail. This translation along with the explanation was
used by Hall and other scholars extensively in their studies. Though it is
mostly reliable, there are a few inadvertent mistakes, like the misreading of
Vaḷarpuram, which he translated as ‘growing towns’, for Vēḷāpuram.
25 The composition of the groups Cheṭṭi, etc. comprising the Ainūṟṟuvar
differs slightly from inscription to inscription but there are some common
groups in all of them. They may be arranged under three major sub-groups:
(1) the merchants, (2) the artisans and writers/accountants, (3) the guards.
The latter two are considered by the merchants as their subordinates or
servicing groups (called paṇicheymakkaḷ). But the merchants considered
the latter as their loyal servants and used to mention them in quite
affectionate terms. A detailed analysis of the groups has been made in
Noboru Karashima and Y. Subbarayalu, op. cit. (see fn. 10 above).
26 This group may refer to the brāhamaṇa villages and temple centres.
27 This is later mentioned as the deed of the samaya.
28 Avanam 6 (1995), pp. 36–40.
29 Niravi is the Tamil equivalent to samayam meaning assembly. The term
peru-niravi with the attribute peru denoted big assembly.
30 Some of their names are not legible as the signatories used a cursive
Vaṭṭeḻuttu script that was in vogue in Kerala at that time, whereas other
names are in Tamil.
31 Both this and the Pirānmalai inscriptions would suggest that there
was a brisk trade route from the Kerala coast around Kozhikode to
Pirānmalai and further east towards the Ramnad coast facing the Palk
Strait. Tittāṇḍatānapuram (Map 3.3) was an important port town where

several members of the Ainūṟṟuvar, like the Maṇigrāmam, Añjuvaṇṇam,

Vaḷañjiyar of Southern Lanka, etc. are said to have met in a big assembly
in 1269, according to a Paṭṭanappakuti inscription put up by them in the
local Śiva temple (Annual Report on Epigraphy, 1926–27, p. 93).
32 Patineṇ (Eighteen)-vishayam, Ainūṟṟuvar, Ayyavoḷe-Ainūṟṟuvar and
Nānādēsi are all synonyms and are used very often alternately in the same
inscriptions.
33 Sircar, D.C. 1969. Indian Epigraphical Glossary, Delhi, p. 369.
34 It is said that the Ainūṟṟuvar merchants met in the vēḷāpuram in Vārōcu
(same as Bārus), otherwise called by the Tamil name as Mātaṅkarivallava-
tēci-uyyakkoṇṭa-paṭṭinam, and decided about certain fees to be paid to
their local ‘nagaram’ agents by the ship owner, captain, and the boatmen
and also on the merchandise, before entering the port town; Subbarayalu,
Y. 2012. South India under the Cholas. Delhi, pp. 41–42.
35 Indrapala, op.cit.
36 Ghaṭika-sthāna, the Sanskritised equivalent does not convey the original
significance of the term. K.V. Subramanya Aiyer (op.cit) actually has
warned the readers not to mistake it for the Sanskrit college Ghaṭika:
‘The description given in our inscription shows clearly that “kaḍigai” or
“ghaṭika” need not necessarily be an educational or Vedic Institution’.
37 Thus, an early 12th century town (in Sri Lanka) called Pati alias Aipoḻil-
paṭṭanam had a separate quarter or suburb called Vikkarama-Kaḍigai-
tāvaḷam; Noboru Karashima (ed.). 2004. In Search of Chinese Ceramic-
sherds in South India and Sri Lanka. Tokyo: Taisho University Press, p. 69.
38 For a discussion of the naming pattern as found in the Chola-period
inscriptions, see Y. Subbarayalu, South India under the Cholas, pp. 48–49.
39 It seems this town took an active role in making the present charity
decision and hence it had the largest number of representatives.
40 SII, IX, pt. i, no. 139.
41 Under these circumstances, there could be no question of local merchants
being hostile to itinerant ones as postulated by Hall. But this does not
preclude commercial competition and rivalry among the different
merchant groups.

4
SALT IN EARLY INDIA:

A SOCIOECONOMIC APPRAISAL
Susmita Basu Majumdar
Salt is one of the oldest commodities of trade and exchange in human

history. Its economic significance is evident: edible salt is used in every
household. A production versus consumption analysis of salt will reveal
the socioeconomic factors of commodity exchange and trading in
human societies. Though salt is a common commodity, ample literature
is not available on the production, distribution and productivity of the
salt industry. This chapter, therefore, makes salt an object of inquiry
through a homogenous random sampling of epigraphic1 archaeological,
literary, philological, ethno-historical and geological sources.
Four techniques were used to produce salt in early India: solar
evaporation of sea water, sub-soil brine processing, lake brine processing
and directly excavating different types of edible salt from mines located
in salt ranges, salt pits in Maharashtra and other minor deposits in the
Indian subcontinent. The most commonly used technique was solar
evaporation. Mining was limited to the procurement of black salt and
the saindhava variety of salt. Though most of the salt produced in India
is through solar evaporation, it is interesting to note that salt was placed
under mining operations in early India. Legal literature advocates royal
monopoly over all mines and minerals, and, hence, theoretically, also
over salt. However, epigraphic evidence indicates the presence of private
enterprises in salt-making against the payment of fines or salt tax to the
state. This chapter will discuss the various angles from which future
researchers might explore salt to understand its economics, production
or manufacture, distribution, varied types, usages, profit, monopoly
and social history.
Salt is used for various purposes. It is a daily item of edible usage
in every household. It is used for feeding cattle and other animals, and
is also used for plants. Salt also has medicinal usages and was almost
a compulsory item in an official healer’s drug-kit; besides this, it was
also used for industrial purposes and for food preservation. Coastal
Gujarat and Tamil Nadu naturally yield the maximum amount of salt.2
This is mainly common salt, obtained from saline soils that contain
64

Salt in Early India 65
high concentrations of salts in semi-arid and arid areas where there

is strong evaporation. The third region is Rajasthan, which has huge
natural salt deposits, mainly in the Sambhar lake. The other regions
which yield salt are Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, undivided Bengal (West
Bengal and Bangladesh), Goa and Karnataka. No other state in India
has salt deposits, but it is a commodity consumed in every household.
Salt routes were one of the earliest networks in human history. Thus,
the production versus consumption dynamics reflect that salt played
an important role in the creation of one of the earliest channels of
commodity exchange, and in the creation of a trade network in the
subcontinent.
Salt from the Indus region and Punjab was probably designated as
saindhava from the term Sindhu, meaning Indus. However, this salt
was procured from the salt range in Punjab. It was pink in colour,
and was of superior quality as compared to the common salt from the
coastal regions. The salt from the Himalayan range comprises sea salt,
crystallised over the years in the Himalayas, which are young mountains
formed from the sea. Himalayan pink salt was also used for the
preservation of meat. More than eighty-four minerals and trace elements
are contained in Himalayan pink salt, like magnesium, calcium, copper,
iron and potassium.3 This might also have led to its use for medicinal
purposes. Salt from India were carried to the Mediterranean markets by
camel caravans, but there is a dearth of evidence about the beginning
of such exchange or export. Pliny’s Naturalis Historia (1st century ce)
refers to salt quarrying in Mount Oromenus (Salt Range), which yielded
more revenues than gold and pearls.4 This is a significant passage, as
it mentions the economic angle of the possession of these salt mines,
indirectly indicating state monopoly over these mines.5 The importance
of salt is self-explanatory, but Pliny wrote, ‘Heaven knows, a civilized
life is impossible without salt’.6 Tibet was another important source of
salt. Later sources reflect that five measures of grain were exchanged
for four measures of salt and vice versa if grain was dear. Tibetans only
bartered necessities for salt.
The production of salt involves the extensive use of renewable
sources of energy. Weather conditions also play an important role in
the production of salt. The salt industry is labour intensive. The mining
of salt is not weather-dependent, and can be carried out throughout the
year, except for the rainy reason. Coastal salt or common salt, which is
made from brine or produced from the Sambhar Lake, is seasonal. It
requires a time period of five months for production, processing and
being sent to the stores to enter the distribution channel. These are
done only in summer, as it relies on solar evaporation and the labour
involved in the making of this type of salt has to look for optional or

alternative professions in the non-productive phase. However, the

making or manufacturing of salt needs special expertise, and, hence,
it was a hereditary profession. The labour involved were mainly the
Loniyas, or the Lavaniyā community, and the Agariyās. They might
have engaged in other professional activities like iron manufacture and
physical labour-oriented jobs in their free season, and travelled to the
salt pans in summer. This issue will be discussed in detail below.
The Kauṭīlīya Arthaśāstra mentions the state monopoly over mines.

However, the nature of state monopoly is not discussed in detail. For
salt, it would involve the manufacture, supply and distribution of salt
by the central agencies, and the regulation and control of manufacture,
supply and distribution of salt by another administrative department.
Law and crime management departments would control the private
production of salt and monitor the production and maintenance of salt.
In the Arthaśāstra, salt is listed with gold, silver, diamonds,
gems, pearls, corals, conch-shells, metals and ores under the mining
segment. It is mentioned that the king should build stores for various
items, including salts, in the fortified city.7 The Ᾱkarādhyakṣa, the
director of mines in the Arthaśāstra, is a high-ranking functionary
who should ideally be an expert metallurgist. The text clearly
mentions that the salt commissioner should collect the salt at the
proper time of the share of salt as released after crystallisation, as
well as the lease-rent, the price, the inspection fee and the surcharge
from the sale.8 Imported salt would pay 1/6 part as duty.9 Its sale
would be allowed only after the share and the dues of 5 per cent
surcharge, the inspection fee and the manufacturing fee were paid.10
The Arthaśāstra mentions that a person selling adulterated salt would
pay the highest fine for violence, as would the person living on salt-
manufacture without permission.11 This excluded forest hermits,
Brāhmaṇas learned in the Vedas, ascetics and labourers, who were
permitted to consume salt in regular food.12
Mining operations in early India also included salt manufacture
(Chakravarti 2020: 53) but the salt produced in the coastal region was
not to be under the mining segment. Thus, when salt is mentioned in
association with mines, it is a reference to rock salt: either the Indus variety
saindhava or the black salt from Deccan trap. Law books mention state
monopoly over all mines and minerals. One may assume that salt was also
directly under the state monopoly, and not only its distribution but also its
manufacture was a royal prerogative. Chakravarti mentions that

While theoretical treatises would advocate salt manufacture under

royal control, epigraphic evidence, however, suggests prevalence of
private enterprise in salt-making against the payment of a salt tax to
the state. This is proved in round-about way by epigraphic references
to the remission from salt tax (aloṇakhātakam, i.e., alavaṇakhādakam
known from the Sātavāhana records of the early centuries of the
Christian era. (Chakravarti 2020: 53)
It is interesting to note that in the ancient texts on law it is mentioned

that one who steals salt will be reborn as cheekhika (?).
II
A linguistic survey shows that there are 275 Sanskrit words to indicate
salt or salt-related terms. The principal ones are lavaṇa and kṣāra. There
are different terms to indicate different types of salt, at times indicating
the provenance, technique of manufacturing, nature and so on. There
are words to indicate salt measures and salt bags, their measurement for
trade or their packaging for the purpose of exchange. It is interesting
that in the Sanskrit language beauty is also synonymous to salt or salty,
specifically lāvaṇya, a term used for indicating beauty with comeliness,
charm and grace.
In the Indian subcontinent, salt production depended on the
geographical context. Sea salt or common salt was mainly obtained
from the peninsular south, especially in the summer, by direct solar
evaporation. Salt water was held back and left to evaporate by a natural
process in the sun, and, after evaporation, salt was left in the salt pans.
Then the labours crushed it with their feet. Since feet were involved in
the process of production of this salt, and the community in question
was lower in the social scale, this salt was considered impure. Saindhava
(salt from salt range) or black salt excavated directly from the mines were
considered purer and were used for religious and ritualistic purposes.
Another popular technique was manufacturing salt by washing salt soil
in the regions where the sea water accumulated in pits and this salt soil
was washed to acquire the salt and processed for further purification
by boiling the brine. This was done mostly in the Bay of Bengal coast.
The climate in this region is moist, and the density of the sea water
in the bay is too low to permit the manufacture of salt by natural
evaporation by solar heat. Low lying areas here were flooded with sea
water, and, when the water dried up, it formed a saline efflorescence.
This efflorescence, with the saline mud and sand below, was collected in
small pits (garta), often impregnated with salt (oṣara). Fresh sea water

was passed through them, and the strong brine so obtained was boiled
until the salt precipitated. Another technique for preparing alkaline salt
was through the ashes of burnt barley straw, which has been mentioned
in literature as yāvaśuka. Salt was also procured from plants.
Rock salt from Salt Range was probably the earliest form of salt used
as a commodity in trade. In this context, it is worth mentioning that
the subcontinent has the largest salt mines in the world: the Khewra
mines or Mayo Salt mine, located in north of Pind Dadan Khan, an
administrative subdivision of Jhelum district, Punjab region, Pakistan.
The Punjab salt range ranks next to Sambhar as the most important salt
source in the upper part of the Indian subcontinent (Dane 1924: 407). It
was perhaps the most important, as the supply of salt which it contains is
practically inexhaustible. Ethnographic surveys reveal that, at Khewra,
the mining was done by men and the women carried the salt up the
slippery pathways. The other large natural rock salt source was from the
Kohat mines in Pakistan, located in south of Peshawar. Coming from
the Sindhu river valley (Indus), the salt acquired the name saindhava.
In these mines, salt is available not only in enormous quantities but also
directly near the surface, which makes its acquisition easy.
The Sambhar Lake in Rajputana was the largest source of brine-
derived salts. Unlike the brine salt from Bay of Bengal, the brine salt
from the Sambhar Lake is famous for its purity. This lake is situated in
the depression in the schist of the Aravallis, and stretches 20 miles from
east to west. The term ‘sambhāra’ means ‘enormous resource’ and, in
the Lesser Rann of Kutch, salt brine gets naturally condensed. In hot
weather, the lake dries up or reduces to a shallow pool in the centre.
There are two techniques for the manufacture of salt in this region. One
is the pan salt, where salt water from the lake is held back and left for
natural evaporation, and the other is the natural solar evaporation, in
which the lake itself recedes by the natural process of evaporation of
water. In the former technique, surface brine is held in low enclosures,
approximately 15 inches high, made of grass and mud. Salt was deposited
in these enclosures, and, after the extraction of salt, the bittern from the
pans is run back into the lake and the rest of the water is evaporated
by solar heat. In the case of the latter, it is worth mentioning that this
region experiences an extreme climate and the natural heat throughout
the day produces this salt without any human intervention. Sambhar
salt contains 95 per cent to 97 per cent chloride of sodium. It is not as
pure as Punjab rock salt, yet it is the major source of supply to the whole
of North India as the cost of manufacture is low compared to the other
forms of salt.13
Ethnographic surveys in the Rann of Kutch reveal that the salt was
made from subterranean brine obtained from wells sunk in the shore of

the lesser Rann of Kutch. This manufacturing technique is peculiar as

it takes five months and only one pan is used. It is filled with brine 4–5
inches deep. Due to the exposure of the brine to the sun, salt begins to
form. It is not extracted: the solid salt obtained is broken up and raked
over. Fresh brine is admitted, and the process is repeated until good
quality of salt is obtained.
It is interesting to note that concepts of purity and impurity are
associated with salt, based on the manufacturing technique used for
each variety. Natural rock salt is considered pure, whereas, brine salt is
considered impure. Only rock salt is permitted for religious purposes.
Feet are dipped in the brine to manufacture brine salt, which might
have given a superior status to the rock salt, which can be directly
mined. Natural salt was considered pure and the one produced with
human efforts was considered impure.
The presence of multiple varieties of natural or rock salt mines
and multiple means of production made the availability of salt much
easier in the Indian subcontinent as compared to other regions. Yet,
the production and consumption are not in balance with the demand
and supply. The earliest evidence of salt production in the Indian
subcontinent comes from the Harappan sites of Padri and Kuntasi
in Gujarat.14 South India had a large coastal tract, and, thus, there
was a lot of salt in the region, which was produced by the coastal
community who might have bartered, exchanged or traded in salt. In
the far south—the southernmost portion of peninsular India—we find
a clear concept of geographical and ecological balance in the concept
of tinais. In the Neital tinai, located in the coastal region, people took
fishing and salt-making as professions. The literature shows that both
professions were practised even within the same family.15 Salt-making
was a seasonal activity, whereas, fishing was carried out all year round.
It was mainly the women who were engaged in salt manufacturing and
fishing in the Neital tinai, as seen in several poems. The people engaged
in salt-making are often seen in literary sources as bartering salt for
other products. They required armed guards to protect their salt from
getting plundered. Umaṇars were the salt makers/traders. The term
ceṭṭi is often used as a suffix, which is the same as śreṣṭhī or a large-scale
merchant/trader as opposed to the itinerant traders, the sārthavāhas.
Besides them, we find the mention of the Uppuvaṇikam/Uppu vaṇikan
in the texts. Saṅgam texts provide us with several such references to
salt production, exchange and trade (Singaravelu 1966; Zvelebil 1974;
Gurukkal 1989, 2012; Hart and Heifetz 2002; Selvakumar forthcoming).
Selvakumar16 mentions on archaeological and literary grounds
that salt was produced along the entire coast of Tamil Nadu and the
important sites along the east coast are located near Māmallapuram,

Marakkāṇam, Védāraṇyam and Thūthūkuḍi. He shows in his research

on the Saṅgam poems that the womenfolk of the Umaṇars, the salt
traders, were mentioned by the specific term ‘Umattiyars’. They were
also engaged in the process of salt production and would have boiled
the brine. He suggests that this was a mobile community, as, in the
Saṅgam poems, one comes across several references to abandoned
hearths (used for boiling brine) in the camp sites of the Umaṇars. Once
the production in a region was over, they would have left the places
mentioned in the poems and proceeded further. This reflects the
significance of salt and its production. The two distinguished merchants
in the Saṅgam literature are the gold-dealer (Pon-vaṇikan) and the salt
trader (Uppu-vaṇikan). Small-scale salt traders are mentioned as Uppu-
vaṇikan, whereas, the Umaṇars were itinerant traders or sārthavāhas
(cāttu is considered to have derived from cārtavāha) moving with
caravans (Motichandra 1977). In this context, Selvakumar mentions
that, in Saṅgam literature, there are nineteen direct references to salt
(‘uppu’). Umaṇ refers to salt trader in five instances and ‘Umaṇar’,
referring to the same traders, occurs directly in eighteen instances.
The literature also refers to Umaṇar women driving carts, and some
Umaṇars are also depicted as mobile on the highway, announcing the
price of salt, which is very interesting. The Umaṇar are often depicted
as travelling with family in caravans,17 which indicates that they were
nomadic, though they belonged to the Neital region. Besides this, they
moved in large groups or caravans as there were chances of plunderers
looting their salt. Selvakumar mentions that Puṛanānūṛu 84 speaks
about the trade routes or highways that were dreaded by the Umaṇars.
However, he attributes the risks of travel to the poor conditions of the
trade routes because of the dry landscape. The plundering of the salt,
however, seems to be more of a risk, often by the people of these dry
areas, probably the Pālai zone. Umaṇars were quite well prepared to
face all kind of hurdles. They stored food and other necessary items
for long-distance travel, and also secured an extra axil for their carts
which served as a spare. They did not leave their womenfolk behind
while setting off for the journey like other sārthavāha groups did. They
were often engaged in inter-tinai exchanges: there are references to salt
and rice exchanges which indicate the nexus between the Marutam and
Neital. There are references to temporary settlements of Umaṇars in
rocky terrain and forest camps, which reflect their mobility. The camps
also indicate that they would have stayed for a while and collected other
items by selling salt. Thus, this indicates a nexus between the Kuriňji
(hilly areas) and Neital (coastal areas).
Selvakumar also refers to the natural production of salts in the
fields where the sea water or back waters are held in pans. Though

these were generally used for growing crops or vegetables, when the
salt accumulated in the summer, it was collected. It is interesting to
note that these people or families waited for the salt traders to arrive
to sell their collection. Such lands, however, would not have been very
productive due to the salinity of the soil. Hence, salt production would
have fetched them more money than growing other commodities
in their fields. The transportation of the salt in the rainy season was
problematic: this is also reflected in Saṅgam poems. One poem refers to
a bullock-cart transporting salt, which got stuck on the bank of a tank
after the rains (Selvakumar forthcoming). It is worth mentioning here
that Naṛṛinai 331 describes the Umaṇar as farmers, who do not plough
the land (Selvakumar forthcoming). Since the Umaṇars were salt
traders, mentioning them as farmers here designates land ownership.
This proposition is further strengthened by the fact that the poet also
compares and contrasts the salt producers with the rice farmers, who
use ploughs in their cultivation process. Thus, such lands were brine
pits or salt pans. They produced salt in the summer with the solar
evaporation technique, piled the salt collected in huge mounds and
waited for the itinerant salt traders/merchants to arrive and buy their
produce to peddle or sell it in distant lands.
III
In epigraphs from North India, salt dealers are mentioned as Loṇa/

Lavaṇa-gahapati and the Nemaka-vaṇija. Inscriptions provide us
with many proper names that are related to salt like Lavaṇaprasāda,
Loṇabhāra, Loṇavalaka, Lāvaṇyasiṁha/Lūṇasiṁha (Prakrit), Lāvaṇyādevī,
Lāvaṇyavatīdevī and so on. In early India, there was a salt monopoly and
the right or monopoly rested with the king or the landlord. Inscriptions
mention lavaṇākaras, that is, salt mines or salt pits which were the
property of the state. Especially in the case of land donations, the rights
and privileges over the salt mines or mining and manufacturing were
given to the donee by the state, which confirms the monopoly of the
state over salt. In most places, where lavaṇa ākara or salt mines are
mentioned, the right or exemption is mentioned along with the right
over iron. It is interesting to find that the Agariyā community,18 which is
associated with the manufacturing of salt, was also associated with the
manufacturing of iron. Most of the inscriptions mention the phrase sa-
loha-lavaṇ-ākaraḥ (rights over iron and salt). Epigraphs often refer to
the prohibition of salt mining or digging by the term a-loṇa-kkhātakaṁ,
that is, not to be dug for salt,19 which also reflects the monopoly over
salt by the ruling authority.

Salt from the Rann of Kutch comes in the form of large hard lumps.
This salt is free from moisture and finds favour in places where the
climate is moist. It is locally known as baragra. The manufacture of
this salt is done by the migrant or nomadic Agariyā community, for
whom this is the main source of subsistence. Since salt making or
manufacturing is a seasonal activity, the labourers took to the alternative
professions of iron smelting or working in iron mines. Communities of
salt workers from the region near the Sambhar Lake would also engage
in the process of manufacturing and trade/exchange of this commodity.
The price of salt in early India would be fixed by the state since the basic
monopoly rested with the ruling authority. However, the price would
also be influenced by the geographical context, labour involvement,
production, storage and transportation. In the peninsular south, where
the state formation process began much later, the manufacture of salt
and its distribution or trade from accessible to the most remote and
inhospitable regions of the inland zone would reflect upon the price of
this commodity. The more inhospitable the terrain, the higher would be
the price of salt in this region.
A socio-cultural study of the data gleaned from epigraphic records
also reflects upon several interesting facts related to salt manufacture
and its relevance to the community at large. This evidence shows that, in
early India, villages and even cities acquired their names from salt, and
at times deities were also named after salt. In the Lavaṇa-grāma Grant
of King Trinetra Pallava,20 a village is mentioned as Lavaṇa grāma,
and later the same village is also mentioned as Lavaṇapuri. From the
elaborate details given in the grant, it is very clear that this grant was
once given to a set of brāhmaṇas who were brought to Lavaṇapuri and
were made to settle here for the purpose of propagating the Vedas. It
might be that the settlement of these brāhmaṇas in the region turned
the grāma (village) into a pura or puri (a city or an urban space). In
Konkan, the Sun God Sūrya has been named after salt: Loṇāditya.
This not only highlights the association of salt with Sūrya, but also the
method of manufacturing in this region, namely, the solar evaporation
technique which led to this peculiar association. The Bhadana Grant
of Aparajita, Śaka-Samvat 919 (Kielhorn 1894: 267–68) mentions that
Aparajita made the grant in favour of (the temple of) the god (Sūrya
under the name) Loṇādityadeva, at Lavaṇetaṭa. Even the place name
Lavaṇetaṭa indicates the importance of the manufacture of salt in the
region.
Salt canals also are found as boundary markers in some records.
For example, the Bitragunta Grant of Saṅgama II mentions
Lavaṇaprabhuti.21 The donated land as the boundary is fixed on one
side up to the canal from which salt is produced. Lavaṇaprabhuti may

also be the proper name of the canal. Inscriptions from Maharashtra

have the terms a-loṇa-khādaka, a-lavaṇa-kliṇṇa-kreṇi, a-lavaṇa-
keṇṇa-kkhanaka and a-loṇa-gula-cchobhaṃ while mentioning
exemptions from the purchase and digging of salt in the donated land.
The Vākāṭaka charters are replete with such references. This clearly
reflects that, in Maharashtra, the natural salt was rock salt which
occurred in mines. Hence, a prohibition on the mining activity in the
donated land suggests that the government would not interfere in the
salt mines that were in the donated land, and also that the selling of this
salt was not allowed by the donee. This in turn reflects that salt being
a commodity of state monopoly, no individual could manufacture
and sell it without the state’s permission. However, the exemption
also reflects that one could put salt to personal use. Since salt was
manufactured from salt brine in Bengal and Odisha, the inscriptions
in these regions are replete with references to land being donated with
rights and exemptions on salt. The terms mentioned are sa-lavaṇa,
that is, donated along with the right over salt, where the donee was
given the right to use the salt available in the donated land and/or
manufacture salt in this land. This also proves that, in other places, the
right to manufacture salt was a state prerogative and was prohibited by
law. One had to either purchase the right to manufacture, or this right
rested strictly with the administration. Another term which one finds
frequently is ‘sa-gartoṣara’, meaning small pits impregnated with salt.
As already mentioned, the technique of salt manufacture, especially in
the Bengal coast, was through holding the brine in pits, and passing
fresh sea water through them. The strong brine so obtained was boiled
down until the salt precipitated. This also reflects that the amount of
salt manufactured in such pits was small in quantity and hence the
donations involved the handing over of the right of salt production
to the donee.
There are several inscriptions of the early 9th century from the
Sakambhari area in Rajasthan, which inform us about the donations
given by salt dealers. The Siyadoni inscription informs us about
the affluence of a salt dealer. Such instances are found in several
inscriptions from the mid-9th century, referring to the urban centre of
Siyaduni (modern Siyadoni in the Bulandshahr region of Uttar Pradesh.
Nabhaka), the salt dealer (Nemaka-vaṇija), was the son of Canduka,
who was also a salt merchant, clearly highlighting the hereditary
profession. Nabhaka made several donations to temples located in the
urban centre at Siyadoni, where there also stood a maṇḍapikā.
Rich salt dealers were prosperous enough to offer substantial
patronage to cultural activities, including the gift of Buddhist relic
caskets, and extend patronage for the establishment of Brahmanical

temples. In the Puri Jagannatha Temple inscription in Odisha, the

income from taxes levied on salt and cowrie shells were donated.22
The major income in this region came from the making of salt and the
import of cowrie shells from Maldives. Therefore, handing over these
two sources of income to the temple was quite a significant activity on
the part of the ruler.
In the context of the saptasāgara-mahādānas, that is, the ritual giving
of the seven oceans,23 one of the oceans is the salt sea. Among these
seven oceans, the salt ocean is dedicated to Brahmā, who is the deity par
excellence of medical science. Salt is often mentioned in medical texts
like Caraka Saṁhitā and Suśruta Saṁhitā. Rock salt is mentioned as a
component for the treatment of diseases like anaemia.24 It was also used
to induce vomiting in infants.25 Salt was used for treating eye diseases 26
and in the preparation of collyriums.27 The treatment of ear aches and
ear diseases also involved the use of salt.28 Five different types of salts
are mentioned for treating cold.29 Rock salt was used for fumigation and
post-operative care, as is mentioned in Suśruta Saṃhitā. Fumigation
is done with a mixture of powders of guggulu, aguru, sarjarasa, vaca,
white mustard, rock salt, nimba leaves and ghṛta.30
IV
Ancient healers were well-conversant with the pharmacological

properties of lavaṇa. Among the various types of salt, audbhida is a
type produced by itself. Other salts produced include romaka (natural
sambhar salt), saindhava, the rock salt from Khewra and Kohat mines
in the Indus region and other salts from Punjab region, samudra
(coastal salt), vida, artificially prepared salt in dark red shining
granules (ammonium salt), sauvarcala—dark coloured salt made by
dissolving common salt in a solution of crude soda and processed by
evaporating—guṭika, boiled salt and paṁsuja lavaṇa, salt manufactured
from saline earth. The saindhava lavaṇa was mostly prescribed for
healing purposes. Saindhava finds mention almost sixty-eight times
in the Suśruta Saṁhitā, Sauvarcala is mentioned twenty-seven times
and vida lavaṇa eleven times. In Bhāvaprakāśa, the types or varieties
of salts are mentioned along with their synonyms. A group of five
salts, lavaṇa pañcake, includes saindhava (rock salt from Punjab or
the Indus region), samudra (common salt), bida or vida (black salt),
sauvarcala (potassium nitrate) and romaka (earthen salt).31 Romaka
lavaṇa is mentioned by Suśruta and Vāgbhaṭ in their texts but not
by Agniveśa in the Caraka Saṁhitā. Romaka is natural salt produced
from the lake Sambhar in summer when the lake recedes and the salt

is exposed due to evaporation. Suśruta places romaka above audbhida.

To these set of five, the Rasaratna samuccaya adds cullika lavaṇa.
Suśruta describes the qualities or medicinal properties of each variety
of salt for the first time.
The beginning of the use of salt cannot be specifically indicated, but

it has been assumed that humans started to consume salt during the
transition from hunting-gathering to food-producing or agricultural
economy. This is because animal foods are rich in sodium or salt and
poor in potassium. G. Von Bunge first proposed this theory of ‘sodium
hunger’.32 Salt was a greatly appreciated exchange commodity. The
routes through which merchants transported salt and sold it would
have gained the appellation of ‘salt routes’. Though such references are
not available at present, this should be explored to understand the salt
economy and salt dynamics. According to Lehmann, the craving for
salt is a cultural phenomenon.
From this chapter, what emerges is that salt was a part of human
history for a very long time, and despite being an essential commodity,
it did not receive much attention in texts as the whole process of
production, circulation, monopoly, marketing, and control was a
natural one. Epigraphs provide essential data and help us to formulate
an idea about the whole process—from production to consumption—
of this essential commodity. Apart from the epigraphic evidence, the
Arthaśāstra emerges as one of the most significant texts in the study
of salt. The evidence from the Arthaśāstra must be reassessed and
contextualised. What we learn here in a distinct manner is that the
Arthaśāstra places salt under mining activities and salt production,
and its whole process up to consumption and prohibition was to be
handled or controlled by the Lavaṇādhyakṣ as in the same way the
other minerals were dealt with. In other words, the functioning of the
administrative machinery with reference to salt functioned in the same
way as per the laws set up for the other mining departments. Secondly,
the post-production activities were controlled by the administration
by the creation of stores for proper storage of the finished product.
The storage of salt was given due importance. The Arthaśāstra
mentions that it was stored in fortified cities, which also reflects
that safety measures were taken for the protection of the procured
commodity. The production versus consumption of salt explains its
significance and the effort taken by the administrative machinery to
procure, preserve and control the channel of distribution. Thirdly,

the director of mines or the Salt Commissioner maintained a strict

control over the whole process of manufacture or production of salt.
In referring to this, the Arthaśāstra mentions the crystallisation of
salt: a direct reference to sea salt or brine-produced salt where the
end product is crystallised salt. The assessment of the production
cost of salt depended on certain factors like the lease or rent of salt
pits/salt pans, brine channels, the cost involved in the process, labour
charges, evaluation of the amount of salt produced, the collection of
salt from the site of production on time, the transportation cost of
the commodity, storage and preservation costs, salaries of officers
involved in the process and other hidden costs in the administrative
machinery, inspection fee and surcharge from sale, keeping an eye on
the additional requirement of salt and importing the required amount
(taxation on import was fixed at 1/6th part as duty). Thus, the sale
of salt was allowed only after all these were calculated and a market
price for salt was assessed. This needs further research, as the present
chapter is a preliminary attempt to look at the socioeconomic aspect
of salt. Hence, this is not the end but a humble beginning and I pledge
to remain ‘True to Salt’.
Acknowledgements
The present author is grateful to Dr Selvakumar for providing the details

of his chapter which was still in press. Thanks to my student Chandrima
Das for helping me with epigraphic data collection.
Notes
1 The Homogenous Random Sampling (HRD) has been done by taking

into consideration all the inscriptions in Brāhmī (up to 1200 ce) and its
derivatives published in the volumes of Epigraphia Indica.
2 Nagaraja 2015: 284–288.
3 Khandelwal, N., et al. 2012. ‘Lavaṇa (Salt): An Ayurvedic Outlook on
Saindhava (Rock Salt)’. Indian Journal of Ancient Medicine and Yoga, Vol.
5(2): 95–101.
4 Pliny. Natural History, XXXI, xli.
5 Ibid., XI.11.1.
6 Ibid., XXXI, xli, 88.
7 Arthaśāstra, 2.4.27.
8 Ibid., 2.12.28.
9 Ibid., 2.12.29.
10 Ibid., 2.12.30.

11 Ibid., 2.12.32.
12 Ibid., 2.12.33.
13 In the 20th century, the outturn of the lake was 2 lakh tons a year.
14 Shinde 2004–05: 43–50; Shinde et al. 2008: 57–84.
15 Selvakumar further draws our attention to a poem where the father of the
heroine is engaged in fishing and the mother goes to the salt pan, that is,
Uppu viḷai. It further refers to barter of salt for rice (kazhani).
16 Selvakumar forthcoming.
17 From Saṅgam literature, Selvakumar shows that when men were tending
the carts, women also took to driving the vehicle. When required, men
would have offered support to carts by pushing or supporting the wheel
and women took to the driving seats.
18 It is most likely that the name Agāriya is derived from ākara, meaning
mine in the Arthaśāstra which clearly recognises salt making as a mining
operation.
19 Aloṇakhātakam, that is, alavaṇakhādakam, Sircar 1993: 198–200; Sircar 1966.
20 Ramesan 1970: 34ff.
21 Sastri, H. Krishna. ‘Bitragunta Grant of Saṅgama II’. Epigraphia Indica,
Vol. III, 21ff.
22 This inscription mentions that ‘on Sunday the new moon in Dhanu of the
4th aṅka of the victorious reign of the warrior, the powerful Kapileśvara
Deva Mahārāja, at camp Puruṣottama while paying respects to the god in
presence of … before the feet of the God, and in the cognisance of Pātra
Agniśarmā, the examiner of bhogas and the seal bearer, spoke the king:
Engraver, write on the door of the temple of the God Puruṣottama—
the tax levied on salt and cowries (loṇa kauḍi). I remit, remit, remit.
Whoever being king, violates this, rebels against Lord Jagannātha’.
23 These are the seas of salt, milk, clarified butter, molasses, curd, sugar and
water.
24 Suśruta Saṁhitā, Uttaratantra, 44.22.
25 Ibid., 19.11.
26 Ibid., 19.14; 19.16.
27 Ibid., 18.103; 19.14–15.
28 Ibid., 21.23; 21.50.
29 Ibid., 24.25.
30 Ibid., Sutrasthāna, 5.18.
31 Caraka Saṁhitā has audbhida in place of romaka. Suśruta Saṁhitāmentions
saindhava samudra, vida, sauvarcala, romaka, audbhida, guṭika and
paṁsuja lavaṇas.
32 Mooss 1987: 217–237.
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5
DRUGS AND POTIONS: EXPLORING THE EARLY

HISTORY OF MEDICINE IN INDIA FROM AN
ECONOMIC HISTORY PERSPECTIVE
Nupur Dasgupta
Introduction
The tradition of medical knowledge and practices go back a long time

in Indian history. The concrete evidence for a full-fledged and rational
practise of medicine may be traced from the Buddhist canonical texts,
which reflect the steady growth of knowledge-based pragmatic approach
to the treatment and care of the sick within the saṅgha environs at first.
The appearance of the medical compendia in the following times,
with rich discussions on medical concepts and immense volume of
information on diseases, treatment and therapeutics, heralded new
developments in the field, with indirect pointers to a rising body of
skilled medical workforce. Growing trends of medical practices, which
in these early days also involved preparation of medicines, necessarily
involved collection of medical ingredients of various categories as a
related sphere of activity. Both these phenomena, the rise of an expert
workforce in medical services1 and the exchange network for medical
substances could be considered to constitute economic aspects of the
early history of medicine in India. The evidence for this history is not
plentiful. Moreover, none of the basic methods of modern economic
analyses can be tried here and only very rudimentary theoretical
perspectives can be tentatively applied to develop a perspective. The
article, thus, attempts to set out the evidence available for medicine as a
service and those for the supply of medical materials and try to visualise
the two as representing a whole range of economic activity. This work
primarily delves into the internal evidence of the two early medical
compendia, the Caraka and the Suśruta Saṁhitās, drawing comparable
evidence from other sources to understand the complexities of the
history. The temporal scope of our survey ranges approximately
between the 3rd–2nd centuries bce and the 6th century ce, spilling over,
where relevant, beyond both the upper and lower limits of this range
of time.
80

Drugs and Potions 81
Historical Context of the Early Medical Texts
So far as the dates of the early compendia of Caraka2 is concerned,

it seems to have been composed during or shortly after the Maurya
period3 and first redacted by 150–200 ce.4 The version available in
complete form is due to the contribution of the 5th century ce redactor
Dṛḍhabala.5 The Suśruta Saṁhitā also comes close to this time range.
Meulenbeld was of the opinion that the original text was already
composed by the first three centuries of ce at the latest, and revised
before 500 ce.6 According to Wujastyk, however, the compendium
was composed through phases between 250 bce and 500 ce.7 The final
stretch of the Saṁhitā with the inclusion of the Uttaratantra might be
put in a later time but before the 6th century ce.8
Going by the theory that Agniveśa’s text (earliest layer) was redacted
by unidentifiable experts either in the Śaka or Kuṣāṇa circuits or in
the waning stage of the Maurya–Sunga polities, the Caraka Saṁhitā
may be situated within northern India, stretching from Gandhara and
Kashmir in the north-west to the Madhyadeśa.9 However, by the time
of Dṛḍhabala in the 4th century ce10 or 500 ce,11 the geographical range
had expanded to the Dakṣiṇāpatha. The Caraka redaction mentions
the people and regions of Bāhlīka, Saurāstra, Sauvīra and Sindhu.12
Physicians of Balkh were well known in the Caraka.13 The association
with the northern and north-western parts of the subcontinent
remains close in the 5th century ce too as Dṛḍhabala himself was an
inhabitant of Pañcanadapura in Kashmir perhaps with connections
to Sind.14 Besides, the internal evidence of the text reveals familiarity
with the terrain and people of prācya (eastern region) and Cīna.15 The
last country or people are mentioned in Indian texts not much before
the 1st century bce, denoting perhaps the Qin State in North Western
China which had strong trade connections with Central Asia.16 But
more on this comes later.
P.V. Sharma presented a plausible view about the context of the
Suśruta Saṁhitā,17 according to which the compendium was prepared
during the Sātavāhana regime. The opinion seems to match with the
geographical information from the text. The Saṁhitā refers to Avantī
and Dakṣiṇāpatha, Devagiri mountain, Malaya, Pāṇḍya and Sahya
mountains, the Vindhyan range and the river Tapi. On the other hand, it
also mentions the northern geographical formations like the Himavant
mountains, the river Vitastā, the river Sindhu, Kāśmīra, the river
Kauśiki, Gaṅga and even further northern and north-western features
like the people called Uttarakurus and the lake Kṣudrakamānasa
and the country of the Yavanas and the Cīnas.18 The outreach of the
physicians is to be considered to have extended gradually within these

broad regions of the subcontinent. The range of time covers a period

when the society witnessed the efflorescence of urbanity under different
polities which perhaps acted as a factor in the development of medical
services.
Beginnings of Medical Services: A Rising Profession?
Historians of medicine in the early Indian context have noted the beginnings
of rational medicine in healing practices within the ascetic, especially
the Buddhist, circuit.19 Early references to ideas of healing and medicine
are available in the Pāli canonical sources, which put down the rules for
the monks’ allowance of medicine.20 More importantly, the existence of
regular infirmaries within the saṅgha is attested to by a reference in the
Saṁyutta Nikāya which mentions the Buddha discoursing to the monks
within a gilānasālā (infirmary) in the Mahākuṭāgārasālā located near the
Mahāvana, close to the city of Vesāli.21 But more than these indications
towards early beginnings of healthcare within the Buddhist saṅgha, the
Mahāvagga supplies evidence for medical profession having attained a
mainstream occupation. This is drawn from the long story of Jīvaka
Komārabhacca, the urban knowledgeable and most sought after
eminent physician of old times. The cosmopolitan background is
evident. Jīvaka was said to have been trained in Taxilā, practising all
over the circuit of the Mahājanapadas of Kāsi, Kosala and Magadha,
treating the royalty, the rich and middle classes as well as the Buddhist
monks, and none less than the Buddha himself. Jīvaka was described
as adept in both surgery and medicine and was a regular advisor to
the monks.22 The date of the evidence from early Buddhist Pāli texts
would fall within the two centuries after the Buddha’s death, which
recent scholars put around 400 bce.23 Therefore, we can identify this
information on rising medical profession to fall approximately around
the late 4th to 3rd centuries bce.
Megasthenes’ account too points in this direction. The account,
recounted by Strabo, puts the physicians in the second category of
śramaṇas,24 indicating the early association of medical services with
ascetics, possibly the Buddhist monks. This has been put forward
by Kenneth G. Zysk.25 The account also makes distinction between
physicians, who were clearly ascetic mendicants dependent on the supply
of their own sustenance and for drugs on lay followers, and those who
were more accomplished and refined, perhaps indicating an urban,
professional contingent, as the tales of Jīvaka Komārabhacca indicates.
This phase is followed by the one when we come across Asoka’s
declaration in the second Rock Edict26 that he had instituted services

for the medical treatment of men and animals everywhere in his

kingdom and arranged for medicinal herbs, roots and fruits to be
supplied and planted wherever they were not found. In the Kalsi
version, moreover, we get to be informed of the king having arranged
for physicians in every part of his kingdom for treatment of men and
animals. Whether this meant state medical services, that is, physicians
directly employed by the king, remains a rather tantalising question.
Dominik Wujastyk has submitted his opinion against considering this
declaration as evidence for setting up of hospitals per se, but agrees
that the message indicated provisions made for importing medicines
wherever necessary.27 Kenneth G. Zysk was of the opinion that Asoka’s
edict indicated probably that the monk healers extended their medical
care to the laity.28 A number of epigraphic records indicate that the
tradition of medical care continued to operate within the Buddhist
saṅgha, evidently spreading out in the Deccan and western India as
per the evidence from the monastic site of Nagarjunikonda in the 3rd
century ce29 and the Duḍḍavihāra in Gujarat in the 6th century ce.30
On the other hand, the Theravāda Pāli Jātakas provide possible
clues to the general trends of medical practices beyond the monastic
order.31 The Dasabrāhmaṇa Jātaka probably indicates an early stage
in the profession, when the tikicchakas, as an occupation group, were
apparently regarded quite close to the status of the Brāhmaṇas in the
general society. They were described as carrying sacks filled with herbs
and roots on their backs and chanting spells and giving baths to cure the
sick.32 The wide scene of medical profession can also be observed on the
one hand from the dismal condition narrated in the Sāliya Jātakas of the
‘dubbalavejjo’, the poor physician without any practice in the village,33
and on the other from the scene in the Gāthā Sattasāī (dated possibly
in 200 and may have been extended up to 600 ce),34 where the villagers
are shown lamenting that there were no physicians in the wretched
village.35 The two scenes present the contrasting poles in the conditions
of medical services within our time range.
At a different level, there are references within the medical
compendia that medical service was a regular appendage of the
royal army,36 which finds resonance with the prescriptions of the
Arthaśāstra.37 The rule for granting lands to physicians along with
the priests, courtiers, elephant trainers, horse trainers and other
bureaucrats38 further clarifies the perception of the physicians as an
occupation group useful for employment by the royal authority, a full-
fledged development of which is reflected later in the Harṣacarita.39
The juridical regulations related to professions and guilds are the most
useful pointers to the phenomenon. For example, the Kanṭakśodhanam
Adhikaraṇam of the Arthaśāstra, which prescribes judicial regulations

against guilds of professionals like weavers, washermen, goldsmiths,

actors, also targets the physicians (bhiṣaj) for non-performance of
services, etc. Fiscal penalties were imposed in ascending order on the
physicians if found negligent, for wrong treatment of the patient or
for causing death and deformities. Rules were also laid down against
selling adulterated medicine.40 Quite clearly, therefore, the physicians
were treated on the same footing with other professionals and traders
in the text. Rules for imposition of cash fines reflect on the possible
economic status of the physicians in the society. This extended to the
Brahmanical jurisprudence. The Dharmaśāstra evidence actually puts
the professional status of the physicians in clearer light. Manu, dated
2nd to 3rd centuries ce41 and Bṛhaspati, between 1st century ce and
6th–7th centuries ce,42 both lay down fines for the physician if they
failed in the performance of their duties. Manu held all physicians who
treated their human patients wrongly as liable to pay a fine which was
described to be of middlemost amercement.43 Bṛhaspati held the view
that a physician who, though unacquainted with drugs or spells or
ignorant of the nature of a disease, still took money from the sick, was
to be penalised like a thief.44 Yājñavalkya’s45 view was similar to those
of Manu, except that he increased the legal fine for failure in treatment
of patients to the highest amercement.46 A corresponding sentiment is
found in the Caraka itself, where a sūtra warns that a physician treating
incurable diseases would certainly suffer from loss of wealth, reputation,
and gain censure and unpopularity.47 The above evidence, taken as a
whole, clarifies the professional status of the physicians, especially in the
eyes of juridical literature. The practise of medicine was clearly taken up
for monetary gains by the lay physicians and their operational field was
as much a part of the service sector as those of the other services. Could
we present the idea that the individual skilled services rendered for
payment as well as the services rendered by varied guilds should all be
appreciated as early and rudimentary phenomenon of service economy?
The public interface of the medical services in the early historic
society is available in two important sources, both relating to infirmaries
for general patients. First, there is a long discussion about the rules for
setting up hospitals in the Caraka Saṁhitā48 with specifications for
employing an expert builder for erection of the hospital quarters, with
proper sanitary measures, water supply, toilet area, kitchen, attendants
for various jobs, qualified nurses and caregivers, supply of various
therapeutic food and drugs, equipment and things for emergency,
etc. Elsewhere, Caraka describes elaborate sauna or quarters for
treatment by fomentation.49 Repeated references in the Caraka and
Suśruta Saṁhitās to elaborate and expensive Rasāyana treatments
within special chambers (kuṭipraveśa/āgāra praveśa) described50 and

prescriptions for professional behaviour on the part of physicians and

medical caregivers indicate that the profession was taking off in major
ways. The Suśruta also provides many other clues to an organised
pharmacy (bheṣajagārām) and treatment institutions when it suggests
the requirements for establishing store rooms in auspicious quarters
and clean surroundings and prescribes for proper measures of storing
drugs in dedicated rooms.51 The hospital establishments would have
required regular supply of major and basic ingredients for compound
drug preparations, which could be used as emetics, purgative, as an
astringent medium, appetizer, digestive, etc.—‘Saṅgrahaṇīya, dipanīya,
pacanīya, upasamanīyavātahara, ādi sama ākhyātāni ca auṣadhāni.’52
In addition, there should be a ready supply of all kinds of accessories,
different kinds of furniture and utensils for treatment, stone slabs for
grinding of various kinds of processed items, salt, fuel, wine, vinegar of
various kinds, jaggery, oil, dairy items, honey. These items were regular
items of exchange and were equally important for the physicians in
charge of treatment of patients. According to Wujastyk, this description
should be situated between 100 bce and 150 ce.53
More importantly, the evidence supplied by the Chinese pilgrim
Fa Xian for the 5th century ce brings an outsiders’ perspective on
organised medical care during the time of his visit. The pilgrim
describes how the heads of Vaiśya families in the city of Pāṭaliputra
had set up ‘houses for dispensing charity and medicines’ and arranged
treatment for all, including the poor and the destitute. That these
were regular establishments for treatment is left in no doubt as it is
mentioned that the patients admit themselves into these institutions
and leave on their own accord when better.54 Zysk suggested that the
ruins of the arogyaśālā at Kumrahar may qualify for this kind of an
infirmary. Several inscriptions have been found at the site with the
legends ‘śrī ārogyavihāre Bhikṣusaṅghasya’, ‘[ā]rogyavihāre’ and '[dhan]
vantareḥ’.55 Medicines would have been in regular demand in such a
scenario. A partial window to the wide requirement for medicine comes
in the form of numerous epigraphic records ranging from the early 3rd
century ce to the 6th century ce, mentioning lay patrons, including
royal personages making gifts and ensuring supply of medicine for the
sick of the saṅgha and temples.56
This phase between 300 and 500 ce, especially as Chakravarti and
Ray point out, marked a time when the physicians become a visible
occupation group in historical sources. The phase has been observed by
Romila Thapar as ‘threshold times’.57 It was a scene of rising classicism
and orientation to Sanskritic culture, with a heightened sense of
sovereign authority in terms of the monarchical state. The expansive
state society was also branching out to provincial/regional and local/sub-

regional administration. This facilitated the proliferation of economic

and administrative institutions based on land economy in large parts
of India. But the long-term roots of the developments had taken off
earlier. The setting was favourable for the rise of professionals in the
field of production, services and distribution of items of consumption
leading to emerging contexts of exchanges. It is in this situation that
the interface between the consumers (specialised physicians, patrons
of establishments providing medical services, and patients) and
corresponding suppliers of medicinal materials emerge in interesting
light.
Primitive Exchanges: Exploring the

Perspectives of Economic History
Having set the matter of growing services in medicine, the intention in

this article now is to delve into the whole range of exchange relations from
a bird’s eye view.58 This would require covering wide networks, both the
long distance, transregional, nodal connections and the local network
patterns. It must be acknowledged at the outset that, albeit this attempt
at situating the theme within accepted theoretical parameters, we might
end up running beyond conventional notions. Thus, we need to factor
in the more open ideas of exchange economy rather than remain strictly
within the formal boundaries of the theories of trade, although trade in
commodities too featured in the context we have selected to observe.
To take a brief survey of the emergent theories on exchange modes,
according to the Japanese Philosopher, Kojin Karatini,59 four types
of exchanges could be discerned, operating in archaic to premodern
world, beginning with societies which witnessed what Marcel Mauss60
described as reciprocal exchanges (a) and which may be actually
seen as a system characterised by reciprocity of gifts. Jonathan Parry,
peeling the leaves of the onion as it were, dwells on the complexities
entrenched in Mauss’ famous theory and reveals deeper interfaces of
reciprocity, comprising obligation and economic interest of a wider
kind.61 The next step (b), not necessarily precluding the continuance of
the former system of exchange mode, consisted of exchanges operating
under a rising political order, characterised by rule/authority and
protection, indicating initiation of polities and extraction of product
by peaceful coercion/revenue or plunder. The third (c) consisted of
regular commodity exchange between communities as explained by
Karl Marx.62 The fourth (d) comprises transactions beyond the first
three and beyond specificities of state-controlled exchange, religion
and class formations, actually marking the launch of advanced trade in

capitalism. Exchange in our select context would have to be perceived

within the first three of these modes of exchange.
Three works focusing on the ancient Indian context have been
consulted for a comparative review to situate our theme of investigation
within a workable theoretical parameter. Here, we shall first take up two
in order to introduce the idea. First, we may cite Jason Neelis’ research,63
for which he admits to taking cue from Karl Polanyi’s general definition
of exchange as ‘the mutual appropriative movement of goods between
hands’64 and Neville Morley’s concept of trade as the ‘movement
of goods across different sorts of boundaries’65 for a foundational
perspective. The second work comprises a detailed introduction to
his edited volume on trade by Ranabir Chakravarti. It dwells on the
conceptual frames for preindustrial exchange modes in greater details,
working out the possible perspectives on exchange from the point of
view of the history of trade in early India.66 Chakravarti relates to Karl
Polanyi’s theory of market as an institution regulating advanced mode
of transaction. Polanyi negates the prevalence of this market as a nexus
system in preindustrial societies and directs us to think rather of trade,
traders and marketplaces or ‘ports of trade’ in ancient societies.67 We
are attempting to situate the supply of medicinal ingredients in our
context broadly within these parameters of definitions and concepts of
economic transactions.
However, our perspective differs in two major ways from the
above works. First, the current research goes beyond Neelis’ scope
of observation which consists of ‘exchanges across relatively long
distances and interconnections between regional nodes than with local
distribution and exchange networks.’68 In fact, the present work intends
to sound out the possibilities of moving deeper into the local and
arterial networks, even in areas of apparently non-existent networks.
In relation to Chakravarti’s perspective, we would like to point out
that, whereas, in any work on history of trade the trader per se assumes
significance much more than the consumer, as it does in his work,
this article looks at the exchange operations from the vantage of the
social functions of medical profession and supply services as a whole
complex of economic activity. This necessitates looking at the scene
from the combined standpoints of the consumer and the producer of
items of exchange and their mutual symbiosis through or without the
intervention of the trader. We take cue from economists like Kenneth
Boulding, who has postulated that production and consumption are
integral to exchange,69 and constitute the main fields of interest to the
economists. We shall try to observe how the consumers were linked
with the suppliers in our context and leave open the possibilities of
resultant dynamics of exchange/collection/extraction.

The third work, an article by Romila Thapar,70 balances evidence

and rich analysis on the Roman maritime trade from which it is
possible to arrive at certain perspectives or conceptual angles for
the case in hand. Thapar juxtaposes the exchange networks, longer
and local, and situates both in a diachronic process, which allows us
to think of changing patterns of networks in terms of routes as well
as sociopolitical and economic relations through time and space.
Moreover, her understanding of the natural geographical ‘frontiers’ and
‘zones of activity’ is highly significant71 and brings us to the play of the
landscape and geography in the creation of networks. For us, looking at
the natural habitat of the unprocessed medicinal substances especially
provides a scope for hypothesising about the possible contours and
links of the exchange geography. Thus, it is possible to gauge at the
distant hinterland and arterial links connecting settled societies with
organised trade and territorial states. Thapar pinpoints on this factor,
in connection with discussions on trade in everyday commodities
like rice, sugar, sesame oil and ghee between the Persian Gulf and the
Western Indian ports mentioned in the Periplus.72 Such arteries would
be trickling out to far off and hardly travelled zones, especially rich in
medicinal ingredients. The links of supply of medicinal items per se
ought to be observed through the lens of these smaller and peripheral
multi-link chains as outlying streams to the major long-distance trade
networks.
In our context, the main consumers were the physicians, who
required to prepare the compound drugs, or provide the therapeutics
in raw to the patients. The field of operation could be situated within
monastic arogyasālā or gilānasālā, beginning with the early Buddhist
monastic establishments and later in the infirmaries arranged for the
sick by lay patrons, or at the stores of the urban hospices as mentioned
by Fa Xian, or the individual bhiṣags’ stores and workplaces, of which
we have multiple references in the medical compendia of the times.
But what were the mechanisms and levels of transactions in which
the professional physician found himself if he wanted to have access
to the reservoir of medicinal items? The suppliers of medicinal and
therapeutic substances were varied, coming from various social levels,
as we shall note. The fields and processes of negotiation were necessarily
of multiple forms and kinds.
The action of selling, or trade in a more organised manner,
indicates organisation of production or supply of items under different
occupation groups, skilled at multiple levels and at multiple jobs. We
shall see how layered these circuits of operations were, and the varied
nature of processing and collection of the medicinal ingredients would
necessitate thinking in more nuanced manner about how to name

the economies involved or how to define the participants’ position

in the marketplace or the consumers’ world. In this context, another
line of thought seems important to tread, and this too was suggested
by Chakravarti, citing Colin Renfrew.73 This specific theory, offered by
Renfrew, takes into account the spatial orbits of exchange and defines
ever extending orbits of such action as leading to formation of complex
societies and finally to state formation. In the present case, this theory
seems to offer some explanation for local–supra local networks of
exchange where the local exists just outside the boundaries of established
polities or were even peripheral to familiar geography of polities in the
eyes of the contemporary consumers. These exchange networks would
have established tentative bridges between disparate sociopolitical and
economic units leading to complex and new sociopolitical negotiations.
Throughout the period, from the 2nd century bce to the 6th century
ce, we note the gradual establishment of more regularised forms of
exchange operations and mutually profitable relationships, both of non-
monetary value and monetary transactions. The literary and epigraphic
records, representing the entire phase under scrutiny, bring to light the
diachronic dynamics of exchange operations.
Supplies of Medicine
A survey of the medical compendia yielded information on three major

sources of therapeutic food and medicinal ingredients, consisting of
animal origin, plant origin and earth origin.74 Among these, we may
take a few items as examples to try and gauge at the nature of exchanges
which may have involved a certain degree of commercial nexus. First,
among the natural items, those derived from audbhijya were often
difficult to obtain by virtue of their unknown provenance and difficult
identity, and, thus, necessitated taking recourse to other means of
accession through peripheral groups of people,75 who then might (or
might not) have attained a gainful position of some degree. Secondly, the
mineral items, which required certain skill for extraction, traditionally
operated by dedicated labour, would have required a different kind
of nexus. Thirdly, there were the processed items, derived from all
three categories of sources for medicine, which would have involved
regular trade networks. This last constituted of wide range of products
which were also part of everyday use. Many items would have required
complex processing by experts traditionally carrying out these jobs,
often on hereditary basis. Several occupation groups were thus engaged
in the production of processed items sought by the physicians to prepare
compound drugs. Drug-making processes, therefore, involved striking

up contacts and negotiations with a huge network of suppliers at varied

levels of production and exchange economy. Discussions on a few items
described in medical texts would illustrate the point. Taking the above
order in reverse, let us begin by observing the third category—the
processed items.
Processed Items: Wine of Various Kinds
The Caraka Saṁhitā76 mentions all kinds of fermented drinks, including

wines of various types like Surā, Madirā, Jagala, Ariṣṭa, Śārkara
(derived from sugarcane juice), etc., the production of which required
raw material handling and processing skill. The Suśruta77 too discusses
varied kinds of wine and liquor, including Mārdvīkā from grapes or
raisins, Khārjurā from dates, Surā from fermented rice, Yava Surā
from barley, Guḍa Sidhu or sugarcane wine, Śarkarā Sidhu sugar wine,
varied kinds of Āsava and Ariṣṭa prepared from several ingredients,
many of which were detailed in the Arthaśāstra. The Arthaśāstra also
mentions Āsava, prepared separately under the instructions of or by
the physicians themselves, specific for each malady.78 The preparations
indicate use of myriad ingredients which had to be collected or bought
from diverse sources.
Various categories of fermented drinks were evidently regular items
of trade, even long-distance trade. Of these, Mārdvīkā, that is, the grape
wine, was imported from the West through the Arabic ports, as we are
informed by the Periplus.79 Grapes were cultivated in the north-western
parts of the subcontinent80 by the time the Śakas and the Kuṣāṇas had
extended their polities within the subcontinent. Making of grape wine,
if not distillation proper, and drinking had become a part of the local
culture in the Gandhara and Kashmir regions.81 James McHugh’s recent
very critical and analytic article dispels the idea of early distillation in
the Indian subcontinent and proposes that the archaeological findings
of Marshall, pointed out by Allchin, actually represented some complex
process of ‘cooking, concentration and (effectively) pasteurization of
wine …’82 The northern grape wine might have reached the Madhya Deśa
through the land routes. The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea mentions that
Persian wine was imported into the port of Barygaza83 and Laodicean,
Italian as well as Arabian wine was brought to the inland market town
of Ujjaini.84 We may guess that the treatment of rich clientele might
have made the use of grape wine a possibility. Other fermented drinks
came from within the subcontinent from the urban and rural artisans
while ingredients would have been supplied by the tribal folks and
forest dwellers. So far as the internal supplies are concerned, we have

a few clues in the Arthaśāstra. A very interesting statement in the

Arthaśāstra chapter on Surādhaykṣa is the one prescribing that women
and children should search for the ingredients for making wine, liquors
and ferments: ‘surākiṇvavicayaṁ strīyoh bālaśca kuryyuḥ’.85 The sundry
ingredients would reach the wine maker, through whom the sales would
be conducted directly or indirectly.
As per the information in the Arthaśāstra, trade in fermented
drinks is mentioned as possibly being carried out in three distinct
spaces—the fort, the country and the war camps. The manner in
which the text advised the Surādhyakṣa,86 the official designated as a
part of the state administration to supervise the production and sale
of fermented liquor, including perhaps a hint about fixed prices, points
to possibilities of administrative regulations.87 The evidence points to
the familiar presence of the traditional operators or persons who were
born to the trade of wines and ferments (surākinvavyavahāribhiḥ),
distinguishing the producers (kartṛ) and the merchants (vikretā), but
hinting at their blurred relations in the exchange network. The evidence
basically points to the prevalence of hereditary groups of winemakers
and traders when private taxable trading in liquors is mentioned.88
Somewhat later, the Pāṇdhurnā and the Patna Museum Plates of the
Vākāṭaka ruler Pravarasena II89 mention two settlements, Kāllāra
vāstavya and Madhukajjharī, which have been observed as settlements
of wine producers or distillers.90 The above evidence, taken together,
implies the prevalence of a complex scene of operation, involving mixed
modes of production and sales at various levels. But we also do observe
the possibility of organised business of the traditional and perhaps
endogamous groups of wine producers, who would have been a rather
important category of suppliers of medicinal substances in an organised
trade.
Sugar and Oil: Sundry Processed Items
A wide range of substances were used for medicinal purposes which

were also part of everyday culinary and food habits. Sugarcane was
widely cultivated in the early historic period both in the northern
and the southern India. Quite early in our context, we hear of regular
operations of sugar manufacturing from molasses or treacle of
molasses—guḷakaraṇaṁ, in the Mahāvagga.91 The description clarifies
several men working in a sugar factory at Rājagaha.92
Varieties of sugarcane and processing of sugarcane for obtaining the
sweetener has been discussed in the Suśruta which actually shows a close
knowledge of the manufacturing stages. The compendium mentions

a variety of sugarcanes—Pauṇḍraka, Bhīruka, Vaṁśaka, Śvetaporaka,

Kāntāra, Tāpasekṣu, Sucipatraka, Naipālo, Dīrghapatra, Nīlapora and
Kośakṛta. The categorisation is stated to be done based on the thickness
of the cane. Possibly some names indicate the regions where they were
growing, like Pauṇḍraka and Naipālo, while some others were named
by their morphological characteristics.93 The juice is said to be variously
ingested in different stages. As James McHugh has also observed,94 we
note the stages of processing the sugarcane juice into unrefined sugar,
treacle or Guḍaḥ and a kind of refined sugar or śuddha, made into three
progressively more refined forms—Matsyaṇḍika, Khaṇḍa and Śarkarā. It
is finally observed in the text that the Śarkarā has a pure sweetener, devoid
of alkaline saturation and contains the increasing essence of the sweet
property.95 Evidently, the detailed knowledge displayed in the medical
text reveals nexus with advanced and skilled operations of manufacturing
Phāṇita, guḍaḥ and especially śarkarā by specialised producers, evidently,
a part of the growing regular-exchange circuit. Not much detail of the
producing communities is available in the non-medical texts, which
perhaps indicates a lack of interest in a common and sundry activity.
But sugarcane was a regular and important crop. Not only was it grown
in the northern parts as the later evidence of the Harṣacarita imply,96
but the Tamil epic Śilappadikāram attests the popularity of the crop in
southern regions too. Apparently, sugarcane juice presses were operating
in villages dotting the route from Kutaku hills in the region of Puhar,
running along the bank of Kaveri, enroute to Madurai.97 In fact, the
Periplus informs of export of cane sugar to the ports in northern Somalia
from the hinterland of Barygaza.98 A late 6th century ce inscription from
Valabhi, detailing on local revenue and commercial regulations, mentions
sugarcane plantations as liable to payment of high revenue,99 indicating
the connections to what was by this time a profitable industry.
Among other regular processed items commonly used in the
medicinal recipes, we may note the varied types of oil pressed from
various plant-roots, seeds, leaves, ranging from eraṇḍa taila or castor
oil to oil pressed from the seeds of nimba, atasī, kusumbha, arka,
kirātatiktaka, etc., evidently used for medicinal purposes.100 Sesame oil,
tila taila, however, was said to be the most desirable in the Suśruta.101 It
was also the common oil used for culinary purposes along with sarṣapa
or mustard oil.102 These oils would have been processed in large scale
regularly by skilled artisans or oil millers. In fact, the Suśruta mentions
cakrataila, the term translated by P.V. Sharma as machine-pressed oil.103
This cakrataila was prescribed for use in cooking kalka-kaṣāya, to
prepare medicinal paste.
Epigraphic evidence in the early historic context often refer to the
guilds of oil millers, for example, in the Nasik cave inscription of the

3rd century ce in a post-Sātavāhana context in the Maharashtra.104 Oil

millers had evidently made headway in the economy by the days when
the Gupta dynasty rose to power.105 Settlements of oil manufacturers
may have emerged on the scene as indicated in a Vākāṭaka record, which
mentions a township named Lavanatailika, perhaps a settlement of oil
millers and salt merchants.106 The exchange modes varied in rural and
urban settings according to whether bulk items or small-scale supplies
were required. Accordingly, the contingent of suppliers also varied.
In fact, there were different sides to the picture. For example, by the
evidence of the Nārada Smṛti, it would appear that Brāhmaṇas would
often resort to the occupation of a Vaiśya and that the Dharmaśāstras
recognised this as a regular reality. But certain limits were set to his
choices. He was only allowed to sell all kinds of medicinal items used
to cure diseases, sesamum and the like.107 This rule points to the
prevalence of small players in the exchange network alongside the
regular occupation groups.
Accessing Minerals for Medicine
The matter of supply of earth minerals for medicine comes under the
second category. The Suśruta Saṁhitā mentions a distinctive category
of ingredients, Uṣakādi Gaṇa, which included among others, hiṅgu
or hiṅgula or cinnabar and tuttha or copper sulphate.108 The añjana
category comprised plain añjana, rasāñjana, nāgapuṣpa, etc., all being
varieties of lead and galena ore.109 The text also mentions taṅkaṇa kṣāra
or borax as an alkaline substance for varied uses.110
Involvement of batches of experts in the field would have been required
for the collection of regularly used minerals like orpiment and realgar
from the far off deposits. One of the best contemporary information
about accession of minerals and metals is provided in the Arthaśāstra.
The text exhibits deep awareness of the special skill and experience
that was required, starting from identification of ore deposits to final
extraction. The Arthaśāstra also prescribed rules for the sale and use of
the metals and minerals within the state factories.111 The workers who
stole from the state store or state mines or those who carried out illegal
mining were to be employed as bonded labour.112 Now, it would perhaps
not be wrong to assume that this so-called recalcitrant workforce would
constitute the actual skilled private operators in the job. In fact, minerals
for everyday use like salt and other minerals like gairika, manaḥśilā and
añjana, required regularly in medicinal preparations, were obviously
extracted by skilled group of experts outside the state-run operations in
our select period. The account of the Periplus mentions ships from the

Western countries bringing in metals and minerals like copper, tin, lead
into Barygaza and sulphide of antimony, realgar as well as orpiment into
the southern peninsular ports in the Pāṇḍyan country.113 The proximate
source for many of these minerals and metals lay to the north of the
mouth of the Indus and in the coastal and inland Balochistan highlands
to the mines in southern Afghanistan and northern Himalayas. The
7th century Harṣacarita describes the mountain Gandhamādana and
its caves as filled with the smell of sulphur.114 The reference came in
connection to Harṣa’s demand of tributes from the rulers of the regions
stretched from the Suvela mountains in the south, western mountains
and the Gandhamādana in the north. D.C. Sircar points out that the
epigraphic and literary records mark this mountain in the northern
limit of cakravartīkṣetra along with Himālaya, Kailāsa, Kedāra, mythical
Sumeru, Prāgjyotiṣa, Vaṅksu or Oxus and Bālhika.115 David Gordon
White has explored the possible sources of mercury and its ores, cinnabar,
orpiment, realgar, etc. He points to a very significant fact that the early
and medieval Indian alchemical terms for some of these minerals bear
the imprint of their provenance and they all lie to the north-west of
Indian subcontinent: ‘Pārada, the most common alchemical term for
mercury, refers to Pārada-deśa, the land of the Parthians or Pāradas of
Transoxiania or the Baluchistan region; darada, red cinnabar, to Darada-
deśa, the modern Dardistan, in northern Kashmir; hiṅgula, cinnabar,
to Hiṅglāj (Devi) in Baluchistan or to a country called Hiṅgula.’116 The
suppliers in these items would be traditional specialists because of their
know-how, access to source and expertise in methods of extraction.
White suggested the prevalence of a special overland trade nexus rather
than a maritime one, which he terms the mercury and Tārā trade
network.117 The overland suppliers would certainly be constituted of the
mountain tribes and peoples in the regions stretching from the lower
parts of the Gandhara to the Indus delta and to the northern Himalayas
and beyond. The possible involvement of the people mentioned in the
Mahābhārata as bringing gifts from the mountains and forests is quite
plausible.118
Suppliers in the Margins (?): The Peripheral Scene119
This brings us to the peripheral groups of suppliers in natural

unprocessed items. As we have observed, many of the medicinal
ingredients were products of the mountains and forests and a huge
number of them were not well known to the general people, including
the physicians themselves. Thus, we find rather surprising directions
in the two medical compendia admitting dependence on shepherds,

cowherds, goatherds, forest dwellers, hunters as well as the ascetics of

forests for identification of plants and natural medicinal substances.120
This was an admission which stemmed from pragmatism, but any
further speculation on this message was immediately subverted by
stating emphatically how the knowledge of the form and names of plants
alone did not make a physician! The emphasis was placed on the ‘real
knower’ of the medicinal plant, the bhiṣak, who possessed the know-
how of drug administration—‘vijñānīyādoṣadhīḥ sarvathā bhiṣak’.121
Much is thus understated or kept in complete silence and, yet, there are
clues in the form of interesting linguistic indicators peeking out in the
way of nomenclature. Some plants have very specific names connected
to tribes and people, like the name of the plant Kirātatiktaka, an
important medicine repeatedly mentioned in texts, which derived from
the name of the Kirāta people. Indeed, the best quality of the Kirātatikta
or Swertia Chiretta Buch. -Ham. is a species native to the Eastern
temperate Himalayas from Kashmir to Bhutan to Khasi Hills and the
Nepal Morung region,122 a region associated with the eastern batch
of the Kirātas. Again, the herb group going by the name Ambaṣṭhaki
or Ambaṣṭhaka,123 with astringent property, could be associated with
the people of the same name. The Ambaṣṭhas constituted an early
historic kin group or tribe like the Śivis, Kṣudrakas and Mālavas as
Anava Kṣatriyas and have been mentioned in several classical, early
Sanskrit and Pāli texts. Their land is described as contiguous with Sind
and Kashmir—Kāśmīra-Huṇa-Ambaṣṭha-Sindhavaḥ. Raychaudhuri
points out that the Ambaṣṭhas might have been a clan of fighters
in the days preceding and during the Maurya rule, and were also
engaged in farming as per the Jātakas, and that some of them later
took other professions especially as physicians.124 The Ambaṣṭhas could
be tentatively associated with a whole range of drugs with astringent
property mentioned by the same name. Kaivarta125 is a synonym of
Jala Mustā or Jalada, growing in marshes or watery places, a name
associated with an occupation group primarily connected to fishing.126
Ṭaṅgana, the name for borax and the particular variety of salt, Romaka
too similarly carry the names of tribes or inhabitants of a region, which
have been mentioned in the early historic texts and perhaps mark the
provenance of these ingredients.127 The powerful mountain tribes were
especially described in the Mahābhārata as bringing gifts of flowers and
honey from the Himalayas and the most powerful medicinal herbs from
the Kailāsa mountain.128 These people could be located in the trans-
Himalayan mountain range, from Karakorum to Zanskar, Ladakh, up
to Kailash mountain and the Tibetan Plateau, and beyond, up to the
regions of Central Asia and in South, the Sind and the Baloch coast and
across the Gulf of Kutch. Could these people have acted as long-term

suppliers of the natural resources from their zone of inhabitation? What

then was the mode of exchange in operation? Were different modes
prevalent simultaneously? These matters will remain in shadow with
tentative hypotheses remaining our only way to gauge the situation.
According to van Buitenen, the composition of the Sabhā Parva
ranged in time from the 5th to the 3rd centuries bce.129 In view of the
names of the peripheral people in Sabhā Parva, it would be right to
date the information to a time in the post Maurya phase, especially
as Olivelle points out that the term Cīna as a people could not have
been known much before 1st century bce.130 However, in view of Geoff
Wade’s recent identification of the Cīna with the Yelang polity located
in the Tibeto–Burman borderlands,131 the reference in the Sabhā Parva
appears to match in time (3rd century bce to 1st century bce–ce) with
the rise of this polity as a power, controlling the lowlands in eastern
Himalayas. The exchange network with some of these people/polities/
powers, therefore, might need to be perceived from a rather under-
discussed aspect of long-distance trade with organised polities, of
different types, operating on the fringe.
The instance of the Kirātas requires a closer look here. They were
described as a forceful Kṣatriya warrior people along with the Cīna,
Yavana, Pulinda, etc.132 and were associated with Prāgjyotiṣa.133 On the
other hand, they were situated near Videha in north Bihar.134 They were
described as a ferocious race, living on fruits and roots, inhabiting the
slopes of the Himalayas and the mountain from behind which the sun
rose to the sea coast and on the both sides of the Lohitya Mountain.
They have been described as bringing loads of candana and aloe and
also black aloes/turmeric (Kālīyaka) and heaps of other things.135
Michael Witzel describes the name Kirāta as non-Vedic and points out
that the later Vedic sources describe the Kirātas as a mountain tribe
living in caves and the Kairāta girls as collecting plants. It is possible
that they spread over too many parts as moving bands of tribes and that
their names were transferred to their eastern neighbours, the Tibeto–
Burmese.136
But the most important evidence for the Kirātas as suppliers of
medicinal raw material comes from the classical accounts. The Periplus
provides a detailed description of a forest or hill tribe at the border of
the land called Thina.137 Apparently, every year, they brought great packs
of leaves at the border region and held festivals, at the end of which
they went back, leaving behind leafy mats made of these leaves. The
locals in the borderland, presumably in India, then extracted the fibre
from the reed mats. These fibres were called petroi (patra?).138 This was
the true source of malabathrum which were then traded by the people
of India.139 G.P. Singh later identified this tribe named in the Periplus

as Sesatai (Sasatae) with a tribe described in the same geographical

region by Ptolemy as Basatae (Besadai) and considered them to be
none other than the Kirātas.140 In fact, Ptolemy also described that ‘…
above Cirradia is the region in which they are said to produce the best
cinnamon.’141 Eggermont mentioned this scene of activity as a scene
of silent barter exchange network. Eggermont also held the view that
the Sesatae of the Periplus were none other than the Basatae/Besatae
of Ptolemy.142 The proposal to look at the perspective of ‘silent trade’
had first projected from Philip D. Curtin in connection with Herodotus’
account (5th century bce) of trade ‘somewhere in northern or western
coast of Africa’ and yet he was sceptic about accepting the description
in its entirety as an instance of exchange.143 What then are we to make of
this information in the Periplus? Are we to think in terms of an old idea
imposed on tales about exotic lands? In practical terms, the raw material
for materia medica were not part of a regular industry, nor were they
easily available in the zone of early historic varṇa-state society, which
we assume had begun to experience regular medical services. Renfrew’s
models of ‘boundary-trade’ as well as ‘down-the-line trade’ could be
useful here. The supplies had to move over distances to reach the places,
where the physicians associated with organised occupation offered their
services in the cities, towns and villages.
A comparable scene of engagement with the supply of medicinal
raw material in the southern parts can be observed in the regions of
the Vindhya-Sahyadris, often cited as a rich zone for medicinal herbs
and forest produce. The Gāthāsattasaī (3rd to the 7th centuries ce)144
and the 7th century ce Harṣacarita are rich in descriptions of everyday
life in the forests and villages bordering the forests in the Vindhya
region, especially talking about the very same vyādha and the pulinda
foresters145 who were to be sought for help by a physician in need of
‘identifying’ the important medicinal plants and herbs.146 This was
not simply a case for local medical professionals cueing up before the
foresters for the medicinal items. The local villages often had no such
professional in the vicinity.147 Life of the common folk in these regions,
in the peripheries of burgeoning state society in the Vindhyas–Deccan
region under the Bhāraśiva Nāgas and the Andhra Ikṣvākus (3rd–4th
centuries ce), Vākāṭakas (3rd–6th centuries ce) and Viṣṇukuṇḍins
(5th–6th centuries ce), remained bereft of much civic or economic
development. Rural and forest folks intermingled; their economies
were similar. The village women in the Vindhya sector, bordering the
forests, who were observed hastening to other villages with bundles
of medicinal plants like Lāmājjhaka grass, countless sacks of Dhātakī
flowers and kuṣṭha plant, while contemplating the terms of sales,148
were perhaps part of a rural artery connected in exchange with towns.

The merchandise, natural forest products, would be carried forward

through further links. This mid-7th century portrayal of the life in the
Vindhya forests and its vicinity may be considered as bearing a possible
projection of what it might have been a century earlier.
On the other end, the Kupyādhyakṣa Adhyāya of the Arthaśāstra
puts forward a different setting for utilisation of forest products,
including medicinal materials where the intervention of state authority
was projected with great emphasis, quite in keeping with the general
tone of the text. But the text could also project the possible expansions
in the sphere of the resource accessing activity of the new states of post
Maurya–Gupta days. The Arthaśāstra chapter mentions extraction,
collection and storing of several categories of forest products, including
kanda, mūla, phalādi, auṣadha and several minerals and metals,
etc. Plant species like kuṁkuma, kusumbha, atasī, kuṣṭha, mustā,
bhallitaka, arjuna, khadira, sarja, etc. were much desired medicinal
ingredients mentioned in the medical texts.149 The forest products
were advised to be kept under strict surveillance under the guards,
with rules for dues levied on the use of forest products. The sovereign
rights were glaringly projected in the text, with imposition of penalties
for illegal uses except for cases of distress.150 The setting evidently
speaks of the rising value of the forest products for consumption of
the state society.
A corresponding development may be noted in the possibilities of
commerce in agro-products, well-illustrated in several sources from the
late 6th century ce onwards. The excellent evidence in an inscription
from Valabhi region dated to the end of our select period (592 ce)151
brings before us a busy scene of commercial operations, production of
wine, imposition of revenue rules for transporting such items as ginger,
cumin, black mustard and coriander seeds, as well as taxation imposed on
plantations of sugarcane as a cash crop. The Yājñavalkya Dharmaśāstra
provides a rule in its Ṛṇādānaprakaraṇam of Vyvavahārādhyāyaḥ about
quite high interest rates imposed on loans secured for liquids, as well
as grains, as well as on persons travelling through forests and by sea.152
What is beyond doubt by all this evidence is the way in which the
associated ruling authorities had sought to lay control over commercial
production and exchange, rules within which the physicians or patrons
of infirmaries and patients, especially those who managed the health of
royal and rich households and the army were operating.153 Clearly, all
expenses would be approved for the treatment of the royal personages
and the army in times of war and this was a sector that would have
afforded the royal physicians unstinted access to medicinal ingredients.
The economics of medical supply would have thus stretched far and
wide to cover layers of exchange systems and strata.

Trickling Down the Periphery
We may end our narration of the contexts of exchange/supply by relating

the fantastic legend of the Viśalyakaraṇī and the great fit of Hanumāna
in uprooting a whole mountain peak (famed Gandhamādana), bringing
the life-reviving medicinal plant to resuscitate Lakṣmaṇa back to
vigour. When Lakṣmaṇa succumbed to the arrows struck by Indrajit,
in the epic war of Rāmāyaṇa, Hanumanta was sent by Suṣeṇa to the
śailamoṣadhi parvata, mountain rich in herbs, to fetch three herbs—
Viśalyakaraṇī, Sāvarṇyakaraṇī and Sañjīvaṇī. The knowledge, it was
stated in the epic, was handed down as a legacy by Jāmbavana. Suṣeṇa
mentioned how the southern peaks were rich in medicinal herbs, thus,
indicating familiarity with provenance of the elixir herbs. However,
and the twist is here, Hanumanta was not privy to this knowledge and
evidently failed to identify the exact species. The mighty being deciding
to avoid any risk, carried the whole peak, rich in medicine, on his
shoulders and brought it before the crowd waiting for him. Then it was
Suṣeṇa who knew the herb by sight, picked it up, crushed it and put it to
Lakṣmaṇa’s nostrils.154 This mythical narration is of huge significance.
The two versions, put together, clearly reveal the association of foresters
with medical lores, observed from the perspective of the urbane
Sanskritic composers of the epic. The tribe of vānaras described in the
epic have been identified as a forest tribe especially as the term ‘vānara’
meant ‘to belong to the forest’.155 They would have been perceived as
a cluster of people along with the Kirātas, Śabara and Vyādhya by the
mainstream in state society. As denizens of forests, they were privy
to nature’s bounteous medicinal herbs, a reality which was often
mythologised but not quite. Not all of the denizens of forests were
equally conversant in medical resources.156 The mythologies and the
actual historical evidence glimpsed through the sources point to the
possible prevalence of many-layered symbiotic relations between these
dwellers of forests, mountains and the residents of the rural and urban
societies, where the rural often merged with the forests on the one hand
and became an extension of the urban on the other. Romila Thapar
had directed our attention to the actual prevalence of disjuncture/
distinction between the early historic grāma or settled countryside and
araṇya and to the very clear social division between the Niṣāda, Bhilla,
Śabara and Pulinda, all clubbed together as āṭavika and the rural-urban
society.157 Yet, negotiations were essential and economic transactions of
different kinds were of utmost necessity. Bringing of gifts or medicinal
ingredients along with other forest products over long distances is very
clearly hinted in the descriptions of the Mahābhārata, while the 7th-
century rural women in the Harṣacarita were bent on striking a good

deal at the market place in neighbouring villages. In between these

two temporal and modal extremes lay the varied modes of primitive
economic engagements. Reciprocation, tribute economy, barter and
even profit-bearing exchanges could be factored into the survey of the
nature of these transactions. The state of negotiations or exchanges for
medicinal substances was set in unequal settings and possibly bred
different kinds of hierarchies and power alignments. Whatever the state
of sovereign rights over natural resources in any given polity within our
select context (2nd century bce to the 6th century ce), the foresters,
āṭavikas, in different phases and spaces, found themselves in varied
marginal positions to negotiate with the consumers beyond their own
orbits, larger part of which constituted of the ‘professional’158 group of
medical men. This complex, multifaceted scene of interconnections has
to be fed into the mainstream of economic history and the history of
medicine in early India.
Notes
1 We shall observe this workforce tentatively as constituting a profession.

For this, we refer to the concept of the ‘professional’ advanced by Natacha
Masser, as ‘people trained in a techne, who practised it for a fee as their
main means of earning a living…’ She ends her work by commenting that
the definition of the ‘ideal “professional” included a sense of duty and
responsibility to the community…’; see Masser, Natacha. 2020. ‘Skilled
Workers in the Ancient Greek City: Public Employment, Selection
Methods, and Evaluation’. In Skilled Labour and Professionalism in Ancient
Greece and Rome, edited by E. Stewart, E. Harris and D. Lewis, pp. 68–
93. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. About the attitude towards
the duties and responsibilities of the physician in the two medical texts,
see Caraka Saṁhitā (henceforth CS), Sūtrasthāna, I.126–140; IX.18–28;
Suśruta Saṁhitā (henceforth SS), Sūtrasthāna, X; XXXIV.15–20. A
rudimentary sense of responsibility seems to have been advanced in these
texts. Editions consulted: Sharma, P.V. 2001, Caraka Saṃhitā (Text with
English Translation 4 Volumes), Vol. I, Varanasi, Chowkhamba Orientalia,
Seventh Edition; Sharma, P.V. 2018, Suśruta - Saṁhitā, Text with English
Translation, Varanasi: Chaukhamba Visvabharati (3 Volumes).
2 The name of Caraka as the author of the early version of the text was
first mentioned by Dṛḍhabala, the 5th century ce redactor of the text; see
Meulenbeld, J.G. 1999, A History of Indian Medical Literature, Vol. IA,
Groningen: Egbert Forsten, pp. 109–110.
3 Wujastyk, Dominik. 1998. The Roots of Ayurveda, Selections from Sanskrit
Medical Writings. New Delhi: Penguin Books India (P) Ltd., pp. 39–41.
4 Meulenbeld, 1999, p. 114.
5 Ibid., pp. 109–110, 349.

6 Meulenbeld, G.J. 2008. Introduction, Translation and Notes, The

Mādhavanidāna with ‘Madhukośa’, the Commentary by Vijayarakṣita and
Śrīkaṇṭhadatta. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, pp. 431–432.
7 Wujastyk, 1998, pp. 104–105.
8 This is marked not only by the evidence of the Bower manuscript, dated
to the 6th century ce, but also if we consider a time for the dissemination
of the Saṁhitā before its translation into Persian in the late 8th–early
9th century ce (Meulenbeld [1999], pp. 342–343; 352); Sanders, Lore.
1987. ‘Origin and Date of the Bower Manuscript: A New Approach’. In
Investigating Indian Art: Proceedings of a Symposium on the Development of
Early Buddhist and Hindu Iconography Held at the Museum of Indian Art,
edited by Marianne Yaldiz and Wibke Lobo, pp. 313–323. Berlin: Museum
fur Indische Kunst.
9 See discussions in Meulenbeld, 1999, pp. 105–112.
10 Sharma, 2001, Vol. I, p. xiii.
11 Meulenbeld, 2008, pp. 410–413.
12 CS, Vimānasthāna, 1.18.
13 CS, Sūtrasthāna, 26.2 and 8; Wujastyk, Dominik. 2016. ‘From Balkh to
Baghdad: Indian Science and the Birth of the Islamic Golden Age in the
Eighth Century’, Indian Journal of History of Science, Vol. 51.4: 679–690.
14 Meulenbeld, 2008, pp. 410–411.
15 CS, Vimānasthāna, 1.17.
16 Olivelle, Patrick. 2005, Manu’s Code of Law: A Critical Edition and
Translation of the Manava-Dharmasastra. New York: Oxford University
Press, p. 22.
17 Cited in Meulenbeld, 1999, pp. 336–338.
18 SS, Sūtrasthāna 18.16.
19 Chattopadhyaya, Debiprasad. 1977. Science and Society in Ancient India.
Calcutta: Research India Publications, pp. 270–306; Zysk, Kenneth G.
1991. Asceticism and Healing: Medicine in the Buddhist Monastery. New
York: Oxford University Press.
20 Dīgha Nikāya, Sangītisuttanta 3. 33. 268. Edition consulted, Rhys Davids,
T.W. and C.A.F., 1921, Dialogues of the Buddha, Translated from the Pāli
of Dīgha Nikāya, Part III, London: Humphrey Milford, p. 246; Vinaya
Piṭaka, Mahāvagga, I.30.4. Edition consulted, Horner, I.B., 1962, The Book
of the Discipline (Vinaya Pitaka), Vol. IV (Mahāvagga), London: Luzac &
Company Ltd., p. 75.
21 Saṁyutta Nikāya, Vedanā - Saṁyuttam, Gelañña, I, 36.7. Edition consulted,
Freer, M. Leon. 1894, Saṁyutta-Nikāya, Part IV, Salāyatanavagga, London:
Henry Frowde, pp. 210–14.
22 Mahāvagga, VIII, 1–36, Horner, 1962, pp. 379–397.
23 Bechert, Heinz (ed.). 1992–1997, The Dating of the Historical Buddha, Die
Datierung des Historischen Buddha. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
(Three volumes); for more specific discussions on the Vinaya evidence
see Norman, K.R. 1997. A Philological Approach to Buddhism. London:
The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, p. 39;
Norman, K.R. 1983. Pali Literature: Including the Canonical Literature in

Prakrit and Sanskrit of all the Hinayana Schools of Buddhism. Harrassowitz:

Wiesbaden, p. 24.
24 Strabo, 15.1. Mahāvagga 60. Edition consulted, Jones, Horace Leonard.
1930, The Geography of Strabo, with an English Translation, (8 volumes),
Vol. VII, London: William Heinmann Ltd., pp. 103–105.
25 Zysk, 1991, pp. 28–29.
26 Hultzsch, E. (ed.). 1925. Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. I, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, Texts and Translations, pp. 2–4, 28–29, 51–52.
27 Wujastyk, Dominik. 2009. ‘The Nurses should be able to Sing and Play
Instruments: The Evidence for Early Hospitals in South Asia’, Available
at: http://univie.academia.edu/DominikWujastyk/Talks (accessed on 29
August 2021).
28 Zysk, 1991, p. 44.
29 Sircar, D.C. 1963–64. ‘More inscriptions from Nagarjunikonda’, Epigraphic
Indica, Vol. 35(7): 17–18. ‘Fragmentary Inscriptions A’. The evidence was
interpreted differently by Sircar, but the possibility of an infirmary is put
forward quite plausibly by several scholars.
30 Bühler, J.G. 1875. ‘A Grant of King Dhruvasena I of Valabhi’; idem, ‘A
Grant of King Guhasena of Valabhi’, Indian Antiquary 4, pp. 104–107,
174–176. See discussions in Zysk, 1991, pp. 44–46; also see Chakravarti,
Ranabir and Krishnendu Ray, July 2011, Healing and Healers Inscribed:
Epigraphic Bearing on Healing-Houses in Early India, Kolkata: Institute of
Development Studies, pp. 14–31.
31 The Pāli Jātakas date from late centuries bce to the 5th–6th centuries
ce. See Burlingame, E.W. 1921, Buddhist Legends, Part I, Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard university Press, pp. 57–58; Appleton, Naomi.
2010, Jātaka Stories in Theravāda Buddhism, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing
Limited, pp. 7–8.
32 Fausbøll, V. (ed.). 1887. The Jataka together with its Commentary, being
tales of the Anterior Births of Gotama Buddha, London: Trübner & Co., Vol.
IV, No. 495, pp. 360–368.
33 Fausbøll (ed.). 1883. The Jataka Together with Its Commentary, Vol. III: pp.
202–203.
34 Sternbach, Ludwik. 1974. Subhāsita, Gnomic and Didactic Literature.
Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, p. 11.
35 Gāthā Sattasāī, 6.100. Edition consulted, Basak, Radhagovinda. 1971, The
Prākrit Gāthā-Saptasatī compiled by Sātavāhana King Hāla, Edited with
Introduction and Translation in English, Bibliotheka Indica, Work Number
295, Issue Number 1595, Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, p. 132.
36 SS, Sūtrasthāna, XXXIV.
37 Dated between 100 bce and 100 ce by McClish Mark and Patrick
Olivelle, 2012, The Arthaśāstra: Selections from the Classic Indian Work on
Statecraft, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, pp. xx–xxi. A later
expressed opinion dates the core work of the text between 50 and 125 ce
and the redaction between 175 and 300 ce, Olivelle, Patrick, 2013, King,
Governance, and Law in Ancient India: Kauṭilya Arthaśāstra, New York:
Oxford University Press, pp. 25–31.

38 Arthaśāstra, 2.1.7. Edition consulted for text, Kangle, R.P. 1960. The
Kautiliya Arthasastra, A Critical Edition with a Glossary. Bombay:
University of Bombay, Vol. I.
39 Harṣacarita, Pañcama Ucchvāsaḥ, 171–178. Edition consulted, Kane, P.V.
1918, The Harshacharita of Bāṇabhaṭṭa, edited with an introduction and
notes, Bombay: Pandurang Vaman Kane.
40 Arthaśāstra, 4.1.56–57; 4.2.22.
41 Olivelle, 2005, pp. 18–25.
42 Jolly, Julius. 1889. The Minor Law Books, Part I, Oxford: Clarendon Press,
pp. 271–276.
43 Manu, IX.284, Olivelle, Patrick. 2005, p. 800.
44 Bṛhaspati. XXII. 3 & 8, Jolly, 1889, p. 360.
45 Dated to 4th–5th centuries ce. Olivelle, Patrick. 2020. Yājñavalkya
Dharmaśāstra: The textual History of a Hindu Legal Code. Delhi: Primus
Books, pp. 6–7.
46 Yājñavalkya, ch II. 247, Olivelle, 2020, p. 263.
47 CS, Sūtrasthāna, X.8.
48 Ibid., Sūtrasthāna, XV: 1–7.
49 Ibid., Sūtrasthāna, XIV: 43–46; 52–54.
50 CS, Cikitsāsthāna, I.4.27–28; SS, Cikitsāsthāna, XXVIII: 3–8.
51 Ibid., Sūtrasthāna, XXXVI: 17; XXXVIII: 81.
52 CS, Sūtrasthāna, XV: 7.
53 Wujastyk, 2009, p. 11.
54 Legge, James. 1886. A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms being an Account by
the Chinese Monk Fâ-Hien of His Travels in India and Ceylon (AD 399–
414), Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 79.
55 Zysk, 1991, 45; Altekar, A.S., and Vijayakanta Misra. 1959. Report
on Kumrahār Excavations: 1951–1955. Patna: K.P. Jayaswal Research
Institute., pp. 41, 51–54; 106–107.
56 The following editions were consulted for the epigraphic information. Senart,
S. 1905–06. ‘The Inscriptions in the Caves at Nasik’, Epigraphia Indica 8, no. 8,
The Nasik Cave inscription, Number 15, pp. 88–89; Bühler, J.G. 1875. ‘A Grant
of King Dhruvasena I of Valabhi’; idem, ‘A Grant of King Guhasena of Valabhi’,
Indian Antiquary IV, pp. 104–107; 174–176; Bühler, J.G. 1892. ‘The New
Inscription of Toramana Shaha’, Epigraphia Indica, Vol. 1(29), pp. 238–241;
Bhattacharyya, Dinesh Chandra. 1930. ‘Newly Discovered Copper-Plate From
Tipperah’, Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol. 6: 45–60; Sircar, Dines Chandra.
1942. Select Inscriptions, I, Calcutta: University of Calcutta, pp. 331–334;
Srinivasan, P.R. 1972. ‘Jayarampur Plate of Gopachandra’, Epigraphia Indica,
Vol. 9.5(21): 141–148/146; Ramesh, K.V. 1974. ‘Three Early Charters from
Sanjeli in Gujarat’, Epigraphia Indica, Vol. 40.5(34), Copper Plate Inscription
of Mahārāja Bhūta, Year 6: 181–185. For the probable date of Abhīra ruler
Iśvarasena, see Thosar, H.S. 1990. ‘The Abhiras in Indian History’, Proceedings
of the Indian History Congress, Vol. 51: 56–65.
57 Chakravarti and Ray, 2011, pp. 19–20; Thapar, Romila. 2002. The Penguin
History of Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300. London: Penguin
Books, p. 280.

58 A brief but very significant research in this direction is presented in the

following article: Mukherjee, Nayana Sharma. 2017. ‘Trade in Medicinal
Drugs in Ancient India’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Vol. 78:
153–160. The present work differs in trying to situate the medical services
as a whole, and the exchange in medicinal materials specifically, within
the broader epistemic frame of economic operations pertaining to early
societies.
59 Karatani, Kojin. 2014. The Structure of World History: From Modes of
Production to Modes of Exchange. Durham and London: Duke University
Press, pp. 3–8.
60 Mauss, Marcel. 1990. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic
Societies, translated by W.D. Halls, London and New York: Routledge.
61 Parry, Jonathan. 1986. ‘The Gift, the Indian Gift and the “Indian Gift”’,
Man (New Series 21.3), pp. 453–473/456–457.
62 Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels. 1975. ‘The German Ideology’. In
Collected Works, Vol. 5. New York: International Publishers, p. 49. New
York: International Publishers; Cited in Karatini, 2014, p. 5.
63 Neelis, Jason. 2011. Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks
Mobility and Exchange Within and beyond the Northwestern Borderlands
of South Asia. Leiden, Boston: Brill, p. 183.
64 Polanyi, Karl. 1957. ‘The Economy as Instituted Process’. In Trade and
Market in the Early Empires; Economies in history and theory, edited by
Karl Polanyi, C.M. Arensberg, and H.W. Pearson. New York: Free Press, p.
266.
65 Morley, Neville. 2007. Trade in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, p. 11.
66 Chakravarti, Ranabir (ed.). 2001. Trade in Early India. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, Introduction, especially pp. 11–24.
67 Polanyi, Karl. 1963. ‘Ports of Trade in Early Societies’, The Journal of
Economic History, Vol. 23.1: 30–45/36.
68 Neelis, 2011, p. 183.
69 Boulding, Kenneth. 1941. Economic Analysis. New York: Harper & Row
Publishers, pp. 3–8.
70 Thapar, Romila. 1992. ‘Black Gold: South Asia and the Roman Maritime
Trade’, South Asia, Vol. XV. 2: 1–27.
71 Note Thapar’s comment: ‘The sea creates its own frontiers and zones of
activity and these do not invariably coincide with the boundaries of land-
based territories.’ Thapar, 1992: 2.
72 Ibid., p. 3.
73 Chakravarti. 2001. pp. 16–17 citing Colin Renfrew. 1975. ‘Trade as Action
at Distance: Questions of Integration and Communication’. In Ancient
Civilization and Trade, in edited by J.A. Sabloff and C.C. Lamberg-
Karlovsky, 3–59. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
74 CS, Sūtrasthāna, I.68.
75 For example, we find clear admissions in the two Saṁhitās about the fact
that the pastoral and forest people were the most familiar with all kinds of

natural herbs; See CS, Sūtrasthāna, I. 120–123; SS, Sūtrasthāna, XXXVI.10;

Kalpasthāna, II.5.
76 CS, Sūtrasthāna, XXVIII, 178–195.
77 SS, Sūtrasthāna, XLIV, 26–43.
78 Arthaśāstra, II.25, 16–25.
79 Dated between 40 and 70 ce. See (edition consulted) Casson, Lionel.
1989, The Periplus Maris Erythraei Text with Introduction, Translation, and
Commentary, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, Introduction, pp. 6–7.
80 Falk, Harry. 2009, ‘Making Wine in Gandhara under Buddhist Monastic
Supervision’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute (New Series 23): 65–78.
81 See Brancaccio, Pia and Xinru Liu. 2009. ‘Dionysus and drama in the
Buddhist art of Gandhara’, Journal of Global History, Vol. 4.2: 219–
244/222–225.
82 McHugh, James. 2020, ‘Too Big to Fail: The Idea of Ancient Indian
Distillation’, in D.N. Jha (ed.), Drink of Immortality: Essays on Distillation
and Alcohol Use in Ancient India, Delhi: Manohar, pp. 41–61/53.
83 Periplus, 36.9.
84 Periplus, 49. 20–21.
85 Arthaśāstra, II.25.38.
86 Ibid., II.25.1.
87 Ibid., II.25.7–8.
88 Arthaśāstra, II.25. 39–40.
89 Mirashi, V.V. 1963. ‘Pāṇḍhurṇā Plates of Pravarasēna II’, idem, ‘Pāṭnā
Museum Plate of Pravarasēna II’, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, V, Nos.
14 & 15, pp. 63–68/66; 69–72/71.
90 Shrimali, Krishna Mohan. 1987. Agrarian Structure in Central India and
the Northern Deccan. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, p. 29.
91 Mahāvagga, VI.XVI.1, See the original text in Oldenberg, Hermann (ed.),
1879, The Vinaya Piṭakam, Vol. I, London: Williams and Norgate, pp. 209–
210.
92 See the translation of the passage in Horner, 1962, pp. 285–286.
93 SS, Sūtrasthāna, XLV. 148–150.
94 McHugh, James. 2020. ‘Sīdhu (Śīdhu): The Sugar Cane “Wine” of Ancient
and Early Medieval India’, History of Science in South Asia, Vol. 8: 36–56.
95 SS, Sūtrasthāna, XLV.158–165.
96 Harṣacarita, Tritīya Ucchvāsaḥ, 105. Kane. 1918, p. 42.
97 Iḷaṅko Aṭikaḷ, Śilappadikāram, The Book of Puhar, Canto 10. 205. See
Parthasarathy, R. 2004, The Cilappatikāram: The Tale of an Anklet,
translated with an introduction and postscript, New Delhi: Penguin Books
India, p. 100.
98 Periplus, 14:5.10–13; Casson, 1989, pp. 39, 59.
99 Harald, Wiese and Sadanada Das. 2019. The Charter of Viṣṇuṣeṇa, Halle
an der Saale: Universitatsverlag Halle-Wittenber, pp. 114–115, 160.
100 SS, Sūtrasthāna, XLV. 99–117.
101 Ibid., XLV.113.
102 Ibid., XLV.115,117.
103 Ibid., XLIV.47. Sharma, 2018, p. 407.

104 Senart, 1905–06, pp. 88–89.

105 Fleet, J.F. ‘Indor Plate of Skandagupta’, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum,
Vol. III, Texts and Translations, No. 16, pp. 68–72.
106 The Mandhal Copper Plate inscription of Prithvīṣeṇa II, year 2, Shrimali,
1987, Appendix, VI, 71–74/72. Also see Chakravarti, Ranabir. 2016,
Exploring Early India, Delhi: Primus Books, p. 284.
107 Nārada Smṛti, 1.67; Jolly (1889), pp. 56–57.
108 SS, Sūtrasthāna, XXXVIII. 37–38; Sharma, P.V. 2000, Indian medicine in
the Classical Age, Varanasi: Chaukhamba Amarabharati Prakashan, p. 218.
109 SS, Sūtrasthāna, XXXVIII. 41–42.
110 Ibid., XLVI.321, 325.
111 Arthaśāstra, 2.12.18.
112 Ibid., 2.12.22.
113 Periplus, 56.18–21; Casson, 1989, p. 85.
114 Harṣacarita, Ṣaṣṭha Ucchāsa, 218; Kane, 1918, p. 48.
115 Sircar, D.C. 1971, Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India,
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, p. 13.
116 White, David Gordon. 1996, The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in
Medieval India, Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, p. 66.
117 Ibid., p. 65.
118 Mahābhārata, Sabhā Parvan, Dyuta Parva. Texts consulted Wilmot, Paul.
translated, Maha-bhārata, Book Two, The Great Hall, New York University
Press and JJC Foundation. 2006, chapters 51 and 52. Sukthankar, V.S.
and S.K. Belvalkar, eds., 1995, The Mahābhārata, Critical edition, Vol. 2,
Poona, Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, chapters 47 and 48.
119 The question mark in this subtitle has been deliberately put to indicate
major issues concerning the problems of identifying the nature of
primitive exchanges in the select context. On the one hand, the suppliers
referred here have generally been understood to represent the marginal
elements in the society in early historical sources, which reflect the
dominant social attitude and practices of the times. However, in our study,
the nature and degree of their marginality should be tested in the light
of the specific contexts of the supply of vital condiments and medicinal
items. Moreover, the sense of marginality in the dominant textual sources
derived from geographical, spatial as well as sociocultural differences and
distances. At this level, the terms like ‘margins’ and ‘periphery’ could relate
to newer meanings since we are exploring a completely new domain and
wider geo-spatial contexts of primitive economic practices. The dynamics
of economic and social identities here have to be observed in the light
of burgeoning power relations both political and socioeconomic, in the
peripheries of growing state societies, much of which remains shrouded in
silence of the sources. The ideas are therefore tentative and the questions
relate to both ends of the problem.
120 CS, Sūtrasthāna, I, 120–123; SS, Sūtrasthāna,
Bhumipravibhāgīyamadhyāyaṁ, 11.
121 ———. I.122.

122 Khare, C.P. 2007, Indian Medicinal Plants: An Illustrated Dictionary,

Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, p. 632.
123 Ambaṣṭhādi gaṇa, SS, Sūtrasthāna, XLII.22.
124 Raychaudhuri, H.C. 1953, Political History of Ancient India, Calcutta:
University of Calcutta, pp. 255–256, citing Jātaka, IV, No. 363 and Manu,
X.47.
125 CS, Sutrasthana, III.8. Sharma, 2001, p. 20.
126 Khare, 2007, p. 195.
127 Taṅganas, Kulindas, Khasas and other people of the outer mountains,
parvatāntaravāsinaḥ are mentioned in the Mahābhārata, Sabhā Parvan,
52.3; the Romaka were mentioned in ibid., 51.17.
128 ‘uttarād api Kailāsādoṣadhīḥ sumahābalāḥ. Paravatīyā baliṁ cānyamāhṛtya
praṇatā sthitāḥ’; Mahābhārata, Sabhā Parvan, 52. 6–7.
129 van Buitenen, J.A.B. 1975, Translated and Edited, Mahābhārata: 2. The
Book of the Assemby Hall; 3. The book of the Forest, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, p. 15.
130 Olivelle, 2005, p. 22.
131 Wade, Geoff. May 2009, The Polity of Yelang and the Origins of the Name
‘China’, Sino-Platonic Papers, Number 188. Available at: http://www.
sino-platonic.org/complete/spp188_yelang_china.pdf (accessed on 8
September 2021).
132 Mahābhārata, Ādi Parvan, 175.37–8.
133 They were among the armed forces helping Prāgjyotiṣa king Bhagadatta
along with the Cīnas in defence against the Pānḍavas. Mahābhārata, Sabhā
Parvan, 26.9.
134 Ibid., 30.15.
135 Ibid., 52.8–13.
136 Witzel, Michael. 1999, ‘Aryan and non-Aryan names in Vedic India: Data
for the linguistic situation, c. 1900–500 BC’, in Johannes Bronkhorst and
Madhav Gadgil (eds.), Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence,
Interpretation, and Ideology, Cambridge, MA: Department of Sanskrit and
Indian Studies, Harvard University, 337–404.
137 For a recent work on the identification of Thina, see Wade (May 2009).
138 The term ‘patra’ is tentatively identified with ‘Petroi’. The problem here
relates to the matter of correct botanical identification of the ancient name
by which the text of Periplus refers to the plant species. Was ‘Petroi’ of The
Periplus Maris Erythraei, the ‘Patra’ of the ancient Indian texts? In any case,
however, ‘Petroi’ has been referred as malabathrum too and this species is
now identified as the Cinnamomum malabathrum. The use of this plant as
medicine and condiment is known from the early historic to the present
times.
139 Periplus, 63–64. Casson (1989), pp. 85, 91–93.
140 Singh, G.P. 2008, Researches into the History and Civilization of the Kirātas,
New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 238–239. Singh cites McCrindle, J.W.
1885, India as Described by Ptolemy, London: Trübner & Co., pp. 193–194;
Ptolemy, Geōgraphikḕ Hyphḕgēsis, 7.2.16, Consulted the text, Stevenson,

Edward Luther (trans. and ed.), 1991, The Geography by Claudius Ptolemy,
Klaudios Ptolemaios, New York: Dover Publisher Inc., p. 156.
141 Ibid.
142 Eggermont, P.H.L. Dec. 1966, ‘The Murundas and the Ancient Trade-
Route from Taxila to Ujjain’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of
the Orient (9.3), pp. 257–296/278–283. Eggermont sought to identify the
Sesatai/Kirātas as the Muruṇḍas.
143 Curtin, Philip D. 1984, Cross-cultural Trade in World History, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 12–13.
144 See Khoroche, Peter and Herman Tieken, 2009, translated from the Prakrit
and Introduced, Poems of Life and Love in Ancient India: Hāla’s Sattasaī,
Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 9–10.
145 Gāthā Sattasaī, 2. 15–16; 17, 19; 4.9; 7.31–34.
146 SS, Sūtrasthāna, Bhumipravibhāgīyamādhyāyam, XXXVI.11.
147 Gāthā Sattasaī, 6.100.
148 Harṣacarita, Ṣaṣṭha Ucchāsa, 257:
‘vikrayacintāvyagrābhirgrāmeyikābhirvyāpta digantaram’.
149 Arthaśāstra, 2.17.4–12.
150 Ibid., 2.17.1
151 See Sircar, D.C. 1953–54, ‘Charter of Vishnushena, Samvat 649’, Epigraphia
Indica 30, No. 30, pp. 163–181/166–167. The information pertained to a
locality ‘not far from the Gujarat-Kathiawar region’ supplies the most
important evidence for a full-fledged organised economy and possible
functional port of trade. See Sircar (1953–54), 164. Several scholars have
studied the inscription in details, like Kosambi, D.D. Dec., 1959, ‘Indian
Feudal Trade Charters’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the
Orient (2.3): 281–293; Lubin, Timothy. April–June 2015, ‘Writing and the
Recognition of Customary Law in Premodern India and Java’, Journal of
the American Oriental Society (135.2): 225–259; Wiese and Das, 2019.
152 Yājñavalkya Dh, II.15.40, 41; Tentatively dated between late 4th and early
5th century ce. Olivelle, Patrick. edited and translated, 2019, Yajnavalkya:
A Treatise on Dharma, Cambridge, Massachusettes, Harvard University
Press, 126–129.
153 SS, Sūtrasthāna, Yuktasenīyam Adhyāya, Ch. XXXIV.
154 Aiyar, R. Narayanaswami with S. Kuppuswami Sastrigal, S. Krishna
Sastrigal, S.K. Padmanabha Sastrigal, T.V. Ramachandra Dikshitar, 1933,
Śrīmadvālmīkirāmāyanam (Sanskrit), Madras: Madras Law Journal
Press, Yuddhakāṇḍa dayuttaraśatatam swarga, cantos 21–46; Sastri, Hari
Prasad. translated (with text), 1959, The Ramayana of Valmiki, Vol. 3,
Yuddhakanda and Uttara Kanda, London: Shanti Sadan, Yuddhakanda,
Ch. 102, pp. 295–296. A somewhat different version of events is described
in the manuscript translated by Robert P. Goldman et al. See Goldman,
Robert P., Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, and Barend A. van Nooten, 2009,
The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki, An Epic of Ancient India, Translation and
Annotation, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, Yuddhakāṇḍa, Sarga
40.26–39. We are not going into the details of this version.

155 For an interesting discussion on the representations of forest and mountain

tribes in the ancient Indian myths see Aiyangar, Narayan. 1901, Essays on
Indo-Aryan Mythology, Madras: Addison and Co., pp. 419–422.
156 Further studies on the intersocial parameters of natural resource extraction
could be delved into. However, for the time being we are targeting a rather
more circumspect goal, keeping focused on the economies of medical
services and supplies per se within a manageable scope.
157 Thapar, Romila. 2013. The Past Before Us: Historical Traditions of Early
North India. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, p. 277.
158 The term ‘professional’ is intentionally put within quotes at the end of
the article specifically to admit a rather tentative use of the connotations
involved.

6
EXCHANGING COINS AT BARYGAZA,

PERIPLUS 49 AND THE DEVALUATION OF THE
KĀRṢĀPAṆA
Federico De Romanis
One of the peculiarities that distinguishes the Periplus of the Erythraean

Sea (henceforth Periplus in the text) from all the other Greek periploi
that have come down to us are the lists of commodities that could be
exported to and imported from each one of the considered emporia. The
ensemble of those inventories is the most valuable body of evidence, in
that it gives an incisive picture of the exchanges in the western Indian
Ocean, often providing crucial and not otherwise obtainable data. A
case in point is the information related to the export of Roman coinage
to Barygaza.
Like lists of exports to other emporia, the list of the exports to the
emporion of Barygaza (Bharuch, Gujarat, India) includes Roman
coinage.1 Unlike the other lists, however, the list of the exports to
Barygaza specifies that Roman gold and silver coinage could be
exchanged at a profit for local currency.
προχωρεῖ δὲ εἰς τὸ ἐμπόριον οἶνος προηγουμένως Ἰταλικὸς καὶ
Λαοδικηνὸς καὶ Ἀραβικὸς καὶ χαλκὸς καὶ κασσίτερος καὶ μόλυβος,
κοράλλιον καὶ χρυσόλιθον, ἱματισμὸς ἁπλοῦς καὶ νόθος παντοῖος,
πολύμιται ζῶναι πηχυαῖαι, στύραξ, μελίλωτον, ὕελος ἀργή, σανδαράκη,
στῖμι, δηνάριον χρυσοῦν καὶ ἀργυροῦν, ἔχον ἀλλαγὴν καὶ ἐπικέρδειάν
τινα πρὸς τὸ ἐντόπιον νόμισμα, μύρον οὐ βαρύτιμον οὐδὲ πολύ.
In this port of trade there is a market for: wine, principally Italian
but also Laodicean and Arabian; copper, tin, and lead; coral and peridot
(?); all kinds of clothing with no adornment or of printed fabric; multi-
coloured girdles, eighteen inches wide; storax; yellow sweet clover (?);
raw glass; realgar; sulphide of antimony; Roman money, gold and silver,
which commands an exchange at some profit against the local currency;
unguent, inexpensive and in limited quantity.2
When did this exchange between the Roman and the local currency
occur? What kind of local currency was exchanged for Roman aurei
and denarii? Why did it give ‘some profit’ to the Roman traders?
110

Exchanging Coins 111
Anchored to the period between ce 39/40 and 69/70, by the mention of

the Nabataean king Malichus,3 the timeframe of the Periplus is confirmed
by the identity and approximative chronology of two other kings:
(a) Charibael, labelled as legitimate king of the two nations, the

Homerite and the Sabaean, and friend of the emperors, thanks to
continuous embassies and gifts.4 Charibael has been identified with
Karibī’l Watār Yuhan‘im, grandfather of Karibī’l Bayān, who was
king around ce 80/90.5
(b) Manbanos, described as the king of Ariake and other regions,6 is the
Kṣaharāta king Nahapāna, whose reign preceded that of Caṣṭana
and the beginning of the Śaka era (ce 78).7 Numismatic evidence
shows that Nahapāna’s reign was in part contemporary with those
of the Indo-Scythian Satavastres and the Sātavāhana Gautamīputra
Śiva Sātakarṇi.8 Since the latter, predecessor of Gautamīputra
Śrī Sātakarṇi, is evoked by the author of the Periplus as the elder
Saraganos, former lord of Kalliena,9 we may further infer that the
Periplus was written in the second part of Nahapāna’s reign.10
At that time, drachmas—both old drachmas of Apollodotus and Menander

and, of course, new drachmas of Nahapāna—circulated in Barygaza.11
Their weight standard was c.2.2./2.3 grams.12 Were these drachmas—old
and new—the ‘local currency’ exchanged for the Roman coins?
The phenomenon hinted by the author of the Periplus may be
further clarified by an indication provided by a famous inscription set
up in honour of Uṣavadāta, Nahapāna’s son-in-law, in one of the caves
of the Pandav Lena of Nasik.13 The three lines of interest here (ll. 4–6)
are engraved in smaller characters and seem to be a later addition to the
preceding text. They show a more Sanskritised orthography (kārṣāpaṇa
vs kāhāpaṇa) and deal with donations to Hindu gods and Brāhmaṇas,
whereas, the lines above account for donations to Buddhist monks.
They refer to an accomplishment achieved in Nahapāna’s forty-fifth
year. Since Gautamīputra Śrī Sātakarṇi, who was already king when
the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea was written, defeated Uṣavadāta and
conquered Nasik in his eighteenth year,14 the time lapse between the
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and these lines of the Nasik inscription is
less than eighteen years:
bhūyo nena dataṃ vase 41 kūtikaśudhe panarasa puvāka
vase 45 panarasa niyutaṃ bhagavatāṃ devānaṃ brāhmaṇāṃca
kārṣāpaṇasahasrāṇi satari 70,000 paṃcatriśaka suvarṇa kṛtā dina
suvarṇasahasraṇaṃ mūlyaṃ phalakavāre caritratoti. (ll. 4–6)
Again, the gift given by him [sc. by Uṣavadāta] formerly in the
year 41 [sc. of the king Nahapāna], on the 15th day of Kārttika, was

actually delivered in the 15th day (?) of the year 45 to the holy gods and
Brāhmaṇas: a capital of 2,000 suvarṇa, which makes out as one suvarṇa,
is worth 35 (kārṣāpaṇa) seventy thousand—70,000—kārṣāpaṇa on
wooden tablets according to custom.15
No doubt, a suvarṇa is a gold coin and a kārṣāpaṇa is a silver coin, but
which ones? And which gold-to-silver ratio do they imply? E.J. Rapson
identified the suvarṇa with the Kuṣāṇa gold coin and the kārṣāpaṇa with
a silver coin of the same weight-standard of the drachmas of Apollodotus
and Menander, inferring a 1:10 gold-to-silver ratio.16 D.R. Bhandarkar
contended that the suvarṇa and the kārṣāpaṇa were indigenous coins of
146.4 and 58.5 grains (80 and 32 rattis) respectively, positing a gold-to-
silver ratio of 1:14.17 A.S. Altekar identified suvarṇa and kārṣāpaṇa with
Kuṣāṇa gold coin and Nahapāna’s drachma respectively, and inferred a
gold-to-silver ratio of 1:10.18 D.W. MacDowall took the suvarṇa as the
Roman aureus, the kārṣāpaṇa as the drachma of Nahapāna and again
concluded that the gold-to-silver ratio was 1:10.
In my view, any interpretation that deduces a gold-to-silver ratio
1:10 from the Nasik inscription is doomed to be inconsistent with the
information provided by the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. With a
1:10 gold-to-silver ratio, the Roman merchants would not have (also)
exchanged aurei for local silver currency. Quite the contrary, they
would have exported silver denarii and imported Indian gold. It is not
coincidental that the scholars who have inferred such a ratio and tried
to establish a relation between the Nasik inscription and the Periplus
ended up with contorting the intent of the Periplus’ passage. Altekar,
who first realised that the Nasik equivalence had to be consistent
with the information provided by the Greek author, understood that
Roman silver coinage could be profitably exchanged for Indian gold,
whereas, the text clearly says ἐντόπιον νόμισμα ‘local currency’.19 Also,
MacDowall postulated that only silver denarii were exchanged. The
Roman merchants would have achieved their profit by exchanging pre-
ce 64 silver denarii struck at Rome on the 1:12 ratio with drachmas of
Nahapāna issued on the 1:10 ratio.20 It is difficult to see, however, why
a different gold-to-silver ratio between the Roman Empire and India
should have had an impact on an exchange of silver against silver. At
any rate, the text makes it clear that is both aurei and denarii (δηνάριον
χρυσοῦν καὶ ἀργυροῦν) were exchanged.
In the inscription of Nasik, the suvarṇa can hardly be anything
different from the Roman aureus, the only contemporary gold coin
Uṣavadāta could donate in number of thousands.21 The gold coins of
Vima Kadphises—the earliest of a Kuṣāṇa ruler—are several decades
later than the end of Nahapāna’s reign.22 However, it was not the
misidentification of the suvarṇa that hampered the interpretation of

the Nasik inscription—Kuṣāṇa and Roman gold coins have relatively

close weight standard. What is questionable in most of the above
interpretations is the identification of the kārṣāpaṇa.
Although such an identification seems to be supported by the very
large hoard of Jogalthembi, just a few kilometres from Nasik, which
included c.13,270 of Nahapāna’s silver drachmas (c.9,270 specimens
of which have Gautamīputra Sātakarṇi’s overstrikes),23 the term
kārṣāpaṇa cannot refer to these coins. Or, at least, it cannot refer to
them alone, because the theory that in the kingdom of Nahapāna the
ratio gold-to-silver was c.1:10 is not consistent with the information
delivered by the Periplus that both aurei and denarii were exported and
exchanged at a profit at Barygaza under Manbanos’ (Nahapāna’s) reign.
My conclusion is that in the Nasik inscription the term kārṣāpaṇa has
to refer (also) to an Indian punch-marked coin, which apparently still
circulated in the mid-1st century ce and was still heavier than the
drachma of Nahapāna. Indeed, it was still heavy enough to guarantee
a palpable profit to the Roman merchants who changed their aureus
for thirty-five of them. Since in the Roman Empire the gold-to-silver
ratio was 1:12,24 its average weight must have been heavier than 7.8
× 12: 35 = 2.67 grams. The hoards found in the region (probably
deposited in earlier times) suggest a maximum weight of 3.5 grams.25
If most of the punch-marked coins circulating in the mid-1st century
ce Nasik weighed between 3.5 and 2.8 grams,26 the exchange between
1 Roman gold coin and 35 Indian silver punch-marked coins would
give a weight ratio comprised between 1:15.7 and 1:12.5.
The profit made by the Roman merchants who exchanged Roman
aurei with local silver coinage may have originated also on a higher
value of the gold in India. However, it did not depend only on that. The
author of the Periplus makes it clear that the Roman merchants gained
by exchanging silver denarii as well. Hence, besides the different gold-
to-silver ratio, there must have been additional reasons for the Indian
merchants to give away their silver currency for the Roman coins. Two
of them, mutually not exclusive, may be suggested:
(a) the good reputation of the Roman coinage exported to India, which
may have induced the Indian merchants active in the subcontinent
to give up at a loss their currency—any local currency—for more
welcome coins.27
(b) the coexistence of local silver currencies with inconsistent ratios
between metallic content and nominal values, which may have
prompted the Indian merchants to exchange currency that was
relatively undervalued. If, for instance, the drachmas of Nahapāna
(and by extension the Indo-Greek drachmas) were relatively
overvalued, the dynamics of the Gresham’s Law (‘bad money

drives out good’) would have offered a further and probably more
compelling incentive for the Indian merchants to make use of
their undervalued punch-marked coins in the least damaging way.
Exchanging them for Roman coins was probably less detrimental
than exchanging them for Nahapāna’s drachmas.
It is worthwhile to point out a dissimilarity. In the Aï-Khanoum of

the mid-2nd century bce, the circulation of different types of silver
coinage, apparently each with a value of its own, resulted in a rich
lexicon that distinguishes not only between drachmai and kasapana,
but also between kasapana from different geographical areas such
as kasapana taxaena and kasapana nandena.28 By contrast, the
Sātavāhana inscriptions show the persistence of the kārṣāpaṇa as unit
of account, despite the replacement of the punch-marked coins by the
drachmas. Such a phenomenon has been understood in different ways.
Rapson postulated that the occurrences of the term kārṣāpaṇa in the
inscriptions would always refer to the drachma.29 I.K. Sarma posited
that the Sātavāhana drachma was actually an ardha-kārṣāpaṇa, a half-
kārṣāpaṇa.30 Neither of these views is satisfactory. The Nasik inscription
shows that kārṣāpaṇa can neither exclusively refer to the drachma of
Nahapāna (it would give a gold-to-silver ratio of 1:10) nor can indicate
a value of two drachmas of Nahapāna (it would give an unlikely gold-
to-silver ratio of 1:20). Moreover, the drachma of Nahapāna would have
been severely underrated, if its value was only half-kārṣāpaṇa. Even if
the average weight of the punch-marked coins circulating in the mid-
1st century ce was still c.3.4 grams (but most probably was much less), a
drachma of 2.2/2.3 grams should have been worthy 2/3 of a kārṣāpaṇa.
If the Nāṇeghāṭ inscription of Nāganikā (1st century bce) and the
Kānherī inscription of Apareṇu (sixth year of Gautamīputra Śrīyajña
Sātakarṇi, late 2nd century ce) show the same unit of account,31 that
is because at some point of time, in part for the loss in weight of the
punch-marked coins, in part because some political authority may have
wanted to increase the nominal value of its own coin output, the value
of the drachmas was equated with that of the punch-marked coins and
fixed at one kārṣāpaṇa. If that happened at the time of Nahapāna, his
subjects would have been induced to change their undervalued punch-
marked coins with coins that did not suffer such a depreciation.
In conclusion, we suggest three possible factors that may have
induced the Indian traders to exchange their currency for Roman
coinage in ways that generated some profit for the Roman merchants:
a gold-to-silver ratio more favourable to gold in India than it was in
the Roman Empire, the good reputation in India of the Roman coinage
exported to the subcontinent and the possibility that the punch-marked

coins were undervalued with respect to the drachmas of Nahapāna. In

which proportion these three factors contributed to the phenomenon
alluded to by the author of the Periplus is difficult to say. It is easier to
point out three possible consequences of the process.
1. In other regions of the Indian subcontinent, the punch-marked
coins were still hoarded at relatively late periods. They appear
together with Kuṣāna coins in the hoards of Mir Zakah and
Taxilā, together with Indo-Greek coins in the hoards from Kangra,
Thatta and Bairat, and together with Roman coins in the hoards
of Malambam (Chennai), Pennar, Tondamanathan, Kondapur,
Nasthullapur, Weepagandla and Eyyal.32 By contrast, they are
absent from the hoards of Gogha (possibly c.5,000 Indo-Greek and
Nahapāna silver coins) and Jogalthembi.33 It seems that, by the time
the Gogha and Jogalthembi hoards were buried, the punch-marked
coins had been driven out of the western Deccan.
2. A Tiberian denarius found in the Woodham Mortimer (Essex,
UK) hoard has shown an isotopic signature which suggests an
Indian origin for its silver.34 The denarius is a RIC I2 95, no. 30 type
and cannot be more precisely dated within the reign of Tiberius.
However, several details on its reverse (legs of chair ornamented,
single line below, female figure holding a sceptre) occur in
specimens whose obverse often displays a very old emperor.35 It
may be suggested that it was issued in the last years of Tiberius. If
the silver of the Woodham Mortimer denarius came from India, as
the isotopic signature suggests, it may derive from local currency
exchanged for Roman coins in Barygaza, imported to Egypt and
used to pay the customs duties in Egypt.
It would be farfetched to suggest that such exchanges decisively
contributed to the outflow of Roman coins towards India.36
Exchanging Roman coins with local currency did give profit to the
Roman merchants, but some profit (ἐπικέρδειάν τινα). In normal
conditions, the purchase of Indian commodities would have been
far more profitable. Roman merchants resorted to exchanging
Roman for local coins only for the lack of better options. Still, if
imported Indian silver was occasionally used for the production
of denarii, the phenomenon may not have been insignificant
between the years of Tiberius and the year in which the Periplus
was written—the time lapse may extend from just a few years to
several decades.
3. The numismatic findings in the region do not corroborate the
information in the Periplus about the export of Roman coins to
Barygaza. It has been suggested that Roman denarii were melted
down to issue Nahapāna’s silver coins.37 Future researches may

confirm or disprove such a suggestion. Alternatively, it may be

proposed that denarii and aurei were used by the Indian traders
from Barygaza for their trade with Dakṣināpatha and Limyrike,
and, therefore, ended up in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala and even
further east.38
Notes
1 Export of Roman coinage—referred to sometimes with the word denarion

(Periplus 6, 8, 49), sometimes with the generic term chrema/chremata
(Periplus 24, 28, 39, 56, 60)—is explicitly attested at Adulis (Periplus
6), Malao, (Periplus 8), Muza (Periplus 24); Barbarikon (Periplus 39);
Barygaza (Periplus 49); the emporia of the Limyrike (Periplus 56) and the
Coromandel coast (Periplus 60). It is also implied at Mundu, Mosyllon, the
emporion of the Aromata and Cane (Periplus 9, 10, 12, 28).
2 Periplus 49, translated by L. Casson.
3 Periplus 19: […] Λευκὴ κώμη, δι’ ἧς ἐστὶν εἰς Πέτραν πρὸς Μαλίχαν,
βασιλέα Ναβαταίων (m. alt., ἀναβαταιως) <ἀνάβασις>, ‘there is another
harbor with a fort called Leuke Kome (“white village”), through which there
is a way inland up to Petra, to Malichus, king of the Nabataeans.’ The end of
Malichus’ reign is inferred from Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum 2.161,
cf. R. Wenning, ‘Eine neuerstellte Liste der nabatäischen Dynastie’, Boreas
16 (1993), 36 n. 98; cf. also G. Bowersock, Roman Arabia (Cambridge
Ma.: Harvard University Press 1983), 70 n. 37; L. Casson, The Periplus
Maris Erythraei. Text with Introduction, Translation and Commentary
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 7.
4 Periplus 23: καὶ μετ᾿ ἄλλας ἐννέα ἡμέρας <Σ>αφὰρ μητρόπολις, ἐν ᾗ
Χαριβαήλ[α], ἔνθεσμος βασιλεὺς ἐθνῶν δύο, τοῦ τε Ὁμηρίτου καὶ τοῦ
παρακειμένου λεγομένου Σαβαίτου, συνεχέσι πρεσβείαις καὶ δώροις
φίλος [δὲ] τῶν αὐτοκρατόρων, ‘Nine days further inland is Saphar, the
metropolis, residence of Charibael, legitimate king of the two nations, the
Homerite and the one, lying next to it, called the Sabaean; he is a friend
of the emperors, thanks to continuous embassies and gifts’ (transl. L.
Casson).
5 Ch. Robin, ‘L’Arabie du Sud et la date du Périple de la Mer Erythrée
(nouvelles données)’, Journal Asiatique 279 (1991), 1–30. Cholaibos, the
lord of the Mapharitis, Periplus 22: ὑπέρκειται δὲ αὐτῆς ἀπὸ τριῶν ἡμερῶν
πόλις Σαυὴ τῆς περὶ αὐτὴν Μαφαρ<ί>τιδος λεγομένης χώρας· ἔστιν δὲ
τύραννος καὶ κατοικῶν αὐτὴν Χόλαιβος, ‘A three-day journey inland from
Muza lies Saue, the city of the province, called Mapharitis, that surrounds
it. The governor, Cholaibos, has his residence there’ is Kulayb Yuha’min,
cf. Ch. Robin, ‘Kulayb Yuha’min est-il le Χόλαιβος du Periple de la mer
Erythree?’, Raydan 6 (1994), 91–99.
6 Periplus 41: μετὰ δὲ τὸν Βαράκην εὐθύς ἐστιν ὁ Βαρυγάζων κόλπος καὶ ἡ
<ἤ>π<ει>ρος (Schwanbeck) τῆς Ἀριακῆς (Stuck : Ἀραβικῆς) χώρας, τῆς

τε Μανβάνου βασιλείας ἀρχὴ καὶ τῆς ὅλης Ἰνδικῆς οὖσα, ‘Immediately

after the gulf of Barake is the gulf of Barygaza and the coast of the region
of Ariake, the beginning both of Manbanos’s realm and of all of India’
(transl. by L. Casson).
7 The identification of Manbanos with Nahapāna goes back to A.-M. Boyer,
‘Nahapāna et l’ère Çaka’, Journal Asiatique s.9. 10 (1897), 120–151 and
is generally accepted (doubts, however, in G. Fussman, ‘Le Périple et
l’histoire politique de l’Inde’, Journal Asiatique 279 [1991], 31–38; 1997).
‘The Periplus and the Political History of India’ in Crossings: Essays in
Early Mediterranean Contacts with India, edited by A. Tchernia and F.
De Romanis, pp. 66–71. New Delhi: Manohar. Nahapāna’s inscriptions
are dated with regnal years: Pauli, F., ‘NAHAPĀNA/MANBAN.S vor 78
n.Chr.? Ein epigraphischer Neufund aus Indien und seine Bedeutung für
die antike Südasien–Chronologie’, in H. Kalcyk, B. Gullath, A. Graeber
(eds.), Studien zur alten Geschichte S. Lauffer zum 70. Geburstag dargebracht
(Roma: Giorgio Bretschneider 1986), 2.743–753; J. Cribb, ‘Numismatic
Evidence for the Date of the Periplus.’ In D.W. MacDowall, S. Sharma,
S. Garg, Indian Numismatics, History, and Culture: Essays in Honour of
Dr P. L. Gupta (Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan 1992), 1.132; A. Shimada,
‘The Great Railing at Amarāvatī: An Architectural and Chronological
Reconstruction’, Artibus Asiae 66 (2006), 125–127.
8 Nahapāna’s coins overstruck on coins of Satavastres and Gautamīputra
Śiva Sātakarṇi shows that the beginning of the reign of the latter preceded
the end of the reign of the former. On the other hand, overstrikes on
Nahapāna’s coins show that a part of his reign preceded the end of the
reigns of the Indo-Scythian kings Satavastres and Saves (Sasan) and the
Sātavāhana kings Gautamīputra Śiva Sātakarṇi and Gautamīputra Śrī
Sātakarṇi: Cribb 1992, 133; Turner and Cribb 1996, 313–318; Bhandare,
S. 2006. ‘A Tale of Two Dynasties. The Kshaharatas and Sātavāhana in the
Deccan.’ In Coins in India: Power and Communication, edited by H. Ray,
27–30. Mumbai: Marg.
9 Periplus 52: τοπικὰ δὲ ἐμπόρια κατὰ τὸ ἑξῆς κείμενα Ἀκαβάρου, Σούππαρα,
Καλλίενα πόλις, ἐπὶ τῶν Σαραγάνου τοῦ πρεσβυτέρου χρόνων ἐμπόριον
ἔνθεσμον γενόμενον· μετὰ γὰρ τὸ κατασχεῖν αὐτὴν Σανδάνην ἐκωλύθη
ἐπὶ πολὺ, καὶ γὰρ τὰ ἐκ τύχης εἰς τούτους τοὺς τόπους εἰσβάλλοντα πλοῖα
Ἑλληνικὰ μετὰ φυλακῆς εἰς Βαρύγαζα εἰσάγεται, ‘the local ports, lying in
a row, are Akabaru, Suppara, and the city of Kalliena; the last, in the time
of the elder Saraganos, was a lawful port of trade. After Sandanes occupied
it, there has been much hindrance. For the Greek ships that by chance
come into these places are brought under guard to Barygaza’ (transl. by L.
Casson, with modifications), cf. Bhandare, ‘A Tale of Two Dynasties’, cit.
26–29.
10 Different hypotheses have been put forward regarding the chronology of
Nahapāna’s reign. Cribb, J. 1998. ‘Western Satraps and Satavahanas: Old
and New Ideas of Chronology’. In Ex Moneta (Essays in honor of D. W.
MacDowall), edited by A.K. Jha and S. Garg. New Delhi: Harman, 157
suggests the beginning of the era of Gondophares (ce 20), H. Falk, ‘Money

can buy me heaven. Religious donations in late and post-Kushan India’,

Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan 40 (2008), 143, nt. 23
the beginning of the era of Sphujiddhvaja (March 21, ce 22) as the base
of the time-reckoning in Nahapāna inscriptions; S. Bhandare, Historical
Analysis of the Sātavāhana Era: A Study of Coins, PhD Thesis, University of
Bombay 1999, 159–178 argues for ce 32 and 79 as the beginning and the
end respectively of Nahapāna reign.
11 As attested by Periplus 47: […] ἀφ᾿ οὗ μέχρι νῦν ἐν Βαρυγάζοις παλαιαὶ
προχωροῦσιν δραχμαὶ, γράμμασιν Ἑλληνικοῖς ἐγκεχαραγμέναι ἐπίσημα
τῶν μετ᾿ Ἀλέξανδρον βεβασιλευκότων Ἀπολλοδότου καὶ Μενάνδρου,
‘Because of this, there are to be found on the market in Barygaza even
today old drachmas engraved with the inscriptions, in Greek letters, of
Apollodotus and Menander, rulers who came after Alexander’ (transl. L.
Casson).
12 A. Jha and D. Rajgor. Studies in the Coinage of the Western Ksatrapas (Nasik:
Indian Institute of Research in Numismatic Studies, 1994); Fishman, A.M.
2013. The Silver Coinage of the Western Satraps in India (50–400 AD):
Catalogue and Rarity Guide (Wroclaw: Amazon Fulfillment 2013).
13 Nasik, Ptolemy’s Νασίκα (Ptol., Geog. 7.1.63) was a centre not far from the
maritime emporia of Suppara and Kalliena and the transpeninsular route
to Masalia.
14 E. Senart, ‘The inscriptions in the caves at Nâsik,’ Epigraphia Indica 8
(1905/1906), n. 4, 71–73; H. Lüders, ‘A List of Brahmi Inscriptions from
the Earliest Times to about A.D. 400 with the Exception of those of Asoka’
Epigraphia Indica 10 (1912) Appendix, n. 1125, 123; V.V. Mirashi, The
History and Inscriptions of the Sātavāhanas and the Western Kshatrapas
(Bombay: Maharashtra State Board for Literature and Culture, 1981), n.
11, 23–28.
15 Senart, ‘The inscriptions in the caves at Nâsik’, cit., n. 12, 82–85; Lüders,
‘A List of Brahmi Inscriptions’, cit. n. 1132, 126; Mirashi, The History and
Inscriptions of the Sātavāhanas and the Western Kshatrapas, cit. n. 38,
95–100. Senart’s translation (83) suggests that 70,000 kārṣāpaṇa and not
2,000 suvarṇa were actually given. This is recommended neither by the
syntax, as dataṃ and niyutaṃ refer to dina suvarṇasahasraṇaṃ mūlyaṃ,
nor by Uṣavadāta’s epithet suvarṇadāna, in Lüders, ‘A List of Brahmi
Inscriptions’, cit. n. 1131, 125–126; Mirashi, The History and Inscriptions of
the Sātavāhanas and the Western Kshatrapas, cit. n. 43, 107–113.
16 E.J. Rapson, Catalogue of the Coins of the Andhra Dynasty the Western
Kṣatrapas, the Traikūṭaka Dynasty and the ‘Bodhi’ Dynasty, London:
Longman & Co. 1908), clxxxiv–clxxxv. That the kārṣāpana was a coin
of the weight-standard of the Apollodotus’ and Menander’s drachma
had been claimed neither by R.G. Bhandarkar, Transactions of the second
session of the International Congress of Orientalists held at London in
September 1874, 333–334 nor by Bhagwanlal Indraji, Gazetteer of the
Bombay Precidency. XVI. Nasik, Bombay 1883, 573–575.
17 D.R. Bhandarkar, Lectures on ancient Indian numismatics (Calcutta:
University of Calcutta 1921), 191–192.

18 A.S. Altekar, ‘Relative Prices of Metals and Coins in Ancient India,’ Journal
of the Numismatic Society of India 2 (1940), 4–5.
19 Altekar, ‘Relative Prices of Metals’, cit. 4. Schoff ’s translation, to which
Altekar refers, runs as ‘gold and silver coin, on which there is a profit when
exchanged for the money of the country’ (W.H. Schoff, The Periplus of the
Erythraean sea: travel and trade in the Indian Ocean by a merchant of the
1st century, New York, London, Bombay and Calcutta: Longmans, Green
& Co. 1912), 42.
20 D.W. MacDowall, ‘The evidence of the Gazetteer of Roman artefacts in
India’. In Tradition and Archaeology. Early Maritime Contacts in the Indian
Ocean, edited by H.P. Ray and J.F. Salles (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers
and Distributors, 1996), 92; D.W. MacDowall, ‘The Indo-Roman Metal
Trade’. In Foreign Coins Found in the Indian Subcontinent edited by
D.W. MacDowall and A. Jha (Anjaneri: Indian Institute of research in
numismatic studies 2003), 43–44; followed by D. Nappo, ‘Money and
Flows of Coinage in the Red Sea Trade’. In Trade, Commerce, and the State
in the Roman World, edited by A. Wilson and A. Bowman (Oxford: Oxford
University Press 2017), 573.
21 De Romanis, ‘Aurei after the Trade: Western Taxes and Eastern Gifts’. In
Dal denarius al dinar. L‘Oriente e la moneta romana. Atti dell‘Incontro di
studio, Roma, 16–18 settembre 2004, edited by F. De Romanis and S. Sorda
(Roma: Istituto Italiano di Numismatica, 2006), 70.
22 Bopearachchi, O. 2006. ‘Chronologie et généalogie des premiers rois
kushans: nouvelles données’, Comptes-rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions
et Belles-Lettres, 1433–47; ‘Les premiers souverains kouchans: chronologie
et iconographie monétaire’, Journal des Savants (2008) 3–56; H. Falk,
‘Kushan Dynasty iii. Chronology of the Kushans,’ Encyclopædia Iranica,
online edition, 2014, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/
kushan-03-chronology.
23 H.R. Scott, 1908. ‘The Nasik (Jogaltembhi) hoard of Nahapana’s coins’,
Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 22, 223–244;
A.M. Shastri, 1995. ‘Jogalthambi hoard of Nahapana coins: some aspects,’
Numismatic Digest, Vol. 19: 73–95.
24 K. Butcher and M. Ponting. 2014. The Metallurgy of Roman Silver Coinage:
From the Reform of Nero to the Reform of Trajan. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 704.
25 The c.87 per cent of 2,029 silver punch-marked coins from the Barwani
hoard (reportedly, of 3,450 specimens) weighed between 3.5 and 3.2
grams, 10.5 per cent less than 3.1 grams, c.2.5 per cent 3.6 grams: P.L.
Gupta, ‘Barwani hoard of silver punch-marked coins’, Numismatic Digest,
16 (1992), 14; of the 35 punch-marked coins found at Kasrawad, 30
weighed between 3.5 and 3.1 grams: D.B. Diskalkar, ‘Kasrawad hoard of
silver punch-marked coins’, Journal of the Numismatic Society of India. 10
(1949), 146–153; E. Errington, ‘A Survey of Late Hoards of Indian Punch-
marked Coins’, Numismatic Chronicle, 163 (2003), 108.
26 It is difficult to narrow down the average weight at the time of the
Periplus. The heaviest of the 34 punch marked coins comprised the Iyyal

hoard (terminus post quem ce 98) weighs 2.73 grams, 4 specimens weigh
between 2.5 and 2.2 grams, and the other 29 less than 2.2 grams: N.G.
Unnithan, ‘Eyyal hoard of Silver Punch marked and Roman Coins’, Journal
of Numismatic Society of India, 25 (1963) 22–28; P.L. Gupta, The Early
Coins from Kerala (Trivandrum: Government of Kerala 1965).
27 The silver coins exported by the Roman merchants (carefully selected in
the first as well as in the 6th century ce: Cosm. Indic. 11.19) aroused the
admiration of the Indians for being ‘equal in weight, although the various
figures on them showed that they had been coined by several people’: Plin.,
NH 6.85. On the ancient Indian art of evaluating the coins (rūpasutta,
‘science of coinage’), the art of evaluating the coinage, cf. F. De Romanis,
‘Romanukharaṭṭha and Taprobane: Relations between Rome and Sri Lanka
in the First Century ad’, in F. De Romanis and A. Tchernia (eds), Crossings:
Early Mediterranean Contacts with India (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers
& Distributors, 1997), 180–188.
28 C. Rapin and F. Grenet, ‘Inscriptions économiques de la trésorerie
hellénistique d’Aï Khanoum. L’onomastique iranienne à Aï Khanoum,’
Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 107 (1983), 315–381. I thank Prof.
H. Falk for pointing that reference out to me.
29 Rapson, Catalogue of the Coins of the Andhra Dynasty the Western
Kṣatrapas, cit., clxxxiv–clxxxv: ‘[…] but the silver coins are unquestionably
called kārṣāpaṇas in the inscrr., and their weight-standard has been
usually supposed to be that of the “hemi-drachms” of the Graeco-Indian
princes Apollodotus and Menander which previously circulated in the
same region.’
30 I.K. Sarma, Coinage of the Sātavāhana Empire (Delhi: Agam Kala
Prakashan 1980), 60: ‘The Naneghat iscription of queen Nagamnika and
the Kanheri dated inscriptions of the 16th year of GPYS [Gautamīputra
Śrīyajña Sātakarṇi] clearly reveal that the sums of money were estimated in
Kārshapaṇas. The coins, in case of silver ones, might be of 32-rattis (3.823
gr.) […] The Sātavāhana silver issues, however showed no more than 2 gr.
and thus corresponded to the ardha-kārshapaṇa standard.’
31 Nāganikā’s inscription: Lüders, ‘A List of Brahmi Inscriptions’, cit. n. 1112,
121; Mirashi, The history and inscriptions of the Sātavāhanas and the
Western Kshatrapas, cit. n.3, 5–16; Apareṇu’s inscription: Lüders, ‘A List of
Brahmi Inscriptions’, cit. n. 1025, 108; Mirashi, The History and Inscriptions
of the Sātavāhanas and the Western Kshatrapas, cit. n. 27, 71–73.
32 P.L. Gupta and T.R. Hardaker, Ancient Indian Punchmarked Coins of the
Magadha-Maurya Kārshāpana Series (Nasik: IIRNS Publications 2014),
63; S. Suresh, Symbols of Trade. Roman and Pseudo-Roman Objects Found
in India (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers 2004) 163, 167, 169, 170.
33 For the Gogha hoard, cf. J.S. Deyell, ‘Indo-Greek and Ksaharata coins from
the Gujarat seacoast’, The Numismatic Chronicle 144 (1984), 115–127.
34 Butcher and Ponting, The Metallurgy of Roman Silver Coinage, cit. 176–
177, 187, 199.
35 H. Mattingly, Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, vol. 1
(Augustus to Vitellius) (London: Longmans & Co. 1923), cxxx; H.

Sutherland, ‘The PONTIF MAXIM aurei of Tiberius,’ Numismatica e

antichità classiche. Quaderni ticinesi, 16 (1987), 219–220; 224.
36 Tacitus (Tac., Ann. 3.53) makes Tiberius lament, in ce 22, that the trade in
precious stones caused a loss of Roman money towards foreign and hostile
nations. The Tiberian coins are the most frequently found in the Indian
hoards: F. De Romanis, ‘Julio-Claudian Denarii and Aurei in Campania
and India’, Annali dell’Istituto Italiano di Numismatica 58 (2012), 161–192.
The popularity of Tiberius’ coins in India and in South-east Asia is also
attested by the imitations of the image on the reverse of Tiberius’ PONTIF
MAXIM type: B. Borell, ‘The Power of Images – Coin Portraits of Roman
Emperors on Jewellery Pendants in Early Southeast Asia’, Zeitschrift für
Archäologie Außereuropäischer Kulturen 6 (2014), 22–24.
37 P.J. Turner, An Investigation of Roman and Local Silver Coins in South
India, 1st to 3rd century A.D., Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of
London, 1984 [non vidi].
38 Imports to Barygaza from Paithana and Tagara: Periplus 51; trade
relationships between Ariake and Limyrike: Periplus 54.

7
‘NO IMPORTANCE AND NO VALUE’?

GENIZA SOURCES ON PERSONAL SHOPPING AND
THE ‘ECONOMY OF REGARD’
Elizabeth Lambourn
Introduction—Shopping in Medieval Afrasia
It gives me great pleasure to contribute this chapter in honour of Ranabir

Chakravarti and I use this opportunity to return to my longstanding
interest in the relationships between domestic and commercial worlds,
and the potential of documents from the Cairo Geniza to contribute to
this exploration. In this contribution, I focus on the shopping activities
of India traders and the ways that shopping for business partners
worked to consolidate networks as well as to build both domestic and
commercial spaces.
Mordechai Akiva Friedman observed back in 2008 that the so-called
‘India Book’ documents contain evidence for the regular shipment of
goods destined for ‘the personal use of the Jewish merchant in India
and his family’.1 This evidence is strongest for Abraham Ben Yiju, a
Maghrebi trader and long-term resident of northern Malabar whose
correspondence survives exceptionally well. Ben Yiju emerges from the
correspondence as a man as deeply involved in domestic management
and homemaking as he was in the business of trade, and supported in
this by the efforts of his three main business partners together with
an almost uncountable number of intermediaries. However, while it
seems obvious that the majority of these items were sent because they
were deemed to be essential or culturally important Mediterranean
items unavailable commercially in Malabar, the significance of these
passages has largely been overlooked and this practice has not been
critically evaluated or theorised. The potential of these passages has
been overshadowed by the more obviously commercial content of this
correspondence and its ability to contribute very directly to existing
economic and business histories. But as will become apparent from the
ensuing discussion, shopping required a complex body of skills and
knowledge that overlapped substantially with the commercial sphere;
122

‘No Importance and No Value’ ? 123
likewise, it demanded effort and financial means. Shopping for the

personal needs of business partners was labour. As I hope to show,
personal shopping was deeply entangled with the business of business.
In the first part of this contribution, I drill down into the mechanisms
of exchange which underlay the shipments of household items intended
for personal and family use in India. Following Jessica Goldberg’s
definition of ṣuḥba or ‘reciprocal agency’, the business partnership
that bound most merchants to each other, I propose that shopping
for business partners was not only, nor even primarily, a personal
favour but must be understood as one of the many and varied services
(khidma, pl. khidam) expected between business partners. In a context
where business partners might only meet face to face at best once a
year, and often less frequently, shopping materialised long-distance
business relationships, bolstering the ties already created through the
day-to-day business of commodity exchange and credit. As much as
the purchase and dispatch of commodities, shopping demonstrated
mercantile know-how but it also offered a new opportunity to display
a more intimate understanding of the business partner’s personal tastes
and needs. Shopping for someone else is intensely personal in ways that
buying or selling commodities on behalf of a trade partner is not. A
further benefit worthy of note is the fact that, in helping to establish
Jewish homes on the Indian coast, business partners also contributed to
the establishment of networks of domestic hospitality essential to their
own trade dealings on what was then the fringe of the Jewish world.
It might be easy at this point to slip in the idea that good shopping
built trust, that buzzword of scholarship on premodern trade. While
the term, and the principle, are undoubtedly important, in the present
context, I have found the term inadequate to describe the range of
outcomes that good shopping could generate. I have chosen instead
to work with the idea of the ‘economy of regard’ first proposed by the
economic historian Avner Offer in an article written in the late 1990s.2
Titled ‘Between the Gift and the Market’, Offer defined ‘regard’ as ‘an
attitude of approbation’, the need for which is ‘hard-wired’ into humans,
something ‘innate, even if the forms that it takes are culturally specific’.3
Above all, Offer states, regard ‘needs to be communicated. [….] self-
regard is difficult to sustain without external confirmation’.4 Offer’s
discussion invokes a wide range of examples of gift and hospitality
exchange across cultures to make the point that the pursuit of regard
has underpinned, and continues to underpin, a rich variety of forms
of non-market exchange. Offer’s model allows us to incorporate
values such as trust, since an individual might receive or pursue broad
recognition for their trustworthiness, but also other more specific skills
and knowledge sets such as access to the commercial or social networks

supplying rare items, a discerning understanding of material qualities,

the requisite packing skills or indeed a refined understanding of the
business partner’s needs and tastes.
One might criticise Offer’s article for being too generic, the sketch
of a model, a series of insightful notes requiring further elucidation.
But a leitmotif of Offer’s discussion is precisely the contingency of
regard—that regard always needs to be socially, culturally, temporally
and geographically situated—and in many ways Offer’s piece is an
invitation to others to pursue that task. I respond to this invitation and
use this opportunity to unpick how shopping for goods destined for ‘the
personal use of the Jewish merchant in India and his family’ constituted
an opportunity for the accumulation and consolidation of regard within
the merchant community, or, from another perspective, a potentially
dangerous activity that imperilled regard.
Having established the general framework within which we
understand India trader’s shopping, the second part of this chapter
delves deeper into the complexities of shopping as it emerges from the
‘India Book’ documents. A notable feature of this correspondence is
that certain items of shopping were never charged for, being politely
dismissed through a rhetoric of devaluation using phrases such as ‘of no
importance and no value’ (mā lā khatar lahu wa lā qīma), even though
this was patently untrue. Other items, however, were charged for and
included in a merchant’s annual accounts. While the first part of my
discussion treats these ‘not charged’ items as a fundamental part of
mercantile shopping, it is impossible to ignore the qualitative change that
the decision not to include these items in annual accounts, to not charge
for them, effected. This section examines the phraseologies, vocabulary
and epistolary conventions that flagged this special category of exchange
and then proceeds to unpick the rationale or social conventions behind
the choice of items involved in this type of exchange. Together, these
two sections allow us to build a detailed picture of a particular aspect
of the operation of the economy of regard among India traders in India
and the Yemen.
Part I: Shopping with the ‘India Traders’
Before proceeding with this discussion, it is important to situate my

use of the term ‘shopping’ to describe these exchanges, a term which
in Anglophone literature at least is heavily associated with the history
of modernity and deeply entangled with histories of capitalism and
consumerism. In the introduction to her pioneering study Shopping
in the Renaissance, art historian Evelyn Welch makes the point that

only the English language derives the verb ‘to shop’—used to describe
the processes and practices of buying items for personal or household
consumption—from the modern, architecturally defined noun ‘shop’.
Welch underlines that ‘this is an important distinction because
the impact of this assumed association between the architecture of
commerce and modernity goes far beyond semantics’.5 Shopping in
stores is considered to be a more ‘sophisticated’ form of exchange than
gift-trade or administered-trade, in ‘the search for the first modern
shopping trip, […] eighteenth and nineteenth century developments
are often set against the backdrop of an undifferentiated late medieval
past.’6 As she observes, non-Western spaces and forms of commerce—
‘open markets in Africa and Asia, systems of barter and supposedly
informal networks of credit’—are likewise often described as ‘medieval’,
thus, implicitly unsophisticated or presented as either ‘backwards’ or
‘more romantic and natural’ than Western supermarkets and shopping
malls.7
Welch’s observations free the English term ‘shopping’ of its modern
baggage and encourage me to use it here in the examination of
practices amongst Mediterranean Jews in the medieval Indian Ocean
world. Welch’s book and her other studies also underline the very real
contributions cultural historians can make to the study of shopping
practices, at whatever period, beyond histories of credit or the market
economy. Visual and material evidence for fairs and markets and
especially the objects or materials exchanged there, written descriptions
of shopping experiences and evaluations of objects or materials, all take
on a prominence denied them when the material world principally
serves as an index of economic ideas. While the study of the places and
practices of shopping in premodern and early modern Afrasia is still
very much in its infancy, evidence for shopping is strewn across the
literature on other subject areas, from archaeological and architectural
studies of settlement patterns and urban spaces, via legalistic or
mercantile literatures on trade and markets, to studies of food cultures
and cultures of hospitality. The potential is huge. This chapter joins
this discussion with a micro-scale study of the shopping practices of
Mediterranean Jews in the Indian Ocean world.
Abraham Ben Yiju is well known to scholars of medieval history,
and to a more general public, thanks to the extensive publication of
English language translations of the documents pertaining to his life
and to several interpretive volumes focusing on his life.8 Abraham was
one of the many Mediterranean Jews trading with India in the later 11th
and 12th centuries but is also one of the very few whose lives we can
study in any detail and this is because of the documents that survive
in the so-called Cairo Geniza. An Ifriqiyan Jew, we first ‘see’ Abraham

in 1132 at the port of Mangalore in what is now southern Karnataka

state in India. Abraham settled at Mangalore, marrying a local convert
and establishing a business along the coast specialised in the export of
spices and iron, and import of metals from the Eastern Mediterranean
for the local manufacture of metal ware objects.9 Abraham sojourned
in northern Malabar for a total of twelve years, with a short return to
Yemen between 1140 and 1145, before returning west to Aden in 1149
and then on to Fustat in Egypt.
Shopping for Abraham Ben Yiju on the Malabar Coast
Ben Yiju’s correspondence is filled with references to household items

dispatched and received, forgotten or unavailable. A letter from Ben
Yiju’s business partner, Joseph b. Abraham, datable to around 1134–37,
exemplifies this type of textual trace:
There was dispatched to your excellency for your esteemed

household (manzil) what has no importance and no value (mā
lā khatar lahu wa lā qīma), namely a bottle of raisins; a rubā‘iyya
[roughly ten kilograms]10 of almonds and a rubā‘iyya of soap (ṣabūn);
an embroidered kerchief (mandīl) woven in Aden; five dasts [dozen
sheets]11 of Egyptian paper; half an ounce of civet; half a pound of
kohl; and half a pound of mastic gum. The kerchief, civet, paper,
kohl and gum are all in one piece of cloth, on which is written your
excellency’s name. All of this is sent together with the aforementioned
Sheikh Maymūn.12
This and similar references typically feature in the asides, addenda and
postscripts of business letters and consistently underline the supposed
low value of the items sent. Sometimes, as here, they directly reference
the household or home (manzil) they were destined for. Table 7.1 sets
out all such references.
The other type of textual trace we can work with is left in the sections
of business letters dealing with accounts. Here, we find small quantities
of household items interspersed with clearly commercial commodities,
principally the metals Ben Yiju imported for his metalworking business.
Thus, in a letter written around 1133–40, another of Abraham’s partners,
Madmun b. Hasan Japheth, details that:
… Also there are charged to you copper bars, twenty-five pounds,

twenty-eight pieces in number worth eight dinars; a basket of dates,
one hundred and fifteen pounds, worth 2¾ dinars; the cost of an
Abyssinian hide, two dinars, the price of ten Berbera mats, which
are in a package, marked in Hebrew and Arabic, one dinar; a zodiac

Table 7.1: Items Dispatched to Abraham Ben Yiju in Malabar at No Charge
‘India Book’ Date Items Dispatched Sent by Destination Courier(s) Ship Position in Other
Document (approx.) Item Quantity Packing Document
II, 20 1133 Dates ½ basket Basket Madmun b. Mangalore Abu Said b. al- Postscript ‘I sent you…’
The Economic History of India.indd 127

(qawsara) Hasan Mahfuz Mubarak
Rosewater 1 ‘piece’ / ‘Please honour
(qit‘a) me to do any
Sugar and 2 rubā‘iyyas / errand for you.’
raisins
Soap (sābūn) 1 rubā‘iyya /
II, 16–19 1133–40 Sugar (sukkar) 2 Brazilwood Madmun b. / Abu Ghalib, / Postscript. ‘Your servant
boxes Hasan the ship’s has sent to you...’
(bakkām- captain
iya) ‘If you have any
Raisins (zabīb) 2 Brazilwood need or service.’
boxes
Paper (waraq) 3 dasts / Dispatched with
(Egyptian items charged
Talḥī) for, see Table
7.2.
04/07/23 11:53 AM
II, 25–26 ca. 1134 Sugar and 6 rubā‘iyyas / Madmun b. / / / Postscript ‘Has sent a gift
raisins Hasan (hidayya) for
your son.’

Rosewater 1 ‘piece’ /
(qit‘a)
Dispatched with
items charged
for, see Table 7.2.
III, 2 ca. Raisins 1 Bottle Joseph b. Mangalore Shaykh Ship of Postscript ‘… for your
1134–37 (qinnīna) Abraham Maymun, Nākhudā esteemed house-
Almonds 1 rubā‘iyya / the Muslim Mahruz hold what has no
(lawz) importance and
Soap 1 rubā‘iyya / no value…’
Kerchief 1
(mandīl)
(Aden) ‘all in one
Paper (Egyp- 5 dasts piece of
tian) cloth’
Civet (zabād) ½ oz (wiqi-

yya)
Kohl ½ lb (ratl)
Mastic gum ½ lb
(mastaka)
04/07/23 11:53 AM
II, 21–24 ca. 1135 Sugar and 10 (?) / Madmun b. Mangalore Shaykh Abu Mid-letter ‘A gift (hidayya)
raisins rubā‘iyyas Hasan al-Khayr from me to you.’
Paper (white) 1 dast / and Bama
Coral 1 / Coral for son
Seeds ¼ mikyāl / Surur.

Dispatched with
items charged
for, see Table
7.2.
III, 3 ca. Maqta‘ (Alex- 1 / Joseph b. / Nākhudā Postscript ‘… for your
1135–38 andrian) Abraham Mahruz (margin) esteemed
Fūta (goat- 1 / household what
wool) has no value or
Paper (Talḥī, 15 sheets / importance…’
large)
Sugar 1 Brazilwood
box (large)
Raisins 1 Brazilwood
box (large)
Soap 1 Brazilwood
box (large)
Costus (qust) 5 lbs
Kohl ½ lb
Ladanum 1 oz In a mazza
(lādan)
Vitriol (zāj) ½ lb
Samgh gum ½ lb
04/07/23 11:53 AM
II, 30 ca. 1136 Dates 1 Basket Madmun b. / / / End of letter

(qawsara) Hasan

Fūtas (Egyp- 2 /
tian)
Paper (Bagh- / /
dadi)
Raisins / Bottles
Sugar / Bottles
Leather mat 1 /
(nat‘) (Abys-
sinian)
III, 4–6 ca. White sugar 1 Brazilwood Joseph b. / Shaykh Abu Ship of Towards ‘I sent […]
1136–39 box (large) Abraham Ali b. Tayy- Fidyar beginning of what has no
Maqta‘ (Alex- ‘in a piece ib al-Misri letter importance and
andrian) of cloth’ is not worth
Kohl (Isfa- ½ lb mentioning…’
hani) In a mazza
‘Ilk gum ½ lb (with brass ‘Please accept
Paper (Egyp- 4 dasts cullet) this in return
tian, small for some of your
size) services.’
04/07/23 11:53 AM
III, 1 ca. White sugar 2 rubā‘iyyas Unknown Joseph b. / Shaykh / Postscript ‘I am sending
1137–40 (sukkar ab- but Abraham Ahmad, the you what has no
yad) packaged captain, b. importance or
separately Abu al-Faraj value…’
as 2 items
Raisins 1 Glass bottle

‘firmly set
in a basket.’
Kohl (Magh- 1 lb
rebi)
Costus 1 lb ‘In a
Vitriol 1 lb mazza’
Litharge ½ lb
(martak)
‘Ilk gum 3 oz
Paper (Egyp- 5 dasts
tian)
Cheese 7 molds In a little
(halāl) basket
II, 13–15 1130s Leather mat 6 Wrapped Madmun b. Possibly ‘Abd / Towards ‘I have sent
(hasīr) (Ber- in canvas Hasan Mangalore al-Masih beginning of you…’
bera) al-shammas letter
Dabīqī scarf 1 / (the deacon)
Paper (fine 2 dasts /
large)
Sugar and 2 rubā‘iyyas /
raisins
04/07/23 11:53 AM
III, 10 After Sugar 1 Bottle Khalaf b. Dahbat- Shaykh Abu Ship of Postscript ‘I […] sent
1138 Leather mat 1 Isaac tan(?) al-Hasan Fidyar (margin) what has no
(nat‘) (Abys- al-Mahalli importance or

sinian) value…’
Dispatched with
items charged
for, see Table
7.2.
III, 11 1140 Raisins 2 Bottles Khalaf b. / Abu al- Ship Mid-letter ‘God, the
Isaac Surur(?) of Ibn Exalted, made
al-Muqa- it possible for
ddam me to forward
Sieve 1 / Muwaffaq / to you for your
(munkhal) al-‘Asha‘iri household…’
Stone pans 2 ‘Both in Abu al- Ship
(miqla) one case’ Surur(?) of Ibn
al-Muqa-
ddam
Kohl (Magh- 1 lb / Muwaffaq /
rebi) al-‘Asha‘iri
III, 12–14 1146 Sugar 1 Bottle Khalaf b. / / / End of letter ‘I […] sent you
Raisins 1 Bottle Isaac what has no im-
portance […] for
Kohl ½ lb / the children.’
Samgh gum ½ lb /
Vitriol ½ lb / ‘This is from
me. […] It cost
nothing.’
04/07/23 11:53 AM
nothing.’
III, 15 30 July Sugar 2 Bottles Khalaf b. Mangalore Shaykh Abu / End of letter ‘I […] sent…’
–27 Raisins 2 Bottles Isaac ‘Ali Ibn
August al-Halla
1147 Almonds 1 Bottle
(topped up
with sugar)
Vitriol ½ lb /

Samgh gum ½ lb /
Paper (white) 10 sheets /
Costus 1 lb /
III, 16 19 July Sugar 2 Bottles Khalaf b. Mangalore The Ship of End of letter ‘I […] sent
–17 Almonds 1 Bottle Isaac Nākhudā Shaykh what has no
August Madmun importance or
1148 Raisins 2 Bottles value, for the
Paper (Egyp- 2 dasts // Postscript children…’
tian)
‘If you have any
order or require
any service,
please honor me
with it.’
III, 9 1148–49 Maqta‘ 1 Joseph b. / Nākhudā Ship of Mid-letter ‘… what has no
Paper (Talḥī) 1 dast 12 ‘wrapped Abraham Mahruz Shaykh importance…’
sheets in a piece Madmun
of cloth’
Wine 1 Bottle
(nabīdh)
Soap 1 rubā‘iyya /
Almonds 1 rubā‘iyya /
04/07/23 11:53 AM
carpet, worth five dinars, a maqta‘ cloth, and two Manārī fūtas,
worth six dinars—all this with Abū Ghālib, the ship’s captain. He
also has with him a piece of lead, weighing two hundred and forty-
five pounds, worth 28½ dinars and two qīrāts, the price being 35
dinars; freight charges for the piece of lead, one dinar. Abū Ghālib
the ship’s captain, has with him also a purse, in which there are 20
Egyptian mithqāls, worth 47 dinars (Malikī). That purse contains
(also) seven Malikī dinars…13
This section of the letter shows clearly how a merchant’s accounts

mixed commercial items or charges—the metals and freight charges—
alongside household items such as dates, textiles and dining mats. The
goods destined for ‘the personal use of the Jewish merchant in India and
his family’, as Friedman put it, stand out for their household function
and the generally small quantities involved; we are not looking here at
a bulk trade in Mediterranean and Red Sea foods, clothing or other
household necessities. The large numbers of carpets and mats listed
in this particular passage, including ten leather Berbera mats, would
have been an essential part of the merchant dinners that underpinned
trade networking, leather mats were used for eating, carpets for sitting.
Unlike the first passage, however, the price of these items is carefully
noted and, as Madmun notes, all were ‘charged to you [Abraham Ben
Yiju]’ as part of Ben Yiju’s business account. This system is referenced
elsewhere in the documents, for example, in the case of a batch of rag
paper purchased in Aden for Abraham Ben Yiju the purchaser Khalaf
b. Isaac explicitly requests that the dinar cost of the paper be charged
to his account: ‘add it to my, your servant’s account’.14 In other words,
Abraham was to record the purchase as a debit owed to Khalaf. Table
7.2 sets out the instances where items for personal consumption feature
as part of business accounts.
The regularity and consistency with which Eastern Mediterranean
and Yemeni-made household items, foodstuffs and clothing were
dispatched from Aden to the Malabar coast emerges as an important
and distinctive aspect of this body of mercantile correspondence. In
total, sixteen of the twenty-three surviving letters or memoranda sent
to Abraham in India include such items (see Tables 7.1 and 7.2). Of
course, these documents privilege mobility—the things and foodstuffs
imported into Malabar via Aden—since these exchanges were
underpinned by written correspondence. Local things did not generally
leave written traces, not because they were necessarily less present but
because they could be obtained directly, they did not need to be written
for.15 Nevertheless, together, these passages reveal a world of personal

Table 7.2: Items Dispatched to Malabar and Charged to Abraham Ben Yiju
‘India Date Items Dispatched Sent by Destina- Couri- Ship Posi- Other
Book’ (ap- Item Quan- Cost Packing tion er(s) tion in
Docu- prox.) tity Docu-
ment ment

II, 16–19 1133–40 Dates 1 basket/ 2¾ Basket (qa- Mad- / Abu Ghalib, / Mid-let- ‘…
115 lb dinars wsara) mun b. the ship’s ter charged
Leather mat 1 2 dinars / Hasan captain to you.’
(nat‘) (Ab-
yssinian) Dis-
patched
Leather 10 1 dinar ‘in a package’
with
mat (hasīr)
goods not
(Berbera)
charged
Burūjī 1 5 dinars / for (see
carpet Table
Maqta‘ 1 / 7.1).
Kerchief 2 6 dinars /
(mandīl,
Manari)
04/07/23 11:53 AM
ment ment
II, 25–26 ca. 1134 Nougat / 3 dinars Mad- / / / Mid-let- ‘You

(jawziya) – 1/4 mun b. ter owe…’
(Yemeni Hasan
highlands) Dis-
Sorghum / 1 1/6 / patched
(dhurra) dinars with ‘a
gift (hi-
Fūtas 2 4 dinars
dayya) for
(Egyptian) Saydan b.
your son,’
Sharābiyya 1 2½ Abu al-Fath
see Table
dinars 7.1.
Glass / ¾ dinar
(Lakhabi)
Tumblers 1 dast 6 qirāts Ibn Qattus
(aqdāh)
(Egyptian
glass)
Bottles 4 1 nisāfī ‘firmly set in
(glass) baskets’
04/07/23 11:53 AM
II, 21–24 ca. 1135 Glass / 5 nisāfīs Mad- / Likely Abu / ‘You
(zajāj) mun b. al-Khayr owe…’
Cups 5 1 dinar ‘firmly set in Hasan and Bama
(ratālī) baskets’ Dis-
(glass) patched

with
Leather 4 1 nisāfī
‘a gift
mat (hasīr)
(hidayya)’
(Berbera)
carried
Leather mat 1 1 dinar by Abu
(nat‘) al-Khayr
Iron pan 1 ⅔ dinar and
(miqla) Bama, see
Sieve 1 ⅓ dinar Table 7.1.
Soap 12 lb 1 nisāfī
Fūtas 2 4 dinars
(Egyptian,
patterned)
Fūta (wool, 1 3½
fulled) dinars
04/07/23 11:53 AM
ment ment
III, 10 After Iron frying 1 1 nisāfī / Khalaf b. / / / Mid-let- ‘As to the

1138 pan (tājin) Isaac ter goods
Tumblers 68 ordered
(aqdāh) 1 nisāfī (Purchased ‘Nākhudā of by you…’
(glass) with a basket Nākhudā the ship of
costing 1 Muham- Fidyar’ Dis-
Bowls 10
qīrāt) mad patched
(kīsān)
with
(glass)
items not
Cups (artāl) 5 charged
(glass) for, see
Green 5 11 ‘in baskets’ Table 7.1.
bottles qīrāts
Wheat / / Mad- / / /
(burr) mun b.
Hasan
III, 11 1140 Bowls (kās) 13 / / Khalaf b. / Mid-let- ‘You or-
(glass) Isaac ter dered…’
Lamps 2 / /
(qandīl)
(glass)
04/07/23 11:53 AM
III, 12–14 1146 Paper 30 sheets 1 dinar / Khalf b. / Shaykh Ship of End of ‘You
(qirtās) Isaac Abu Ali Fidyar letter asked
b. Tayyib […] to
al-Misri buy […]
I bought
you…’

‘As to the
dinar for
the paper,
add it to
my, your
servant’s,
account.’
04/07/23 11:53 AM
provisioning and couriering indispensable to mobile lives and yet all

but invisible in other medieval Indian Ocean sources.
In this discussion, I deliberately group together as evidence for
household shopping items both charged to Ben Yiju’s account and
items not charged, the latter are often described as ‘of no importance
and no value’ or by similar phrases. S.D. Goitein and Friedman’s
English and Hebrew editions of the correspondence separate out the
passages listing items that were not charged to a merchant’s account
under the sub-headings ‘gifts’ or ‘presents’. Indeed, according to
Goitein, similar packages are only mentioned in around one in fifty
Mediterranean letters, a feature which lead him to suggest that this
must reflect ‘a custom taken over from the Indian merchants’.16 The
second part of this chapter turns to the question of how exactly we
should label and understand these passages, whether the use of the
term ‘gift’ or ‘present’ is, in fact, appropriate. What I wish to emphasise
here, however, is that in terms of the practical task of shopping,
items which were not charged required the same effort, knowledge
and initial expenditure on the part of the shopper as items that were
charged to Ben Yiju’s account. We can assume that both categories
of item were purchased at the same time and in the same places, only
later being categorised into ‘charged’ and ‘not charged’. In terms of the
history of shopping practices, payment, however effected, is only part
of a longer, larger process.
As Tables 7.1 and 7.2 show, the surviving published documents
record the dispatch to the Malabar coast of a very wide range
of foodstuffs, clothes, kitchen and dining wares, and processed
substances such as soap, vitriol or gum. The variety, while impressive,
can nevertheless be organised into three broad functional categories.
By far the greatest share of the items reaching Abraham can be
grouped under the umbrella of ‘food culture’. The category comprises
raw and processed foodstuffs, various afāwīh, what Sydney Mintz
usefully terms ‘spice-condiments,’17 and objects associated with the
preparation and consumption of food, what I term kitchen wares and
dining wares. The remaining categories are surprisingly few: dress
items, soap, paper and ingredients for ink, which overlap in part with
afāwīh. The first two are, in fact, intimately related as soap (ṣabūn),
was customarily used for washing clothes and textiles rather than the
human body and, therefore, was bound directly to the proper care of
the dress items received. Paper and ink ingredients might similarly
be grouped as ‘writing materials’. Ultimately then, a large part of this
complex assemblage satisfied two simple human needs: those for food
and for covering. What remained, writing materials, met an essential
mercantile need, that of correspondence.

The Wider World of Mercantile Shopping and Its Labour
A first point worth making is that the shopping seen in correspondence

with Abraham Ben Yiju is not unique to him but very clearly part
of a more widespread practice. The documentary Geniza attests to
widespread practices of informal provisioning and shopping, cases in
which individuals selected and then dispatched objects or foodstuffs
and raw materials to distant colleagues, or assisted as intermediaries or
couriers in the transport of such consignments. A search across the first
three India Books alone yields a rich range of examples that establish the
currency of such provisioning and shopping services spurred, as today,
by a natural human urge to have familiar foods and objects to hand even
when travelling or to acquire rare or high quality objects or materials.
While he was back in Yemen between 1140 and 1145, Abraham
himself shopped for other traders. The account of the Muslim trader
Abu cAbdallah Ibn al-Kata’ib with Abraham Ben Yiju lists the quantity
and price of foodstuffs, paper, clothes, furnishings and jewellery
that Abraham had purchased and delivered to Abu cAbdallah for
his personal use in India.18 A memorandum, written by Abraham’s
business partner Joseph b. Abraham in Malabar and sent back to Aden,
requests that Abraham dispatch to him hard wheat (burr), oil (salīṭ),
honey (casal) and other necessities (ḥawā’ij) mostly not available on the
Malabar coast.19 In Malabar, Abraham also acted as an intermediary for
other consignments from Aden, and one letter from Joseph b. Abraham
instructs him to forward to another trader a letter and a satchel
containing children’s clothes.20 Other times Abraham sold on foodstuffs
he had received to other sojourners.21
Merchants in Yemen, in turn, mainly looked to Egypt for their
shopping and household supply. In one business letter, Madmun
chases up an earlier request for fine ceramic tablewares and rose
marmalade,22 items clearly unavailable in the Yemen that were to be
purchased in Fustat. Elsewhere, Joseph b. Abraham requests that a
fellow merchant travelling to Egypt purchase or have made mats for
his house; the detailed dimensions provided leave no doubt that this
was a personal order for Joseph’s own home in Aden.23 Undoubtedly,
the largest, most impressive order to have survived is that which Joseph
b. Abraham passed sometime in the 1130s for clothing, tablewares and
all manner of foodstuffs to be purchased in Egypt in preparation for
his son’s wedding back in Aden.24 But it was not only Mediterranean
things that travelled eastwards. Egyptians and Yemenis also shopped
for objects and foodstuffs from across the Indian Ocean world via
intermediaries to the east. From Malabar, Abraham regularly sent his
business partners in Aden Indian-made household items such as locks,
qaṣca bowls (a type of wooden bowl) or waterskins of preserved fruits.25

A letter of Mahruz b. Jacob written in Aden alludes to consignments of

Indian textiles as well as a slave (cabd) that he had dispatched earlier to
Egypt at his nephew’s request, all clearly intended for the latter’s home.26
I am not the first to underline that shopping constituted labour. It will
be apparent from the above discussion that shopping involved much
more than simply a financial outlay. Shopping demanded time, effort
and know-how; in short, ‘labour’ and, of course, a refined understanding
of the needs and tastes of the final consumer. Good shopping is a skill.
Even shopping for immediate family or relatives, thus within kinship
groups, exercised fundamental commercial skills: knowledge of where
desired products could be obtained and the skill to access them, the
ability to assess the quality of items and achieve an appropriate price,
the skills to pack items safely and then organise their dispatch with
trusted intermediaries, together with accompanying letters, often in
multiple copies. The successful performance of shopping indexed an
individual’s knowledge and reliability as much as their conduct in an
ordinary business dealing.
Shopping supplemented the regard achievable through the business
of trade, but it also offered new opportunities for gaining regard.
Selecting items for another’s personal consumption requires knowledge
of their tastes and habits. As Offer emphasised, non-market exchanges
are an important arena of personalisation, ‘even when obtained
from the market, [the gift] provides evidence of an effort to gratify a
particular individual’, ‘the personalization of gifts, with its evidence of
caring, serves the function of authenticating the regard signal’.27 Even if
household items that were charged for were not gifts as such, personal
shopping for another demonstrated ‘caring’ and personalisation and
built regard. The most significant features of household items, however,
were their durability and domestic agency. Where commodities moved
quickly from ship to warehouse and out into the marketplace, personal
shopping was used in the home on a daily basis, ingested in the case of
foodstuffs or medicines, or worn on the body in the case of clothing.
The items delivered for the personal use of a merchant and his family
were thus persistent sensory reminders of the skills and labour. Personal
shopping provided a more durable reminder of the business partner’s
mercantile knowledge than commercial commodities ever could, while
also demonstrating the care and personalisation that underpinned its
purchase.
Gaining and Losing Regard through Shopping
We lack copies of Abraham’s own correspondence so we cannot judge

whether he was pleased with his colleagues’ shopping efforts, the Geniza
leaves us nothing openly discussing the gain in regard that his partners

achieved as a result of their efforts in this field. That they aspired to

this, however, may be inferred from passages in their correspondence
emphasising to Abraham the fine quality of objects sent, or the
difficulties involved in their acquisition. In Madmun’s correspondence
we find paper described as ‘Egyptian Talḥī paper, of the best obtainable
quality’,28 or a Dabīqī scarf noted to be ‘new, first rate […] which has
a pretty band on each side and is fit to be worn by prominent men.’29
On one occasion Madmun apologised that there had been no paper for
sale in Aden for the last two years and instead sent paper from his own
personal stocks.30 Each detail is, in its own way, an attempt to gain the
approbation, the regard, of the recipient.
One way to capture the ways that shopping built regard amongst the
India traders is through examples in which poor decisions lead to a loss
of regard. One particularly clear example comes from correspondence
between prominent merchants in Aden and Fustat in which the Adeni
correspondents openly rebuke a business partner for his poor choice
of items. The consequent loss of regard—not loss of trust—is made
painfully explicit. Sometime in the mid-12th century, Madmun’s two
sons Halfon and Bundar wrote to Sulayman b. Abu Zikri, the son of the
recently deceased Head of Merchants in Egypt, to complain about his
selection of three wraps (talāthīm) they had requested he buy for them
in Egypt from the proceeds of a sale he had been entrusted with. While
initially thanked for his ‘kindness’ and ‘effort’ in this, when the items
were delivered to Aden, it was apparent that:
the wraps (talāthīm) were not commensurate with what your two
servants had suggested, nor were they appropriate for them. Your two
servants had rather ordered something more delicate and beautiful than
that. There are plenty like that brought by the travelers who arrive (from
Egypt). We hope that your excellency will kindly find a substitute. 31
Sulayman’s failure was both aesthetic and financial. Expected to exert

not simply effort but discernment, instead of selecting hard-to-find,
high-quality items appropriate to the status of the future wearers,
he had instead selected wraps already commonly available in Aden.
Worse still, in describing the items as ‘not commensurate’, there is a
suggestion perhaps that Sulayman had paid over the odds for these very
average wraps, their value was ‘not commensurate’ with the proceeds
of 11 7/8 dinars allocated for the purchase. He was asked to correct this
misjudgement by making fresh purchases, presumably from his own
pocket. The letter continues damningly, spelling out the superior quality
of items previously received from Sulayman’s late father Abu Zikri, and
thus setting the bar for Sulayman’s replacement purchases. As Halfon
and Bundar write, ‘some time ago your late father—God’s mercy be on

him!—had sent to us what was most exquisite, fine and superb.’32 In turn
the two brothers had recently dispatched to Egypt for Abu Zikri, before
they knew of his passing, ‘a piece of delicate Indian red silk (lānas) and
a head cover (‘ardī) of delicate Indian red silk and, I think, one or two
pairs of ‘Aththarī shoes made of unscraped skins.’33
Shopping for another person is by definition an intimate act: not only
do provisions and household items come into direct contact with the
body of the absent person, even being ingested in some cases, selecting
items that will meet with approval also demands detailed understanding
of the other’s status, habits and tastes. In a relationship where in person
contact might be infrequent, this example makes clear that there was
little room for error and loss of regard was made painfully explicit.
Shopping as a Service within Ṣuḥba
There is, one should repeat clearly, nothing to support Goitein’s

hypothesis that the busy circulation of household items among India
traders stemmed from a particularly Indian mercantile practice of
attaching gifts to commercial consignments. We simply have no
evidence for this and furthermore only two consignments are explicitly
labelled as ‘gifts’. What we do have, by contrast, is well-attested evidence
for a form of business partnership flexible enough to integrate requests
for personal shopping into the general conduct of business.
For all the emphasis placed on formal business partnerships, by far
the majority of business collaborations among Jewish and non-Jewish
merchants at this period, from Spain to India, was based around ṣuḥba, a
widely practised form of business relationship between two individuals
which constituted, in Goitein’s words, ‘the organizational backbone
of international trade’.34 Ṣuḥba was a strictly one-to-one relationship,
formally initiated face to face, and it gave the two parties the right to
designate the other as ‘an agent for particular goods and to request
specified tasks on specified goods through written instructions in a
letter’.35 Recent work by Jessica Goldberg has moderated Goitein’s belief
that this was an informal system, underlining instead ṣuḥba’s ‘specific
obligations and limits, its formal structure in practice’.36 The term has
received many translations, from ‘friendship’ or ‘formal friendship’
to ‘informal cooperation’ and ‘informal business cooperation’ but I
adopt here Jessica Goldberg’s phrase ‘reciprocal agency’. As Goldberg
expresses it:
the exchange of services (khidma, pl. khidam) was expected to be

of equal value; any order for commercial services would create a
corresponding obligation for the principal [the associate who owned
the capital] to carry out reciprocal services at some time or place.37

Goldberg has also helpfully disentangled the core duties of wikāla or

‘agency’ from the array of reciprocal services undertaken under this
system. At the core ‘an individual took responsibility for particular
goods and capital and then had the capacity to conduct transactions on
them’,38 but beyond this was a less well-defined array of services such
as overseeing goods in transit, storing goods or helping other agents
in their sales. Geniza merchants utilised a specific—Goldberg argues
deliberately non-technical—vocabulary to designate these ‘extras’, these
were khidma ‘service’ (pl. khidam),39 ḥāja ‘need’ and shughl ‘business’.40
From the surviving correspondence, it is clear that Abraham had
established ṣuḥba relationships with Madmun and the latter’s cousins,
Joseph b. Abraham and Khalaf b. Isaac. Although none of the letters
explicitly state the existence of this relationship, the very content of
the letters and their entreaties to perform reciprocal services (khidma)
for one another point to this underpinning.41 Thus, in 1133, Madmun
invited Abraham, freshly settled in India, to ‘please honor me to do any
need (ḥāja) for him [my Lord]’.42 Goitein and Friedman translate ḥāja
as ‘errand’ but I adopt Goldberg’s translation of the term as ‘need’ since
its use was so specific to ṣuḥba relationships.43 Madmun reiterated the
invitation several years later, concluding a letter with the offer that ‘if
you have any need (ḥāja) or service (khidma) I would be happy to take
care of them.’44 In the summer of 1148, less than a year before Abraham
left India for the last time, it was Khalaf b. Isaac who reminded him
that ‘if my lord has any need (ḥāja) or service (khidma), please honor
me with it.’45
The very generic, non-technical nature of the terms employed—
khidma, ḥāja, shughl—made for ṣuḥba’s infinite adaptability. It is against
this background that I suggest we understand this shopping activity, not
as a nicety between friends or a favour to a business partner, but as a
service (khidma) undertaken within the context of a ṣuḥba partnership.
In Yemen, at the very edge of the main commercial networks from the
Mediterranean, and even more so in Malabar, the range of ‘services’ and
‘needs’ that could legitimately be requested within ṣuḥba appears to have
been considerably expanded to include the purchase and couriering of
household items, and they emerge from these sources as a distinctive
feature of the practice of Jewish trade in this region. Since ṣuḥba was
widely practised in Islamic lands, and not unique to Mediterranean and
Arabian Jews, we may guess that Muslim merchants also made use of
this particular service although their correspondence does not survive.
In Abraham’s correspondence and that of his colleagues just mentioned,
commercial and household orders are discussed side by side, as one
order of business, and it is apparent that many household orders were
also packed and carried along with smaller commercial consignments.

Understood within ṣuḥba as a system of reciprocal exchange, to write

for household items or food provisions, to shop for a business friend
and to dispatch such orders, whether charged or not, was very much a
‘mercantile affair’, as Jessica Goldberg would define it.46
In a context where business partners might meet face to face
only infrequently, shopping consignments—just like the letters that
accompanied them—materialised business relationships that were
otherwise intangible and largely abstract for much of the year. Aden had
a very short sailing season and Paul Lunde has shown that the critical
departure period from Aden for India was during the tīrmāh or the
‘great season’ (al-mawsim al-kabīr) beginning in the last week of August
and lasting barely three weeks. The return sailing season from South
India was longer and ran from around mid-October to early April, but
exchanges were nevertheless far more complex to time than was the case
for ports in the Gulf or elsewhere in Arabia.47 The exchange of shopping
services certainly made homes in Malabar but, more fundamentally
still, they maintained or built ṣuḥba relationships across vast distances
and helped to maintain them durably.
Shopping and Networks of Hospitality
A secondary but nevertheless important consequence of this shopping

activity was to consolidate hospitality networks. An increasing body
of evidence suggests that across Afro-Eurasia personal and communal
networks occupied a primary place in hospitality for travellers,
with residences or religious institutions not simply complementing
but over-riding public travel infrastructure where it existed. Those
intending to stop somewhere for a longer time, and with the means
to do so, might rent an apartment or a house, but many, whether
stopping for one night or for a longer period, chose to stay with
business partners or acquaintances. The documentary Geniza is
especially rich in references to these informal networks and Goitein
cites the letter of a Jewish merchant in India, introducing ‘two
distinguished Tunisian merchants whom he had met in the East’ to
his brother in Fustat.48 With Jewish communities established across
Eurasia, similar recommendations would have facilitated travel
well beyond the routes discussed here and they no doubt played an
important part in Abraham’s own travels east.
Geniza documents capture for the Jewish community a wider practice
of hospitality only faintly seen in other sources—except perhaps the riḥla
or scholarly travel genre where personal acquaintances and religious
institutions feature prominently. How else to explain the fact that even
a busy port such as Qusayr al-Qadim on the Red Sea only received a
dedicated caravanserai in the Ayyubid period?49 Aden likewise appears

to have had little or no formal travel infrastructure; in her study of the

port Roxani Margariti concluded that the silence in contemporary
sources about caravanserais or khans there likely ‘has real significance’,
leaving merchant residences to fulfil an extraordinarily wide range of
business and hospitality functions.50 The centrality of domestic spaces
to mobility and hospitality is also well-documented, both textually and
archaeologically, for the premodern east coast of Africa, and for later
periods in the Red Sea area.
Across these intersecting and complementary systems, travellers were
expected to be substantially autonomous, assembling and transporting
such provisions of food and water as were appropriate to the journey
ahead, in addition to any other utensils, clothing or bedding they might
require. Paulina Lewicka has shown that even caravanserais in medieval
Cairo offered only shelter and safety, travellers were responsible for their
food and furnishings such as beds.51 With no caravanserai networks in
southern India at this period, in helping to furnish and stock Abraham
Ben Yiju’s home on the Malabar coast, his business partners contributed
to making this a pleasant residence for their own business visits and
those of others in their networks. With houses playing a central role in
the accommodation, and inevitably therefore the business dealings, of
sojourning merchants, business friends effectively helped to make their
own hospitality networks, fostering their business at the same time.
There is undoubtedly an element of habit here, mobile humans have
always sought to carry familiar foods or items with them. However, the
maintenance of Mediterranean lifestyles far beyond the Mediterranean
world, in Yemen and India for example, may also have played a
reputational role. As Ian Forrest and Anne Haour discussed in a recent
overview of the literature on trust, work by Damien Coulon on Iberian
traders within the Mamluk Sultanate has shown that maintaining one’s
religion and lifestyle while resident for trade in a Muslim polity was an
important part of maintaining professional reputation and the trust of
others.52
PART II: Thinking about Things of ‘No Importance and No Value’
If we can understand shopping services as a part of the ṣuḥba agreement

between business partners, it is also important to understand more about
the items that were not charged to a merchant’s account. As we have seen
earlier in Joseph b. Abraham’s letter to Ben Yiju, correspondents often
referred to the fictitiously low value of the items they were dispatching,
‘there was dispatched to your excellency for your esteemed household
(manzil) what has no importance and no value (mā lā khatar lahu wa

lā qīma).’ By politely underlining the supposed low value of the items,

the writer in effect indicated that the recipient would not be charged, the
value of these items being so trifling it was not worth the effort. In one
instance, Abraham’s business partner Khalaf b. Isaac makes this explicit,
stating to Abraham that the kohl, gum and vitriol he was sending were
‘from me, your servant. It has no value (mā lahu qīma).’53 Mordechai
Akiva Friedman proposes the alternative if bluntly translated ‘no
charge’; one thinks too of expressions used in modern English when
waiving payment for an item purchased for a friend or close colleague
such as ‘don’t mention it’, ‘it’s nothing’. These ‘worthless’ consignments
contrast with household items included alongside commercial items as
part of Abraham’s business accounts with different partners and which
are clearly charged to him. In the surviving letters which were sent to
Abraham Ben Yiju in India, consignments sent at no charge outnumber
paid-for household orders sixteen to six. This pattern appears to contrast
with shopping orders sent from Aden to Fustat, which appear to have
been charged for. Of course, much depends on what has survived in the
Geniza, however, it would seem from this analysis that Abraham’s home
was very largely the product of non-monetised exchanges, although
always within the ṣuḥba partnership.
Why an Item of ‘No Value’ is Not Necessarily a Gift
Before looking more closely at the categories of household item that

were not charged for and the rationale behind this selection, we need to
resolve the problem of the definition of this category of exchange—are
these all ‘gifts’ or ‘presents’, as labelled in the English and Hebrew editions
of the documents, or does the act of waiving a charge substantially
change the definition of these exchanges? Our knowledge of systems
of exchange and circulation across premodern Eurasia has expanded
considerably in recent years54 and yet no evidence for Goitein’s idea of
a distinctively Indian mercantile practice of dispatching gifts alongside
commercial consignments has emerged. In fact, the use of the terms ‘gift’
and ‘present’ introduced by Goitein needs to be treated with caution.
Only one of Abraham’s three main business partners used the term
hadiyya ‘gift’ or ‘present’ when corresponding with him, and then only
very occasionally. The term is only used by his partner Madmun b. Hasan
Japheth and then only twice in his correspondence with Abraham. The
first instance concerns a large consignment of items—sugar and raisins
and a dast (a dozen sheets) of white paper for Abraham together with
a piece of coral and some snacks (literally bizr ‘seeds’) for his young
son Surur—which is explicitly described as ‘a gift (hadiyya) from me
to you’.55 The second instance concerns ‘a gift (hadiyya) to your son’,
Surur, of sugar and raisins and rosewater.56 Goitein appears to have

understood the term hadiyya to be used implicitly across the rest of

the correspondence relating to Ben Yiju when items were dispatched
and their value not accounted, or when they were explicitly flagged
through a rhetoric of devaluation. Goitein may have read this primarily
as a matter of differing epistolary style rather than a fundamentally
different type of exchange, thus warranting the extension of the term
hadiyya to other contexts.
I would suggest that there are strong reasons to doubt this. Rather than
seeing the difference as one of epistolary style alone, the correspondence
reveals the existence of three different types of exchange system in the
dispatch of items for Abraham and his Indian household:
1. Shopping items that were charged directly to a merchant’s annual

account
(a) Fully integrated into annual accounts as a single running order
(b) Quantity/weight and monetary value itemised
2. Shopping items on which charges were waived
(a) Differentiated from point 1 by being listed separately within a
letter
(b) Quantity/weight recorded but no specification of monetary
value
(c) Often, though not always, flagged through a rhetoric of
devaluation57
(d) Sometimes clarification that the items are from the sender
‘from me’ (i.e., given)58
3. Items dispatched as gifts59
(a) Differentiated from points 1 and 2 by being listed separately
within a letter
(b) Quantity/weight recorded but no specification of monetary
value
(c) Explicitly flagged by the term hadiyya
(d) Originator and recipient flagged ‘from me to you’
One explanation perhaps for the fact that Madmun sent presents and
named them as such while Abraham’s other business partners did not
is the asymmetry of power in Abraham and Madmun’s relationship.
As the son of Japheth b. Bundar, the Wākil al-Tujjār, or Representative
of Merchants60 and Head of the Jewish community in Aden, posts to
which Madmun himself succeeded in 1140, Madmun b. Hasan Japheth
enjoyed a very prominent place in the commercial, political and
religious hierarchies of the port, with direct influence over the business
dealings of Ben Yiju and his other partners.61 While all exchanges incur
debt—as Offer notes, ‘reciprocity is not all pleasure: like the market,

it produces “bads” as well as goods. Giving gives rise to obligation, in

other words, a debt: the giver notches up an emotional and material
credit, in the form of a bond on the recipient’62—that debt appears
to have been managed differently according to the status of the two
parties. The phraseology of devaluation seen in the correspondence
of Joseph b. Abraham and Khalaf b. Isaac seems designed to mitigate
or cushion the obligation that the dispatch of items not charged for
inevitably generated, something that social equals might wish to do in
order to maintain the free reciprocity of their dealings. Madmun by
contrast never engaged with this specific phraseology of devaluation,
allowing the consignments of items that were not charged for to carry
their debt openly. If not sent as gifts, then items are simply described
as ‘sent,’ their monetary value is not stated but neither is it dismissed
as of no importance. In this context, perhaps Madmun alone was in
a sufficiently powerful position to send items within the most ‘debt
charged’ exchange system of all: that of gifting, and to make that explicit
through the use of the term hidayya.
The important conclusion from this analysis is that lists of items
sent explicitly as gifts be regarded as a third, separate category of
exchange. Goitein’s expansion of the term hadiyya to any consignment
of personal shopping flagged as of ‘no value’ misrepresents the nature
of these exchanges. Yes, the fact of not charging for something effects
a clear qualitative change to the interaction but it does not necessarily
make the items exchanged ‘gifts’ as such. Rather, by engaging in a—
patently fictional—rhetoric of devaluation correspondents attempted
to build regard and primed their business partner for the next cycle
of reciprocal services. This strategy becomes clear when these passages
are reintegrated within the longer letters they annotate. It quickly
becomes evident that these passages operate in tandem with the lists of
services (khidma, pl. khidam) their writers had just requested. In one
letter, Joseph b. Abraham refers to a consignment of necessities he was
sending, ‘which has no importance and which is not worth mentioning’
but then immediately segues with the request that Abraham accept it ‘in
return for some of your services (bi-qubūl dhalika li-bacd khidamik)’.63
Even in Madmun’s correspondence, while he avoids any phraseology
of devaluation, he nevertheless explicitly invokes the ṣuḥba system
through his use of key terms. After noting his dispatch, ‘I sent’, of
‘two large brazilwood boxes with sugar, and two brazilwood boxes
with raisins, and a package with three dasts of Egyptian Talḥī paper
of the best obtainable quality’, he invites Abraham to request services
of him: ‘if you have any need (hāja) or service (khidma), I would be
happy to take care of them’.64 In these examples, the expedition of
personal items without charge is explicitly linked to future services. By

withholding charges on certain items requested, or perhaps adding in

supplementary items that had not been requested but were known to
be welcome, business associates built up an advance of regard, credit in
effect, for the services requested in the letter, or which they were sure
to request in the future. In the first example, the specific services Joseph
b. Abraham requested are detailed elsewhere in the letter, namely
that Ben Yiju assist a new entrant into the India trade and intervene
in his (Joseph’s) pursuit of a debtor. In Madmun’s letter, the second
example, the equations are more complex. While Madmun invites
future services, he does not make any specific request, his letter does,
however, acknowledge the earlier receipt from Abraham of four locks
and two qaṣ’a bowls, household shopping going from India to Aden.
It may be that his dispatch of the sugar, raisins and paper served to
balance his ‘account’ with Ben Yiju. However, rather than letting this
rest, Madmun concludes his letter with an offer to undertake new
services—in effect spinning the wheel of reciprocity again.
The Special Status of Sweetness
Thus far, I have suggested that household shopping, charged and

not charged, be understood as a single service within ṣuḥba. I have
proposed already that what counted above all else was the sacrifice of
time and effort involved in shopping for the other party and the exercise
of good judgement in the selection of the items dispatched. In many
ways, the items on which charges were waived appear largely random as
they also occur as charged items in Abraham’s accounts: dates, clothes
and textiles, soap, dining mats, kitchen wares and tablewares and in
one instance paper all feature in both groups, indicating that these were
not entirely discreet assemblages. Nevertheless, analysis of the two
assemblages indicates that a few significant items were sent exclusively
at no charge, notably sweet foodstuffs and writing materials. I use the
remainder of this contribution to begin to explore the wider socio-
cultural conventions that may have determined these decisions.
The surviving correspondence makes it abundantly clear that sweet
foodstuffs, and sugar in particular, were never charged for. Sugar (sukkar)
never features in charged household orders but occurs in twelve out
of sixteen or 75 per cent of consignments sent at no charge. Likewise,
raisins, which were never included among paid for household orders,
feature in over 75 per cent of consignments (thirteen out of sixteen) sent
at no charge. Less common was rosewater, in effect rose flavoured sugar
syrup, which was dispatched on two occasions, and dates, found in one
instance (although dates are also featured once as a charged item). Thus,
every consignment of ‘no value’ or simply ‘sent’ and both of Madmun’s
gifts (hidayyas) include at least one sweet foodstuff, more commonly

several. In two instances where either raisins or sugar are missing

from the consignment, the respective writers both apologise for the
unavailability of these items. For example, in Joseph b. Abraham’s letter
just discussed, although he sends a large box of white sugar, he apologises
that ‘I attempted to get some raisins to send to your excellency. However,
none whatsoever was to be had in Aden this year.’65 This and similar
apologies suggest that sweet foodstuffs, preferably sugar and/or raisins,
constituted an expected or a standard component of such assemblages.66
This pattern raises complex questions about the function and symbolism
of sweet foodstuffs within systems of exchange at this period.
While it is possible to propose some specifically Jewish contexts
of meaning that might explain the dispatch of one of these items, the
more likely explanation for this phenomenon is that sweet foodstuffs,
particularly sugar and raisins, had become well-established and
widely understood signifiers of ‘generosity’. Raisins were certainly an
important Jewish ritual food, serving as the basis for the raisin wine
commonly used in Sabbath services.67 This specific, cultural need might
initially seem to explain the presence of raisins in these consignments
as well as the decision not to charge for a ritually important foodstuff.
However, wheat, which was also important as a ritual food and
especially so in Malabar, far from its centres of cultivation in either
India or Egypt, features only once and that as a charged item.68 More
than ritual usage then, the answer may lie in the moral or emotional
associations of sweetness. Ethnographic work in Yemen has pointed
to sugar’s association with both generosity and hospitality. At Zabid,
Anne Meneley observed that ‘sugar is an index of generosity; to ask if
someone wants sugar [in their tea] implies that the host or hostess is a
bakhil or bakhila (miser)’,69 or again, ‘sugar is what makes a drink an
appropriate item for hospitality. As in our own lexicon, “sweetness” is
thought to be a positive quality of a person’.70 Evidence from Fatimid
Egypt certainly indicates that sugar constituted an appropriate item for
charitable donation, sugar was among the items publicly distributed
by the Caliph during Ramadan and other celebrations, or given to
charitable institutions for distribution to the populous.71 In the Chinese
records, glass bottles of sugar, dates and rosewater were among the
gifts commonly presented by merchants from the Islamic world and
from South Asia when they led tribute missions to the Sung court
(r. 960–1279).72 While small in number these examples suggest that by
the 10th century, if not earlier, sugar had become well-established and
widely-understood signifier of generosity. In the context of Abraham
Ben Yiju’s shopping then, sugar and raisins may feature as items of ‘no
value’ not because of a conscious decision by a business partner to waive
their cost but because by cultural convention they could not be charged
for. Indeed, it seems possible to suggest that Abraham Ben Yiju would

in fact never have needed to request these particular items, so current

was the convention of sending them. To rephrase Anne Meneley, for
Abraham to have to request sugar and raisins of his business partners
would be to imply that they were miserly.
This does not mean that sweet foods could not be wielded within the
economy of regard in more subtle ways. In two letters, Khalaf b. Isaac
specifies that he sent sugar and raisins ‘for the children’.73 This example
illustrates well Offer’s point about the importance of personalisation
and care within the economy of regard. Even if sugar and raisins were
a near standard inclusion, featuring in 75 per cent of consignments,
Khalaf designation of the final recipients of these items demonstrated his
thoughtfulness towards Abraham’s wider family. In contrast to this, sugar
might also be deployed in more adversarial situations to counterbalance
more negative aspects of an interaction. Joseph b. Abraham’s request of
Abraham Ben Yiju to pursue a debtor provides a clear example of this.
In a long and complex set of instructions, Joseph asks Abraham to take
delivery of a witnessed letter of proxy (in triplicate) which threatened
a certain Abu al-Faraj b. Musa al-Baghdadi with legal proceedings to
recoup a debt owed. The letters were to be delivered to al-Baghdadi
should he attempt to declare himself bankrupt or not return to Aden.74
But the letters did not travel alone, as Joseph instructs Abraham:
My lord, I sent him (Baghdādī) a large brazilwood box with sugar, on

which is his name […] If he is at your place, give him the letters and
the brazilwood box with sugar. And if, God forbid, he is in Ceylon,
kindly be so good as to send to him these letters and sugar with
someone whom you trust, in your kindness.
While the letter of proxy threatened legal proceedings to recoup the debt
owed, the sugar accompanying it was a reminder of Joseph’s potential for
generosity should al-Baghdadi behave honourably and return to Aden.
Writing Materials and the Economy of Regard
Sugar and raisins may be one of the easier meanings to decode given
the near universal human attraction to sweet taste. As Sidney Mintz
observed, ‘all (or nearly all) mammals like sweetness’, ‘sweet tastes
have a privileged position in contrast to the more variable attitudes
towards sour, salty, and bitter tastes.’75 More complex to unravel are
the values and meanings underpinning other ‘not charged’ items. One
other clear sub-assemblage that is almost never charged for is paper
and ingredients for ink. Paper never appears in paid household orders
but is present in over 50 per cent of uncharged consignments (nine
out of sixteen) and charged on only one occasion.76 Also prominent

among the items sent at no charge are a variety of raw ingredients for
ink manufacture, in particular gums as well as vitriol.77
Whereas the dispatch of sugar and other sweet foods appears to belong
within well-established and widely understood systems of value and
customary practice, there is nothing to suggest similar practices relating
to paper and writing materials. Rather, the systematic waiving of charges
on these items points to the flexibility of this category of exchange, its
ability to incorporate any highly sought-after commodities that would
generate regard if given. That writing materials should have been held in
such high importance and offered the potential for generating substantial
regard is not surprising in an Indian Ocean context. As I have discussed
elsewhere, writing played a fundamental part in the maintenance of
merchant relationships with letters understood to embody the distant
partner and presence them to their associate.78 In the Indian context,
where altogether different writing technologies were common, writing
materials are likely to have played a profoundly identitarian role.79 To
write from India on Middle Eastern paper was to maintain one’s status
and Mediterranean identity. It is not surprising then to find that not only
paper but key ingredients for ink-making—notably vitriol and gums—
are never found in paid household orders.
Here again, it is an exception that proves valuable in highlighting
some of the assumptions and meanings in play. It appears significant
that the only delivery of paper Abraham was ever charged for was for
qirṭās, rag paper. The paper was sent by his partner Khalaf b. Isaac
as part of a consignment of sugar and raisins, kohl, gum and vitriol
on which charges were waived; however, Khalaf is very careful to
make sure the paper, though packed with these other items, not be
included among the items of ‘no importance’. As he writes ‘this [the
consignment of items of “no importance”] is from me, your servant.
It has no value (mā lahu qīma). As to the dinar for the paper, add it
to my, your servant’s, account’.80 The thirty sheets of qirṭās paper he
was sending must be charged, and should be included in his (Khalaf ’s)
account as an amount that Abraham could spend on trade commodities
on Khalaf ’s behalf. Why? The answer seems to be that qirṭās was a lower
quality of paper than Abraham usually received. If Khalaf had included
it among the other items on which he waived the charges, he risked
giving the impression that he did not fully understand his partner’s
high expectations in terms of quality. He risked the same criticism and
loss of regard faced by Sulayman b. Abu Zikri Cohen, namely, that he
had selected an item that was commonly available and not ‘appropriate’
for Ben Yiju’s status. This exception indicates that one did not waive
charges on something that was truly of lesser value, thus, confirming the
inference that items ‘of no value and importance’ were, in fact, anything

but. The only respectful option open to Khalaf, if he wished to maintain

Abraham’s regard, was to charge him for the inferior rag paper.
Identitarian concerns may also explain the importance of clothing
and the soap to wash it, regularly included among these items ‘of
no importance and no value’. The study of these is another project.
Nevertheless, the pattern is clear: for all the disclaimers that the items
sent were of no monetary value, this was in fact a deciding factor. Even
more than the cycle of debt and credit for services rendered that lay at
the heart of the ṣuḥba system, waiving charges on items of higher value
or quality kept the wheel of reciprocity spinning.
Conclusion
This study has offered a valuable opportunity to begin to flesh out

Avner Offer’s initial ideas about economies of regard through a detailed
exploration of the way that personal shopping services operated among
12th century Jewish merchants in the Indian Ocean world. There is
plenty to suggest that mobile people have always sought to maintain
an everyday normal in their translocation and have employed a variety
of networks and systems of exchange to help them acquire the things
necessary to achieve that. In this broader aim, the India traders were
no different. How they went about it, however, appears to be a novel
translation of the ṣuḥba business relationship (reciprocal agency) to the
Indian Ocean environment. Ṣuḥba’s inclusive understanding of service
offered a perfect framework within which to request shopping services
in order to secure access to these supplies, one independent of kinship
networks or the vagaries of friendship by reason of its implicit connection
to business relationships. As argued here, far from being a side activity,
shopping services offered an important arena for the solicitation and
accumulation of regard, and one which arguably generated far more
immediate and long-lasting effects than prowess in the commercial
domain. For the India traders, domestic materiality—the making of
homes in Malabar, and indeed in Aden—was deeply entangled with the
business of business, of maintaining business friends and cultivating
their approbation. Thus, a model of business relationship developed in
the Islamic Mediterranean was subtly transformed in its translation to
the Indian Ocean environment. While it is far too soon to know whether
Offner’s model of economies of regard might ultimately displace the
notion of trust commonly deployed in the study of mercantile networks
and communities, this discussion has shown its usefulness for capturing
some of the finer processes through which something that we might
broadly describe as ‘trust’ was constructed and maintained among this
particular group. The conversation is certainly far from over.

Notes
1 Goitein, S.D. and Mordechai A. Friedman. 2008. India Traders of the

Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza (‘India Book’). Leiden and
Boston: E.J. Brill, p. 60.
2 Offer, A. 1997. ‘Between the Gift and the Market: The Economy of Regard’,
Economic History Review, Vol. 50(3): 450–476.
3 Ibid., p. 455.
4 Ibid.
5 Welch, E. 2005. Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer Cultures in Italy,
1400–1600. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, p. 5.
6 Ibid., p. 3.
7 Ibid., p. 8.
8 See Goitein, S.D. 1973. Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders. Translated
from the Arabic with Introductions and Notes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press and the all-important publication of the majority
of documents pertaining to Ben Yiju in Goitein and Friedman. India
Traders of the Middle Ages and the Hebrew edition with Judaeo-Arabic
transcription in Goitein, S.D. and Mordechai A. Friedman. 2010. Abraham
Ben Yiju India Trader and Manufacturer: India Book III, Cairo Geniza
Documents. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute and The Rabbi David Moshe
and Amalia Rosen Foundation (in Hebrew); finally, Lambourn, E.A. 2018.
Abraham’s Luggage. A Social Life of Things in the Medieval Indian Ocean
World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Abraham became widely
known outside academic circles through Ghosh, A. 1994. In an Antique
Land. History in the Guise of a Traveler’s Tale. Repr., New York: Vintage
Books.
9 On the ports he frequented and his business strategy, see Lambourn, E.A.
2018. ‘India in the “India Book”: 12th Century Northern Malabar through
Geniza Documents’. In Sur les chemins d’Onagre. histoire et archéologie
orientales. Hommage à Monik Kervran, edited by C. Hardy-Guilbert et al.
Oxford: Archaeopress, pp. 71–84.
10 For a discussion of this measure, see Goitein and Friedman, India Traders,
p. 314, n. 14.
11 On a dast and more specifically dasts of paper see, ibid., p. 304, discussion
in n. 9.
12 Ibid., p. 567, Lines 1–4 (IB III, 2) and for the Judaeo–Arabic, Goitein and
Friedman, Abraham, p. 80.
13 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, pp. 325–326, Lines 1–17 (IB II, 16–19).
14 Ibid., p. 620, Line 44 (IB III, 12–14).
15 On linguistic traces of local domestic material culture, see Lambourn, E.A.
2014. ‘Borrowed Words in an Ocean of Objects: Geniza Sources and New
Cultural Histories of the Indian Ocean’. In Irreverent History: Essays for
M.G.S. Narayanan, edited by Kesavan Veluthat and Donald Davis Jr. New
Delhi: Primus Books, pp. 363–414.
16 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 10, largely repeating an earlier
observation in Goitein, S.D. 1966. ‘Letters and Documents on the India

Trade in Medieval Times.’ Studies in Islamic Trade and Institutions. Leiden:

E.J. Brill, p. 334.
17 Mintz, S.W. 1985. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern
History. New York and London: Penguin, p. 78.
18 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, pp. 650–652, Lines 1–21 (IB III, 21).
19 Ibid., pp. 585–586 (IB III, 8), in summary and in full in Goitein and
Friedman, Abraham, pp. 103–107 and particularly p. 104, Lines 12–13.
20 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 562, Lines 16–19 (IB III, 1).
21 For wheat supplied in India to the Muslim Abu cAli al-Misri see p. 659 (IB
III, 23, Lines 5–6).
22 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 375, Lines 49–52, order placed by
Madmun in Aden with a colleague who had travelled to Fustat (IB II, 32).
For other examples, see ibid., pp. 448–449, Lines 36–49 (IB II, 46), and p.
455 (IB II, 48).
23 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, pp. 411–412, Lines 1–5 (IB II, 43).
24 Ibid., pp. 421–429 (IB II, 44).
25 See references in Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 326, Lines 27–28
(IB II, 16–19); p. 569, Line 3 (IB III, 3); p. 625, Lines 34–38 (IB III, 15); p.
629, Line 15 (IB III, 16).
26 Ibid., pp. pp. 481–482.
27 Offer, ‘Between the Gift and the Market’, p. 454.
28 Ibid., p. 327, Line 31–32 (IB, 16–19).
29 Ibid., pp. 313–314, Lines 16–18 (IB II, 13–15).
30 Ibid., p. 346, Lines 9–11 (IB II, 21–4).
31 Ibid., p. 491, Lines 44–47 (IB II, 61).
32 Ibid., p. 491, Lines 50–51.
33 Ibid., pp. 491–492, Lines 52–54. It is unclear from the letter whether these
items were sent as gifts or represent an instance of personal shopping.
34 Goitein, S.D. 1967–93. A Mediterranean Society; the Jewish Communities
of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, Vol. 5: p. 277.
35 Goldberg, Jessica L. 2012. Trade and Institutions in the Medieval
Mediterranean: The Geniza Merchants and their Business World.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 128.
36 Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, p. 129.
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid., p. 130, n. 40.
39 Khidma has a well-studied usage within court contexts and was employed
amongst Arabophone Jews too, notably in petitions. For a discussion of
the Jewish context and a full bibliography for Islamicate courtly usage, see
Rustow, Marina. 2008. ‘Formal and Informal Patronage among Jews in
the Islamic East: Evidence from the Cairo Geniza,’ Al-Qantara, Vol. 29(2):
356–357. As she notes, ‘patronage, clienthood, and detailed and reciprocal
sets of obligations in social and political life did indeed extend beyond the
courts and into the circles of men and women of humbler rank’ (p. 343).
40 Goldberg, Trade and Institutions.

41 Correspondence from the Mediterranean is much more vocal in its use of

the specific phraseology. Goldberg notes that in her core corpus, ‘67 per
cent of all discussions of agency services are about ṣuḥba,’ Goldberg, Trade
and Institutions, p. 143, while the term aṣḥābunā appears in 23 per cent of
letters.
42 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 336, Line 10 (IB II, 20) and for the
Judaeo–Arabic, see Goitein, S.D. and Friedman, Mordechai Akiva. 2010.
Madmun Nagid of Yemen and the India Trade: India Book II, Cairo Geniza
Documents. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute and The Rabbi David Moshe and
Amalia Rosen Foundation, p. 170 (in Hebrew). Goitein and Friedman
translate ḥāja as ‘errand’ but I adopt Goldberg’s translation of the term as
its use was so specific to ṣuḥba relationships.
43 See Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, p. 130 and n. 40.
44 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 327, Lines 33–34 (IB II, 16–19)
and for the Judaeo–Arabic, see Goitein and Friedman, Madmun, p. 160.
45 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 630, Lines 25–26 (IB III, 16) and for
the Judaeo–Arabic Goitein and Friedman, Abraham, p. 157. In this instance,
Goitein and Friedman translate ḥāja as ‘order’, however, I follow Goldberg’s
translation ‘need’ in order to better reflect the terminological consistency
within the letters. The same vocabulary is found is a letter from Mahruz
b. Jacob to Abu Zikri Cohen see Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, pp.
483–484, margin ‘whatever needs or services’ (IB II, 56–57).
46 Goldberg, Jessica L. 2012. ‘The Use and Abuse of the Geniza Mercantile
Letter’, Journal of Medieval History, Vol. 38 (2): 127–154.
47 Lunde, Paul. 2012. ‘Sailing Times in Sulayman al-Mahrī’. In The Principles
of Arab Navigation, edited by Anthony R. Constable and William Facey.
London: Arabian Publishing Ltd., p. 79 citing Sulayman al-Mahri who
gives more detailed information for Aden than Ibn Majid and slightly
different seasons. Other sources such a Yemeni Rasulid agricultural
almanac for the year 1271 similarly emphasise the critical nature of this
sailing window (Lunde, ‘Sailing Times’, pp. 78–79).
48 Goitein, S.D. 1960. ‘The Documents of the Cairo Geniza as a Source for
Mediterranean Social History’, Journal of the American Oriental Society
80, p. 98; also Goitein, Mediterranean Society, vol. 1, p. 350.
49 Peacock, David and Lucy Blue (eds). 2006–11. Myos Hormos—Quseir al-
Qadim. Roman and Islamic Ports on the Red Sea. Oxford: Archaeopress,
vol. 2, pp. 103–104; on the Sheikh’s house, see Burke, Katherine Strange.
2006. ‘The Sheikh’s House at Quseir Al-Qadim’, Bulletin of the American
Research Center in Egypt, 190, pp. 24–28 and 2007. Archaeological Texts
and Contexts on the Red Sea: The Sheikh’s House at Quseir Al-Qadim,
unpublished PhD diss. University of Chicago.
50 Roxani, Margariti E. 2007. Aden and the Indian Ocean Trade: 150 Years
in the Life of a Medieval Arabian Port. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, p. 103; view also repeated in Vallet, Éric. 2010. L’Arabie
Marchande: État et Commerce sous les Sultans Rasulides du Yémen (626–
858/1229–1454). Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, p. 142.

51 Lewicka, Paulina. 2011. Food and Foodways of Medieval Cairenes: Aspects

of Life in an Islamic Metropolis of the Eastern Mediterranean. Boston and
Leiden: Brill, pp. 351–385; also, her earlier article 2005. ‘Restaurants, Inns
and Taverns That Never Were: Some Reflections on Public Consumption
in Medieval Cairo’, JESHO 48, no. 1: 40–91.
52 Forrest, Ian and Anne Haour. 2018. ‘Trust in Long-Distance Relationships,
1000–1600 ce’, Past and Present, Supplement 13, p. 204 citing Damien
Coulon, 2004. Barcelone et le Grand Commerce d’Orient au Moyen Âge: un
Siècle de relations avec Egypte et la Syrie-Palestine (c.1330–c.1430). Madrid-
Barcelone.
53 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 620, Line 44 (IB III, 12–14), where
mā lahu qīma is translated as ‘it cost nothing’.
54 For a major project and the resulting edited volume, see Carlà, Filippo
and Maja Gori (eds), 2014. Gift Giving and the ‘Embedded’ Economy in
the Ancient World. Heidelberg: Universitätsverglag Winter. The long
historiography of gift studies is treated in Liebersohn, Harry. 2011.
The Return of the Gift: European History of a Global Idea. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
55 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 346, Lines 7–12 (IB II, 21–24).
56 Ibid., p. 356, Line 10 (IB II, 25–26). The term is found a third time but in
other correspondence.
57 It is noticeable that while Khalaf b. Isaac and Joseph b. Abraham both
employ a rich phraseology of devaluation when they send items and do
not charge for them, Madmun never does.
58 See, for example, IB III, 14, letter of Khalaf b. Ishaq, Goitein and Friedman,
India Traders, p. 620, Line 44.
59 The rarest category of all since we have only two examples, as we have
seen, of Abraham’s three main business partners, only Madmun b. Hasan
Japheth sent hadiyyas.
60 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 37 with references in n. 1 to the
documents in which Japheth b. Bundar is mentioned.
61 On Madmun’s titles and role in the trade of Aden and within the Yemeni
Jewish community see ibid., pp. 37–40.
62 Offer, Between the Gift and the Market, p. 455.
63 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 576, Lines 8–9, 11 (IB III, 4–6) and
for the Judaeo-Arabic Goitein and Friedman, Abraham, p. 91.
64 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 327, Lines 28–35 (IB 16–19).
65 Ibid., p. 577, Lines 16–18.
66 See also Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 613, Line 54 (IB III, 11).
67 See discussion in Lambourn, Abraham’s Luggage, Chapter 5 ‘A Jewish
Home: On Ritual Foods’, pp. 129–160.
68 It is worth mentioning that sugar was also an important medicinal food
and especially so in Malabar where, as a ‘cold’ substance, Islamic medicine
deemed it particularly appropriate for the treatment of fevers or general
consumption during hot weather, see Lewicka, ‘Diet As Culture’, p. 611
and a much broader survey in Tsugitaka, Sato. 2015. Sugar in the Social
Life of Medieval Islam. Leiden: Brill, Chapter 5 ‘Sugar As Medicine’.

69 Meneley, Anne. 2011. ‘Food and Morality in the Yemen’. In Food.

Ethnographic Encounters, edited by Leo Coleman, p. 23. Oxford and New
York: Berg.
70 Ibid., p. 24.
71 Tsugitaka, Sugar, pp. 123–125, 131.
72 Bielenstein, Hans. 2005. Diplomacy and Trade in the Chinese World, 589–
1276. Leiden: Brill; see pp. 370–373, also pp. 88 and 94.
73 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 619, Lines 39–40 (IB III, 12–14)
and p. 629, Lines 16–20 (III, 16).
74 Ibid., pp. 577–580 (IB III, 4–6).
75 Mintz, Sweetness and Power, pp. 16, 17.
76 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 620, Lines 42–43 and n. 35 (IB III,
12–14).
77 See longer discussion in Elizabeth Lambourn. 2022. ‘Some New Uses of
the Geniza Mercantile Letter—On the Materiality of Writing in the Indian
Ocean World’. In Fruit of Knowledge, Wheel of Learning: Essays in Honour
of Professor Robert Hillenbrand, edited by Melanie Gibson. London:
Gingko Library, pp. 170–171.
78 Ibid., pp. 158–179.
79 For an overview see Lambourn, E.A. 2021. ‘Material Cultures of Writing in
the Indian Ocean World: A Palm-Leaf Letter at the Mamluk Court’. In The
Archaeology of Knowledge Traditions of the Indian Ocean World, edited by
Himanshu Prabha Ray, pp. 146–168. London and New York: Routledge.
80 Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 620, Line 44 (IB III, 12–14).

8
INSIGHTS INTO GLOBAL MARITIME TRADE

AROUND 1600*
Angela Schottenhammer
The birth of the world market as a competition of early modern capitalist

states was characterised by an enormous degree of violence, force,
coercion and murder. Treasures captured worldwide by European states
through undisguised looting, enslavement and murder, etc. were finally
taken back to the mother country and turned into capital. The Spanish
and the Portuguese were the first European nations that reached Asia.
After seizing Melaka on the Malay Peninsula—the crossroads of trade
routes connecting the Indian Ocean with insular South-east Asia—in
1511, the Portuguese began to venture into East Asian waters. In 1557,
Portugal received permission to establish a trading base at Macao at the
estuary of the Pearl River near Guangzhou. In 1571, their first ‘black
ship’ (kurofune黒船), as it was called by the contemporary Japanese,
reached Nagasaki, where they initiated trade in pepper, spices and silks
between China, South-east Asia and Japan.1 It was a triangular trade,
exporting pepper and spices from Melaka to Macao, silks and gold
from Macao to Japan, silver from Japan to Macao, and silks, copper
and precious metals (back) to Goa.2 In Macao, the Portuguese enjoyed
specials rights to trade (in China) for a considerable time.3
In 1565, the Spanish turned the Philippines into a colony and, in
1571, they made Manila the capital of their colonial base in South-east
Asia. Manila was chosen because of its excellent natural harbour and
the rich hinterland surrounding of the city, which could supply it with
necessary produce and natural resources.4 Across the Pacific Ocean,
the Spanish eventually established a routinised galleon trade (1565–
1815) between their colonies in America and Asia, with Manila as
their trading base. The Spanish trans-Pacific trade consequently linked
New Spain, that is, Mexico, Peru and their hinterlands, with Asia—a
significant further step in the historical development of a global
economy spanning the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Only two years after the founding of Manila, where the Spanish had
established their base in Asia, they initiated direct trading contacts with
161

China, purchasing Chinese goods and shipping them across the Pacific
back to Acapulco, Mexico—two galleons laden with raw silk, silk and
cotton fabrics and more than 22,000 pieces of Ming porcelain returned
from China via Manila to Acapulco, Mexico.5
The Spanish galleons brought mainly silver ingots and silver coins
but also introduced American products like wines, sweet potato, maize,
chocolate, cacao, tobacco6 or medicinal drugs of plant origin from
Acapulco to Manila, from where the silver and part of the other cargo
was shipped to China (especially Fujian). Chinese goods comprised
above all silks and porcelains, but also a great variety of other items
ranging from handicraft goods, such as ivory figurines and writing
desks, to slaves, perfumes, jewellery, iron, gold, mercury, cotton and
various other goods; some of them re-exported from other Asian
countries, for example, Siam (Thailand), Cambodia or India.
In the second half of the 17th century, the Spanish king Philip II of
Habsburg (1527–1598) was a strong and international active power in
Europe, relying on financial resources of a vast empire, especially from
the new colonies in Mexico and Peru. But, after the unification of the
crowns of Spain and Portugal in 1581, Spain and the Iberian world rather
faced a gradual decline than strengthening. The defeat of the ‘Invincible
Armada’ in 1588 marked an important caesura in this process and, at
the same time, it witnessed the beginning of Dutch, English and French
superiority. The early 17th century is characterised by rivalries between
these nations and the steady economic rise of Holland and England,
which deployed their East India companies to ‘conquer’ the Asian world.
After wresting independence from Spanish rule, the Dutch Republic
started to charter its seafarers, gathered under the umbrella of the Dutch
East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC),
setting up a monopoly on trade in the Asia seas. In 1619, the VOC
came to establish Fort Batavia on the island of Java as its headquarter
for military and trading operations in Asia. In the 17th century, the
maritime powers of Europe subsequently engaged in violent struggles
for access to the Chinese market.
This chapter seeks to provide some insights into maritime world
trade around 1600, a period when the fierce and forceful competition
for the world markets was just about to begin. We will introduce the
background of a Spanish war galleon that sank in 1600 in the vicinity of
the harbour of Manila, Cavite, and analyse part of its cargo. We will also
touch upon the role of physicians and surgeons onboard contemporary
ships, introduce some medicinal books the ship surgeon of a galleon
called San Martín had on board and analyse a variety of manuscripts
that can give us some better idea on everyday life, commerce and
violence at that time.

Insights into Global Maritime Trade around 1600 163
The San Diego Incident
The galleon San Diego had originally been built as a trading vessel,
waiting for its return trip to New Spain, before it was converted into a
warship in order to fight against the Dutch warship Mauritius, under
the command of Admiral Olivier van Noort (1558–1627).7 The galleon
carried a full cargo and was equipped with additional cannons—heavy
artillery that had been taken from the fortress of Manila—for resisting
the Dutch. On 14 December 1600, the San Diego was engaged with the
Mauritius. But the galleon could not be manoeuvred properly anymore
and failed to fire a single shot against its enemy, eventually sinking close
to the port of Manila. The tragic incident later even came to be known
as the ‘Dutchman’s Day’. Details on the background of this incident as
well as the galleon in general are introduced in an exhibition catalogue
dedicated to the San Diego.8
The Background
The battle reflects the rivalries between the Dutch and the Spanish,
who had linked up their new Spanish colonies in the Americas across
the Pacific to the Philippines and the Asia trade in general (especially
with China). The Spanish in Manila were well aware that a victory in this
case could scare off enemies for quite some time, while a defeat might
even lead to a potential loss of the colony for Spain. In preparation of a
hostile encounter with the Dutch, António de Morga [Sánchez Garay]
(1559–1636), first lieutenant-governor of the Philippines (1595–1598)
and later senior judge (oidor) of its Real Audiencia9 (1598–1603), fortified
Manila and prepared some warships. In lack of more ships, he had to
contend himself with only the San Diego and the San Bartolomé, another
small ship of just 50 tons, which had been constructed on the order of
de Morga, and a few galleys hastily constructed in local shipyards. He
took the San Diego as his flagship and brought a considerable number of
soldiers and mercenaries on board. Many of these soldiers were recruited
from indigenous auxiliary ranks due to a lack of Spanish soldiers. De
Morga received the order to engage the enemy ships, that were waiting
close to the entrance of the Manila Bay, as soon as possible in a battle,
before they could escape, and to destroy or sink ‘the pirates’.10
On 12 December 1600, as the Spanish set sail at Cavite, de Morga
decided to spend the night in the small port on the island of Mariveles,
located at the entrance of the Manila Bay. Two different versions exist
about what happened thereafter and it was only recently that documents
from the Casa de Contratación (House of Commerce) in Seville cast a
new light on the matter.

Despite his obvious inexperience at sea,11 de Morga personally

commandeered the ship, even when this decision led to defections of
various soldiers prior to their departure. De Morga had also refused
to take more ballast to offset any disbalance caused by heavy artillery
onboard. On 14 December, in difficult weather conditions, the Dutch
ships came into sight. The Dutch flagship, the Mauritius, was only
about half the size of the San Diego, and the second Dutch ship, the
Eendracht, was even smaller. Olivier van Noort, realising that the
Spanish had sent various ships to attack them, ordered the Eendracht to
return home to Holland, while he prepared the Mauritius for battle. ‘As
soon as the San Diego was within range of its guns, the Mauritius fired
a salvo which damaged the former. The Spanish admiral gave the order
to return fire, but nothing happened.’12 Not only did the enormous
additional equipment that the San Diego had taken onboard prove
counterproductive, but the ship too could not ensure its stability and
weight. Combined with waves and strong winds, the crew members
found themselves in a threatening situation. Hit by the enemy’s shot,
water was coming in through the gun ports, and the Spanish could only
return fire from a small gun on deck. A second shot by the Mauritius also
hit the San Diego. Not having trimmed the sails, the San Diego heavily
rammed the Mauritius, and some thirty Spanish soldiers climbed on
deck of the Dutch vessel. When, captain Juan de Alcega had caught up
with the San Diego and fired his guns at the Mauritius, a few Spaniards
still onboard of the enemy ship ‘asked the San Bartolome to hold its fire,
because the enemy ship had been taken’.13 De Morga did not pay heed
to his officers who advised him to attack the Dutch. As five hours went
away in inaction, the Spaniards faced a double jeopardy when a major
leak was discovered that could not exactly be located.
Observing the confusion onboard the enemy ship, Olivier van Noort
decided to set fire to his own ship and force his soldiers to fight. De
Morga eventually ordered to cut off the lines. ‘Diego de Santiago, a
Jesuit priest, stupefied by such an order, told the admiral that he would
first have to finish taking the enemy ship and transfer all his men to
it before executing such a maneuver, because once cut loose, the San
Diego would sink like a stone.’ But de Morga repeated his order and,
after all the lines had been cut, the San Diego sailed for another 200
metres before she sank.14 Some of the people onboard, among them de
Morga, jumped over board and rescued themselves on small rafts, put
together with mattresses.
The Spanish authorities later initiated an examination of the
loss of the galleon and accusations were raised against de Morga.15
Some documents, including de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas,
interestingly speak of English ships and English corsairs (corsarios

ingleses) as the enemies in this incident, although, as we have seen, these

were Dutch.16 De Morga later in detail responded to the accusations
made against him17 and also recorded his own version of the encounter
with van Noort and the Mauritius in a letter.18
In 1992, the wreck was recovered by Frank Goddio and his team
who cooperated with archaeologists of the National Museum of the
Philippines. The maritime archaeologists discovered more than
a thousand pieces of blue and white Wanli period (1572–1620)
porcelain, Japanese sword guards, 570 storage jars (the largest
collection found to date), a gold and ivory crucifix, a brass astrolabe
(only six known prior to 1600), a glass and bronze compass, golden
rings, cannons, anchors and other artefacts, such as medical kits,
but also bones and teeth of animals carried onboard and remains of
seeds and food.19
There are also other important wrecks stemming from the late 16th
century and around 1600. We should briefly mention the San Felipe
that stranded in Urado (浦戸) on the Japanese coast in fall 1596. The
story is well-known. Japan was under the rule of Toyotomi Hideyoshi
(豊臣秀吉) (1537–1598), who was at that time engaged in a cruel war
in Korea. The galleon was carrying a cargo that valued more than 1.5
million pesos. Crew and passengers could disembark safely and there
were no plans to confiscate the galleon or its cargo in the beginning.
However, the chief pilot, Francisco de Olandia, showed the Japanese
a world map with all Spanish possessions and incautiously told them
(perhaps, in a bid to intimidate them) that it was Spanish tactics to first
infiltrate missionaries in foreign countries for pacification but with the
ulterior motive to conquer them. Inevitably, this made Hideyoshi upset
and he decided to confiscate the galleon.
This incident led to the execution of many Japanese Christians, and
prompted many to flee to South-east Asian countries.
Around 1600, at least five other galleons were shipwrecked or
disappeared. The galleon San Pablo got wrecked on its way back
to Acapulco, along the Marianas Islands (Islas de los Ladrones);
the San Geronimo was wrecked in a typhoon on the rocky coasts
of Catanduanes Island, southeast of Luzon in the Philippine
Archipelago; the Santa Margarita was lost at the island of Rota, off
the Mariana Islands, with a rich cargo, including ivory sculptures;20
in 1601, the San Tomás got wrecked off the coast of Catanduanes
Island; the San Antonio disappeared somewhere in the Pacific in
1603, and the Espiritú Santo, in 1602, was eventually able to sail back
to Cavite after having experienced a very adventurous encounter at
the port of Hirado (平戸) in southwest Japan, where they intended to
take shelter after meeting with a storm.21

But let us return to the San Diego and examine the role of surgeons on
board. As I have mentioned above, medicinal kits were also recovered
from the San Diego.
The Role of Physicians Onboard
At the time of the San Diego, surgeons were, as a rule, only used on
military ships going into battle. Generally, there was only one doctor,
surgeon or apothecary onboard. Although officially only the surgeon or
physician possessed the qualifications to perform surgical operations,
the distinction between surgeon, doctor or physician, apothecary and
barber did not yet exist on ships at that time. In Spain, the role of a ship’s
surgeon (cirujano) evolved from barbers or apothecaries. They used to
treat external ailments such as wounds, injuries and broken bones and
skin diseases such as boils and rashes. They also typically pulled teeth,
let blood, treated kidney stones, hernias and venereal diseases.22
The surgeon was usually equipped with a variety of medicinals or
medicinal drugs and medical equipment—cloth to make bandages,
dressings, a saw to carry out amputations, scissors, clamps, various types
of knives, cauterising implements, needles, hammers and picks, injections.
His equipment was brought onboard in chests or boxes that also included
various medicinal books, as we will see below. Frequently, the doctors
and surgeons had to prepare medicines and ointments onboard and
consequently also needed spoons, funnels, spatulas, a mortar and a pestle,
scales and a small brazier.23 The San Diego also had a surgeon onboard—
the thirty-five years old Miguel de Estrada. The ship is described as so
crowded that the surgeon had no room to take care of the wounded and
de Morga is said to have advised him to do what he could.24
Another ship surgeon active around that time, Alonso Sánchez de
Herrera, carried among his belongings a bag with five iron tools to pull
back teeth; a cautery, a small bronze minaret with an iron handle and a
small grinding stone.25 These objects also indicate that he possessed a
particular socioeconomic status in his profession.
A plant-based medicinal, that was obviously highly valued by ship
surgeons, was balsam.26 This is, for example, indirectly attested to by a
contemporary Portuguese seafarer, Pedro Fernández de Quirós (1565–
1614), who praises coconut palm oil in one of his memorials: ‘When the
[cocoanut] trees are old, they yield oil for giving light, for a cure they are
as good as balsam [...].’27
Especially in the beginning years, the Manila galleon trade was
still quite liberalised and many crew members, including passengers
and surgeons, were involved in some way in transregional trade.
Soon, however,

royal decrees began to regulate it on the excuse that all trade should
be for royal interests. With the passing of time, shipments became
monopolised by a limited number of persons. In 1586, the galleon
San Martín carried shipments for 194 different persons. Two
hundred years later, the cargo of the San Andrés pertained to only
28.28
And, obviously, the San Martín made a detour in order to trade with the
Chinese at Macao and acquire there a large quantity of Chinese goods.
As Lizbeth Souza-Fuertes states:
The Macanese continued to be intermediaries of Chinese products

through Manila, while Macao also became an appealing port for
the direct purchase of Chinese products. This was evidenced by
the galleon “San Martin”, which deviated from its original route
to Acapulco in June 1583 in order to fill its cargo at Macao and
ultimately sail to Peru.29
The San Martín also had a ship surgeon (barbero y cirujano) onboard
named Agustín Sánchez (f. 1r, 15r).30 He had been recruited as a barbar-
surgeon responsible for curing the sick (para curar los enfermados en dicha
nao; f. 15r) when the San Martín left Acapulco, New Spain, in 1585, but
unfortunately passed away in 1586 onboard of the galleon (f. 1r, 3v, 14r),
obviously on its way back from the Philippines (las Islas del Poniente; f. 14r,
15r) to Acapulco under the command of captain Pedro de Ortega. The ill
Agustín Sánchez had pretended to resort himself to the Philippines in order
to cure himself there, but his death in 1586 onboard the galleon (f. 1r, 3v,
14r) brought about the inspection of the inventory list of his goods. This
inventory list was presented at the port of Acapulco in November 1592.
Basically, not much is known about his person. But we possess an
interesting document with a very long list of the goods he carried.31
The goods included many items, especially all kinds of cloth, linen
(lienzo), cotton (algodon) and other textiles, including many collars
(cuellos, 4r), shirts (for example camisas de lienzo de Castilla y de
China; lienzo de China, f. 4r.), handkerchiefs (pañuelas), scarfs,
bedcovers, bedsheets (for example, sabanas de lienzo de sangley,32 f.
2v), a small box with its key, filled with cup-shaped containers used
for mixing substances (such as herbs, medicines, etc.) and some letters
(cajuela chica de sangley llena de salceretas de barro de china con su
llave e unas cartas; 1r), ‘Sangley cases’ with Chinese inkpots (cajuelas
de sangley con 2 tinteros de plomo, f. 3r), books (f. 3r), wine (vino de la
tierra, f. 3r), furniture, etc. The so-called ‘Sangley’ cases or boxes were
probably smaller, decorated cases made of wood or other materials,
that were made either by the Chinese community in Philippines or by

some Chinese on the mainland and then sold in Manila by Chinese

merchants. Chinese traders and settlers in Manila were referred to
as ‘Sangleys’ by the Spaniards.33 Interesting is also a pot, probably a
larger ceramics jar of Chinese spirits (una tinaca de vino de China),
worth five pesos (7r) or a drawer with ointments and some ivory (un
caxoncillo con unguentos y un pique de marfil; f. 6r).
Several medicinal but also a few books of other content were taken
onboard and placed ‘in a box with keys’. A list of books mentioned in the
inventory of his goods can provide us with details about the nature of
medical literature that was used by surgeons and physicians onboard34
(Fig. 8.1).
Fig. 8.1: List of Books, Extract from an Inventory List of Goods of Agustín
Sánchez, Surgeon of the Galleon San Martín
Source: AGI, Contratación 487, N. 1, R. 14, 1592.

• 2 libros de Práctica de Juan de Vigo (f. 1v), most probably Teorica y

practia en cirugía (Theory and practice in surgery; ed. 1537), by Juan de
Vigo = Giovanni da Vigo [1460–1520], an Italian doctor and surgeon;35
• Libro de medicina que se dize modu[s] faciendi, most probably
Modus faciendi cum ordine medicandi (Craftsmanship according to
medicinal guidelines; Seville 1527), by Fray Bernardo de Laredo
(1482–1540); it is considered the first Castilian pharmacopoeia;36
• Libro de los secretos del reverendo Don Alexo Piamontes (Book of
the secrets of the respectable Don Alexo Piamontes; Valladolid,
1595)37 (Figs. 8.2 and 8.3);
Fig. 8.2: ‘Remedios Para Dolor de Los Hijado y de Colico’ (Remedies

against Pain of the Liver and Colics), in Libro de los secretos del reverendo
Don Alexo Piamontes, 1595
Source: http://bibliotecadigital.jcyl.es/i18n/consulta/resultados.cmd?descrip_autori-
dadesbib=Piamontes,%20 Alejo&busq_autoridadesbib=CYLA20090094208, image 547.

Fig. 8.3: ‘Jarabes’, in Libro de los secretos del reverendo Don Alexo Piamontes
Source: http://bibliotecadigital.jcyl.es/i18n/consulta/resultados.cmd?descrip_
autoridadesbib=Piamontes,%20Alejo&busq_autoridadesbib=CYLA20090094208, image 541.
• Cirugía universal (Universal surgery; 1580), by Juan Fragoso

(1530–1597), a physician and botanist from Toledo and surgeon of
Philipp II;38
• ‘Intitulado de Antonio Pe[re]z’, that is certainly ‘Summa y Examen
de Chirurgia, y de Lo Mas Necessario Que en Ella Se Contiene,
Con Breves Expusiciones de Algunas Sentencias de Hipocrates y
Galeno’, by Antonio Perez (fl. 16th century), a Portuguese physician
and surgeon (médico y chirujano), published in Madrid by Pierres
Cosin in 1568;39
• El [Sobremesa y] Alivio de caminantes (Table-talk and relief of
itinerant people; 1569),40 by Juan de Timoneda (1518/1520–1583),
a collection of 161 anecdotes and jests;

• Cirugía de mase alo (?), probably this refers to Summa y recopilación de

cirugía (Comprehensive account and recompilation of surgery; 1578),
by master (de maese) Alonso López de Hinojoso, the perhaps most
popular surgeon in New Spain during the 16th century, who managed
the ‘Hospital Real de San José de los Naturales’ (a hospital established
by the Franciscan order in Mexico between 1529 and 1531, in order
to provide the indigenous population—that is, the ‘naturales’—with
medical services and treatment), who introduced the use of bloodsuckers
(sanguijuelas) and, in 1578, wrote the first work on surgery in the New
World, including initial observations on odontology in Mexico;41
• Another Cirugía by Fragoso;
• 3 libros desquadernados sin principio ni cabo, that is, three unbound
books without beginning and end, probably a loose pile of
documents;
• Compendio de la salud humana (Compendium of human health;
1494), by Johannes de Ketham (1415–1470), a German physician
living in Italy (Fig. 8.4);42
• De avisos de sanidad (Treatise on health), most probably Regimento
y aviso de sanidad que trata de todo genero de Alimentos y del
regimiento della…(1569), by Francisco Núñez de Oria (ca. 1535–?);
the book provides ample information on the use of food, including
bread, meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, and beverages, such as wine
and water, and, consequently definitely served as an important
reference to consult on board for dietary questions;43
• 2 cartapacios de mano, 2 handwritten notebooks;
• Los problemas de Villalobos (Problems; Zaragoza 1544),44 by
Francisco de Villalobos (ca. 1473–1549), a Jewish converso and
court physician;45
• Segunda parte del libro llamado Abecedario spiritual: donde se
tratan diversos exercicios en cada letra el suyo (Second part of a
book entitled ‘Spiritual alphabet’: in which various exercises by
each single letter are dealt with), by Fray Francisco de Osuna (1492
or 1497–ca. 1540), a Spanish Franciscan friar;
• Libro de Farfán (f. 1v), that is, the Tratado breve de medicina (Brief
treatise of medicine), by Agustín Farfán (ca. 1532–1604), a Spanish
physician who, in 1592, published a medicinal treatise in which
he introduced the most common diseases;46 his book consequently
served as a kind of standard reference;
• Un libro de palo con adereço de yuca e pedernal, a book on Palo
religion (?),47 with decoration of agave and flints (f. 3r).
Analysing this list, it is interesting to note that Agustín Sánchez carried

books that had just been printed a few years before, such as the Cirugía

Fig. 8.4: Compendio de la salud humana (1494), by Johannes de Ketham
Source: http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000052266&page=1, image 5.
universal (1580) by Juan Fragoso. It is, of course, also possible that such
important medicinal books had ‘traversed the Atlantic several times as
manuscript copies and published borrowings. Francisco Hernández’s48
manuscripts, for example, circulated in private copies among European
botanists and physicians before the text appeared in print.’49 Fragoso’s
work De succedaneis medicamentis (On substitute medicinals) obviously
belonged to the best represented books circulating in contemporary
Mexico.50 Fragoso also wrote a book on aromatic trees, fruits and

other medicinals that were imported from the ‘East Indies’ (1572).51
His works came to dominate the field of surgery.52 The fact that the
Cirurgía universal and obviously Alonso López de Hinojo’s Summa y
recopilación de cirugía were part of a personal library in Manila, would
‘suggest that they were included as practical references for one residing
at a remote outpost where professional medical assistance could hardly
be expected’.53
As Agustín Sánchez had no heirs, his belongings were sold in an
auction after the ship had returned to Acapulco. In this context, his
medicinal books and equipment, including needles, scalpels, grinding
stones, etc. were sold possibly to other physicians or to merchants who
intended to resell the equipment.54 The idea behind this sale of his
goods was to auction off all of his belongings so that the ‘Juzgado de
Bienes Difuntos’, the court judge responsible for handing the inheritance
of those who had died, could deal with his legacy as a sum of money,
instead of having an extensive collection of various material goods.55 A
Señor Don Diego de Molina y Padilla is mentioned as a judge (juez; f. 3v,
11v) and a certain Alvaro de Castillo as the scribe or notary (escribano;
f. 7v) of the auction.56
We read, for example, that Agustín Sánchez’s barber equipment,
including five lancets with silver ends, four irons to pull back teeth,
needles, razors and a sharpening stone, were bought by a certain
Agustín de Madrid for 4 pesos and 1 tumin (f. 5v). Sánchez’s
equipment also included six forceps for the extraction of back teeth,
barber equipment, including mirrors (f. 6r). Nineteen old books about
surgery and handwritten notes57 were purchased by a certain Diego
López [diez e nuebe libros viejos (...) de curugias e cartapacios de mano
de diferentes cosas en Diego Lopez en cuatro pesos; f. 6r]. A small glass
with balsam [oil] (un basito de balsam), other glasses and a kind of
press (calcador) were sold to Domingo de Vigar (f. 6r), and some
preserved oranges and a drug case with a bit of oil (poco de conserva
de naranjada e una botica con un poco de aceite) to Agustín de Madrid
for 12 pesos (f. 7r).
Overseas, Spaniards from various social strata held books in high
regard,58 and medicinal books were of particular significance to them.59
As María Luisa Rodríguez-Sala notes, from the year 1592 onwards, a
common set of books was part and parcel of the inventory of physicians:
one general book on medicine, two about surgery (cirurgía), one about
bloodlet (sangrar), another one by Fray Dr Farfán; later, also a large
book on surgery by Juan Fragoso, a book with remedies for all kinds of
diseases titled Tesoro de pobres (originally published in Barcelona in the
17th century, by Pedro Escuder).60 It should be clear that in the face of
limited space available onboard, surgeons did certainly not take more

books onboard than really necessary. The list of Agustín Sánchez can
consequently provide us with an interesting insight into the kinds of
literature considered essential to be carried on their journey. It was part
of their portmanteau.
Enemas and bloodletting obviously belonged to the standard
remedial procedures of the 16th century, based on the general idea
of expelling the ‘humours’ from the sick patients’ bodies.61 So, one
would expect to find several kinds of small hoses and syringes as
well as knifes and scissors in the medicinal chests of surgeons. Also,
substances that could provoke vomiting were valued. Among the
medicinal drugs, herbs and plants that were used onboard, many
originated from America.62 A narcotic plant called picíetl in Náhuatl,
Nicotiana rustica L.,63 is a case in point. Fray Dr Frafán, for example,
suggested el piciete (also pisiete, piçiete, piziete) in his Tratado breve
de medicina (Short Treatise of Medicine) to cause vomiting.64 It was
a mixture of fresh or dried powdered tobacco leaves, lime and, often,
garlic. The concoction was known to thwart evil spirits, enemies and
sorcery, vipers and other venomous animals and to possess even the
power to ‘extract the disease’.65 Other medicinal plants from America
included, for example, Toloatzin (Datura inoxia), also called ‘Angel’s
trumpet’, that was used as an analgesic, or the jalap root (Ipomoea
purge, also called mechoacán, because it grew locally in Michoacán),
a mild purgative.
Mention should also be made of the Tratado de las Drogas y Medicinas
de las Indias Orientales, con sus plantas debuxadas al vivo (Burgos, 1578),
by Christóbal Acosta (ca. 1525–1594), a famous Portuguese doctor and
natural historian.66 His book offers systematic, firsthand information
on Asian drugs and is illustrated by his own accurate drawings. It is
essential for an understanding of contemporary knowledge about
Asian and Oriental medicinals. He describes pineapples (an excellent
source of vitamin C, calcium, potassium, carbohydrates and sugar)67
and a wide range of other plants and drugs, such as opium, benzoar
stones, coconut palms, nutmegs, tamarind, China root (palo de China),
camphor, amber and many substances. In total, Acosta wrote thirteen
books, but unfortunately his manuscripts Tratado de las yerbas, plantas,
frutas y animales, asi terrenos como aquatiles que en aquellas partes y en
la Persia y en la China hay, no dibujadas al natural hasta agora (Treatise
of herbs, plants, fruits and animals, both terrestrial and marine, that
can be found in these parts and in Persia and China, not naturally
illustrated until now), Discurso del viaje á las Indias orientales y lo que
se navegaen aquellos mares (Discourse of the journey to the East Indies
and [places] sailed to in these waters) and the Tres diálogos teriacales
(Three dialogues on theriacal [diseases]) are no longer extant.68

Several archaeological discoveries from the San Diego even include

evidence of food preparation on ships. Shipwrecks yielded remnants of
spices and other condiments such as nutmeg and curry powder. Spices
were ground in bronze mortars and then added to the food being cooked
in large metal containers or in terracotta pots made in Philippines. Jars
containing basic ingredients, such as essential olive oil and vinegar, were
kept near the galley. An inventory mentions large quantities of rice,
biscuits, beef, fish, live chickens in cages, water, wine and vinegar: three
casks and twenty-four bundles of beef, three henhouses full of chickens,
fifty-five casks of water, that is more than 24,000 litres, seven casks
of wine and three of vinegar.69 Three species of animals were carried
onboard: pigs, cattle and chicken. The documents mention only beef in
pieces, but an archaeozoological investigation identified the presence of
pieces of preserved pork and chicken in the jars on the wreck. ‘Could
this discrepancy be an indication of more than one source of supply,
with some meat coming from the royal arsenals and some brought
aboard at the personal initiative of the aristocrats who accompanied
the expedition?’70 We do not know for sure. But this is possible and
plausible. Elisabeth Veyrat suggests that chicken may primarily have
been used for medicinal purposes, as they were customary thought to
possess therapeutic properties.71 Live chicken treatment and chicken
broth were highly valued for their therapeutic properties used to treat
plague in medieval and modern Europe.72
Weapons Onboard of Galleons
Cannons, harquebus, muskets or pikes constituted important

components of Spanish weaponry onboard of warships and galleons,
at least before the disastrous defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
Originally, the Spanish tactics consisted in using their cannons as a
prelude to boarding the enemies’ vessels. In fact, the military equipment
was considered an adjunct to the personal fights between soldiers and
was not used to destroy an enemy vessel.73 After 1588, the Spanish naval
officers realised that they had to rely on gunfire to attack hostile ships
instead of using their cannons that were meant to only threaten the
enemies. They also started engaging in hand-to-hand combat onboard
of enemy ships. They could easily destroy hostile ships using their
cannons from a safe distance. But, in reality, the larger guns were rarely
shot. ‘Spanish naval doctrine emphasized the collective firing of the
ship’s broadside guns immediately before boarding an enemy’s vessel
“in the smoke”. Given this tactic, there was simply no need to reload the
gun until the action was over.’74

The San Diego was equipped with weapons and cannons that had
been taken from Fort Santiago in Manila, cannons that had formerly
been removed from galleons arriving from Acapulco. Originally,
cannons and artillery used on galleons were frequently taken from
the armoury in Sevilla and later from Cadíz. However, the supply of
weapons and artillery proved to be insufficient, especially for the
galleons sailing the Pacific Ocean. Consequently, foundries for the
production of cannons and weapons were established both across
Atlantic and Pacific locations.75
Already in 1582, it was suggested to build ships in the Philippines:
‘In the Philippines very cheap ships could be constructed for the
transportation of spices;76 and this is evidenced by the fact that already two
naos of 500 tons have been built.’77 The year 1591 saw the establishment
of the Armoury and Foundry of Luzon, close to the gunpowder factory
as well as a tannery bastion in the suburb of San Luis in Manila.78 And
obviously the weapons they produced there were of excellent quality.79
The Japanese swords that were found in San Diego indicate that the
Spaniards probably had Samurai mercenaries onboard to help them
in the battle. Several parts of small sword guards, ‘tsubas’ (鍔), were
recovered from the wreck. These were parts belonging to either long
‘katana’ (刀) or short ‘wakizashi’ (脇差), swords, forming together a
so-called ‘daishō’ (大小) set, lit. ‘big and small’.80 The blades of Japanese
swords were famous for their excellent sharpness. That the Spanish had
Japanese soldiers onboard is also suggested by various other facts and
textual evidence.
First, there was already a Japanese community in Luzon. Some
Japanese had migrated to the Philippines in the mid and late 16th
century—many of them refugees from the war in Korea—where they
established a port and a fortified base at the mouth of the Cagayan
River in north-eastern Luzon. From there, they traded, for example,
with the Portuguese in Macao. They were later expelled from Cagayan
by the Spaniards. Some of them went on to settle in Manila. When the
Governor of Manila, in 1593, received a letter from Hideyoshi, which
stated that Japan wished to include the Philippines among its vassal
states, the local governor forced the Japanese to settle in the south-
eastern suburbs of Manila in a district called Dilao.
Second, Spaniards have been employing Japanese soldiers from
before. Already in 1576, the new governor of the Philippines, Francisco
de Sande (1575–1580), had proposed a detailed plan to conquer China.
In an account on the state of affairs, he proposed the conquest of China
with just 4,000 or 6,000 soldiers as well as auxiliary forces made up
of bandits, pirates and Japanese mercenaries, whom he believed to
be ‘mortal enemies of the Chinese’ (enemigos mortales).81 Sande also

expected great help from all the ‘corsairs’ who frequented Manila to
trade with the natives because their knowledge of the coast of China
would have helped the Spanish troops to enter the country.82 In
1595, Japanese soldiers had fought for Spain in the expeditions to the
Moluccas and Cochin–China (modern Vietnam).
Third, Spaniards considered the Japanese to be cruel warriors. A
letter by Juan Bautista Román, official and inspector of the Tax Office of
the Philippines (Factor y Veedor de la Real Hacienda de Filipinas) to the
Viceroy of New Spain, is very interesting in our context:
Come back, come back to Manila; the entire armada should return!
Because there are thousands of Japanese in the River and lots
of artillery, and we are few … These enemies—who have really
reappeared—are a bellicose people. And if Your Excellence will not
provide for this galleon artillery and a corps of thousand soldiers,
little can be done on these islands.83
Fourth, Antonio de Morga himself once clearly expressed his ‘admiration

for these foreigners, whose behaviour was always correct, respectful of
customs and their superiors, and who were always ready to be of service
when trouble arose’.84 It is, therefore, highly probable that he took Japanese
mercenaries onboard in face of a scheduled battle with the Dutch.
By the early 17th century, after the Japanese Korea War, Japanese
mercenaries had attained infamy for their cruelty. They found
employment across the region, especially by the Dutch and Englishmen
in later times. They were engaged in Siam, where successive kings
deployed a large contingent of these troops. In the Philippines, the
Japanese were recruited to suppress Chinese revolts on behalf of the
Spanish; or, in Cambodia, where the Japanese recruits bolstered local
forces to resist a potential invasion.85 As Adam Clulow has convincingly
shown, many of these Japanese mercenaries were at the same time
merchants. In 1610, for example, the king of Cambodia informed the
Japanese ruler Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康) (1543–1616) that the
‘people of your country are cruel and ferocious. They come to engage in
commerce but quickly act contrary to this purpose and rampage along
the coast.’86
Antonio Díaz de Cáceres—A Portuguese ‘Global Merchant’
Not few contemporary merchants were engaged in various business

activities across the globe. According to some calculations, commodities
worth 580,000 pesos were sent to America from the Philippines by 437
individuals in 1595 and 1596.87 Interestingly, between 1590 and 1609,

the majority of the New Spanish merchants who participated in trans-

Pacific trade were small merchants.88 Most of the merchandise shipped
from Manila across the Pacific to Acapulco consisted of Chinese silks,
damasks, porcelains, fine cottons and taffetas, and also spices (such
as Indian pepper or cinnamon, for example, from South-east Asia),
furniture, folding screens (from Japan), fabrics—like bedcovers from
India and South-east Asia—ivory, handicraft products, wax, metals and
slaves as well as a great variety of other ‘marginalia’. In return, not only
great quantities of silver (ingots and coins) but also other necessities
of daily life such as wines, olive oil, vinegar, wheat-flour, weapons and
even horses crossed the Pacific.89
Antonio García-Abásolo has analysed the lives of various Spanish
individuals who had migrated to the Philippines and were active
across continents and oceans.90 They all left testaments that have
come down to us and provide some insights into their eventful lives:
we know about, for instance, Juan de Villegas, native of Toledo, who
invested great sums of money (testament dated 1605); captain Gómez
de Machuca, native of Granada, who was a commercial partner of
de Villegas and a military man, who also died in 1605—these two
merchants possibly became friends in Flanders and both ended up in
Manila. Alférez Pedro de Zuñiga was another such rich and influential
merchant, whose name appears in many contemporary documents.
He originated from a village near Guadalajara and was closely related
to the Jesuits in Manila. We have a certain Captain Hernán Sánchez
from Seville, who was active in the fabrics trade between India, China,
the Philippines and New Spain. He drowned in the Pacific when
the ship, San Antonio de Padua, wrecked. Or, Eugenio de Chavez
Cañizares, who originally also came from Toledo, and was engaged
in trade with Peru (Lima, Potosí, Huamanga) and Mexico. A military
man, Juan Cardoso, who held the title of sergeant-mayor, left behind
a considerable fortune, acquired through his trading activities. A
cousin of him served in the military in Taiwan (Formosa).91 Diego
Núñez de Campoverde was also very influential and active. In 1584, he
immigrated into Peru from Seville at the age of twenty-five. Thereafter,
he engaged in trade, acquired vineyards in Pisco and got himself a
seat on Lima’s cabildo. Campoverde was the only regidor (member
of the municipal government; councilor) to hold an encomienda, by
marriage.92 We know him also as an owner of a female Asian slave,
Ysabel, who possibly came from Fujian.93 This information is provided
by a local census of 1613, the Padrón de los yndios que se hallaron en
la cuidad de los Reyes del Pirú (Lima), by Miguel Contreras, official
scribe of Your Majesty, who introduces individuals who had migrated
into Lima from Asia.94

Many of these international merchants established their own

companies, merging their capital, networks and experiences. Below,
I want to introduce the activities of Antonio Díaz de Cáceres.
He was a Portuguese merchant of Spanish–Jewish origin, a New
Christian or Judeo-converso, who was engaged in Indian Ocean
trade, in the China trade (especially in Macao), and also in trans-
Pacific trade.95 Portuguese merchants were quite important also in
trans-Pacific trade. Another Portuguese New Christian, who lived
in Lima in the 17th century, León de Portocarrero,96 provides us
with a description of the Chinese imports into Peru at the beginning
of the 17th century.97
Antonio Díaz de Cáceres is a very interesting historical figure,
and his life, like that of others, attests to the interwoveness of
trade, religion, military and personal networking. Many of the New
Christians actually could not only read and write, but also received
higher education and even graduated from academic institutions.
Díaz de Cáceres rose to the highest circles in Portugal, Spain,
and later in the New Spanish colonies. He was brought before
the Inquisition in Mexico City because of his involvement with a
secret Jewish community.98 In 1561, Díaz de Cáceres travelled for
the first time to New Spain. Despite strict restrictions prohibiting
descendants of Jews to travel there, many exceptions were made
and rules were flouted. Díaz de Cáceres undertook various travels
to the New World and, in the late 1560s, he ‘appears to have settled
in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, most likely in Mexico City’.99 He
established good relations with many influential personalities in
New Spain. Perhaps, one of the most renowned individuals with
whom he maintained close relations was Don Louis de Carvajal y
de la Cueva, who had served the Spanish crown with distinction as
an admiral, a mayor of the town of Tampico, and one of the great
pacifiers of Indians in New Spain during the 1570s. Another person,
with whom de Cáceres was befriended, was the mine owner, Jorge de
Almeida. Díaz de Cáceres married a certain Catarina de Léon y de la
Cueva, daughter of Doña Francisca de Carvajal, whose sister, Doña
Leonor de Carvajal, was the wife of Jorge de Almeida. Almeida, thus,
became his brother-in-law. His wife’s family members were arrested
by the Mexican Inquisition in the 1580s and 1590s.
Around 1589, Díaz de Cáceres somehow came to know that the
Inquisition was preparing an accusation against his wife Catarina and
Jorge de Almeida’s wife, Leonor, and secretly left Mexico City. He was
able to get to Acapulco and prepared to escape to Asia from there. ‘To
make his flight a profitable one, Díaz de Cáceres decided to enter the
lucrative Far Eastern trade.’100 He purchased a galleon,101 and together

with two companions (one of them his partner, António de Cobos)

prepared the cargo with silver, wine, olive oil and olives, intending
to leave Acapulco for the Philippines. His brother-in-law, Jorge de
Almeida, also invested in the trip, as did Hernando de la Vega. Their
ship left Acapulco on 29 December with twenty-five passengers and
a crew of forty-five men. Díaz de Cáceres noted details about the
cargo, the passengers and the progress of his ship in a logbook that
is unfortunately now lost. His wife’s brother, Luís de Carvajal (Port.
Carvalhal), left us an autobiographic account of the voyage from
Acapulco to Manila and Macao.
Shortly after they reached the port of Cavite, the ship capsized.
The crew could only be rescued with the help of natives. The ship
was severely damaged and had to be repaired. An official report
discovered that half of the goods transported had not been declared
to the customs office at Acapulco. To avoid confiscation and
imprisonment, Díaz de Cáceres bribed local officials and raised the
value of damage of his ship. He continued his trip to Macao, where
he was obviously arrested—the exact time of his arrest being unclear
(see below). His ship was confiscated, and he himself was shipped
to India, most likely to Goa. He did not debark in India, but waited
until the ship returned to Manila and was again arrested on high sea,
when venturing on deck, and later handed over to the authorities
in Manila. Eventually, however, he was set free and finally returned
to Acapulco, sailing on his ship that had earlier been confiscated
in Macao. His release did not last long as he was apprehended
upon reaching Acapulco in late 1592. The port officer in charge
of the China Chancery, Don Alonso Larios, inspected the ship to
investigate if it had any contraband items onboard and reported to
Mexico City.
What followed is a story of his several incarcerations. Accusations
included reluctance of Díaz de Cáceres to pay salaries to some of his
crew as well as providing damaged goods to his customers. Fearing
that he might again come to the attention of the Inquisition, he finally
even broke with his family and a tragic story of relations with his family
members took its course. After 1601, nothing further is heard of him
and Martin A. Cohen notes that ‘there is every reason to believe that he
lived his last years in relative calm in New Spain.’102
Following Luís de Carvajal’s account, Díaz de Cáceres could
hardly have been involved in the China trade. But, as James C.
Boyajian emphasises, testimony of the slave merchants Manuel Gil
de Guarda—also a Judeo-converso, who later was to become attorney
of Judicial Causes of the Royal Audience of Manila (procurador de
Causas de la Real Audiencia de Manila)—and Manuel Rodríguez

Navarro, who accompanied Díaz de Cáceres on his trip from

Mexico, contradict Carvajal’s statements.103 They report about the
receipt of silks that Díaz personally carried from Macao to Manila.
He apparently personally delivered silks to Diogo Fernandez Vitória,
another New Christian merchant of Manila, who was also engaged
in the Asia trade. By his own admission, he was able to deliver silks
after his alleged arrest in Macao. James C. Boyajian consequently
concludes that he ‘must have completed at least one and possibly
several successful voyages between the Philippines and China before
his arrest ultimately in Manila.’104
Although Portuguese merchants were famously known for their
involvement in maritime slave trade,105 they also exchanged a wide
variety of goods beyond slaves. A brief report of Gaspar de Zúñiga
y Acevedo (1560–1606), the ninth viceroy of New Spain, states that
Díaz de Cáceres, for example, apparently also engaged in the trade in
drugs and spices:
A certain Antonio Diaz de Caceres who was punished in a judicial

decree by the Inquisition this year [i.e. 1601] for the vehement
suspicion of having been element and secrete accomplice of
Judaicantes presented before me a written document (un papel de
avissos) about things pertaining to the navigation from India and the
commerce in drugs and spices, so that I send it to Your Majesty; it is
him who comes with this letter. Before he was imprisoned, I knew
this man as a merchant and I suspected him to be a person of some
credit and involved in similar business…106
Many contemporary merchants, Portuguese and others, can certainly

be considered global traders. Diogo Fernandez Vitória, with whom Díaz
de Cáceres had commercial contacts, as we have seen above, is another
interesting example. An analysis of his Far Eastern trade, by region
and by commodity, around 1598, shows that he traded with products
originating from East Africa (Mozambique, Mombasa), from South
Asia (Cambaj, Gujarat, Sindh, Bijapur, Golconda, Malabar, Sri Lanka,
Coromandel, Bengal, Odisha), from South-east (Pegu, Siam, Melaka,
Moluccas) and East Asia (China, Japan), and he was also connected
with New Spanish merchants. His commodities included silks and
cloths, cloves, slaves and various kinds of spices, diamonds, rubies,
pearls, carpets, musk oil and furniture (chests and desks).107 Books
of his correspondences list many letters and accounts of transactions
with merchants from Macao. It has been estimated that he and other
New Christians of Manila invested approx. Four lakh fifty thousand
silver cruzados annually in Chinese raw silk and silk fabrics. Still,

greater profits could have been made with a mixture or combination of

commodities from India, the Moluccas and Japan.108
In 1590, another Portuguese merchant of Macao, a certain João
(Juan) da Gama, came to Mexico from China, taking the northern
route to Acapulco, where the authorities arrested him and seized his
papers.109 His cargo was confiscated as well as all those of his other
co-passengers.110 Many Portuguese were engaged in slave traffic, and
some of them doubtlessly also went to and settled in places such as
Potosí, the famous mountain city in the Peruvian hinterland with the
rich silver deposits in the Cierro Rico, from where large quantities
of silver were transported to Acapulco to be shipped across the
Pacific. By 1600, ‘Potosí had more brothels, taverns, and gambling
dens per capita than any other city in the Spanish realm. Desperate
for stimulants, the silver city guzzled wine and maize beer, sipped
yerba mate and hot chocolate, chewed coca, and smoked tobacco.’111
The examples introduced above vividly demonstrate the early global
interconnectivity across the Indian Ocean, Asia-Pacific and Atlantic
worlds.
Doña Ysabel de Barreto (1567–1612)
Let us provide a final example, the life of Doña Isabel Barreto de Castro
(1567–1612), a fascinating and very interesting woman of the time.112
She was the daughter of the Portuguese governor of India, Nuño
Rodríguez Barreto, and one of the first female admirals in history.113
She was married to Alvaro de Mendaña, the Spanish navigator, who
discovered the Solomon Islands and the Marquesas Islands in the
Pacific. But her husband died on his last expedition enroute from Peru
to the Pacific, leaving her in command.
Their expedition team had originally left the port of Callao on 16
June 1595 in search of the land of Ofir, a mythical land mentioned in
the Bible. This Biblical land of King Solomon was believed to be located
in the West across the Pacific Ocean. Although their expedition ended
in a disaster, Mendaña founded a short-lived colony on the Solomon
Islands on behalf of the kings of Castilla. Isabel Barreto not only lost
her husband but also a large part of her dowry (which included the
galleon) that had financed the expedition. But, together with the pilot,
Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, they managed to make it to Manila with
the remaining crew members. In Manila, she married Don Fernando
de Castro, cousin of the governor of the Philippines. After making
financial recoveries, she and her new husband organised a commercial

expedition to China. This expedition proved to be a great success and

they ‘returned to Nueva España in his ship, the “San Geronymo”, in the
year ninety-six.’114
The aforementioned letter of the viceroy of New Spain, Gaspar
de Zúñiga y Acevedo (1560–1606), pertaining to the navigation
from India and the trade in spices and drugs, mentions a ‘Don
Hernando de Castro, cousin of Gomez Perez de las Marinas, governor
of the Philippines’. This man, the letter states, carried the rights for
the pacification of the Salomon Islands and capitulated in Peru,
regarding the fact that he was married to Doña Ysabel de Barreto,
wife and heir of the said advanced nobleman and who accompanied
him on his journey. Don Fernando de Castro, so the letter, had
informed the viceroy that he possessed documents (papeles) related
to the continuation of this journey. More specifically, that he was in
possession of an official letter of the court certifying this journey as
he was accused by other persons claiming this journey for themselves.
Don Fernando de Castro, so the letter continues, ‘has asked me [that
is, the viceroy, Gaspar de Zúñiga y Acevedo] that I would inspect and
take care of all the papers pertaining to his rights and advise it to Your
Majesty’.115 Obviously, thus, there were more individuals intending
to harvest the laurels for having discovered the Salomon Islands on
behalf of the king.
Isabel Barreto finally left us a will that was made up in Peru in the
silver-mining city of Castrovirreyna (a present-day province of Peru)
around September 1612, in which her new husband is also mentioned
(Figs. 8.5 and 8.6).116 In her will, she declares herself as the legal
daughter of Nuño Rodriguez Barreto y de Doña Mariana de Castro
and a resident of ‘la ciudad de Los Reyes’, that is, Lima. From this, we
know that a great quantity of valuable Chinese and Asian goods was
in her possession, for example, fabrics, broches and jewellery (rubi),
a large house full of velvet that alone could be sold for 7,000 pesos
(de a ocho reales) in Acapulco, four ‘petacas de tesillas’ from Japan,
that are a kind of coffers or chests made of leather, furs, felts or of
wood covered with furs, that were used to carry one’s belongings and
other valuables and textiles used for Chinese clothes.117 She disputed
the right to be considered discoverer of the Solomon Islands, and
discussion is still ongoing whether she was buried in Castrovirreyna
or in Spain in 1612, although the will seems to prove that she was, in
fact, buried in Castrovirreyna in Peru.
As Kris Lane has emphasised, this ‘was the new world of oceanic
trade that Potosí silver helped to create’.118

Fig. 8.5: Extract from the Will of Doña Ysabel de Barreto
Source: US Library of Congress in the Harkness Collection, Peru, A 3489 A, docs. 950-953
(978-1000), Castrovirreyna and Los Reyes.

Fig. 8.6: Extract of the List of Possessions from the Will of Doña Ysabel de
Barreto
Source: US Library of Congress in the Harkness Collection, Peru, A 3489 A, docs. 950-953
(978-1000), Castrovirreyna and Los Reyes.
Conclusion
Trade and maritime connections around 1600 had become really

global. The discovery of the riches of silver in America, especially the
huge silver deposits in Potosí (in present Bolivia)—where silver is still

being extracted in our modern times—made a large contribution to the

creation of these global networks. Influential merchants from Seville in
Spain invested their energy in restricting and preventing trade across
the Pacific that connected the Americas with Asia, as they feared about
their own share and profits of trade with the new American colonies.
But the trade was simply too lucrative to be stopped. Until the early 16th
century, Indian Ocean trade was certainly the most lucrative maritime
trade worldwide, but networks gradually extended to the Pacific Ocean
from the mid-16th century.
The time around 1600 definitely marks a kind of ceasura, because it
is the beginning of the decline of Spanish and Portuguese domination
of maritime trade (between 1580 and 1640, the Portuguese and Spanish
crowns were united), while it marks at the same time the beginning of
the rise of the Dutch in particular. The fierce competition for the world’s
richest and the wealth of the oceans is reflected in naval battles, state-
sponsored piracy, hijacking, robbery, homicide and all kinds of violence.
With the rise of the Dutch, we also observe a caesura in terms of a change
from the primacy of religion to the primacy of commerce. And this
period constitutes the initial phase of the development of mercantilism
and capitalism. The division of the world into a Portuguese and a
Spanish hemisphere, as it had been established by Pope Alexander VI
(1431–1503) in the Treaty of Tordesillas in June 1494, became obsolete.
It is not surprising to see a representative of the new commercial
power, the Dutch, developing a novel legal justification for their fights
for exploiting the wealth of the world—claiming legitimacy for what the
Dutch were doing: the Dutch lawyer Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) wrote
his treatise Mare Liberum (Freedom of the Seas) on request of the Dutch
East India Company, the VOC. It was first published anonymously in
1609. In other words, everyone can go and sail anywhere and the ones
who are militarily and economically successful may legitimately harvest
the profits and laurels. Religious preferences and limitations are only
obstructive in this context.
It is around that time that the forceful and merciless competition for
the world’s treasures began among the developing European countries.
Their East India companies captured the riches, human and material
resources, outside Europe, by undisguised looting, enslavement and
murder and then directed them back to their mother-countries, where
they were turned into capital; the new colonies eventually securing a
market for the sprouting manufactures in the home countries.
Against this background, we have to see the fate of the San Diego,
the military and scientific competition, the activities of a merchant like
Antonio Díaz de Cáceres or the search for Biblical lands believed to be
full of treasure such as gold.

Notes
* This research was supported by, and contributes to, the ERC AdG project
TRANSPACIFIC which has received funding from the European Research
Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and
Innovation Programme (Grant agreement No. 833143). It also contributes
to the partnership grant ‘Appraising Risk, Past and Present: Interrogating
Historical Data to Enhance Understanding of Environmental Crises in the
Indian Ocean World’, sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
1 Their persistent efforts to conduct missionary work, however, eventually
led to their expulsion from Japan, the last ‘Black galleon’ reaching Nagasaki
in 1617.
2 See also Sanjay Subrahmanyam. 2012. The Portuguese Empire in Asia,
1500–1700: A Political and Economic History. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
Publications, 2nd edition, pp. 146–147.
3 Further information concerning the Portuguese at Macao and regulations
there are to be found in John E. Wills, Jr. 1984. Embassies and Illusions.
Dutch and Portuguese Envoys to K’ang-hsi, 1666–1687. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, esp. pp. 127–144. In 1678, a Portuguese embassy
had asked for the permission to trade freely without paying tolls and ‘be
allowed to go to Canton to trade instead of waiting for Chinese merchants
to come to Macao to trade with them’ (p. 133).
4 ‘Verdadero relación de la grandeza del Reyno de China, con las cosas mas
notables de ella, por Miguel de Loarca, soldado, uno de dos que fueron
alla desde las Islas de Luzon que aora llaman Philipinas; ano de 1575’, in
Colección Pastells de Madrid (henceforth CPM), Filipinas, I, pp. 27–29.
5 William Atwell. 1998. ‘Ming China and the Emerging World Economy, c.
1470–1650’. In The Cambridge History of China, volume 8, part 2, edited by
Denis Twitchett and Frederick W. Mote, pp. 376–416, p. 391. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. The high quality and relatively low price
of these Chinese products constituted serious competition for Mexican
sericulture.
6 A brief survey on the introduction of these products into China is provided
by Wu Chunming. 2019. ‘A Historical Review on the Social-Cultural Impact
of Yuegang-Manila Navigation on the Ancient Chinese Civilization’. In
Archaeology of Manila Galleon Seaports and Early Maritime Globalization
[The Archaeology of Asia-Pacific Navigation 2, edited by Wu Chunming,
Roberto Junco Sánchez, Miao Liu, pp. 67–89. Singapore: Springer Nature.
7 The fleet of Olivier van Noort had been financed by merchants of
Rotterdam and Amsterdam.
8 Jean-Paul Desroches, Gabriel Casal and Franck Goddio. 1997. Treasures of
the San Diego. New York: Association of Filipino American Accountants,
1994; Manila: National Museum of the Philippines, 1997.
9 This was the highest judicial court tribunal of the Spanish.
10 Jean-Paul Desroches, Gabriel Casal and Franck Goddio (eds.), Treasures of
the San Diego, 52.

11 De Morgas Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas tell us that

… and whereas, moreover, the said auditor is (as is a fact)
experienced in matters of war, and has been general of his
Majesty’s fleets by the latter’s own appointment at other times,
and lieutenant of the captain-general in this kingdom for several
years, in which he has fulfilled his duties well; and whereas he is
highly esteemed and liked by the soldiers; and whereas he is the
most suitable man, according to the condition of affairs; and for
other just considerations that move the governor thereto, so that
the said expedition may be effected and not fall through, or at
least, so that it may not be delayed with loss and trouble: therefore,
he ordered—and he did so order—the said auditor, since he has
fostered this affair, and has personally put it in its present good
shape, and since all the men—and they are many—who receive
no pay, have prepared in consideration of him, to prepare himself
to go as general and commander of the said fleet in pursuit of the
enemy, with all possible haste.
Antonia de Morga, History of the Philippine Islands, Vols. 1 and 2, No. 1,
Chapter 6, p. 64. Available at: http://public-library.uk/ebooks/05/48.pdf
(accessed on 1 May 2020), copyright © 2002 Blackmask Online. Also,
António de Morga, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas [México: 1609], Henry E.J.
Stanley (ed.), The Philippine Islands, Moluccas, Siam, Cambodia, Japan and
China, at the close of the sixteenth century (London: Hakluyt Socity, 1868);
António de Morga (author), Emma Blair and James Alexander Robertson
(eds), The Philippine Islands 1493‒1803 (Cleveland, Ohio: The Arthur H.
Clark Company, 1903‒1909), 55 vols., The Project Gutenberg E-Book,
2004.
12 Jean-Paul Desroches, Gabriel Casal and Franck Goddio (eds), Treasures of
the San Diego, p. 58.
13 Op. cit., p. 59.
14 Op. cit., pp. 59–63.
15 ‘Información contra Antonio de Morga, oidor de la Audiencia de Manila
y capitán general de la jornada contra los dos naviós holandeses que
entraron en la ensenada de Albay en octubre de 1600 en que se perdió la
nao San Diego’ (1601–06–02), Manila, ES.41091.AGI/23//FILIPINAS, 59,
N. 41.
16 ‘Traslado del título y nombramiento de 2 de diciembre de 1600 de Antonio
de Morga como capitán general de la jornada para seguir y destruir los
navíos de corsarios ingleses (sic) que estaban en las islas Filipinas’ (Cat.
5785), Información contra Antonio de Morga (1601–06–02), Manila,
ES.41091, AGI, FILIPINAS, 59, N. 41.
17 Carta de Antonio de Morga dando cuenta de la falsedad de las
informaciones dadas sobre la pérdida de la nao capitana [San Diego],
por el factor Francisco de las Misas, apoyado por el fiscal Salazar Salcedo,
y el capitán Juan de Alcega” (1602–07–08, Manila), ES.41091, AGI,
FILIPINAS, 19, R.3, N.44. This document includes the statements of a
witness of the incident (‘Testimonio de la información y averiguaciones

hechas a petición del doctor Morga, sobre la batalla que éste tuvo con
Oliver de Nort, cosario holandés, que entró en Filipinas a fines del año
1600. Manila 6 de julio de 1602’).
18 ‘Carta de Antonio de Morga dando cuenta de lo sucedido en el año de
1600 con la armada del holandés, Oliver de Nort, llegada a estas costas, a la
que tuvo que hacer frente y cómo el 14 de diciembre la batalla fue ganada’
(1602–06–30, Manila), ES.41091, AGI, FILIPINAS, 19, R.3, N. 43.
the San Diego.
20 ‘Carved by Chinese and Filipino sculptors in the Philippines, the ivories
reveal much about the making and trading of colonial art, still little
understood.’ Marjorie Trusted, ‘Survivors of a Shipwreck: Ivories from a
Manila Galleon of 1601’, Hispanic Research Journal 14:5 (2013), pp. 446–
462, here p. 447. Two years later, another galleon, the Jésus María, picked
up 260 survivors of the Santa Margarita on its way from Acapulco via
Guam to Manila.
21 All these galleons and wrecks are listed in Shirley Fish, The Manila-
Acapulco Galleons: The Treasure Ships of the Pacific. With an annotated List
of the Transpacific Galleons, 1565–1815. Milton Keynes: Author House,
2011, pp. 496–501.
22 Sherry Fields, 2008. Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in
Colonial Mexico. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 109.
23 Shirley Fish, The Manila-Acapulco Galleons, p. 317.
24 Jean-Paul Desroches, Gabriel Casal and Franck Goddio (eds), Treasures
of the San Diego, pp. 59, 60, 69, footnote no. 55, with reference to AGI,
FILIPINAS, 59, N. 41.
25 Maria Rodríguez-Sala, ‘Los Cirujanos de las Fuerzas Armadas en
la Nueva España. ¿Miembros de un Estamento Ocupacional o una
Comunidad?’, Ludus Vitalis XI: 19 (2003), pp. 97–117, with reference to
AGI, CONTRATACIÓN, 487, N. 1, R. 14, 1592: ‘Autos sobre los bienes
de Alonso Sánchez de Herrera, cirujano de la Armada de Juan de Alcega,
difunto en la Nueva España, heredera: Beatriz de Herrera y Juana, hija’.
26 For the use of a balsam originating from the northern South American
Pacific coast, Myroxylon balsamum (L.) Harms var. pereirae, generally
called ‘balsam of Peru’, see Angela Schottenhammer, ‘“Peruvian Balsam”:
An Example of Transoceanic Transfer of Medicinal Knowledge’, Journal
of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2020) 16:69, pp. 1–20, https://doi.
org/10.1186/s13002–020–00407–y.
27 Emphasis is mine. I am very grateful to Mathieu Torck for this information.
This travel report is published in English in de Queirós, Pedro-Fernandez,
Clements Robert Markham, Basil Harrington Soulsby, Luis de Belmonte
y Bermúdez, Gaspar Gonzalez de Leza, Juan de Torquemada, Luis Vaez
de Torres, Diego de Prado y Tobar, Fernando de Castro and Juan Luis
Arias. 1904. The Voyages of Pedro Fernandez Quiros 1595 to 1606. London:
Hakluyt Society.
28 Shirley Fish, The Manila-Acapulco Galleons, p. 495.

29 Lizbeth Souza-Fuertes. 2016. ‘Conflicts of Interests & Transmission of

Culture’. In Trans-Pacific Encounters: Asia and the Hispanic World, edited
by Koichi Hagimoto, p. 33. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing.
30 AGI, Contratación 487, N. 1, R. 14, 1592: ‘Autos sobre los bienes de Agustín
Sánchez, cirujano de nao, que murió a bordo del galeón San Martín
que navega por la costa de Nueva España al mando del capitán Pedro
de Ortega.’ For an analysis of this manuscript including a transcription
and an interactive version, see Juan Carlos Gonzalez Balderas, Angela
Schottenhammer. 2022. ‘Agustín Sánchez, a Late Sixteenth-Century
Spanish Ship Surgeon Crossing the Pacific Ocean’, TRANSPACIFIC
Research Notes 01 (2022), pp. 1–55, OA online under https://crossroads-
research.net/projects/erc-adg-transpacific/transpacific-research-
notes/2022-01-augustin-sanchez/.
31 Ibid.
32 As for the term ‘Sangley’, see George B. Souza and Jeffrey Scott Turley
(eds.). 2015. The Boxer Codex: Transcription and Translation of an
Illustrated Late Sixteenth-Century Spanish Manuscript Concerning the
Geography, History and Ethnography of the Pacific, Southeast and East
Asia. Leiden: Brill, p. 391. The Boxer Codex is an anonymous late 16th-
century Spanish manuscript that provides information on early modern
geography, ethnography and history of parts of the western Pacific, as
well as major segments of maritime and continental South-east and East
Asia. The illustration of the ‘Sangleyes’ in the Boxer Codex shows a rich,
at least well situated, couple, see https://iucat.iu.edu/catalog/8843094, fol.
204. This may, in fact, nourish the idea that it was the intention of this
codex to highlight Spain’s primary business partners and to demonstrate
Manila’s commercial potential to its intended audience, as Ellen Hsieh
has suggested. See Ellen Hsieh. 2017. ‘The Power of Images in the Boxer
Codex and Cultural Convergence in Early Spanish Manila’. In Historical
Archaeology of Early Modern Colonialism in Asia-Pacific: The Asia-Pacific
Region, edited by Maria Cruz Berrocal and Cheng-hwa Tsang, pp. 118–
145, p. 129. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Portrayed are also a
literati couple, ‘Mandarin letrado’ (文官), a prince couple, ‘principe’ (太
子), an emperor and his wife, ‘rey’ (皇帝), fols. 204–212. The first part
of the codex—until we get to the illustrations of Chinese individuals,
including the Sangley couple, illustrations that introduce a kind of new,
more realistic series of portraits—actually seems to reproduce illustrations
of a pre-existing ethnographic album of officially known tributary peoples.
See Manel Ollé and Juan Pau Rubiés (eds). 2019. El Códice Boxer. Etnografía
colonial y hibridismo cultural en las islas Filipinas [Transferéncies, 1400–
1800]. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, p. 67.
33 ‘Sangley’ was, thus, a Spanish transliteration, possibly even of an already
existing term, designating Chinese merchants and the Chinese community
in Manila. It has been interpreted as Romanized transcription of either the
Chinese characters “changlai” (常來) (as mentioned in the Boxer Codex),
meaning ‘to come with frequency’, from the term ‘shanglai’ (商來), meaning

‘to come to do business or to trade’, or possibly ‘xialang’ (夏郎) (siong-

lai), referring to Chinese from Xiamen and, more generally, from Fujian
(Minnan). But, actually, the exonym seems to have arisen from some kind
of linguistic misencounter, rendering the pronunciation of a foreign word,
‘sangley’, into Chinese. See the discussion in Guillermo Ruiz-Stovel. 2019.
Chinese Shipping and Merchant Networks at the Edge of the Spanish Pacific:
The Minnan-Manila Trade, 1680–1840, PhD dissertation, University of
California. Los Angeles: 2019, pp. 128–130. In this context, it has also
been suggested that ‘Sangley’ is a Tagalog word, derived from ‘shaing’ =
merchant and ‘ley’ = traveller; see E. Arsenio Manuel, H. Otley Beyer. 1948.
Chinese elements in the Tagalog language, with some indication of Chinese
influence on other Philippine languages and cultures, and an excursion into
Austronesian linguistics [Filipiniana Publications, Language and Literature
Series]. Manila: Filipiniana Publications, p. 50. Probably, as uses in Spanish
sources suggest, the term was later also used more generally to identify
merchants, individuals and migrant communities of Chinese and even
other Asian origins in Asia. Manuel Perez García has recently argued that
the term “sangleyes” may have aimed at stereotyping a native community
that should be converted to Catholic faith, as well as to the customs and
traditions of the Spanish crown.’ Manuel Perez-García. 2021. Global
History with Chinese Characteristics—Autocratic States along the Silk Road
in the Decline of the Spanish and Qing Empires 1680–1796 [Palgrave Studies
in Comparative Global History]. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 137.
34 For a general survey, see also Fernando López-Ríos Fernández. 1993.
Medicina Naval Española en la Época de los Descubrimientos. Barcelona:
Editorial Labor, S.A.
35 A digitised manuscript copy can be downloaded from the digital archive
of the Biblioteca Nacional de España, http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.
vm?id=0000193830&page=1.
36 Although the author was neither a doctor nor a pharmacist, his
pharmacopoeia was highly valued because the author had been trained
by Luis Lovera de Avila (1480–1551), Nuñez de Sevilla (fl. 16th cent.), and
Rodriguez de Málaga (fl. 16th cent.). See Antonio Hernández Morejón.
1843. Historia bibliográfica de la medicina española. Madrid: Imprenta de
la Viuda de Jordán e Hijos, vol. 2, p. 156.
37 Alejo Piamontes, Libro de los secretos del reverendo Don Alexo Piamontes.
En Valladolid. Por Diego Ferna[n]dez de Cordova y Oviedo impressor
del rey nuestro señor. Año 1595. A costa de Pedro Osete mercader
de libros, 1595; Madrid: Viuda de Alonso Martín, 1624. The book is
available electronically on http://bibliotecadigital.jcyl.es/i18n/consulta/
resultados.cmd?descrip_autoridadesbib=Piamontes,%20Alejo&busq_
autoridadesbib=CYLA20090094208.
38 See Francisco Sánchez Capelot. 1957. La obra quirúrgica de Juan Fragoso.
Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca; López Piñero, José M., «Fragoso,
Juan», en López Piñero, José M., Thomas F. Glick, Víctor Navarro y
Eugenio Portela Marco. 1983. Diccionario histórico de la ciencia moderna
en España, I (A-L), Barcelona: Ediciones Península, pp. 355–356. Its full

title reads: Cirugia universal, aora nuevamente emendada, y añadida en

esta sexta impression, por el licenciado Juan Fragoso medico, y cirujano del
Rey nuestro señor, y de sus Altezas. Y mas otros quatro tratados. El primero
es, una suma de proposiciones contra ciertos avisos de cirugia. El segundo,
de las declaraciones acerca de diversas heridas, y muertes. El tercero, de los
aforismos de Hippocrates tocantes a cirugia. El quarto, de la naturaleza, y
calidades de los medicamentos simples. Con privilegio. En Madrid, por Luis
Sánchez: Año M.D.XCVI, 1596.
39 Bibliotheca Cervantes, https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra/summa-y-
examen-de-chirurgia-y-de-lo-mas-necessario-que-en-ella-se-con-
tiene-c o n - b r e u e s - e x p u s i c i o n e s - d e - a l g u n a s - s e n t e n c i a s - d e -
hipocrates-y-galeno/?_ga=2.17742847.799017125.1652138280–
672291566.1652138280 and the link to google books, https://books.
google.bs/books?id=0vCgTsRskxcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Sum-
ma+y+examen+de+chirurgia+y+de+lo+mas+necesario+que+en+el-
la+se+contiene+.&hl=es&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Sum-
ma%20y%20examen%20de%20chirurgia%20y%20de%20lo%20mas%20
necesario%20que%20en%20ella%20se%20contiene%20.&f=false.
40 Full title: El sobremesa y alivio de caminantes de Joan Timoneda; en el
qual se contienen affables y graciosos dichos, cuentos heroycos y de mucha
sentencia y doctrina.
41 The book is divided into the following parts: I, ten chapters on Anatomy
and Body Parts, including surgical incisions (De la Anatomía y de las
Partes del Cuerpo con 10 capítulos), II. Seven chapters on Artificial
Bloodletting (De la Sangría Artificial, 7 capítulos), III. Twenty-seven
chapters on Abcesses (De Apostemas, 27 capítulos), IV. Thirteen chapters
on Fleshwounds (De las Heridas Frescas, 13 capítulos), V. Four chapters
on Yaws and Actinomycosis (Del Mal de las Bubas, 4 capítulos), VI. Twelve
chapters on Fractures and Displacements (De Fracturas y Dislocaciones, 12
capítulos), y finalmente, VII. Four chapters on Pestilences (De Pestilencia
con 4 capítulos). An electronic version is available at https://archive.
org/details/summayrecopilaci00lpez (accessed on 1 May 2020). See also
Gerardo Martínez-Hernández. 2011. ‘La llegada del cirujano Alonso López
de Hinojosos a la Nueva España’, Revista Medico del Instituto Mexicano del
Seguro Social 49:4, pp. 459–463; Maria Luisa Rodríguez-Sala. 1998. ‘Los
libros de medicina y de cirugía impresos en la Nueva España y sus autores
durante los dos primeros siglos de cultura colonial (1570–1692)’, Gaceta
Médica de México 134:5, pp. 587–608.
of the Biblioteca Nacional de España. Available at http://bdh-rd.bne.es/
viewer.vm?id=0000052266&page=1 (accessed on 5 May 2020).
of the Biblioteca Nacional de España. Available at http://bdh-rd.bne.es/
viewer.vm?id=0000093013&page=1 (accessed on 5 May 2020).
44 Book in two parts, the first one covers questions of the human body and the
second one questions of morality, including also two dialogues on medicine,
the treatise of the three great things, that is, gossips, disputes, and laughter,

a song and the comedy of Amphytrion (El primero es de cuerpos naturales,

elsegundo es de cosasmorales ...; [y dos dialogos d[e] medicina y eltratado de
las tresgra[n]des y vna cancion, y la comedia de Amphytrion].
45 He was one of the first doctors who described syphilis and gained a
reputation for his Sumario de la medicina, including a Tratadosobre las
pestíferasbuvas. Salamanca: Antonio de Barreda, 1498.
46 Fernando López-Ríos Fernández, Medicina Naval Española, 111; he also
describes scurvy and the administration of lemons and oranges as a
remedy (ibid.).
47 This refers to a religion that developed in Cuba among African slaves
and their descendants who originally came from the Congo basin. It was
called ‘palo’, lit. ‘stick’ because of the wooden sticks that were used for the
preparation of altars.
48 Francisco Hernández (1515?–1587), a botanist who was famous for his
Historia natural de Nueva España (Natural History of New Spain). His works
are available through the website of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma
de México (UNAM). Available at http://www.franciscohernandez.unam.
mx/home.html (accessed on 28 April 2020).
49 Nancy Marquez. 2017. ‘Shifting the Frontiers of Early Modern Science:
Astronomers, Botanists, and Engineers in Viceregal New Spain during
the Habsburg Era, 1535–1700’, thesis submitted to Victoria University of
Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy, p. 185. Available at https://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/xmlui/
handle/10063/6196 (accessed on 5 May 2020).
50 Leonard A. Irving. 1942. ‘Best Sellers of the Lima Book Trade, 1583’, The
Hispanic American Historical Review 22:1, pp. 5–33, p. 16.
51 Juan Fragoso. 1572. Discursos de las cosas aromáticas, arboles y
frutales y de otras muchas medicinas simples que se traen de la India
Oriental. Madrid: F. Sánchez. Available at https://archive.org/details/
discursodelasco00fraggoog (accessed on 26 November 2022). See also
José Luis Fresquet Febrer. 2001. Juan Fragoso y ‘Los Discursos de las
Cosas Aromáticas, Arboles y Frutales …’ (1572) [Clásicos españoles de la
Medicina y la Ciencia]. Valencia: CISC – Universitat de Valencia.
52 Linda A. Newson. 2017. Making Medicines in Early Colonial Lima, Peru.
Apothecaries, Science and Society [Atlantic World. Europe, Africa and the
Americas, 1500–1830, 34. Leiden, Boston: E.J. Brill, p. 131.
53 Leonard A. Irving. 1947. ‘One Man’s Library, Manila, 1583’, Hispanic Review
15:1, Schevill Memorial Number, pp. 84–100. Irving refers to a document
of 1583, ‘Enero 1583. Documentos remitidos por el Comisario de Manila
a los inquisidores de Mejico sobre varios asuntos’, AGN, Mexico, Mexico
City, Inquisición, tomo 133, mentioning books that possibly constituted
part of a small personal library. Irving notes that it ‘seems safe to deduce,
however, that this particular document relates to a collection of books
brought around half the world to Spain’s most distant possessions less
than two decades after the effective occupation of the Philippine Islands by
Adelantado Legazpi…’ (p. 85).

54 Individuals who bought part of his belongings were, for example, Pedro
Jusepe (f. 4r; purchased an arquebus), Domingo de Ugarte (f. 4r; purchased
bed cover), Pedro de Nevada (f. 4r; purchased pillows), Tomas de Aranas
(f. 4r; purchased silk shirts without collars from Castilla & China), Bernabé
de Vera (f. 4r; purchased bedsheets made of ‘Sangley linen’), Pedro Ronces
Valles (f. 4r); Pedro González (f. 4v), Agustín de Madrid (f.4v), Diego de
Sosa (f. 4v), Domingo de Olarte (f. 4v), Andrés Tuscano (f. 5r), Tomás
de Finestrosa (f. 5r, coloured boxes), Juan de Valstiguin (f. 5r), Pedro de
Balmaseda (f. 5r), Alexo de Murgina (f. 5v), Lorenzo Pérez Guinea (f. 5v),
Pedro de Yturriçara (f. 5v), Gaspar Alfonso (f. 6r, purchased mirrors and
barber equipment), Bernabé de Vera (f. 6r), Domingo de Jugarse purchased
balsam (6r), etc. Mentioned are also Juan Bautista (f. 8v), Manuel Fernández
(f. 9v). Many of the names appear repeatedly in the manuscript.
55 Antonio García-Abásolo. 1996. ‘The Private Environment of the Spaniards
in the Philippines’, Philippine Studies 44:3, pp. 349–373, here pp. 349–350:
‘Even if they had died without leaving their testament, this institution took
care of starting the necessary procedures to find out the identity of these
deceased and trace their heirs’ (p. 350).
56 A certain Diego de Carate is mentioned as the designated scribe of the
galleon (escribano nombrado de este dicho galeon).
57 Possibly some notes about medical treatment on board?
58 Carlos Alberto Gonzáles Sánchez. 1996. ‘Los Libros de los Españoles en el
Virreinato del Perú. Siglos XVI y XVII’, Revista de Indias LVI (54):206, pp.
7–47, p. 14: ‘De los 444 inventarios de Bienes de Difuntos del virreinato del
Perú que en su momento analizamos, en 144, o lo que es lo mismo, en el
32,4 %, aparecen libros.’
59 Two other scientific titles identified in the lists of ‘bienes de difuntos’ in
the Viceroyalty of Peru are the Aritmética práctica y especulativa, by Pérez
de Moya, and a famous nautical manual, the Regimiento de la mar, by
Pedro de Medina. See Carlos Alberto Gonzáles Sánchez, ‘Los Libros de los
Españoles en el Virreinato del Perú’, p. 32.
60 María Luisa Rodríguez-Sala. 2002. ‘Los cirujanos del mar en la Nueva
España, siglos XVI–XVIII ¿estamento o comunidad?’, Cirugía y Cirujanos
70:2, pp. 468–474. Another surgeon who passed away in the 18th century
left in total 14 special medicinal works, for example, el Fragoso de Cirugía
Añadido, el Tratado de Apostemas, el Tratado Breve de Flebotomía, un
Tratado de Peste y La Instrucción de Enfermos.
the San Diego, pp. 176–178.
62 Philipp II officially sponsored the exploration and investigation of
American (and Philippine) native plants and medicine. In an official
document, la Real Cédula of 11 January 1570, when the ‘Protomedicalo de
las Indias’ was created, the Spanish were obliged to consider the knowledge
and experience the indigenous Indians (los indígenas) possessed about
herbs, trees, plants, medicinal seeds, etc. and also to report about local
diseases. This ‘Real Cédula’ was to open the door for the first and most
important pharmacological expedition to America, namely, the voyage of

Francisco Hernández (1515?–1587) to Mexico between 1570 and 1577.

See Carmen Sánchez Téllez. 1990. ‘La medicina misionera en Hispano-
América y Filipinas durante la época colonial’, Estudios de historia social y
económica de América 6, pp. 33–39, p. 34.
63 See Gran Diccionario Náhuatl. Available at http://www.gdn.unam.
mx/diccionario/consultar/palabra/picietl/id/188963 (accessed on 26
November 2022).
64 ‘Para vomitar los humores del estómago y tener gana de comer’ (In order
to vomit the humors of the stomach and give a desire to eat) [f. 141b].
65 Marcos Cortés Guadarrama. 2019. ‘Un veneno y su influencia en la
tratadística médica novohispana de los siglos XVI y XVII’, Ulúa 31, pp. 15–
40, p. 28, footnote 47 (protege de los malos espíritus, enemigos y brujerías,
ahuyenta a las víboras y otros animales ponzoñosos, y está dotada del
poder y la fuerza para ‘sacar la enfermedad’).
66 Tratado de las Drogas y Medicinas de las Indias Orientales, con sus plantas
debuxadas al vivo, by Christóbal Acosta, medico y cirujano que las vio
ocularmente. En el qual se verifica mucho de lo que escrivio el Doctor
Garcia de Orta. Original print published in Burgos, 1578, by Martin de
Vitoria. The manuscript can be downloaded from http://uvadoc.uva.
es/handle/10324/28981. In 1569, Acosta was, for example, appointed
physician to the Royal Hospital in Cochin, but by 1571 he was collecting
botanical specimens in Tanor, Cranganor, and other parts of India.
67 Tratado de las Drogas y Medicinas de las Indias Orientales, pp. 346–351.
68 See https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-
pictures-and-press-releases/acosta-cristobal (accessed on 17 June 2020).
the San Diego, p. 171.
70 Elisabeth Veyrat, ‘Chronicle of a Forgotten-Life’, in op. cit., pp. 160–175, p.
174.
71 Ibid.
72 See, for example, Erik Heinrichs, ‘The Live Chicken Treatment for Buboes:
Trying a Plague Cure in Medieval and Early Modern Europe’, The recipes
Project, https://recipes.hypotheses.org/9891 (accessed on 11 May 2020):
‘One sixteenth-century version calls for plucking the feathers from around
the single hole in a chicken’s backside, then placing it on a person’s bubo.
The instructions say to hold the chicken on the bubo until it dies, when it
must be replaced with a new chicken, similarly plucked.’
73 Shirley Fish. 2011. The Manila-Acapulco Galleons: The Treasure Ships of
the Pacific: With an Annotated List of the Transpacific Galleons, 1565–1815.
Milton Keynes: AuthourHouse, p. 245.
74 Shirley Fish. 2004. The Manila-Acapulco Galleon, pp. 245–246, with
reference to Angus Konstam, Spanish Galleon 1530–1690. England: Osprey
Publishing.
75 Eder A.J. Gallegos Ruiz. 2017. ‘La circulación oceánica de tecnología
artillera Sevilla-Manila, siglos xvi–xviii. In Relaciones Intercoloniales.
Nueva España y Filipinas, coordianted by Jaime Olveda, pp. 89–103, pp.
93–94. Guadalajara: El Colegio de Jalisco.

76 Also the transplantation of spices, such as cloves, nuts, or pepper, was

suggested. To take them from their places of origin to hot provinces in the
West Indies, such as Guido de Lavezaris (1499–1582), a Spanish governor
of the Philippines did it with ginger, of which there is meanwhile more on
the Island of Hispanola than in Asia: ‘Capítulo de carta de Román sobre
trasplantar especias’ (1584–06–22), ES.41091, AGI, FILIPINAS, 29, N.
77 ‘Relación de J[uan] B[autista] Román sobre importancia del Maluco’ (1582-
06-12, Manila), ES.41091, AGI, FILIPINAS, 29, N. 38. This document also
mentions the Discovery of the Sunda Straits by Francis Drake: ‘El alférez
Francisco Dueñas, que había ido de reconocimiento al Maluco, trajo la
noticia de que el corsario inglés [Francis Drake], después de robar en las
costas de Perú, llegó a Inglaterra por el estrecho que descubrió entre las
Javas saliendo al mar de Terranova, lo que demuestra la importancia de
controlar aquellas partes’.
78 Eder A.J. Gallegos Ruiz, ‘La circulación oceánica de tecnología artillera’, p.
94.
79 Ibid.
80 See Catherine Delacours, ‘Japanese Warriors’. In Treasures of the San Diego,
edited by Jean-Paul Desroches, Gabriel Casal and Franck Goddio, pp.
214–220. New York: Association of Filipino American Accountants, 1994;
Manila: National Museum of the Philippines, 1997.
81 Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands, 4: 58–59; AGI, Filipinas, 6, r.
3, n. 26. See also AGI, Filipinas, 6, r. 3, n. 23 (letter of Sande to Philip II, 2
June 1576).
82 Ubaldo Iaccarino. 2017. ‘Conquistadors of the Celestial Empire: Spanish
Policy toward China at the End of the Sixteenth Century’. In Beyond the
Silk Roads. New Discourses on China’s Role in East Asian Maritime History
[East Asian Maritime History, 14, edited by Robert J. Antony and Angela
Schottenhammer, pp. 78–97, 83. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag.
83 In 1582, the Spanish under captain Juan Pablo de Carrión had equipped
a small armada to expulse Japanese settling in Cagayán, in the north-east
part of Luzon. See ‘Carta del factor Román sobre expedición a Cagayán’
(1582–06–25, Cavite), ES.41091, AGI, FILIPINAS, 29, N. 40.
84 Catherine Delacours. 1974. ‘Japanese Warriors’, 217, with reference to
Iwao Seichi (岩生成)一, Shuinsen to Nihon-machi (朱印船と日本町)
[Nihonrekishishinsho (日本歷史新書), 99. Tōkyō: Shinbundō, p. 190.
85 Adam Clulow. 2013. ‘A Desperate, Warlike People & Ready to Adventure
for Good Pay: Japanese Mercenaries in Southeast Asia’, paper presented
on the AAS, March 2014; Adam Clulow. 2013. ‘Like Lambs in Japan and
Devils outside Their Land: Diplomacy, Violence, and Japanese Merchants
in Southeast Asia’, Journal of World History 24:2, pp. 335–358.
86 Adam Clulow. 1983–1984. ‘A Desperate, Warlike People’, with reference to
Kondō Morishige (近藤守重), ‘Gaibantsūsho’ (外藩通書), in Kaitei shiseki
shūran (改訂史籍集覧). Kyōto: Rinsenshoten, 33 vols., vol. 21, p. 184.
87 Etsuko Miyata. 2016. Portuguese Intervention in the Manila Galleon
Trade. The Structure and Networks of Trade Between Asia and America in
the 16th and 17th Centuries as Revealed by Chinese Ceramics and Spanish

Archives. Oxford: Archaeopress, p. 27, with reference to Guillermina del

Valle Pavón. 2005. ‘Los mercaderes de México y la transgreción de los
limites al comercio pacífico en Nueva España, 1550–1620’, Revista de
Historia Económica = Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic
History 23:1, pp. 227–228. Thirty of these individuals were members of
the merchants’ consulate in Mexico (Consulado de mercaderes) and only
thirty-one of all the individuals engaged in the Asia trade paid for the
license.
88 Etsuko Miyata, Portuguese Intervention in the Manila Galleon Trade, 28,
Figure 3.
89 Etsuko Miyata, Portuguese Intervention in the Manila Galleon Trade, p. 26.
90 Antonio García-Abásolo, ‘The Private Environment of the Spaniards’.
91 Antonio García-Abásolo, ‘The Private Environment of the Spaniards’,
p. 358.
92 Fred Bronner. 1977. ‘Peruvian Encomenderos in 1630: Elite Circulation
and Consolidation’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 57:4, pp. 633–
659, 645–646.
93 See the discussion in Angela Schottenhammer. 2020. ‘East Asia’s Other
New World, China and the Viceroyalty of Peru: A Neglected Aspect of
Early Modern Maritime History’, The Medieval History Journal 23:1, pp.
1–59, pp. 40–41.
94 Padrón de los indios que se hallaron en la ciudad de los Reyes del Pirú, hecho
en virtud de comisión del Marqués de Montesclaros, Virrey del Pirú por
Miguel de Contreras, escribano de Su Majestad, manuscrito no. Mss/3032,
Biblioteca Naciónal de España, f. 237v–259v.
95 ‘Pleito fiscal: Antonio Díaz de Cáceres’ (1574-07-06–1574-10-27), AGI,
JUSTICIA, 920, N. 3. This document presents the judicial case about a
license concesión for Antonio Díaz de Cáceres to trade in the Indies: ‘Los
jueces de la Audiencia de la Contratación remiten al Consejo el pleito que
sigue Antonio Díaz de Cáceres, portugués, vecino de Sevilla, contra el
licenciado Diego Venegas, fiscal de la misma, sobre concesión de licencia
para comerciar con Indias.’
96 For his identitification as the autor of this text, see Guillermo Lohmann
Villena. 1970. ‘Una incógnita despejada: la identidad del judío portugués
autor de la “Discriçión General del Pirú”’, Homenaje a don Ciriaco Pérez-
Bustamante 2, pp. 315–387.
97 Boleslao Lewin (ed.). 1958. Descripción del Virreinato del Perú: Crónica
Inédita de Comienzos del Siglo XVII [Instituto de Investigaciones
Históricas, Colección de Textos y Documentos, Serie B, no. I.]. Rosario:
Universidad Nacional del Litoral, p. 115. The Spanish text is available
online under Discricion general Del Reyno del piru, emparticular De Lima,
Biblioteca de Paris bajo la signatura Espagnol 280, 1700/01/01 (gallica.bnf.
fr/Bibliothèquenationale de France).
98 The circumstances and the role of Fray Gaspar de Carvajal in the
denunciation before the Inquisition, and Díaz de Cacerez’ family and
other relations are in detail examined by Martin A. Cohen. 1970. ‘Antonio
Diaz de Caceres: Marrano Adventurer in Colonial Mexico’, American

Jewish Historical Quarterly [The German and Russian Jew in America]

60:2, pp. 169–184.
99 Martin A. Cohen, ‘Antonio Diaz de Caceres’, p. 171.
100 Ibid., p. 175.
101 Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, on other occasions also called San Pedro.
102 Martin A. Cohen, ‘Antonio Diaz de Caceres’, p. 183. Cohen in detail records
these eventful years of Antonio Díaz.
103 James B. Boyajian. 1993. Portuguese Trade in Asia under the Habsburgs,
1580–1640. Baltimore, London: The John Hopkins University Press,
Footnote 90, p. 280.
104 James B. Boyajian, Portuguese Trade in Asia, 280. Actually, many
Portuguese from Manila were trading in Macao.
105 See, for example, Lúcio De Sousa. 2019. The Portuguese Slave Trade in
Early Modern Japan Merchants, Jesuits and Japanese, Chinese, and Korean
Slaves [Studies in Global Slavery, 7]. Leiden: E.J. Brill; also Enriqueta
Vila Vilar. 2014, 2nd edition. Hispanoamérica y el comercio de esclavos.
Sevilla: Universidad de Sevilla Secretariado de Publicaciones. Philip II
had promised in 1581 to give Portuguese the privilege of providing Negro
slaves for Spanish America.
106 ‘Carta del virrey Gaspar de Zúñiga y Acevedo, conde de Monterrey’ (1601-
05-22, México), ES.41091, AGI, MEXICO, 24, N. 58, f. 10–11.
107 See Table 7 in James B. Boyajian, Portuguese Trade in Asia. p. 79.
108 James B. Boyajian, Portuguese Trade in Asia, p. 81.
109 Lewis Hanke. 1961. ‘The Portuguese in Spanish America, with Special
Reference to the Villa Imperial de Potosi’, Revista de Historia de América
51, 1–48, here 7, with reference to Lawrence C. Wroth. 1944. ‘The Early
Cartography of the Pacific’, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America,
XXVIII 2, p. 211.
110 ‘Real cédula a Luis de Velasco [Castilla], virrey de Nueva España, para
que haga prender a Juan da Gama y a los pilotos y maestres con los
que ha llegado desde la China, y secuestre sus bienes y los de los demás
portugueses que iban con él, y envíe todo a la Casa de la Contratación,
de donde se mandarán a Lisboa para que se haga justicia’ (1590-12-20,
Madrid), ES.41091, AGI, MEXICO, 1064, L. 2, fs. 245r–245v.
111 Kris Lane. 2018. Potosí: Treasure of the World. Berkeley, Los Angeles and
Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 2.
112 Her life even fascinated media such as BBC, Available at https://www.bbc.
com/mundo/noticias-49978447 (accessed on 15 May 2020).
113 John Newsome Crossley. 2016. The Dasmariñases, Early Governors of the
Spanish Philippines. London: Routledge, p. 195; Carlos B. Vega. 2003.
Conquistadoras: Mujeres Heroicas de la Conquista de America. Jefferson:
McFarland & Co Incorporation, p. 168.
114 http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofthephil07001gut/8phip10.txt
(accessed on 23 July 2018).
115 ‘Carta del virrey Gaspar de Zúñiga y Acevedo, conde de Monterrey’ (1601-
05-22, México), ES.41091, AGI, MEXICO, 24, N. 58, f. 11.

116 The will is now preserved in the US Library of Congress in the Harkness
Collection, Peru, A 3489 A, docs. 950–953 (978–1000), Castrovirreyna
and los Reyes, 1612, 1620, 542–549, and I am very grateful to Kris Lane
for sharing this manuscript with me. The will (testament) of Isabel Barreto
was made up in the presence of doctor Pedro de la Placa, ‘cura y vicario’
in this city, in the major church of the cura of Castro, belonging to the
monastery of Santa Clara of the mountains of the city. She is the wife of
Don Fernando de Castro of the order of Santiago, as has been affirmed by
the priests of said church (542, f. 1v).
117 Ibid., f. 546–1r-v, 549.
118 Kris Lane. 2019. Potosí: The Silver City that Changed the World. Oakland:
University of California Press, p. 90.

II
LAND-GRANTS, AGRICULTURE AND THE STATE

9
WHAT IS AN EARLY HISTORIC LAND-GRANT?

ECONOMICS, DIPLOMATICS AND AN INDIAN
EPIGRAPHIC FORM
Meera Visvanathan
Ranabir Chakravarti didn’t teach me during my MA. So, it was only

when I began my MPhil that I first met him, in his office in the old SSS
building, with light streaming through the windows and the fossilised
palm tree behind. My guide had sent me to do a seminar paper with
him, and I had some vague ideas about working on the inscriptions from
Sanchi. In the course of our conversation, he handed me a copy of the
second volume of the Uṭṭaṅkita Sanskrit Vidyā Araṇya epigraph series,
its orange cover bearing the Aśokan capital from Sarnath, and told me
to take it home. Reading the volume, it was as if I had stumbled upon
patterns in the inscriptional record that I hadn’t seen before.
A few days later, he called. I was on my way to the Vasant Vihar
Police Station with a group of student activists. I forget now for what
reason or cause. He asked if I could give him the reference to Daśaratha’s
inscriptions in the Nagarjuni caves from the volume. I told him where I
was. He was nonplussed, saying only that I should send him the reference,
whenever I reached home. I returned the book to him a few weeks later,
but my journey of looking at the early Brāhmī inscriptions still continues.
This chapter is for ‘Sir’, in thanks for his many acts of kindness, and it is
also written remembering my years as a PhD student at the Centre for
Historical Studies, JNU, where such engagements were possible.
A Definitional Consensus
In an article written for the Imperial Gazetteer of 1909, John Faithfull

Fleet emphasised the importance of inscriptions for the study of India’s
past. A century had passed since the beginnings of the epigraphic
endeavour and Fleet spoke of how:
203

It is almost entirely from a patient examination of the inscriptions

… that our knowledge of the political history of ancient India has
been derived … Hardly any definite dates or identifications can be
established except for them. And they regulate everything that we
can learn from tradition, literature, coins, art, architecture and other
sources.1
Although part of a broader colonial narrative emphasising the absence

of Indian historical consciousness, Fleet’s article provides a valuable
entry point into the historiography of Indian documentary forms.
Classifying inscriptions according to the material on which they were
engraved, he noted that, although inscriptions on stone were the most
numerous, an important group of records was also engraved on sheets
of copper.
The copper-plate record was usually ‘a donative charter, in fact a
title-deed, and passed, as soon as it was issued, into private personal
custody’.2 As a result, such charters could be found in the hands of
individuals and families, but were also discovered buried in fields and
hidden within foundation walls. The portability of the grant defined its
basic character—unlike stone records, these could be ‘passed from hand
to hand and place to place’, so as to be discovered in localities far distant
from where they originally belonged.
The majority of such inscriptions recorded endowments to religious
bodies or individuals, thereby, constituting ‘a mass of title deeds of real
property, and … certificates of the right to duties, taxes, fees, perquisites
and other privileges’.3 The gift of land was usually not the gift of an
individual field, ‘but grants of entire villages, and large and permanent
assignments from the public revenues’,4 an alienation backed by the
weight of royal authority. In the course of making such gifts, these
inscriptions often recorded genealogies, titles and regnal years as well.
The pervasiveness of the landgrant as an inscriptional category was
evident from the beginnings of epigraphic research in India. But as
an increasing number of inscriptions came to be edited, interpreted
and translated, it was clear that the construction of corpora required
a programme of careful study. Five decades after Fleet’s article,
Bahadur Chand Chhabra published his Diplomatic of Sanskrit Copper
Plate Records.5 Chhabra drew upon epigraphic publications from the
intervening decades to make a case for ‘the value of formal analysis and
form criticism’6 in analysing such records. He hoped such an account
would show ‘the nature and main features of the class of documents
as also what a historian may expect to find in them’, 7 since this would
help the classification of charters on dynastic lines and allow them to be
studied in greater detail.

What Is an Early Historic Land-Grant? 205
Like Fleet before him, Chhabra pointed out that the typical copper-
plate charter recorded a grant of land. The structure of the document
emerged in response to its function and purpose. It was precisely
because a ruler undertook to donate a village or a cultivable field that
he proclaimed in an inscription the name of the donee, the purpose
of the donation, as well as the instructions and conditions associated
with it.8 According to Chhabra, a ‘typical Sanskrit copper plate grant’
was engraved on sheets of copper that were bound together by a ring
whose ends were soldered with the royal seal.9 The size and shape of
such plates as well as the arrangement of writing on them varied across
regions and time.
Such charters were ‘couched in judicial phraseology’,10 and, in
Chhabra’s analysis, they had a structure which could be divided into
three broad sections and their following component parts:
Preamble: (1) invocation, (2) place of issue, (3) name of the grantor
with his title and ancestry, (4) address,
Notification: (5) specification of the gift, (6) name of the grantee, (7)
occasion, (8) purpose, (9) boundaries,
Conclusion: (10) exhortation, (11) name of the conveyancer, (12)
date, (13) name of the writer, (14) name of the engraver
and (15) authentication.11
Having framed this listing, he proceeded to spell out its elements in

further detail. Simultaneously, he emphasised that this structure could
be marked by variation in both content and form.12 In Chhabra’s analysis,
land-grants appear as texts arising out of contingent circumstances,
marked by formula, but also variety. Rather than a rigid definition, what
he sought to offer was a template, a list of features that could be used as
an aid to understanding and interpreting this epigraphic form.
Over time, the elements outlined by Chhabra came to acquire a
fixity in discussions on Indian epigraphy. In the work of scholars like
D.C. Sircar, Albertine Gaur, R.S. Sharma, Hermann Kulke and Richard
Salomon,13 through a process of reiteration, an enumerative consensus
has grown to surround the land-grant. Here, for instance, is Sharma’s
list of the features that make up a ‘typical’ land-grant:14
• Donor:
The record begins by tracing the donor’s genealogy for several
generations. It links him to the solar or lunar dynasties and
provides a list of conquests and a string of epithets glorifying
his varied achievements. It also mentions the victory-camp
(jayaskandhavāra) from which it was issued.

• Donee:
The donees are usually Brāhmaṇas who are identified by their gotra,
pravara and place of origin. Their expertise in a particular branch
of Vedic learning is stressed and their achievements and attributes
are glorified.
• Officers and Functionaries:

A list of officers is given, with their names and designations, who
are to be informed of the grant.
• Exemptions from Fiscal Dues:

A list of taxes from which the donee or donated land is granted
exemption is outlined. These dues may be in cash, kind or labour.
• Description of the Donated Land:

The name of the village is provided along with its location.
The boundaries of the donated land may be listed or else, the
administrative unit in which it is situated. Reference is also made
to the village elders and dominant castes.
• Occasions for the Grant of Land:

These may include the performance of Vedic sacrifices, saṃskāras,
visits to tīrthas or services undertaken by temples or Brāhmaṇas
for bringing merit to the donor.
• Conditions/Imprecations:
Grants of land were inalienable and made in perpetuity. The
charters usually concluded with imprecations warning future kings
against rescinding such grants.
• Composers and Engravers:

The texts of land-grant charters were often composed by high
officials such as the saṃdhi-vigrahika (minister for peace and war).
This was followed by the name of the artisan who engraved the
record.
Certain elements loom large in this analysis, as in others of this kind:

brāhmaṇas and copper-plates, genealogies and panegyrics, as well as
perpetual gifts of land. While each scholar chooses to aggregate these
elements into different categories, they also assume a constancy to this
epigraphic form.15 But the question we must ask is this: in order to
define an inscription as a land-grant, is it enough if it has a few of these
component elements or are all of them equally necessary? Can outlines

such as those provided by Chhabra and Sharma be used to determine

whether or not a particular inscription qualifies as a land-grant?
I would argue that the problem with these listings is that they
invariably represent the land-grant in its mature form. The outline that
they propose is an enumeration rather than a definition, a typology
with no time dimension. As a result, they tell us little about its point
of origin nor how the tradition subsequently evolved. Further, because
charters from different regions and time-periods are aggregated in this
analysis, the land-grant appears as a constant of Indian epigraphy, its
presence spread evenly across the subcontinent. This prevents us from
constructing useful narratives of its evolution and spread.
The question could well be asked: why do we need to define the land-
grant? The answer to this lies in the ubiquitousness of the land-grant in
Indian epigraphy,16 as well as its centrality to the explanatory paradigms
for the study of early medieval history.17 While historical scholarship
on the early medieval period has paid considerable attention to grants
of land, relatively little attention has been paid to the origins of the
practice in early historic times. It is this gap that my work seeks to fill.
Where the early historic inscriptions are concerned, a definition is
also necessary because, if the elements outlined in the discussion of
a ‘typical’ land-grant are taken as the standard of comparison, then
it would lead to the argument that the land-grant is absent from this
corpus of records. However, this is far from the case.18 It follows that
we need a definition which is flexible enough to incorporate grants
from different periods but also provides a basic list of elements without
which an inscription cannot be called a land-grant.
In place of the long list of elements identified by scholars such as
Chhabra or Sharma, I would argue that four elements are central to
identifying a land-grant. These are:
1. A gift of land.
2. The presence of the donor who is in a position not only to gift land
but also grant associated remissions.
3. The presence of the donee, usually a religious institution or
personage who receives this gift.
4. The terms and conditions accompanying the gift outline fiscal
remissions or administrative exemptions.
Such an abbreviated listing seeks to foreground the donative

transaction at the heart of the land-grant, rather than the administrative
paraphernalia which comes to surround it over time. Where Indian
epigraphy is concerned, a land-grant is not simply a gift of land to a
religious or secular functionary. Instead, it involves a remission of

revenue on the part of the state and freedom from administrative

interference. Consequently, not every gift of land is a land-grant, for
such a gift requires the participation of royalty or, at the very least,
someone with political authority. In such a reckoning, a land-grant
is deeply tied to the institution of the state, for it is the state which is
the grantee and guarantor of this gift of land. The authority of the state
underlies this transaction, whether it is in the granting of exemptions
or partial exemptions or in authenticating the transfer of rights.19 Over
time, this administrative jurisdiction comes to be linked with other
kinds of formalities such as the addition of benedictory statements,
imprecations and the perpetuity clause.
It follows that while schemas are important, they also need to be read
in relation to historical contexts. We cannot assume we will find the
land-grant in all historical situations, using such schemas as our guide,
nor can discussions on epigraphy proceed with the understanding
that certain categories are a given. Where the land-grant is concerned,
a more historical approach can better help us understand the nature
of these transactions as well as their associated inscriptional texts.
Although much further study is required in this regard, in an essay for
Ranabir Chakravarti, teacher and pioneer scholar of economic history,
one can begin by asking for greater precision in our usage of terms.
In order to substantiate these arguments, let me compare one of the
first instances of a land-grant, with two inscriptions that are not land-
grants, although they have occasionally been classified as such.
The Nasik Inscription of Gotamīputa Sātakaṇi, Year Eighteen
The first epigraphic instantiation of a land-grant is a record of the

Sātavāhana ruler Gotamīputa Sātakaṇi, dated to his eighteenth regnal
year.20 Incised under the ceiling of the verandah of Cave No. III at Nasik, it
is an order addressed to the minister Viṇhupālita which reads as follows:
sidhaṃ [|] senāye vejayaṃtiye vijayakhadhāvāra govadhanasa

benākaṭakasvāmi gotamiputo siri-sadakaṇi ānapayati govadhane
amaca viṇhupālita [|] gāme aparakakhaḍiye ya khetaṃ ajakālakiyaṃ
usabhadatena bhūtaṃ nivatanasatāni be 200 eta amhakheta
nivatanasatāni be 200 imesa pavajitāna tekirasiṇa vitarāma [|] etasa
casa khetasa parihāra vitarāma apavesa anomasa aloṇakhādaka
araṭhasavinayika savajātapārihārika ca [|] etahi na parihārehi
pariha[re]hi [|] ete casa khetaparihā[re] ca etha nibadhāpehi [|]aviyena
āṇataṃ [|] amacena sivagutena chato [|] mahāsāmiyehi uparakhito [|]
data paṭṭikā savachare 10[+] 8 vāsapakhe 2 divase 1 [|] tāpasena kaṭa [|]

Success! From the victorious camp of the triumphant army in

Govadhana, Gotamiputa Siri Sadakaṇi, the Lord of Benākaṭaka, orders
Viṇhupālita, the minister at Govadhana: In the village of Western
Kakhaḍi, that field owned until now by Usabhadata, [measuring] two
hundred – 200 – nivatanas, [and] our field [measuring] two hundred
– 200 – nivatanas; we confer [both] on the Tekirasi ascetics. And
we grant these immunities [in respect of] this field: it is not to be
entered [by royal agents]; it is not to be interfered with; it is not to
be mined for salt; it is not to be interfered with by district officials;
it is provided with all kinds of immunities. With those immunities
invest it. And these immunities take care to have registered here.
Ordered orally. Written down by the minister Sivaguta. Kept by the
Mahāsāmiyas. The deed was delivered in the 18th year, on the 1st day
of the 2nd fortnight of the rainy season; executed by Tāpasa.21
The opening sentence indicates that this was an order issued in the
aftermath of a military victory, for the phrase ‘vijayakhadhāvāra
govadhanasa’ tells us that Govadhana was the site of a victorious military
camp.22 The victory in question is understood to be that of Gotamīputa
Sātakaṇi over the forces of the Śaka Kṣaharāta ruler Nahapāna. While
initial readings of this triumph glorified the ouster of the ‘foreign’ Śakas
by the ‘indigenous’ Sātavāhanas, more recent analyses indicate that the
narrative is more complex than it was initially made out to be. The work
of Shailendra Bhandare, in particular, foregrounds the numismatic
evidence to show that the conflict was a long and protracted one, being
fought over many theatres and involving many warring partisans.23
Further, since this inscription records Nahapāna’s defeat as taking place
in Gotamīputa’s eighteenth regnal year, the two adversaries clearly ruled
as contemporaries for nearly twenty years.
Even as it commemorates his decisive victory, the central focus
of Gotamīputa’s inscription is on a field that formerly belonged
to Uṣavadāta (ya khetaṃ ajakālakiyaṃ usabhadatena bhūtaṃ),
Nahapāna’s son-in-law and viceroy in the Western Deccan. This field
was originally mentioned in an inscription of Uṣavadāta engraved in
Cave X at Nasik.24 There, after listing a whole host of his charitable and
pious deeds, Uṣavadāta states that he bought a field from the Brāhmaṇa
Aśvibhuti for 4,000 kāhāpaṇas and gifted it to the Buddhist saṅgha so
as to meet the food requirements of the monks dwelling in his cave .
Given that the field was a source of food for the saṅgha, following
Nahapāṇa’s defeat, the monastic community must have been anxious
about its continued use. Gotamīputa’s grant was meant to allay these
concerns. The field had belonged to Uṣavadāta; now, it belonged to
him. Given the terms used in Uṣavadāta’s inscription, he merely had

to state the change in presiding authority; there was no need to go into

the details again. At the same time, Gotamīputa tells us that he is not
simply extending the gift made by Uṣavadāta; he is also doubling it.
A similar process of contestation and appropriation can be seen
at the site of Karle where an inscription of Uṣavadāta records that he
gifted the village Karajika for the benefit of monks belonging to the
Buddhist saṅgha.25 Here, too, a grant given by Gotamīputa succeeds
Uṣavadāta’s record. It is dated two weeks after his grant at Nasik and
the terms of reference are mostly the same. But, whereas, the grant at
Nasik concerns only the gift of a field, the grant at Karle upholds the gift
of the village Karajika, which is described as a bhikhuhala.26
Gotamīputa’s grants at Nasik or Karle, thus, cannot be seen in
isolation, but have to be read in continuation with Uṣavadāta’s
inscriptions since they were part of the ways in which the political
transition was being articulated and defined. At the same time, they
mark the start of something new. In Uṣavadāta’s inscriptions, while gifts
of land find mention, there are no privileges or exemptions associated
with these gifts. Such privileges or exemptions are first mentioned
in Gotamīputa’s inscription of the year eighteen at Nasik and find
repetition in his subsequent records (Table 9.1).
Table 9.1: Exemptions Granted in Gotamīputa Sātakaṇi’s Inscriptions

The Exemption Sanskritised Meaning
Granted Equivalent
apavesa aprāveśya ‘not to be entered (by royal
agents)’
anomasa anavamarśya ‘not to be interfered with’
aloṇakhādaka alavaṇakhātaka ‘not to be mined for salt’
araṭhasavinayika arāṣṭrasāṁvinayika ‘not to be interfered with by
district officials’
savajātapārihārika sarvajātapārihārika ‘to be provided with all kinds
of immunities’
In the texts of these inscriptions, each exemption takes the form of a single
word or compound, but their collective embedding makes for a complex
document. As Timothy Lubin argues, this marks the start of a process,
whereby donative records become legal texts that record and guarantee
the beneficiary’s special rights.27 For this reason, unlike Uṣavadāta’s
inscriptions which only record gifts of land, Gotamīputa’s inscriptions
represent the earliest inscriptional examples of the land-grant.

When compared to the formats articulated by Chhabra and

Sharma, Gotamīputa’s grants represent the first texts that adhere to
the format of a land-grant in specific ways: they were issued from a
victorious army camp and framed as orders to ministers of districts;
they provide a description of the donated lands and list the exemptions
that accompanied the gifts; and they end with the names of the
functionaries who prepared and formalised these records. But there
are also significant divergences: the donor lacks a genealogy and there
is no string of epithets; the donees are not Brāhmaṇas, but monks
of the Buddhist saṅgha; rather than literary compositions by a high
functionary, these are fairly prosaic statements of fact; there is nothing
to indicate that the grant was made in perpetuity, nor are there any
concluding imprecations or benedictions. So, although these are land-
grants, they represent fairly basic outlines, lacking many of the features
that would be incorporated in subsequent times.
In the history of the land-grant as an epigraphic form, Gotamīputa’s
grant at Nasik is paradigmatic: it sets the basic template that comes to be
seen in later records. Substantiating this argument would require that
we show that this record contains a particular combination of features
that has not been seen before. Accordingly, it might help to compare
it with some other inscriptions, beginning with the Aśokan record at
Lumbinī, also known as the Rummindei pillar inscription.
The Rummindei Pillar Inscription of Aśoka
Since its discovery in 1896, the Aśokan record at Lumbinī has been subject
to a long history of interpretation and study.28 While a number of differing
translations of this record exist,29 the text comprises three sentences and
the relationship between them is generally well understood:
devānapiyena piyadasina lājina vīsativāsābhisitena atana āgāca

mahīyite hida budhe jāte sakyamunī ti silāvigaḍabhīcā kālāpita
silāthabhe ca usapāpite hida bhagavaṃ jāte ti luṃminigāme ubalike
kaṭe aṭhabhāgiye ca
King Piyadasi, Beloved of the Gods, came here in the twentieth year
following his consecration and paid reverence. Thinking, ‘Here the
Buddha was born—the muni of the Sakya [clan], I caused a stone
railing to be made and a pillar of stone to be erected’. Thinking, ‘Here
the Lord was born,’ I exempted the village of Luṃmini from imposts
and made it aṭhabhāgiya.30
The inscription begins by telling us that Aśoka visited the site of Lumbinī
in the twentieth year of his reign. The next two sentences state that he

paid respect at the site by causing a stone railing and a stone pillar to be
erected, as well as exempting the village from taxes.
Lumbinī’s importance arises from the fact that it was held to be the
birthplace of Siddhārtha Gautama. As Aśoka’s inscription shows us,
by the mid-3rd century bce, the site had become part of an emergent
sacred geography. Gregory Schopen demonstrates that Aśoka’s visit
to Lumbinī follows the pattern set at the site of Nigali Sagar, where he
worshipped at the stupa of the Buddha Konākamana. The Rummindei
and Nigali Sagar inscriptions of Aśoka use almost exactly the same
vocabulary to describe what he did: ‘King Priyadarśī … came in person
[and] worshipped [here]’.31 These two inscriptions, together with
Aśoka’s Barabar records, stand apart from the rest of his inscriptions
since they are not edicts.32
The donative aspect of the Rummindei inscription consists of two
parts—a donation and a waiver.33 The donation consisted of a stone
railing and a stone pillar, so it is with the waiver that we are now
concerned. The details of the waiver, as spelt out in the second part of
the donation, read: luṃminigāme ubalike kaṭe aṭhabhāgiye ca. Here, the
term ubalike is generally understood to be the equivalent of Sanskrit
udbalika or ‘exempt from bali’. The term aṭhabhāgiye, on the other hand,
remains contested.34
Initial attempts at interpretation, by scholars such as Auguste
Barth, Georg Bühler and Karl Neumann, took aṭha = Sanskrit artha
and translated aṭhabhāgiya as ‘partaking of riches’.35 Subsequently, the
consensus, following Hultzsch, was that aṭhabhāgiya is the equivalent of
Sanskrit aṣṭabhāgika and means ‘paying [only] an eighth share [of the
produce].’36 Harry Falk, however, advances an alternate interpretation of
the term. Drawing upon the work of R. Pischel and A. Venkatasubbiah,
he proposes to interpret aṭhabhāgiya as aṣṭabhāgya, which he translates
as ‘granting the eight rights’, and which Venkatasubbiah translated as
‘having or possessing eight things’.37
What are the ‘eight rights' or 'eight things’ that are being spoken
of here? Based on an analysis of a number of medieval inscriptions
published in Epigraphia Carnatica, Venkatasubbiah equated aṭhabhāgiya
with aṣṭabhoga-tejaḥsvāmya, an eight-fold pattern of customary rights
that accompanied grants of land. In inscriptions from medieval South
India, the grant of aṣṭabhoga-tejaḥsvāmya amounted to a renouncing
of customary rights to nidhi (discovered treasure), nikṣepa (unclaimed
collateral), jala (water), pāṣāna (stones), etc.38 As Venkatasubbiah
points out, since the usage of the term became formulaic over time, the
rights denoted by it vary across inscriptions and centuries.39 What is
clear, though, is that in each case it marks a renouncing of such rights.

Consequently, following Venkatasubbiah and Falk, the last lines of

the Rummindei inscription would be translated as follows: ‘Thinking,
“Here the Lord was born,” I exempted the village of Luṃmini from
imposts and granted [it] the eight rights’.40 Such an interpretation would
mean that what we are looking at in Lumbinī is the earliest instance of a
land-grant, and Venkatasubbiah suggests as much when he says:
It is my belief that … the rights denoted by the word aṣṭabhoga

[tejassvāmya] … were known and formed the subject matter of
grants even in Mauryan times. In any case, it cannot be disputed that
the meaning proposed above for aṭha-bhāgiye fits very satisfactorily
into context, and that it brings the Rummindei inscription into the
same class as the hundreds of inscriptions written in later times and
recording grants of the same character.41
In agrarian systems and epigraphic records, certain elements can be

seen continuing over very long periods of time. Thus, in these articles
discussing aṭhabhāgiya, it is pointed out that the term ubalika has a long
history, being ‘documented in land-transfers down to the 13th century’42
where it lived on as the ‘Kannada umbali, ummaḷi, umbaḷige, Tamil
umbaḷikkai, and Telugu umbaḷa, umbaḷi, umbaḷike’.43 The argument
seems to be that the demonstrated continuity of ubalika provides the
basis for substantiating the proposed continuity of aṭhabhāgiya.
Venkatasubbiah argues further that it is not necessary to have a
continuous pattern of attestation to prove the continuity of a term.
Rather, the term (and the phenomenon which it reflects) can continue
even if there is no such pattern. Falk accepts this argument and builds
upon it, even as he adduces additional evidence to show that the term
aṣṭabhoga-tejaḥsvāmya occurs in inscriptions from c. 800 ce onwards,
four centuries earlier than Venkatasubbiah’s first attestation of the
term.44 This leads him to state that ‘these eight rights are far older than
the finds would lead us to believe’ and allows him to argue that the term
is also found in the Aśoka’s Rummindei record.
The problem with this argument is that, even if we take the earliest
secure attestation of the term aṣṭabhoga-tejaḥsvāmya, it dates to
c. 800 ce. The Rummindei inscription of Aśoka, however, dates
to c. 249 bce. This makes for a gap of over a thousand years between
the two instances—a gap that is too large to make assertions of
continuity. This is not to argue that phenomena cannot continue for
a thousand years, but one needs to prove such continuity through
demonstrable patterns of recurrence. Such a pattern is visible in
the case of ubalika, but not so for aṭhabhāgiya, making the latter
connection forced and untenable.

At the heart of the matter is the issue of how to Sanskritise

aṭhabhāgiya, since all interpretations rest on an understanding of the
Sanskrit equivalent of the term. Given that the reading of aṭhabhāgiya
as aṣṭabhāgya or ‘granting the eight rights’ is difficult to accept on
historical grounds, it is worth returning to Hultzsch’s interpretation,
that aṭhabhāgiya is the equivalent of Sanskrit aṣṭabhāgika and means
‘paying only an eighth share of the produce’. If this interpretation is
commonly accepted, what could be the grounds for opposing it?
Falk argues that if aṭhabhāgiya is taken to mean that the villagers
only had to pay an eighth share of the produce, instead of a sixth, then
‘Aśoka is thereby made to appear ignominiously money-minded’, and
he wonders why this has not ‘disturbed anyone down to the recent
present’.45 But to speak of Aśoka as ‘money-minded’ is anachronistic,
for it forces our frameworks onto the worldview of the past, especially
in a situation where the transaction being outlined is not a monetary
one. Venkatasubbiah’s reasons for opposing this interpretation of
aṭhabhāgiya are based on the argument that, since the village was made
ubalika, it was ‘tax-free’; consequently, aṭhabhāgiye ca must refer to
something more than a fiscal exemption.46 This raises, quite correctly,
the question of the relationship between ubalika and aṭhabhāgiya, and
requires that we pay attention to what the terms mean.
Accordingly, the line in question from the Rummindei inscription
can be taken to read: ‘Thinking, “Here the Lord was born,” I made
the village of Luṃmini ubalika and aṭhabhāgiya.’ Here, I will draw on
Ulrich Pagel’s recent work on taxation47 to show that both these terms
refer to fiscal exemptions, even as their meanings changed over time.
The nature of these semantic shifts requires that we demonstrate what
these terms meant at each particular time.
Drawing upon both Buddhist and Brahmanical texts, Pagel
demonstrates that a wide range of fiscal tools were employed by early
Indian political regimes. These included śulka (customs duty), bali (a
local tribute), veśya (income tax), vaṇik (sales tax), kara (a special tax)
as well as bhāga (the king’s regular share).48 What this means is that
royal revenue collection was constituted by a range of exactions in cash
or kind. This, in turn, made possible a range of exemptions. So, while
ubalika is generally translated as ‘exempt from taxation’, it needs to be
understood as exemption from one particular tax, that is, bali. If this
is the case, there should be no difficulty in seeing aṭhabhāgiye ca as
referring to an additional exemption, that is, a reduction in the share
of bhāga.
Pagel’s work shows us further that while early medieval
dharmaśāstras use bali and bhāga synonymously,49 in the early
historic period, the two had separate identities. The terms occur side-

by-side in a text like the Arthaśāstra as well as an inscription such as

Rudradaman’s Junagadh praśasti.50 The evidence from Lumbinī fits in
with this overall pattern.
For the purposes of this essay, it is not necessary to establish the
precise nature of these exactions. Instead, it suffices to note that ubalika
and aṭhabhāgiya refer to two distinct exemptions, where ubalika refers
to an exemption from bali and aṭhabhāgiya refers to a reduction in the
king’s share (bhāga) to one-eighth of the produce. What we see here is a
fiscal exemption made by a ruler at a religious site. But does that mean
it is a land-grant?
If this were the case, the inscription at Lumbinī would be quite
exceptional, for it would be an instance of a land-grant made not to
a religious institution, monk or priest, but directly to the village
community residing near a sacred site. This is in complete contrast
to the pattern of such grants as we know them, something that
Venkatasubbiah also recognises.51 It follows that what we see here is a
fiscal exemption alone and not a land-grant.
The Rummindei inscription tells us that Aśoka reduced the tax
burden of the village of Lumbinī. In doing so, it shows us that fiscal
exemptions on the part of ancient Indian polities had a history that
predates the land-grant. But since, in this case, the granting of fiscal
exemptions was not accompanied by a gift of land to any donees, the
mere presence of such exemptions does not allow us to classify this
inscription as a land-grant.
The Alluru Pillar Inscription(s)
The third inscription I wish to discuss is a record from Andhra Pradesh,

detailing a set of gifts to renunciants belonging to the Puvvaseliya (Sanskrit:
Pūrvaśaila) order. Although reasonably well-known, this inscription has
a complicated history surrounding its publication and study.
In 1924, an inscribed stone was found at Alluru, having been
originally erected at this findspot. The inscription was published by Sham
Shastry in 1925, followed by K. Gopalachari, S. Sankaranarayanan and
K. Munirathnam among others.52 Sankaranarayanan’s edition, however,
confused this inscription with that engraved on another pillar kept at
the Vijayawada museum. The fact that the record existed in another
copy seems not to have been realised.53 To add to the complication,
sometime in the 1990s, the Alluru record resurfaced and was reported
as a new discovery from the site of Takkellapadu.
Fieldwork in 2016 by Stefan Baums, Arlo Griffiths, Ingo Strauch and
Vincent Tournier made clear that there exist two copies of the same
record: one of these is the original inscription found at Alluru, and the

second, a currently very abraded copy of the same, is located at the

museum in Vijaywada.54 The two records—part of the Early Inscriptions
of Āndhradeśa database—can now be read together. Accordingly,
Vincent Tournier provides the following text of the Alluru record,
incorporating the restorations to it now made possible by the reading of
the inscription at Vijayawada:
(1) ? [lasa]maḍavasac[et](iyacātusāla) (2) sarāmo vihāro

deyadhamaparicā(ko)+ + + + (3) nigalasimāya vetarakuḷona[g]
(āme rājada)- (4) tikheta sorasa pāpikalasimāya + + + + (5) [n]
ivatanāni rājadatini c[ā] raṭhe macha + + + + (6) paḍasimāya batisa
nivatanāni rā(jadatāni) (7) ? [ra]purasīmāya catuvisa nivatanān(i)
+ + (8) ḍalasa gāvina pacasatāni coyaṭhībaliva(ḍana-) (9) sakaḍāni
pesarupāni dāsidāsasa catāl(i)[sa] + (10) kubhikaḍāhasa catari
lohiyo be kaḍāhāni kaṁsa- (11) {sa}bhāyanāni catāri vadālābhikāro
karoḍiyo yo- (12) [na]kadivikāyo ca °ataragiriya picapāke taḷāka (13)
kāhāpanāna ca purānasahasa °akhayaniv(i) (14) °esa mahātalavarasa
deyadhamaparicāko (15) °atape °utarapase bāpana nivatanāni (16) °eta
sabhāriyasa saputakasa sanatukasa (17) °ayirāna puvaseliyāna nigāyasa
… a monastery together with a pavilion, with a shrine, with a

quadrangular compound, with a garden as the giving away as pious
gift … At the border to -nigala, by the village of Vetarakuloṇa, a
field given by the king, [measuring] sixteen [nivartanas]. And at the
border to Pāpikala, a fourth (?) nivartana given by the king. In the
district Machha-, at the border to -paḍa, thirty-two nivartanas, given
by the king. At the border to -rapura, twenty-four nivartanas.
Of … ḍala five hundred cows, four-poled bullock carts, as servants

twenty-four female and male slaves, four potters’ cauldrons, two iron
cauldrons, four brass vessels, a vadāla-fish-shaped cup and “Greek”
lamps, a tank behind the Antaragiri, and one thousand Purāṇa
Kāhāpanas as a permanent endowment. This is the Great Talavara’s
giving away as pious gift – in Atapa, at the northern side, fifty-two
(?) nivartanas. This [is the gift of the Great Talavara) together with
his wife, sons, and grand-sons. [It was presented] to the nikāya of the
noble Puvvaseliyas.55
While Tournier cautions that this is a provisional reading,56 the

reconstruction allows us to fill in some of the gaps that hitherto existed
in our understanding of the record.
The contents of the Alluru inscription have been discussed in relation
to a number of themes: the political history of the eastern Deccan; the

religious history of South Indian Buddhism; the economic history

of monastic communities and, finally, the involvement of this site in
trading networks linking the Deccan to the Graeco–Roman world.57
Despite this, it remains an enigmatic text that is still ‘not completely
understood’.58 In keeping with the concerns of this essay, I will consider
how the record relates to donative practises surrounding the gift of land.
The Alluru inscription, as we have it today, lacks a date, but has been
assigned on the basis of palaeography, to the 2nd century ce.59 The text
of the inscription, as reconstructed by Tournier, also makes it clear that
its purported link to the Mahāmeghavāhana/Ceti dynasty can no longer
be accepted. Thus, while Sankaranarayanan reconstructed the first two
lines of the record as:
…[ailasa] maḍavasa ce[ti][rājasa] sārāmo vihāro deyadhamaparicā…
This monastery with a garden [is] the gift of Maḍava, [the king] of the
Ceti family [and] of the Aila clan.60
we now know it reads:
? [lasa]maḍavasac[et](iyacātusāla) sarāmo vihāro

deyadhamaparicā(ko)+ + + +
… a monastery together with a pavilion, with a shrine, with a

quadrangular compound, with a garden as the giving away as pious
gift …
The record, as we now have it, consists of several long and short sentences
which detail a number of gifts to the monastery of the Puvvaseliyas. The
structure of the text, however, bears further examination.
The inscription is framed as a listing of gifts, first by a king and then
by a mahātalavara. Both of these figures are unnamed in the record (or
more likely, their names have been lost). The text begins by stating that a
monastery with a pavilion, shrine, quadrangular compound and garden
were the pious gift (of the monarch, we must presume). It then goes on
to record multiple gifts of land, three of which are explicitly identified
as royal gifts by the phrase rājadatini:
ll. 3–4: nigalasimāya vetarakuḷona[g] (āme rājada)-tikheta sorasa
At the border to -nigala, by the village of Vetarakuloṇa, a field given

by the king, [measuring] sixteen [nivartanas].

ll. 4–5: pāpikalasimāya + + + + [n]ivatanāni rājadatini c[ā]

At the border to Pāpikala, a fourth(?) nivartana given by the king.
ll. 5–6: raṭhe macha + + + + paḍasimāya batisa nivatanāni rā(jadatāni)

In the district Maccha-, at the border to -paḍa, thirty-two nivartanas,
given by the king.
ll. 7–8: ? [ra]purasīmāya catuvisa nivatanān(i) + +.

At the border to -rapura twenty-four nivartanas.61
These are followed by a long list of gifted items, which have so far
attracted the most attention in the study of this record. Following
Tournier’s translation, this list is made up of five hundred cows (gāvina
pacasatāni), four-poled bullock carts (coyaṭhībaliva[ḍana]sakaḍāni),
forty female and male slaves (dāsidāsasa catāl[i][sa]), four potter’s
cauldrons (kubhikaḍāhasa catari), two iron cauldrons (lohiyo be
kaḍāhani), four brass vessels (kaṁsa {sa}bhāyanāni catāri), a cup shaped
like a vadāla fish (vadālābhikāro karoḍiyo), lamps of Roman manufacture
(yo[na]kadivikāyo), a tank (taḷāka) and a permanent endowment of one
thousand coins called purāṇa kāhāpanas (kāhāpanāna ca purānasahasa
akhayanivi). The inscription ends by recording the gift of land by the
mahātalavara, together with his wife, sons and grandsons. The lines
recording his gift of land read:
ll.15: °atape °utarapase bāpana nivatanāni

… in Atapa, on the northern side, fifty-two nivartanas.
In a situation where we cannot tell either the names of the donors or

their dynastic affiliation, we are left to speculate on the relationship
between the donors and the division between their gifts. If the record
divides itself between the king and the mahātalavara, then is this an act
of joint gifting? Or is it the case that the donation made by the ruler was
also referenced by the mahātalavara in his record? If so, what does it say
about the nature of this political relationship? Finally, where the gifts of
land are concerned, was the king gifting these directly to the monastery
or did he relay them through the mahātalavara who then gifted them
to the monastery? The damaged nature of the inscription makes these
questions difficult to answer.
But when read in tandem with other inscriptions from the early
historic Deccan, the Alluru record is interesting because it indicates
patterns of agrarian and administrative arrangements that prevailed
across the region. To begin with, looking closely at the gifts of land,
we see that when all the individual plots are aggregated, the monastery

received a large amount of land. The gifts of land recorded in the first
part of the inscription (which appear to reflect a royal gift) total seventy-
two nivartanas at least. This is because the amount of land gifted in lines
4–5 is unclear. In the second part of the record, the land gifted by the
mahātalavara measures fifty-two nivartanas. This makes a total of 124
nivartanas, though it is likely that the original figure would have been
greater.
That land was measured in nivartanas is a detail we know from
other inscriptions of the early historic Deccan. Although we do not
know the precise area of land measured by the nivartana in this period,
since the measure varied across time and space,62 the specifications
given in the Alluru record compare well to other inscriptions such as
Gotamīputa Sātakaṇi’s grants at Nasik where he makes gifts of 200 and
100 nivartanas. However, while the Sātavāhana inscriptions specify the
area of land gifted in numbers and words, this procedure is not followed
in Alluru.
The Alluru inscription identifies the donated lands with reference to
their boundaries (simāya). These appear to be boundaries of localities,63
but precisely what or where -nigala, Pāpikala, -paḍa and -rapura are,
we cannot tell, given the damaged state of the record. Once again, the
term is reminiscent of a line in an inscription of Gotamīputa Sātakaṇi,
dated to his twenty-fourth regnal year, where he replaces his earlier
gift of the year eighteen with a new field of 100 nivartanas which is
identified as ‘… nagarasīme rājakaṃ khetaṃ (the royal field on this
town’s boundary)’.64 At Alluru, too, three fields are identified as royal
gifts, suggesting they came from land owned by the king. Similarly, the
gifted land in lines 5–6 is identified in terms of being in the Macha
district (raṭha). The identification of donated lands in terms of district
occurs in the Sātavāhana records at Nasik as well, though the term used
there is ahara.
At Alluru, the gifts of land occur alongside a range of other gifts.
These gifts are in the form of architectural constructions, human and
animal property, vessels and vehicles, as well as monetary wealth.
Handling these gifts would necessarily have required evolved forms of
administrative and bureaucratic organization. Consequently, we get
a glimpse of the Buddhist saṅgha as the owner of property of various
kinds, and the possession of such property also indicates an involvement
in economic activity. Keeping this in mind, the gifts of land at Alluru
need not be seen as separate from the other donations, but related to
them. Thus, the fields would most likely have been used to cultivate food
for the saṅgha, even if this is not explicitly stated in the record. The male
and female slaves, in turn, would have worked the field or performed
other labouring tasks within the monastery. The 500 cows were a

source of wealth in themselves, also providing milk, meat or labour; the

vessels could have been used to store the produce, and the carts used to
transport it. These are complex arrangements surrounding land, labour
and storage that we can only partially reach out to.
But even as the record suggests that the monastery of the Puvvaseliyas
owned and administered considerable property, there is nothing to
indicate that the gifts recorded in this inscription were accompanied by
the fiscal exemptions that I have identified as central to the land-grant.
Here, we have the presence of a donor and donee, but no exemptions.
This much is evident, even keeping in mind the damaged nature of the
record. Consequently, the Alluru inscription cannot be identified as a
land-grant, although it has been occasionally mentioned as such.65
Continuity and Change in the Evolution of the Land-Grant
These three inscriptions, composed in Prakrit and engraved in Brāhmī,

come from three different regions of the subcontinent. They also
belong to three different chronological segments of the early historic
period. Each inscription has its own intricacies and specificities and has
to be interpreted in relation to them; at the same time, in assembling
them together, my attempt has been to show how such a juxtaposition
raises important issues in defining the land-grant. Thus, each of these
records is marked by the gift of land, the articulation of royal authority
and the presence of the Buddhist saṅgha. But, according to the schema
I have outlined, only one of these inscriptions—the Nasik Inscription
of Gotamīputa Sātakaṇi—is a land-grant; the others are not.
The emergence of the land-grant is a process worth historicising
in the study of Indian epigraphy. In order to do so, however, we first
need to recognise that the practice of making such grants does not go
back to hoary antiquity. As Venkatasubbiah and Falk’s comments on
the Aśokan record at Lumbinī show, the presumption exists that land-
grants go back very early in Indian history. This language of continuity
can also be seen in an important recent essay by Timothy Lubin.
Using epigraphic and literary sources, Lubin makes the case for
a ‘South Asian Diplomatics’ by which he means ‘a distinctive set of
diplomatic norms disseminated through … much of South Asia (and
beyond)’.66 Drawing upon the pioneering work of scholars such as
Chhabra (but also Ingo Strauch, Bernhard Kölver, Hemraj Sakya, and
Axel Michaels), Lubin seeks to extend the framework of such studies by
mapping patterns across time and regional traditions. In particular, his
work focuses on the structural elements in documentary protocol. These
elements—whether documentary conventions, stereotyped idioms,

the ordering of textual elements or formulary protocol67—become

the basis of his argument for continuity.68 While I do not dispute the
distinctiveness of the diplomatic culture that Lubin charts, nor doubt
the need for long-term histories, the ambitiousness of his venture, in
some cases, amounts to seeing continuities where there are none.
To take a case in point, Lubin tells us that the South Asian diplomatic
culture can be traced back to the 3rd century bce with the help of the
Aśokan records.69 This is true, of course, but he then goes on to say
[Among the documentary conventions] first attested in Aśoka’s edicts

is the ‘perpetuity clause’, stereotyped idioms expressing the idea ‘of
long duration’ or ‘as long as the moon and sun’; usually inserted near
the end of the document, thus constituting an early prototype of
the ‘classical’ eschatol, which calls upon later kings to recognize or
enforce the order or deed, and include penalties and/or imprecations
directed at those who would violate its terms.
There are problems with this argument and its details. Thus, what
Lubin groups together under the ‘perpetuity clause’ are actually
different idioms and phrases such as cilatthitikyā (‘long-enduring’)
and puttāpappotike caṃdamasuliyike (as long as [my] sons and great-
grandsons [shall rule], as long as the sun and moon [shall endure]),
each of which have their own individual trajectories that develop
over time. They also differ from other phrases, such as akhayanivi
or nīvi-dharma, which are subsequently used to denote a ‘perpetual
gift’. These distinctions get lost when all such phrases are clubbed
together.
Secondly, even if these phrases connote something that is perpetual
or long-lasting, we need to examine the specific contexts of their usage.
Thus, Aśoka’s desire that his dhamma last as long as the sun and moon
(caṃdamasuliyike) surely had a different valence from Daśaratha’s
gift of caves to Ājīvika ascetics in the Barabar Hills which is described
as ācaṃdamaṣūliyam. There are explicit differences in messaging
and function that need to be considered, despite the use of similar
vocabulary and protocol. For the purpose of this essay, it also becomes
important to ask: at what point do such phrases come to be applied to
the gift of land? The point is significant because the early land-grants
that we have from the Sātavāhana domains do not have a ‘perpetuity
clause’ attached to them. Rather, they appear to be gifts that could be
rescinded at will as well as documents that were still being formed. So,
while there is indeed a ‘classical eschatol’ that develops with time, we
need to trace when and how it coheres rather than presume that it exists
from the very beginning.

Similarly, while it is useful to compare documents across time and

space, as Lubin does, it is equally necessary to map a pattern of attestation.
To take a case in point, in his discussion on ‘Early Post-Aśokan Prakrit
Documents’, Lubin cites several instances of early land-grants, grouping
together land-grants from the Sātavāhana, Pallava and Śālaṅkāyana
domains. While he recognises the continuance of formulary, he is not
able to establish a historical relationship between them. In contrast, the
evidence I have put together reveals that the records contain a chain of
documentary transactions which show the emergence of the land-grant
in the domains of the Sātavāhanas and their successors.70 This makes it
possible to conceive of the early history of the land-grant in a manner
different from how it has been understood so far.
While Lubin’s arguments frame the early historic land-grants in
terms of a narrative of continuity, other scholars have often understood
them as being marked by divergences. Here, for instance, are Harry
Falk’s comments on the Patagandigudem plates of the Ikṣvāku ruler
Ehavala Cāntamūla:
Compared to the grants of the succeeding Pallava and Śālaṅkāyana

dynasties a few decades later, we see here a form of donation where
some parts are still missing: the king does not concede detailed
privileges, he simply hands over two stretches of agricultural land
for the exclusive use of the local monks; he does not confer parts of
the merit he deserves to members of his family; also missing are
the punishments to be inflicted in any case of transgression of the
donation. As in all of the later copper-plate grants, the concluding
phrase deals with the revenge by the gods on those nullifying the
donation. The later grants use Sanskrit verses for this purpose, but
here we have nothing but Prakrit prose. In all official documents in
the century to come, Sanskrit would continually replace the Prakrit
of the earlier times. This Ikṣvāku copper-plate grant is thus absolutely
singular with regard to its editing dynasty, its age and its formal
simplicity, as well as its addressee and its (almost) exclusive use of
Prakrit. Some of its traits can be found, refined and expanded, in the
few later grants that are still in Prakrit but are all aimed at the welfare
of the Brahmin recipients: after the Ikṣvākus the most flourishing
period of the South-Indian Buddhists came to an end.71
These comments are clearly meant to emphasise the exceptional quality

of the Patagandigudem inscription, but they end up characterising it
as a series of lacks. The list of absent attributes (emphasised in italics
above), that Falk draws attention to, are in keeping with the template
established by scholars such as Chhabra and Sharma. But what such an

exercise serves to do is to define such an early land-grant essentially in

terms of its departure from the ‘classical form’.
The Patagandigudem plates of Ehavala Cāntamūla (ruled c. 270–94
ce)72 represent the first instance of a copper-plate land-grant charter,
since all other instances of early historic land-grants that predate it were
engraved on stone. The inscription records a donation to the monks of the
Avaraddāraseliya community that included the construction of a four-
hall compound and the gift of two fields totaling ninety-six nivartanas
of land. As I have shown elsewhere, while the Patagandigudem grant
may be distinctive in terms of the material used, in all other respects
it repeats the protocols and formulary of the Sātavāhana land-grant
records.73
But what of a situation where an inscription lacks such expected
formulary or where it diverges from the established norm? Does it follow
that an inscription whose details vary from the template established by
the Sātavāhanas is not a land-grant? Conversely, merely because an
inscription contains this formulary, does it automatically mean that it
is a land-grant?
To answer these questions, it might help to take one last example.
This is an inscription from the site of Karle, dated to the reign of the
Sātavāhana ruler Vāsiṭhiputa Puḷumāvi which records a grant of land by
his feudatory, the mahāraṭhi Vāsiṭhiputa Somadeva:74
sidhaṃ [|] raño vāsiṭhiputasa sāmisirip[uḷumāvi]sa savachare

satame 7 [gi]mhapakhe pachame 5 [d]ivase pathame 1 etāya puvāya
okhaḷakiyāna mahārathisa kosikiputasa mitadevasa putena [ma]
hārathinā vāsiṭhiputena somadevena gāmo dato valurakasaghasa
valurakalenāna sakarukaro sadeyameyo [|]75
Success! In the seventh—7th—regnal year of the king Vāsiṭhiputa

sāmi siri Pulumāvi, the fifth— 5th—fortnight of summer, the first—
1st—day; on that date, the Mahāraṭhi Vāsiṭhiputa Somadeva, the son
of the Mahārathi Kosikīputa Mitadeva, the Okhaḷakiya, donated a
village to the saṃgha at Valūraka, [dwelling] in the Valūraka caves,
along with both ordinary and extraordinary taxes, and with [revenue]
in cash and kind.76
Here is an inscription that clearly lacks the formulary of the Sātavāhana

land-grants, even though it comes from within their domains. However,
I have no hesitation in calling it a land-grant since it contains the four
features I have delineated as necessary to identify an inscription as a
grant of land, viz., it is a gift of land, marked by the presence of a donor,
a donee, and associated privileges or exemptions.

Conclusion
In this chapter, my attempt has been to outline a basic minimum set of

elements without which an inscription cannot be called a land-grant.
Where the four elements outlined are concerned, the presence of any one
of them is a necessary but not sufficient condition to term a particular
inscription as a grant of land. Thus, three of the five inscriptions discussed
in this paper—the Nasik inscription of Gotamīputa Sātakaṇi, the
Patagandigudem plates of Ehavala Cāntamūla and the Karle inscription
of Vāsiṭhiputa Somadeva—are land-grants since they contain these
four elements. In contrast, the Aśokan inscription at Lumbinī is not a
land-grant since there is no gift of land, although the donor and fiscal
remissions can be clearly identified. Similarly, at Alluru, there are several
gifts of land, two donors and a donee, but no associated exemptions.
For these reasons, the inscriptions from Lumbinī and Alluru cannot be
classified as land-grants.
My reasons for articulating such a framework arise from the
problems that have beset scholarship when it comes to understanding
early historic grants of land. Although the practice of making such
grants began in this period, epigraphists and historians have not paid
sufficient attention to them on account of their relative ‘simplicity’ in
comparison to the ‘classical’ early medieval forms. To that extent, then,
the argument of this paper has been that in order to understand what
is a land-grant, it is equally important to understand what is not a land-
grant.
Further, our understanding of the land-grant must necessarily
encompass both formalist and functionalist perspectives, insights from
both diplomatics and political economy. For this, we need to understand
not just what a land-grant is, but also what a land-grant does, by which
I mean the economic and political arrangements it makes possible. In
foregrounding the transaction at the heart of the land-grant—a gift of
land accompanied by associated remissions and exemptions, backed by
the power of the state—we return to the terrain first outlined by R.S.
Sharma in his classic Indian Feudalism (1965).77
Sharma’s arguments concerning the role of land-grants in framing
the early medieval order saw them as agents of the parcellisation of
sovereignty, where the granted land became the donee’s personal estate.
In the early medieval land-grants that he discusses, apart from fiscal
rights, a range of judicial, administrative and political rights were
also granted to the donees. This is clearly not the case where the early
historic grants were concerned.
Is it the case, then, that the early historic land-grant is different
from the early medieval land-grant? To answer the question would

require more detailed study, so as to understand the similarities and

differences between them, as well as how the transactions embedded in
these grants relate to the political and economic arrangements of both
periods. Further, while the argument made here applies only to early
historic records, it is likely that such framing exercises need to be tested
and worked out using inscriptions from other times and places.
This is necessary because the study of Indian epigraphy requires
a far more nuanced understanding of the emergence of inscriptional
genre and formula than we hitherto possess. As I have shown, much
of the existing scholarship either starts with the assumption of a
‘classical form’ and situates individual inscriptions in relation to their
conformity or divergence from this norm, or else, it frames arguments
for continuity that end up being teleological. Historicising the study of
epigraphic and documentary protocols requires that we recognise that,
even as there are continuities, there are also changes, and we need to
trace how elements combine and recombine, diverge and disappear, as
well as how parts fit into a larger whole. Such an approach may make
possible a better understanding of the Indian ‘epigraphic habit’ than we
have had so far.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Arlo Griffiths and Vincent Tournier for sharing the

results of their fieldwork and their edition of the Alluru inscription(s)
with me as well as critically commenting on the arguments of this
chapter. As always, Mekhola Gomes and Digvijay Kumar Singh helped
me think about the evidence as well as the implications of my arguments.
Notes
1 John Faithfull Fleet. 1909. ‘Epigraphy’, The Imperial Gazetteer of India,

Chapter 1 of vol. 2 (‘Historical’), Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 3.
2 Ibid., p. 27.
3 Ibid., p. 60.
4 Ibid.
5 Bahadur Chand Chhabra. 1961 [1951]. Diplomatic of Sanskrit Copper-
Plate Grants. New Delhi: National Archives of India.
6 Sourin Roy. 1961. ‘Preface’ to Chhabra, Diplomatic of Sanskrit Copper-
Plate Grants. New Delhi: National Archives of India, p. ii.
7 Chhabra, 1961 [1951], p. 23.
8 Ibid., pp. 5–6.
9 Ibid., pp. 4–5.

10 Ibid., pp. 6–7.

11 Ibid., pp. 6–7, slightly adapted.
12 See, for instance, Chhabra 1961 [1951], p. 13: ‘It may be added that these
items do not always occur in the order stated. Besides, the charters do
not necessarily have all the items. Since the circumstances in each grant
happened to be different, the recorded details must necessarily differ
widely.’
13 D.C. Sircar. 1965. Indian Epigraphy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, pp.
120–160; Albertine Gaur. 1975. Indian Charters on Copper Plates in the
Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books. London: The
British Library, pp. x–xii; R.S. Sharma. 1995 [1983]. ‘An Analysis of Land
Grants and their Value for Economic History’. In Perspectives in Social and
Economic History of Early India, edited by Sharma. New Delhi: Munshiram
Manoharlal, pp. 272–281; Hermann Kulke. 1997. ‘Some Observations on
the Political Functions of Copper-Plate Grants in Early Medieval India’. In
Recht, Staat und Verwaltung im klassischen Indien/The State, the Law, and
Administration in Classical India, edited by Bernhard Kölver. München:
R. Oldenbourg, pp. 237–243; Richard Salomon. 1998. Indian Epigraphy: A
Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit and the Other Indo–
Aryan Languages. New York: Oxford University Press.
14 Sharma, 1995 [1983], pp. 272–281.
15 See Salomon (1998), p. 115: ‘A copper-plate inscription of the more
ornate type would typically contain all or most of the following sections.’
Similarly, Gaur (1975) p. x: ‘Grants from different historical periods,
different geographical arenas and different rulers may show alterations or
omissions, but the pattern is usually the same.’
16 See Salomon (1998), p. 113: ‘Inscriptions on copper-plates recording land-
grants are exceedingly common almost everywhere in India, numbering
well into the thousands, and their study is an important subfield within
Indian epigraphy.’
17 See, for instance, the observations in Sharma 1995 [1983] and Kulke
(1997).
18 For a discussion on the emergence of the land-grant in the early historic
period, see Meera Visvanathan. 2020. ‘The First Land-Grants: The
Emergence of an Epigraphic Tradition in the Early Deccan’. In Social
Worlds of Premodern Transactions: Perspectives from Indian Epigraphy
and History, edited by Mekhola Gomes, Digvijay Kumar Singh and Meera
Visvanathan. Delhi: Primus Books, pp. 1–24.
19 Ranabir Chakravarti (personal communication, 27 January 2022).
20 Nasik Inscription of Gotamīputa Sātakaṇi, Year 18, ll. 1–3. Editions
consulted: Emile Senart, 1905–06, ‘The Inscriptions in the Caves at Nasik’,
Epigraphia Indica (8), Inscription no. 4, pp. 71–73; Vasudev Vishnu
Mirashi. 1981. The History and Inscriptions of the Sātavāhanas and the
Western Kshatrapas. Bombay: Maharashtra State Board for Literature and
Culture, Inscription no. 11, pp. 23–28; K.G. Krishnan (ed.). 1989. Uṭṭaṅkita
Sanskrit Vidyā Araṇya Epigraphs, Vol. 2: Prākṛit and Sanskrit Epigraphs

257 BC–320 AD. Mysore: Uṭṭaṅkita Vidyā Araṇya Trust, Inscription no.
119, pp. 258–260.
21 Translation follows from the discussion in Meera Visvanathan (2020), pp.
6–8.
22 Mirashi (1981), p. 25.
23 Shailendra Bhandare. 1999. ‘Historical Analysis of the Sātavāhana Era:
A Study of Coins’, unpublished PhD Thesis. University of Bombay, pp.
266–268.
24 Nāsik Inscription No. 1 of Uṣavadāta, ll. 4–5. Editions consulted: Senart
(1905–06), Inscription no. 10, pp. 78–81 and Mirashi (1981), Inscription
no. 43, pp. 107–113.
25 Karle Inscription of Uṣavadāta. Editions consulted: Emile Senart. 1902–
03. ‘The inscriptions in the caves at Karle’, Inscription no. 13, Epigraphia
Indica (7), pp. 57–61 and Mirashi (1981), Inscription no. 39, pp. 100–102.
26 Karle Inscription of Gotamīputa Sātakaṇi. Editions consulted: Senart
(1902–03), Inscription no. 19, pp. 64–71.
27 Timothy Lubin. 2018. ‘Towards a South Asian Diplomatics: Cosmopolitan
Norms and Regional Idioms in the Use of Documents’. In Studies in
Historical Documents from Nepal and India, edited by Simon Cubelic, Axel
Michaels and Astrid Zotter. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing,
pp. 47–48.
28 For a description of the archaeological context and textual material
surrounding this inscription, as well as references to prior scholarship,
see Harry Falk. 2006. Aśokan Sites and Artefacts: A Source-Book with
Bibliography (Monographien zur Indischen Archäologie, Kunst und
Philologie, Band 18). Mainz and Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, pp.
177–180.
29 See Eugen Hultzsch. 1925. Inscriptions of Asoka (Corpus Inscriptionum
Indicarum, Vol. I). Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 164–165; Salomon (1998),
p. 264; Falk (2006), p. 180.
30 Text from Harry Falk. 1998. ‘The Discovery of Lumbinī’, Lumbini:
Lumbini International Research Institute Occasional Papers 1, p. 15.
Translation follows Falk, p. 16, with a few alterations.
31 Rummindei (devānapiyena … attana āgācca mahīyite); Nigali Sagar
(devānaṃpiyena … attana āgacca mahīyite). Gregory Schopen. 1997
[1987]. ‘Burial Ad Sanctos and the Physical Presence of the Buddha in
Early Indian Buddhism: A Study in the Archaeology of Religions’. In
Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology,
Epigraphy and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India. Honolulu: University
of Hawai’i Press, p. 115.
32 Ibid., pp. 135–136, footnote 3.
33 Falk (1998), pp. 15–16.
34 For the different suggestions given by scholars for this term, see A.
Venkatasubbiah. 1931. ‘Aṭhabhāgiye’, Indian Antiquary (60), p. 168.
35 Cited by Hultzsch (1925), p. 165, footnote 3.
36 Hultzsch (1925), p. 165.

37 Venkatasubbiah (1931), p. 205: ‘It seems to me that this is the case

with aṭhabhāgiye (= aṣṭabhāgika) … and that the word is equivalent to
Sanskrit aṣṭabhāgi and means “having or possessing eight things”.’ Falk
has subsequently moved on to advance another interpretation of the term
aṭhabhāgiya as referring to a donation of one of the eight shares of the
Buddha’s relics. See Harry Falk. 2012. ‘The Fate of Aśoka’s Donations at
Lumbinī’. In Reimagining Aśoka: Memory and History, Patrick Olivelle,
Janice Leoshko and Himanshu Prabha Ray. New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, p. 207. However, my discussion remains based on Falk (1998), as the
arguments made there have not been sufficiently discussed or responded
to so far.
38 Falk (1998), p. 20.
39 Venkatasubbiah (1931), p. 206.
40 Translation from Falk (1998), p. 16, with some adaptations.
41 Venkatasubbiah (1931), p. 205. Similarly: ‘[T]he king’s making the
Lumbinī village tax-free means the grant by him of that village, that is,
of the revenues derived from that village, payable to the king’s treasury,
to the foremen thereof. Such grants of tax-free villages are recorded in
innumerable inscriptions of later times…’
42 Falk (1998), p. 18.
44 Falk (1998), p. 19.
45 Ibid., p. 18.
47 Ulrich Pagel. 2014. Buddhist Monks in Tax Disputes: Monastic Attitudes
towards Revenue Collection in Ancient India, [Buddhist Asia 3]. Naples:
Università degli Studi di Napoli ‘L’Orientale’ Centro di Studi sul
Buddhismo.
48 Ibid., p. 31.
49 Ibid., pp. 32–33.
50 Ibid., pp. 31–33.
51 Venkatasubbiah (1931), pp. 205–206: ‘The Rummindei inscription is,
however, peculiar in one respect: the donees of the grant recorded in it
happen to be the foremen of the village whose revenues form the subject
matter of the gift. This does not seem to have been the case with the
donees of the later inscriptions I have read, who were all either priests
(Brahmanas, Jaina or Lingayat gurus) or men of high position in life
(like daṇḍanāyakas etc.), that is, in all cases, persons who could not be
conceived as being farmers or cultivators of land, and who could not
therefore have had any interest in the lands of the villages granted. The
foremen of Lumbinī, on the other hand, already possessed ownership
and other similar rights in respect of the lands etc of the village, and it
was they who cultivated the lands and paid the revenues due to the king’s
treasury.’
52 See the references in Arlo Griffiths, Ingo Strauch and Vincent Tournier
(eds). ‘Pillar from Alluru’. In Early Inscriptions of Andhradesa, http://
hisoma.huma-num.fr/exist/apps/EIAD/index2.html, Inscription no. 200.

53 Vincent Tournier (email correspondence, 31 August 2020).

54 Ibid.
55 Text and translation based on the handout by Vincent Tournier, ‘Inscribed
Pillars from Alluru Guntupalli’, Lecture de Sources Relative a l’Histoire du
Bouddhisme en Āndhra, séminaires EPHE/PSL, 21/04/2020.
56 Vincent Tournier (email correspondence, 31 August 2020).
57 S. Sankaranarayanan. 1977. ‘A Brahmi Inscription from Alluru’, Sri
Venkateswara University Oriental Journal (20), pp. 82–83.
58 Oskar von Hinüber. 2012. ‘Review of Buddhism in the Krishna River Valley
of Andhra by Sree Padma and A.W. Barber’, Indo-Iranian Journal (55.1),
p. 89.
59 Sankaranarayanan (1977), p. 76. I continue to refer to it as the Alluru
inscription, given that this appears to have been the original site where the
record was erected.
60 Sankaranarayanan (1977), pp. 87–89, and comments on pp. 85–86.
61 Text and translation from Tournier (2020).
62 D.C. Sircar. 1966. Indian Epigraphical Glossary. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
p. 220.
63 Sankaranarayanan (1977), pp. 79–80.
64 Nasik Inscription of Gotamīputa Sātakaṇi, Year 24, ll. 8 and 9.
65 Harry Falk. 1999–2000. ‘The Pātagaṇḍigūḍem Copper-Plate Grant of the
Ikṣvāku King Ehavala Cāntamūla’, Silk Road Art and Archaeology (6),
p. 281: ‘The Allūru grant of an unknown donor … is a remarkable
exception. There, a monastery (vihara) with park (ārāma) and many
nivartanas of land are given, the latter all defined by “borders” (sīmā) of
named plots.’ Similarly, Himanshu Prabha Ray. 2008. ‘Providing for the
Buddha: Monastic Centres in Eastern India’, Arts Asiatiques (63), pp.
128–129: ‘The nature of donations now included lamps, bullock-carts,
servants…, brass cauldrons, tanks and money (e.g., Alluru grant).’
66 Lubin (2018), p. 72.
67 Ibid., pp. 37, 43, 71.
68 Ibid., p. 37: ‘Despite the twists and turns of history, and the extreme ethnic
and linguistic diversity of the subcontinent and its peripheries, this culture
… exhibits a demonstrable set of family resemblances that appear with
great continuity over many centuries.’ Similarly, see Lubin (2018), p. 72:
‘The ordering of certain structural elements of Indian documents did
vary by region, period and purpose, but a number of those documents, as
well as a good deal of phraseology, survived translation not just between
Prakrit and Sanskrit, but across whole language families (e.g., Tamil,
Javanese, Newari) and the supplanting of particular terms by synonyms
borrowed from other languages (and legal systems)’. Also, p. 71: ‘My aim
here was not to attempt a comprehensive survey of formulary protocol
in the South Asian cultural sphere but simply to demonstrate that such a
thing exists, that it was built up progressively out of quite ancient features,
and that some of the earliest attested features continued to be employed
in one form or another (even including calques in various languages…).
Certain elements of these can be found in use even in late-medieval times.’

69 Lubin (2018), pp. 40–44.

70 Visvanathan (2020).
71 Falk (1999–2000), p. 281, emphases in bold added.
72 Arlo Griffiths, Stefan Baums, Ingo Strauch and Vincent Tournier (eds).
‘Copper Plates from Patagandigudem Kallacheruvu), set I—reign of Siri
Ehavalacantamula’. In Early Inscriptions of Andhradesa, Available at: http://
hisoma. huma-num.fr/exist/apps/EIAD/index2.html, Inscription no. 55;
Harry Falk (1999–2000), pp. 275–283.
73 Visvanathan (2020), pp. 13–14.
74 Karle Inscription of Vāsiṭhiputa Somadeva. Editions consulted: Senart
(1902–03): Inscription no. 14, pp. 61–62; Mirashi (1981): Inscription no.
17, pp. 39–41.
75 Text from Mirashi (1981).
76 Translation from Mirashi (1981), with minor changes.
77 R.S. Sharma. 2006 [1965]. Indian Feudalism. Delhi: Macmillan.

10
THE STATE, VILLAGE COMMUNITIES

AND THE AGRARIAN ORDER IN EARLY
MEDIEVAL WESTERN DECCAN
Shyam Narayan Lal
The bulk of recent historical research on early medieval India

interrogates the nature of the state and agrarian society. However,
it is difficult to find any work which focuses on how the state, rural
settlements and society are interrelated. Our present understanding of
the relationship of the state and rural society is largely derived from
the generalisations on agrarian history1 or the administrative structure
of the state.2 Conventional historiography treats rural settlements and
societies as ‘little republic(s)’3 located outside the larger structure of
state, which were not influenced by, and did not in turn influence,
the wider political structure.4 Writings also portray rural settlement
and society as passive physical isolates or revenue-generating units
for the state which could transfer them at will. Though a departure
from the conventional perception of rural settlements and society is
noticeable in recent writings, especially those advocating the process
of ruralisation as one of the key characteristics of the early medieval
economic order, their position on how rural settlements and society
were located within the existing power structure is ambiguous.5 Thus,
the available generalisations are largely superficial, and do not help us
to understand how the state authority reached across to rural societies,
particularly at the time of the transfer of land and other resources
central to their lives.6
This chapter will understand how rural settlements and societies
were located in the existing state structure by examining the transfer of
agrarian settlements, along with their resources. It will do so by linking
pieces of evidence culled from the land charters issued by various
branches of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas, which sprang up in western Deccan between
the period of the 6th and the 9th century ce.7 Several components of the
land charters, particularly the nature of authority behind the grant, the
representatives of the apparatus of the state and the contexts in which
different members of rural communities figure in the transfer of agrarian
231

resources, will be examined. We will also look into the phraseology

used to communicate the transfer. These evidences, taken together with
other relevant components of land charter will bring out pointers which
may bear upon our understanding of the linkages between the apex
political organisation and the various components of rural society. To
locate elements of change and continuity in the structure and process
over time, the data has been arranged in chronological sequence.
C. ce 500 up to ce 600
From 6th century, we come across the land charters of two houses
of Rāṣṭrakūṭas, the Rāṣṭrakūṭas of Mānapura and the Rāṣṭrakūṭas
of Vidarbha. The Rāṣṭrakūṭas of Mānapura seems to have come into
existence about a century earlier than the the Rāṣṭrakūṭas of Vidarbha.8
Altekar, however, would like us to believe that both the houses had
contemporaneous existence in two different localities.9
The House of Mānapura
We have three donative inscriptions of this house which were issued

between ce 5th and 6th century.10 The grants recorded in these three
charters are related to the area falling under Poona–Satara district
(Bhima and the upper Krishna basin).11 The details of all the three
inscriptions have been arranged in a tabular form (Table 10.1).
The first property transfer document of this house12 is a set of two
copper plates13 which was issued sometime between the 5th and 6th
century ce. The charter refers to the reign of mahārāja Vibhurāja
and states that Śyāvalaṅgī Mahādevī, the queen consort of Rāṣṭrakūṭa
Devarāja and mother of Māṇarāja, made the donation of an agrahāra
and a dakṣiṇā of fifty bars (śalākā) of gold. The grant, we are further
told, was made with the consent of mahārāja Vibhurāja and was given
according to the rules of bhūmi cchidranyāya. The charter does not refer
to the involvement of any authority, other than mahārāja Vibhurāja,
in the entire process of land transfer. It also does not speak about the
centre of authority from which the charter was issued.
Another land charter of this house,14 which is datable to the period
of the 5th–6th centuries on the grounds of paleography, consists of three
plates and has a seal.15 It records the transfer of several settlements,16
rural ones of different types, which have been located in the Satara
district (the upper Krishna basin). The person who made the grant is
called Avidheya, and seems to have been controlling the area, though
the charter does not give us any clue about his actual authority status.

Table 10.1: Details of the House of Mānapura
Charters Date Ref. Donor Donor Title Object of Location Addressee
Donation
1 No. CXXI, ce 753 I.A., XI, Dantidurga maharājādhirāja grāma, Karhad taluka of sarvvaneva
Samangad Copper 108–115 parameśvara located in a Satara district rāṣṭrapati- viṣayapati,

Pls. Grant of paramabhaṭṭāraka bhukti called grāmakūṭam yathārha-
Dantidurga (PMP) Koppara five pratipatty=ājñāpayatyastu
hundred. vaḥ saṁviditaṁ’
2 Talegaon Copper ce 768 E.I., XIII, Krishna I PMP village that Within the radius sarvvaneva rāṣṭrapati-
Pls. of Kṛṣṇaraja I 275–282 was located in of about 15 kms. viṣayapati, - mahattara- adin
Pūnaka viṣaya from Pune samājñāpayatyastu vaḥ
viditaṁ’L. 23–24.
3 Alas Pl. of the ce 769 E.I.,VI, PMP Krishna Govindarāja, village, which Kolhapur sarvva-viditaṁ astu
Yuvaraja Govinda 208–213 I, Govindarāja samadhigata was located
II pañca-mahāśabda in Alaktakā
… Govindarāja viṣaya
Yuvarāja
4 Bhandak Pls. of ce 772 E.I., XIV, Krishna I PMP village, located Wardha tahshil rāṣṭrapati, viṣayapati, and
Kṛṣṇaraja-I 121–130 at the distance of Wardha bhogapati
of a gavyūti district
from called
Udumvara-
manti.
04/07/23 11:53 AM
Charters Date Ref. Donor Donor Title Object of Location Addressee
Donation
5 Pimpri Pls. of ce 775 E.I., X, P.M.P. a village, the Malegaon rāṣṭrapati, viṣayapati,
Dharavarsha 81–89 Dhruvarājadeva which was taluka of Nasik grāmakūṭa, ayukta-niyuktaka,
Dhruvaraja located in district. adhikārika mahattara adin

Vaṭanagarikā
eighty-four.
6 Sinnar pls. of ce 779 G.H. Khare, Durgahasti Aurangabad
Durgahasti pp. 167–171 of Sendraka (Paithan)
family
Subordinate
of Dhruva II
7 Dhulia Pls. of ce 779 E.I., VIII, Kakkarāja village which Nasik sarvvaneva rāja-
Karkarāja 182 pañca- was located in sāmananta-bhogika-
mahāśabda… the viṣaya of viṣayapati, raṣṭragrāma-
śrī- Karkarāja Nāsikka. mahattaras adhikārikan
samājñāpayatyastu vaḥ
viditaṁ’
8 Bhor state Museum ce 781 E.I., XXII, Dhruvarāja P.M.P. a village which modern village
Pls. of Dharavarsha 176–186 was part of Shirva in Pune
Dhruvaraja Śrīmāla viṣaya district
9 Jethwai Pls. ce 786 E.I., XXII, Śīla-mahādavī Paramaśvarī- village by her Nandor in the rāṣṭrapati, viṣayapati,,
of the queen 98–109 parama- which was Wardha tahshil grāmakūṭa, niyuktaka,
Silamahadevi bhaṭṭārikā situated in of the Wardha yuktaka adhikārika,
Nāndīpurad- district mahattara.
vārī viṣaya.
04/07/23 11:53 AM
10 Daulatabad Pl. ce 793 E.I., IX, Śaṅkargaṇa None (described as a grant Kolahapur?
of Rashatrakuta 193–198 rāja ( with the son of Nanna) apparently of
Sankargana consent of a village
Dhruva)
11 Paithan plates of ce 794 III, EI, III, Govinda III PMP grāma kuśalī sarvvaneva yathā-

Govinda p. 103 sambadhyamānakān
rāṣṭrapati- viṣayapati,
- grāmakuta-, āyukta-
niyuktaka, -adhikārika-
mahattara adin
samanudarśayatyatastu vaḥ
saṁviditaṁ’
04/07/23 11:53 AM
In the beginning of the charter, however, he has been described as the

son of Devarāja and grandson of Māṇānka, the ruler of the Kuntala
country17 (area around Satara). The charter states that it was written with
the consent of the king (rājānujñātena) by Devadatta, who was the lord
of Paṇḍara (Paṇḍarā drīśena).18 The charter does not speak of the transfer
of any rights and privileges in the context of the donated property.
Apart from references to the authority behind the donation and the
lord of Paṇḍara (Paṇḍarā drīśena), the charter also refers to rājās and
bhogaka (translated by mistake as bhogapati), ‘whether of his family or
others’19 who are informed of the donation and are also requested not
to destroy the gift.
The term bhogika has been explained by some as the head or officer
in charge of a territorial unit called bhoga, or the collector of the state
share of the produce of land taken in kind.20 However, given the context
and the manner in which the term occurs, this meaning of the bhogika
does not hold good. There is no indication anywhere in the charter
under consideration that the donated settlements formed part of any
bhoga and, therefore, it is difficult to assume that bhogapati in this case
represented the head of administrative unit called bhoga. Further, had
he really been part of administrative structure he would not have been
requested by the authority behind the grant not to destroy it. In all
likelihood, it represented a class of landed gentry who enjoyed rent-free
land for their services.
The use of the term rājās possibly indicates the subordinates of the
donor. Neither of them was part of the state apparatus, but were still
too powerful in the given agrarian setup to be ignored by the authority
behind the donation and, therefore, their involvement was deemed
necessary for the grant to be effective. (Dr Krishna has, however,
translated this passage as ‘the noblemen with their followers, the other
kings and officers’.)21
The third charter of this house, which has been assigned the date of
the 7th century on the grounds of paleography22 also consists of three
plates and carries a seal, which is similar to the earlier one (resembling
a siṁha). The charter records donations in the district of Satara. It does
not refer to any title with the name of the donor, who has been called
Abhimanyu, and it is difficult to determine his authority status. The
donor is stated to have been residing in Mānapura,23 a centre of authority
of the house of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas. Considering the way Mānapura has
been referred to in the charter, the charter might have been issued from
there. The property which was transferred by the donor consisted of
a small village called Uṇḍikavāṭikā grāma24 and the recipient was the
temple of Dakṣiṇa-Śiva belonging to Pēṭha-Paṅgaraka (no rights and
privileges).

The State, Village Communities and the Agrarian Order 237
Like the earlier charter, this charter also does not refer to the
involvement of any state functionary despite the fact that it emanated
from the principal seat of power and the donated property was also not
far away from it. There is just a witness named Jayasiṁha, who has been
described as the commander of the fort of Harivatsakoṭṭa, and does not
seem to have been a regular state functionary.25
Apart from the house of Mānapura, we have one charter falling
within the period of the 6th century which belongs and the Rāṣṭrakūṭas
of Vidarbha,26 who flourished in the area corresponding to the Wardha–
Wainganga basin region between the 6th and 8th centuries. The charter
known as the Nagardhan plates of Svāmirāja is datable to ce 573.27 It
is purported to have been issued from a place called Nāndīvardhana.
It consists of three copper plates.28 It refers to the reign of Svāmirāja
in the beginning and projects his younger brother Nannarāja as the
donor. However, it also carries a seal, the lower part of which has a
legend which reads as ‘gaṇa-dattiḥ’, suggesting that the real donor
was a corporation (gaṇa). The charter records two donations.29 The
first one, consisting of twelve nivartanas, was made by Nannarāja at
the request of the president (sthavra) and members of the executive
committee (pramūkhas) of the assembly (samūha) of the corporation
gaṇamahāmātragaṇa.30 The charter also mentions the executive
committee of the samūha which consisted of the following:
1. Kaliṅga, the president (sthāvira) of the mahā-mātragaṇa,

2. Keṭabha, Roladeva Pradīpabhaṭa, two Śivadevabhaṭas, Māṭṛsvāmin,
Guṇadeva, Kōṅkabhaṭa, Asaṅgata,
3. The physician of elephant (hasti-vaidya) named Sāmasvāmin,
4. The chief of the elephant corps (pīlu-pati) named Māllāyika and
Prabhākara.
The second grant which consisted of a grāma was made by Nannarāja

on his own account.
As far as the list of addressees to the grant is concerned, it is entirely
different from the charters obtainable in the charters of the house of
Mānapura. Even the mode of address is different. The passage relating
to the address states that Nannarāja, the donor, honours all (his
officers) and then goes on to address the grant to rājasthānīya, uparika,
dāṇḍapāśika, cāṭa, bhaṭa, dūta-sampreṣaṇika and drāṅgika. The list
seems not to have been exhaustive as it ends with the term adin. The list
clearly indicates the involvement of the state in the process of transfer,
as all those who figure in the list are state officials.31
However, apart from the list of state functionaries which occurs for
the first time, two more points needs to be noted. The first is the reference

to ‘the future viṣayapati and bhogapati (ch-āgāmi-viṣaya-bhogapati)’. It

is pertinent to note that the reference to viṣayapati and bhogapati do not
occur in the context of the list of the state functionaries, and are referred
to at the end of the charter. Further, neither of the properties has been
stated to be part of any bhoga or viṣaya. It is also important to note that
the authority behind the grant is not addressing them the way it does
state functionaries; rather, they are being requested to consent to and
preserve the grant. These points indicate them not being part of regular
state functionaries, as has generally been understood. Whatever may
be their status, they seem not to have been part of the state apparatus
and yet they seem to have been important enough in the given agrarian
setup to be acknowledged in the process of the transfer.
Another point relates to the engraver of the charter. Usually, the
charter refers to its writer at the end but here there is the name of the
engraver who has been described as Kṣatriya Durgāditya. The fact that
his name and caste were found important enough to be referred to,
but not his official status, makes it highly unlikely that he was a state
functionary. The details of the gaṇa, their names and designations
indicate their involvement in the process of transfer.
C. ce 601 up to ce 700
During this period, we no longer hear of the Mānapura branch of

Rāṣṭrakūṭas. The house of Vidarbha, however, continues to exist in the
same locality. A brief description of their charters has been arranged in
a tabular form (Table 10.2).
We have three charters of the house of Vidarbha from the period
under discussion. The earliest charter in this group seems to have
been issued sometime after the close of the 7th or the beginning of the
8th century.32 It consists of three plates and carries a seal with a legend
which reads as śrī-Pratāpaśīlasya. On the top of the legend is a symbol
which is probably a nandipada. The charter records Svāmirāja as the
donor. He is stated to have made the donation of a grāma, whose
boundaries have also been specified.33 The grant, we are told, was
made with the consent of Pratāpaśila Karkkarāja. Though the grant
was made when the donor was encamped at a place called Piṅgalikā-
taṭāka, we have no way to ascertain that this was also the place of the
issue of the charter. The charter does not offer any list of addressees,
but mentions two witnesses in whose presence the grant was made.34
They are sandhivigraha35 and a purohita. Of these, sandhivigraha
represented the minister of peace and war who was also often the
writer of important documents.36 However, purohita is generally taken

Table 10.2: A Brief Description of Charter
Charters Date Donor Object of Donation Addressee
1 No. CXXI, ce 753 Dantidurga, PMP grāma included in a bhukti Sarvvaneva rashtrapati- viṣayapati,
Samangad Copper grāmakutam yatharha-
Pls. Grant of pratipatty=ajnapayatyastu vah samviditam’

Dantidurga
2 Talegaon Copper ce 768 Krishna, PMP grāma Sarvvaneva rashtrapati- viṣayapati, -
Pls. of Kṛṣṇaraja I mahattar- adin samajnapayatyastu vah
viditam’ L. 23–24.
3 Alas Pl. of the ce 769 Samadhigata village, which formed part of sarvva-viditam astu
Yuvaraja Govinda II pañca-mahāśabda a viṣaya
… Govindarāja
Yuvarāja
4 Bhandak Pls. of ce 772 Krishna I, PMP hundred nivartanasin a rāṣṭrapati, viṣayapati, and bhogapati
Kṛṣṇaraja-I grāma
5 Pimpri Pls. of ce 775 P.M.P. a village rāṣṭrapati, viṣayapati, grāmakūṭa, ayukta-
Dharavarsha Dhruvarājadêva niyuktak, ādhikārika mahattara ādin
Dhruvaraja
6 Sinnar plates ce 779 Durgahasti of
Durgahasti Sendraka family
Subordinate of
Dhruva II
04/07/23 11:53 AM
Charters Date Donor Object of Donation Addressee
7 Dhulia Pls. of ce 779 Kakkarāja Pañca- grāma sarvvaneva raja-samananta-bhogika-
Karkarāja mahāśabda… śrī- viṣayapati, rashtragrāma- mahattaras
Karkarāja adhikarikan samajnapayatyastu vah
viditam’

8 Bhor state Museum ce 781 Dhruvarāja, PMP
Pls. of Dharavarsha
Dhruvaraja
9 Jethwai Pls. of the ce 786 Paramêśvarī- grāma rāṣṭrapati, viṣayapati,, grāmakūṭa,
queen Silamahadevi parama-bhaṭṭārikā niyuktaka, yuktaka ādhikārika, mahattara.
Śīila-mahādêvī
10 Daulatabad Pl. ce 793 Sankargana rāja

of Rashatrakuta (with the consent
Sankargana of Dhruva)
Paithan plates of ce 794 Govinda III grāma Kushali sarvvaneva yatha-
Govinda III, EI, III, sambadhyamanakan rashtrapati- viṣayapati,
p. 103 - grāmakut-, ayukta-niyuktak, -adhikarika-
mahattaras adin samanudarsayatyaatu Vah
samviditam’
04/07/23 11:53 AM
to mean a family priest or the royal priest, often mentioned among the
list of state functionaries.37 However, in this charter, we do not have
any supportive evidence to assume that the purohita was part of the
state functionary. Thus, apart from sandhivigraha, we are not sure of
the involvement of any other representative of state authority in the
process of village transfer.
Another charter issued in ce 63138 records the transfer of pieces
of lands by different authorities at two different occasions. At least in
one case, the place of making the grant and the place from which the
charter was issued were not the same. While the grant seems to have
been made at the Kapilā-tīrtha, the charter was issued from a place
called Achalapura, which has been referred to right at the beginning
of the charter.39 We are told that the first donor was Nannarāja,
who had attained the five great sounds.40 He made a donation of
fifty nivartanas of land, not directly but through the hands of the
illustrious Śankargaṇa. No information is given as to who this
Śankargaṇa was. The second grant, which consisted of fifty nivartanas
of land, seemed to have been made jointly by the same set of donors.
The third grant, which consisted of ten nivartanas of land, was made
jointly by Gōvinda, who has been described as dharmakaśa, and
Narasiṁha who has been described as mahāsandhivigrahin. It has
been suggested that the term dharmakaśa should be read as either
dharmakaśa or dharmāṅkuśa41 which possibly meant ‘in-charge of
religious affairs’.42 The term mahāsandhivigrahin has generally been
used to represent the office of the minister for peace and war or of
foreign affairs.43
Apart from referring to the status of the authorities of the donors,
the charter does not speak of the involvement of other authority, even
though it was issued from a place which appears to have been the centre
of authority.
The next charter, datable to ce 693,44 comprises a set of three plates
and carries a seal containing the legend śrī-yuddhāsuraḥ and an emblem
which looks like a flying garuḍa. It was issued by Rāṣṭrakūṭa Nannarāja
who has been referred to without any title. The purpose of the charter is
to record lands (kṣetra) gifted by him, which were part of two different
grāmas. The charter is stated to have been issued from a place called
Padmanagara and the way it figures in the charter gives the impression
of its being a centre of authority.
The charter offers a list of addressees45 to the grant, which consists
of: rāja-sāmanta viṣayapati, grāma-bhogika, purillaka, cāṭa-bhaṭa and
sevaka ādin.
The last three, purillaka, cāṭa-bhaṭa and sevaka ādin,46 were
decidedly part of the state administrative apparatus. However, the

references to the first three who possibly cannot be treated the same
as the last three.
(i) rāja-sāmanta: this has been taken to mean a feudatory sāmanta

enjoying the designation of rājan, whose basis of power was land
that he controlled.47 Now the question is: can we take him to be a
state functionary? In the absence of any decisive evidence, it may
not be wrong to suggest that possibly rāja-sāmanta represented a
class of local landed magnets and they were influential enough to
find a place in the list of addressees.
(ii) viṣayapati: This term also occurs in the first charter of the house, that
is, the Nagardhan plates of Svāmirājadatable to ce 573. However,
it occurs differently in this context. While in the Nagardhan plates,
it has been referred to separately and the viṣayapati was requested
to consent and preserve the grant, no such request is made here
in this charter and the term occurs in the list consisting of state
officials. However, given that there is no reference of viṣaya in any
context in the charter, it is difficult to believe that he really was part
of the state administration. It can also have different implications,
which we shall take up at the end.
(iii) grāma-bhogika: This designation represents the person who
enjoyed a village as a free holding48 and thus represented the
dominant landed class of the locality.
Thus, other non-state agents representing dominant land holding

classes were also present in the process of transfer.
Another charter of the same house was issued only in the next
century, sometime around c. ce 708.49 It also consists of three plates
and the ring carries a seal which consists of a figure of Garuḍa
with a legend śrī-Yuddhāsuraḥ. The donor in this case is named as
Nandarāja who seemed to be the same person who has been referred
to in the earlier charters.50 The object of donation was a grāma whose
boundaries have also been specified in the charter. However, like
the charter discussed above, in this case, too, we are provided with
a list of addressees with rāja-sāmantas, viṣayapatis, grāmabhojakas,
and others (ādin).51 It is significant that while references to all non-
state functionaries of the Sangalooda charter figure in this charter
as well, the state functionaries in this charter have been reduced
to the categories of (ādin). The only clear reference to the state
functionary, apart from the authority behind the grant that occurs in
the charter is the writer of the inscription, who has been described as
a sandhivigrahika called Nāula.

ce 700 up to ce 800
This period is significant in terms of the changing political configuration

in the area of western Deccan. To begin with, like the house of Mānapura,
the house of Vidarbha also disappears. There is evidence of the existence
of two new branches of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas in two different localities. The
one represented by the House of Kakka enjoyed subordinate status and
controlled the area around the Surat–Ahmedabad region. The other is
the Rāṣṭrakūṭas of Malkhed, which also started its career as a subordinate
local power and transformed itself into a trans-local imperial power by
the beginning of the second half of the century.
The House of Kaka
The first charter of this house is datable to ce 75752 and relates to the
western Tapi basin district in terms of the locale of the donation,
which consisted of a grāma. The donor has been described as
samadhigatapañcamahāśabda-paramabhaṭṭāraka-mahārājādhirāja
-parameśvara śri-kakka –raja. The charter carries a list of addressees
that included mahāsāmanta, senāpati, balādhikṛta, coroddharaṇika,
bhogika, rājasthānīya, etc. The charter also mentions Ādityavarmā as
the rāj-dūtaka,53 and Śri-Bhōdalla as the writer, also described as a son
of Śri-Tatta, who held the position of balādhikṛta.54
In this charter, the representatives of states are overwhelmingly
present. However, two of them, mahāsāmanta and bhogika, may be
counted out as state functionaries. The object being donated in the
second charter is from the region of Sabarmati basin and is datable to
ce 788.55 The charter speaks of the donations of two pieces of land by
mahāsāmanta and viṣay-ādhipati of Harṣapura-mahābhisthāna. He
was apparently a subordinate of Kakka, who has now been described as
mahāsāmantādhipati paramarājādhirāja parameśavara.
The boundary specifications of the pieces of land are also
noteworthy. The boundaries of the first plot of marshy land which
was located on the south of the entrance of Hilol grāma were: to the
east land belonging to a deity, to the south the land containing the
orchard belonging to Brāhmaṇa Bhāulla, to the west, the tank, to
the north localities called Karīra, Ruṣṭī and Koṭuṁbaka. The second
plot is surrounded by the kṣetras, belonging to Brāhmaṇas who are:
the neighbour Īśvara of Madahara, the Brāhmaṇa bhaṭṭa Prathila,
Dhāmika of Madahara. They all belonged to the same locality. A list
of neighbours who belonged to different localities follows: bhaṭṭa
Īśvara who is inhabitant of Sīharkhibhijya and Brāhmaṇa neighbour
Saṁbaśarman.

The charter does not give a list of addressees. It, however, speaks of
the handing over charter to the recipient donor in the presence of three
categories of people:
1. A group of officials stationed at Harṣapura,

2. A group of officials whose name and designation have also been
mentioned. In this category, we have Brāhmaṇa mahābalādhikṛta
bhaṭṭa Iśvara of Kaisattaka, adhayakṣa Vāsudeva and mahāpratihāra
bhaṭṭa Arammata,
3. The charter further states that apart from these officials and
individuals, the officials of śri Candrāditya, who made the donation,
were also present.
Thus, we have references to the involvement of officials belonging to

three different structures, except Bhāulla who seemed to belong to a place
called Vālekhabha. The charter gives the impression of the substantial
involvement of various officials of the apex political structure and also
of the locality where the transfer is taking place. However, despite this
overwhelming presence of state officials of different kinds, the process
of transfer also drew individuals of various kinds who are mentioned as
witnesses to the gift:
1. Brāhmaṇa Aggaka,
2. Brāhmaṇa Varīśa,
3. Bhaṭṭa Llella, an inhabitant of the village Khallāpalli,
4. Kōṭaka,
5. the Brāhmaṇa bhaṭṭa Datta, an inhabitant of the village Kūsuṁba,
6. Brāhmaṇa Senabhaṭṭa,
7. Brāhmaṇa Tūśēka and
8. Siddhuyaka.
It may be noted that none of the witnesses were drawn from the either
of the donated villages, and came from different settlement areas.
Considering the number of officials mentioned in the charters, one
may get the impression of a well-structured governmental setup to look
after the process of resource transfer. However, the point that should be
noted is that despite having such a large number of state functionaries,
the strong presence of the representatives of rural community in the
process of land transfer is also visible.
Harṣapura-mahābhisthāna seems to have been one of the centres of
authority of this house, although local in nature.

The Rāṣṭrakūṭas of Malkhed
As stated earlier, the house of Malkhed also appears during this period
under Dantidurga, who enjoyed subordinate status in the area around
Nasik, Aurangabad and Thane. However, by the end of the first half
of the period, the house managed to transform themselves as a trans-
local/imperial power. We also notice a sudden frequency in the issuance
of charters by the ruler of this house and the geographical distribution
of their donatives inscriptions indicates that the territorial segments
controlled earlier by different branches of the Raṣṭrakūṭas now became
part of their territory. The territorial expansion of their authority and
their transformation into the status of sovereign authority seem to have
an important bearing on the structure and the process of the transfer of
agrarian resources as well.
The first two charters of this house were issued by Dantidurga, when
he enjoyed subordinate authority towards the end of the first half of the
8th century. The first charter,56 which relates to the Nasik area (region of
the Upper Godavari basin) in terms of the location of the object of the
donation, consists of two plates, the ring of which carries a seal depicting a
winged figure, possibly Garuḍa.57 The charter is datable to c. ce 742 and the
donor Dantidurga has been described as samadhigata-paṁca-mahāśabda
mahāsāmantādhipati. The donation consisted of a village, which was part
of the Navasārikā eighty-four groups of villages. The grant was issued from,
and probably recorded at Badarikā-vāsaka, though it was originally made
at Elāpura by the donor after bathing in Guhēśvara tīrtha. The charter offers
us a list of the addressees to the grant which runs as rāja-sāmanta- bhogika-
viṣayapati-rāṣṭrakūṭa-mahattara-adhikāri ādin.
Out of the list, the first three, that is, rāja-sāmanta-bhogika and
-viṣayapati have already discussed in the context of Vidarbha branch of
the Rāṣṭrakūṭas who seemed not to have been part of the state officials.
The next three, rāṣṭrakūṭa-mahattara-adhikāri ādin, figure for
the first time. Out of these, while Rāṣṭrakūṭa and adhikārin were
undoubtedly part of state apparatus,58 mahattara, as has been pointed
out, may be counted out of the category of state officials as it has been
shown by B.D. Chattopadhyaya that it represented a member of the
village community rather than state administration.
Apart from the list of addressees, the charter also gives the name of
the writer who did not seem to have functioned as a state functionary
as no designation has been attached to his name.
Another charter of the period of Dantidurga,59 consisting of two
plates, is dated Śaka 613 (c. ce 749–750). It refers to Dantidurga as
having won the right to have pañca-mahāśabda. It also mentions
his subordinate Aniruddha, who was holding Śrīpura viṣaya as his

prabhujyamāna and the donated property was also located in it. Though
the record refers to two differential authorities, Dantidurga and one of
his subordinates, the donation was not made by either of them. It was
instead the māhajanas (corporation) of the city of Śrīpura who have
been recorded as the donor. It is stated that certain representatives of
the mahājanas (Corporation) of the Traividyas of the place, Boḍavarma
bhogika, Durga bhogika, Devamma bhogika, Goviyasaṅga bhogika and
Goviya made the donation.60
The object of the grant was a grāma and the recipient was the temple
of Bādeśvara that was constructed by Bādadi bhogika. Unlike the first
charter, the present one does not give any list of addressees; it nonetheless
speaks of certain persons who were witness to the grant. The list of
witnesses included a person whose name also ends with bhogika.
The other noteworthy feature of the charter is that it refers to Devaka
tribhogika as the scribe and goldsmith Caṇḍahari as the engraver of the
plate.
It is striking that despite the reference to two important authorities
such as Dantidurga as ruling power and his subordinate Aniruddha,
the involvement of the representative of state authority seems to have
been minimal in the entire process of village transfer. It is even more
intriguing when we are told that the donated village was included in
Śrīpura viṣaya which has also been described as the prabhujyamāna
of Aniruddha. In fact, all through the process of the grant, it is the
members of the community of bhogika who seemed to have been
involved at every level of the process of the transfer of resources.
Apart from these two, we have about twelve land charters of this
house which were issued within the span of the second half of the 8th
century by the members of this house, who claimed imperial status. The
first imperial charter of the house was issued by Dantidurga61 himself
in ce 753. The donor Dantidurga now claims the title of P.M.P., and in
this capacity he made the grant consisting of a grāma which was part
of a bhukti. The charter also carries the list of officials who issued these
commands.62 The list consisted of rāṣṭrapati, viṣayapati, and grāmakūṭa
only.63 The charter also gives the name of the writer who wrote this
charter at the command (ājñayā) of Śrī Dantivarma whose authority
status has not been made clear.
The next three charters were issued during the reign of Krishna I. The
first one is datable to ce 768.64 It records the transfer of a village during
the reign of Krishna I, who has been referred to as ‘pṛthivivallabha
mahārājādhirāja parameśvara paramabhaṭṭāraka’. A noteworthy
feature of the charter is the that, though the grant involving a village
is purported to have been issued at the request of Govindarāja, who
was probably the son of the sovereign ruler Kṛṣṇarāja, we also have

the names of two other persons who have been described as making
requests (vijñapanayā) for the grant. The donated village was part of
Pūnaka viṣaya. The charter also offers us a list of addressees which is
rather short. It consisted of rāṣṭrapati, viṣayapati, and mahattar-ādin
only.65 The writer of the charter is stated to be a person called Ingra. The
second charter66 refers to Krishna I as the sovereign authority, though
the donor is stated to be Govindarāja II, who has been described as
yuvarāja having the title of samadhigata pañca-mahāśabda. The charter
is stated to have been issued by Govindarāja from his camp (vijaya-
skandhāvāra) located near the confluence of the Kṛṣṇaveṇā and the
Musi. The donation consisted of a village, which was located in Alaktakā
viṣaya. Apart from the sovereign and subordinate authority behind
the issuance of the charter, there is no other involvement. It, however,
announces the transfer to all (sarvva-viditaṁ astu)67 without specifying
the people included. The charter ends with the name of the writer
Śrīsena. The third charter issued in c. ce 77268 records a donation by
him of some land in a grāma consisting of hundred nivartanas. Only the
rāṣṭrapati, viṣayapati and bhogapati were informed about the donation.
We are also told about the writer of the plate, named Vāmana-nāga. He
seemed not to be a regular part of the administrative set up.
Till this period, the list is short. Now the rāṣṭrapati and viṣayapati
appear regularly with the variation of bhogapati and mahattara
representing village notables. However, there is a change in how
viṣayapati and visaya are referred to. In the following ten charters, all
issued by the imperial authority, the situation is entirely different.
Of these ten charters, the first set records the transfer of a village
which was located in the Vaṭanagarikā group of eighty-four villages,
issued by P.M.P. Dhruvarājadeva in c. ce 775.69 A vijaya-skandhāvāra
located near a place called Śaṅkhavivarāka has been mentioned as the
place of the issue of the grant.
The list of the addressees in the present case runs as rāṣṭrapati,
viṣayapati, grāmakūṭa, ayukta,niyuktaka, adhikārika mahattara ādin
(L.37–38). Apart from these, we also have the dūtaka of the grant
who has been described as bhaṭṭa- Herambaka and its writer was a
mahāsandhivigrahadhikṛta.
The next charter issued in ce 786 also refers to PMP Dhārāvarṣa70
but the donor was his wife Śila-mahādevī who has been described as
‘parameśvarī parama-bhaṭṭārikā’ and the great queen of PMP Dhārāvarṣa.
The object of donation was a grāma which was part of Nāndīpuradvārī
viṣaya. Those who were communicated the transfer of the village included
the following: rāṣṭrapati, viṣayapati, grāmakūṭa, niyuktaka, yuktaka
adhikārika, mahattara. Apart from these, there seems to have been others
as well as the list ends with ādin, meaning ‘etc.’

The dūtaka of this order was a person called Somayāji, who has
not been given any official designation. However, the writer of the
plate has been described as mahāsandhivigrahin. If we compare the
list of addressees as given in these two charters of the 8th century, we
find the occurrence of certain new designations in the second charter
such as:
1. grāmakūṭa: The term has been used to denote the headman of a

village or probably a member of the village council.71
2. niyuktaka: This is commonly held to be a designation of an official
who is subordinate to āyuktaka.72
3. yuktaka: It has been suggested that it refers to an officer in general.
Its varied forms, such as āyuktaka, āyukta figure in the charters of
other periods.73
4. adhikārika: It is generally taken to represent an officer and is the
same as adhikārin which occurs in the charters of pre-ce 750.
5. mahattara: The term occurs earlier as well, and as already
explained, it meant the head of the village. In some records, it has
also been used to indicate the mahājanas or the head of the family
or communities which constituted the village council.74
6. Mahāsandhivigrahin: It is the same as sandhivigrahin, which also
occurs in the earlier charters. It is taken to be a designation of the
minister for war and peace.
The next charter issued by the sovereign authority in ce 79475 speaks

of the transfer of a village, and the persons who were addressed in
this connection were the same as in the earlier royal charter issued by
Dhruva in ce 775: rāṣṭrapati, viṣayapati, grāmakūṭa, ayukta, niyuktaka,
adhikārika, mahattar- ādin.76
Apart from these addressees, the others who were involved were
the dūtaka and the writer of this charter. No official designation has
been attributed to either of them. There are two charters from the
9th century. Both of them were issued by PMP Govinda III. The one
datable to ce 80077 registers the grant of a grāma to thirteen Brāhmaṇas,
and the transfer of certain fiscal and administrative rights.
The list of addressees is the same as in the second charter of the
8th century which included rāṣṭrapati, viṣayapati, grāmakūṭa yuktaka,
niyuktaka, adhikārika mahattara adin. The only difference is the
occurrence of yuktaka before niyuktaka.
The dūtaka of the charter has been described as Śrī Cakkirāja. The
charter also refers to Śrī Gauta, the son of a sāmanta, as the writer of the
charter. There were three more charters from the 9th century, and all of
them were issued by PMP Govinda III. The first one, which is datable to

ce 801,78 records the transfer of a village. We do not have further details

about the charter.
In the case of other two charters, the object of transfer is the same,
that is, a village.79 The list of addressees given in both the charters is
also: rāṣṭrapati, viṣayapati grāmakūṭa, āyuktaka, niyuktaka, adhikārika,
mahattara.80 Even the writer of both the charters is the same person. In
both the cases, the dūtaka of the charters has been referred to but they
were two different persons without any official designation.81
In between the royal charters discussed above, we have two charters
which were issued by a subordinate authority and the list of addressees
is not the same. Both the charters were issued by Karkarāja, who has
been described as samadhigata-pañca-mahāśabda. The first charter (ce
779) refers to PMP Govinda II,82 but records the Rāṣṭrakūṭas chieftain
called Karkarāja as the donor. He has been described as the son of Śrī
Dhruvarāja and the younger brother of Govinda II and had the title of
samadhigata-pañca-mahāśabda. The purpose of the charter is to record
the donation of a village which was located in the viṣaya of Nāsikka.
Sidīnagara, the place of the issue of the grant, has been identified with
the modern Sinnar. The list of addressees given in the charter is rāja-
sāmananta-bhogika-viṣayapati, rāṣṭragrāma- mahattaras adhikārikan.
The second charter was issued by the same authority in ce 779.83
Like the earlier charter, it also refers to the sovereign authority
Pṛthivīvallabha mahārājadhirāja parameśvara Śrī Prabhūtavarṣa. The
property transferred was a village which was located in the viṣaya of
Nāsikka. The charter mentions the following as the addressees: rāja-
sāmata, bhogika, viṣayapati, and rāṣṭra-grāma- mahattara, adhikārika.84
The list of the addressees given in this charter reminds us of the list
that we see in the Ellora plates of Dantidurga, which was issued in ce
742. The only difference that we see is that while in the Ellora plates we
have the references to rāṣṭrakūtas, in the present case we are told about
rāṣṭra-grāma-mahattara, the meaning of which is largely the same as
mahattara.85 The list of the addressees does not end with expression like
‘ādin’ (etc.). The charter also carries the name of the writer.
The data discussed above indicates that the transfer of land or its
resources did not take place in isolation involving a simple process of give
and take between the donors and the recipients. Apart from referring to
the donors and the recipients, the land charters also refer to different
authorities in different capacities in the process of transaction. This
occurrence of the references to a variety of authorities/officials in different
contexts in the process of the transfer of landed properties and other
resources points to the existence of a multiple-layered authority structure
through which the entire process was taking place. Apart from this, the
occurrences of the references, with unfailing regularity, of individuals or

different representative village communities, both of the locality of the

transfer and outside it, in different contexts are also indicative of the fact
that the transfer of agrarian resources, land or otherwise, was a matter of
concern for the members of agrarian settlements as much as it was for the
authority of the state and recipients. This evidence also points to the fact
that the entire process of transfer of rural settlements and their resources
took place within an existing societal and governmental structure and
that certain procedures had to be followed before the grant, whatever
may be the basis of the authority of its issue, became effective.
Our discussion also points to the fact that societal and governmental
structures were neither uniform in space nor immutable in time.
During the first phase, all the three major houses of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas
seem to represent different organisational setups to deal with resource
transfer. However, the charters of the Mānapura house of the
Rāṣṭrakūṭas do not reflect the existence of any specific or organised
government functionaries to look after the resource transfer. There
are no references in their inscriptions to regular state functionaries.
Instead, there are references to certain influential social groups such
as rāja-sāmanta and viṣayapatis, who were requested by the donor to
follow the terms and conditions of the grant. This would suggest the
existence of a local landed class whose assurance was necessary for
making and maintaining the grant issued by the apex authority.
In the charters of the house of Vidarbha, there is a reference to
a set of state functionaries who were recipients of communication
regarding resource transfer. However, in the list of addressees, we also
find the inclusion of groups like rāja-sāmanta and grāmabhojaka which
represented the dominant section of the rural society, and their inclusion
in the list only indicates that despite the existence of state functionaries,
it was considered necessary to involve certain local groups to make the
entire arrangement stated in the charter viable. The most visible example
of the participation of representatives of the rural community is provided
by the Hilol plates of the house of Vidarbha, where despite the presence
of several officials, we have a large numbers of individuals, who were
drawn from the area around the donated land, in the form of witnesses.
Even in the initial charters of the house of Malkheda Branch of the
Rāṣṭrakūṭas, we find a small list of state functionaries along with the
representative of social communities. The case of Manor plate where
despite the references to a two-tiered authority, it is the community
of the bhogikas which dominates the entire process of the transfer of
resources. The situation continues, with minor modifications, till the
beginning of their imperial phase. However, it changes drastically after
ce 774 as in all the nine charters which were issued by the sovereign
authority, we see a structured list of addressees which is dominated

by government officials. This proliferation in the list of government

officials also coincides with the decline of the representation of village
notables, and now it only the mahattara who figures at the end of the list
of addressees. The manner in which the reference to mahattara occurs
is also significant. It seems that there was also an unstated attempt to
bureaucratize the group of mahattara. The increasing bureaucratization
of the process is also attested by the changing phraseology. In all the
imperial charters, the form of communication assumes the shape of the
unilateral formal administrative decision which was communicated to
the officials and the local residence.
Lastly it may also be pointed out that the variations in the structure
and the process of land transfer were not only obtainable among the
local states located differently in terms of time and space, but were also
obtainable within the structure of the same supra-local imperial state.
This is how it is reflected in two of the charters issued by the subordinate
authority of the imperial Rāṣṭrakūṭas. Both the charters discussed above
refers to a small list of officials, entirely different from the proliferated
and structured imperial one involved in the process of transfer.
The discussion also throws into light certain variations and
commonalities. In the case of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas of Malkhed, their pre-
ce 750 charters clearly indicate that the tendency to bureaucratize the
process of resource transfer had not yet started during the first phase. Out
of their two charters, one shows the minimal involvement of government
functionaries. There is the overwhelming presence of the community of
bhogikas, right from making the donations to acting as witness, to getting
the charter inscribed, even though the donated village had been stated to
be a part of a viṣaya. In fact, the way the members the mahājanas of the
traividyās have been projected in the Manor plates is an indication of the
property rights which they enjoyed over the surrounding village. Even in
their second charter the list of addressees is rather short.
Variations existed within the structure of state, as is indicated by the
different list of addressees obtainable in the charters issued by sovereign
powers and by those who enjoyed subordinate authority under them.
What is important is the structure occurrence of the list of addressees
in all the charter issued by the imperial branch and the way mahattara
and grāma kūṭas were included in them. The situation seemed to have
changed with the changing authority status of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas. In all the
charters issued by them as imperial authority, the reference to different
government officials becomes regular, longer and well-structured, and
the reference to village communities starts decreasing. Even if they are
cited, it is in conjunction with regular official, indicating thereby the
tendency to co-opt the dominant member of rural community as regular
part of the apparatus of the state involved in the transfer mechanism.

Notes
1 See, for example, U.N. Ghoshal. 1929. Contribution to Hindu Revenue

System. Calcutta: University of Calcutta; also, A. Appadorai. 1936.
Economic Conditions in Southern India (a.d. 1000–1500). (Two volumes),
Madras: University of Madras.
2 A.S. Altekar. 1962. State and government in Ancient India. Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, Chapter, XII, 225–244; also, G.S. Dikshit. 1964. Local Self-
Government in Mediaeval Karnataka. Dharwar: Karnataka University.
3 The image of rural settlements and society as little republic made its first
appearance in the writings of Sir Charles Metcalfe. While propounding
his famous theory of the self-sufficiency and vitality of the Indian village
he wrote, ‘The village communities are little republics, having nearly
everything that they want within themselves, and almost independent
of any foreign relations. They seem to last where nothing else lasts.
Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down; revolution succeeds to revolution;
Hindoo, Pathan. Moghul. Mahratta. Sikh, English. are all masters in turn,
but the village communities remain the same…’ See 1833. Appendix to
The Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the
Affairs of the East-India Company, III—Revenue. London, 470. The idea
was resurrected, though in a somewhat modified form, about forty years
later by Sir Henry Maine who spoke about village community as passive
community in relation to oppression by monarchs. In his understanding
they were ‘organized and self-acting…, in fact, include a nearly complete
establishment of occupations and trades for enabling them to continue
their collective life without assistance from any person or body external to
them’. Sir Henry Maine. 1890. Village Communities in the East and West.
London: 124–125.
4 This idea was best articulated in the context of South India by Nilakantha
Shartri who argued for the existence of village community as a self-
governing autonomous authority within the larger framework of
centralized Cola polity. See, K.A. Nilakanta Sastri. 1932. Studies in Chola
History and Administration. Madras: University of Madras.
5 This is particularly true of the way R.S. Sharma treats the rural settlements
and society in his seminal work on the origin of feudal social formation.
Prof. Sharma would like us to believe that initially the rural settlements
were part of power structure and the king exercised an absolute control
over its kingdom, including its resource. This unbridled control gave
the monarch the authority to donate them, as and when he wished to do
so, to whomsoever he wanted. However, once donated, the same rural
settlement starts existing outside the state structure and its relationship
with state starts getting mediated through the recipients of the rural
settlements, generally described as the feudal lords or sāmanta. See R.S.
Sharma. 2005. Indian Feudalism, c. AD 300–1200, 3rd Revised Edition.
Delhi: Macmillan India.
6 A good beginning in this direction has, however, been made by B.D.
Chattopadhyaya. See B.D. Chattopadhyaya. 1990. Aspects of Rural

Settlements and Rural Society in Early Medieval India. Calcutta: Centre for
Studies in Social Sciences, by K.P. Bagchi & Co.
7 We have four such minor branches of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas located in four
different localities: I. Mānapura branch which controlled Bhima and
upper Krishna region, II. Vidharbha branch which controlled Wardha–
Wainganga region, III. Malkheda branch of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa which controlled
Upper Godavari and parts of northern Konkan, IV. House of Kakka
controlling West Tapi region. For a discussion on this, see A.S. Altekar.
1934. The Rāṣṭrakūṭas and Their Times; Being a Political, Administrative,
Religious, Social, Economic and Literary History of the Deccan during c. 750
A.D. to c. 1000 A.D. Poona: Oriental Book Agency.
8 This branch has been referred to variously by different scholars; see for
example, A.S. Altekar. 1967. Rāṣṭrakūṭas and Their Times. Poona: Oriental
Book Agency; A.P. Madan. 1990. The History of the Rastrakuta. New Delhi:
Harman Publishing House.
9 The genealogical table of this house constructed by Altekar is as follows:
Durgārāja (ce 570–590), Govindarāja, son of Durgārāja (ce 590–610),
Svāmikarāja, son of Govindarāja (610–6330), Nannarāja Yudhasura, son
of Svāmikarāja (ce 631, 710); see A.S. Altekar. 1967. Rāṣṭrakūṭas, pp. 7–8.
10 M.G. Diskshit has come up with the genealogy of this house starting with
Mankana, the founder of the house, and has assigned the date of ce 375–
400. See, Hingni Berdi plates of Vibhurāja, Year 3, EI, XXIX, 174–177.
11 See V.V. Mirashi. 1968. ‘The Rastrakutas of Manpur’. Studies in Indology,
vol. 1: 3.
12 Hingni Berdi plates of Vibhurāja,Year 3, Epigraphia Indica (hereafter
referred to as EI), XXIX, 174–177. It refers to the dynasty as
rāṣṭrakūṭeśvarāņām-anvavāya in the initial portion of the charter, see 176,
ll.1–2.
13 The plates are tied together with a ring which carries the incised figure
of an akṣamālā, consisting of eleven beads, a kamaṇḍalu-shaped spouted
vessel on its left and a daņḍa on its right; ibid., p. 174.
14 Paṇdraṅga-palli grant of Avidheya, Bombay Presidency, 117, Archaeological
Survey of Mysore, Annual Report for 1929, 197–210; also see Paṇdraṅgapalli
grant of Rāṣṭrakūṭa Avidheya, EI, XXXVII, 9–24.
15 The seal carries the figure of a manned lion standing to left proper with
the right fore limb lifted up and thrust forward, head raised and tail arched
over the back. See ASMAR for 1929, 199.
16 Ibid.; The donated settlements are named as ‘Pāņdrangapalli along with
Anevari, Cāla, Kandaka,and Duddapalli’ in Archaeological Survey of
Mysore, Annual Report for 1929. However, in the EI, XXXVII, the same
passage has been rendered as ‘Paṇdraṅgapalli together with the helmets of
Kāmyaka and Jāula.
17 Ibid. Śriman-Kuntalanāṁ- prasāsitā. It has also been suggested that
Kuntala possibly comprised the upper valley of the Krishna river.
18 Paṇdraṅga-palli grant of Avidheya, Bombay Presidency, 117, Archaeological
Survey of Mysore, Annual report for 1929, 199; Mirashi however, refers
only to the name of the writer and not his status; see EI, XXXVII, 24.

19 …cha rājño-bhōgikāmścājnāpayatīti. Archaeological Survey of Mysore,

Annual report for 1929, 197, l.20.
20 D.C. Sircar. 1966. Indian Epigraphic Glossary. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass: 55.
21 See, Archaeological Survey of Mysore, Annual report for 1929, 198.
22 Uṇḍikavāṭikā grant of Abhimanyu, EI, VIII, 163–165.
23 Ibid., mānapuram-adhyāsanēn-ālaṅkurvvatā. L.13, 165.
24 Ibid., uṇḍikavāṭikā nāma-grāmako. L.15, 165.
25 This is indicative of layered authority to transfer the land, however, in
order to become the grant valid, the consent of the supreme authority was
considered necessary.
26 Attempts have been made by A.S. Altekar to connect this house with the
Malkhed house of Rāṣṭrakūṭas, see A.S. Altekar. 1967. Rāṣṭrakūṭas. loc.
cit, 10. However, Prof. Mirashi has strongly argued against it and has also
suggested that both the houses were ruling contemporaneously over two
different regions. See V.V. Mirashi. ‘Tivarkheda Plates of Nannarāja’.
Studies in Indology, Vol.II, loc.cit, 25–30.
27 Nagardhan plates of Svamiraja, EI, XXVIII, 1–16. H.S. Thosar, however,
would like us to believe that Svāmirāja of this plate was not a Rāṣṭrakūṭa
ruler, rather he is the same as Svamiraja of the Cālukya dynasty who was
killed by Maṅgaleśa. See, H.S. Thosar, ‘Re-examination of the Historical
contents of the Nagardhan Plates of Svāmirāja and the Rithapur grants of
Nala King Arthapati’. 1994. Journal of the Epigraphical Society of India, XX,
12–25.
28 Nagardhan plates of Svāmirāja, EI, XXVIII, pp. 1–11.
29 Unlike the charters of the Manpur branch of Rāṣṭrakūṭas, this charter carries
a list of rights and privileges that were transferred in favor of the donee.
The section of the charters dealing with the rights and privileges
of the donee begins with the expression ‘ā-candr-ārk-ārṇava-kṣīti-sarit-
parvata-sama-kālin-putra-pautr-ānvaya-kram-opabhogya…’. The literal
translation of the term would be ‘to be enjoyed by his sons and son’s sons
as long as the moon, the sun, the seas, the earth, the rivers and the hills
exist’. The expression, therefore, is indicative of conferment on the donee
of the permanent hereditary rights over the donated properties.
After this, the charter proceeds to list the following exemptions which
the donated grāma was granted.
(i) sarva-ditya: This term has been rendered as ‘free from the obligation
of the gifts’ by the editor of the inscription. D.C. Sircar, also attributes
the similar meaning to it. The term is perhaps not referring to the
exemption from ‘gift’ as gift ceases to remain a gift the moment it
becomes obligatory. Therefore, in actuality it would only imply
exemption from the obligatory transfer of certain resources of the
donated area, in some form or other, to donor.
(ii) viṣṭika: This is probably a derivation of the term ‘viṣṭi’ which has been
taken to mean ‘labour which the villagers were obliged to provide to
the king or the landlord on occasions’. It has also been interpreted as
unpaid labour or forced labour.

(iii) jemaka-kara-bhāra parihīna: This meant the freedom from obligation

of the villagers to provide food to royal officers on tour as well as
exemption from other taxes.
(iv) sarv-ādāya-viśuddha: It has been taken to mean ‘with all kinds of
taxes fixed’.
(v) antah-siddhika: The term is the sort form of ‘abhyantara-siddhika’,
which has been taken to mean ‘internal income or revenue, or tax
payable to the village authorities as against those payable to the king’.
It may be pointed out here that the charter records the transfer
of certain land and a village to the same group of donees. However,
the exemption of certain taxes are related only to the village. The
charter is silent about the privileges of the donees over the piece of
land which was donated at the request of Gaņa-samūha.
The recipients of the grant were several Brāhmaṇas of different
gotras and śākhās. However, the details about only some of them
have been given in the charter which has been have been arranged in
a tabular form (see Table 7.1).
Thus, none of the charters of the 6th century speak of the
transfer of any rights over the donated area in favour of the donees.
The maximum that was granted to them was certain exemptions.
However, we have no way to ascertain as to who the beneficiary was
of those exemptions.
Apart from this, most of the charters do not mention the home
of the donee. In one case where the place of the recipient has been
mentioned, it was quite close to the locale of the donated property.
30 The executive officers of the Gaṇa-samūha consisted of the following:
(i) Kaliṅga, the president (sthavira) of the mahā-mātragaṇa,

(ii) Keṭabha, Rōladeva Pradīphbahṭa, two Śivadevabhaṭas, Māṭṛsvāmin,
Guṇadeva, Kōṅkabhaṭa, Asaṅgata,
(iii) The physician of elephant (hasti-vaidya) named Sāmasvāmin,
(iv) The chief of the elephant corps (pīlu-pati) named Māllāyika and
Prabhākara.
31 Now we can take up the list of the addressees who seem to have been part
of the state apparatus. In the list provided in the charter the following can
be identified as such:
(i) rājasthānīya: The editor of the charter takes it to mean ‘Viceroy,

or Crown Representatives’. However, on the basis of Subodhikā
commentary on the Kalpasūtra it has also been suggested that the
designation might have been used to represent subordinate ruler. But
the explanation of the Lokaprakāśa that the rājasthānīya was one who
carries out the object of protecting the subjects and shelter them and
the Mandasor inscription of Yaśodharman representing a viceroy of
the king as a rājasthānīya appears to support the Subodhikā, although
different functions may have been attached to the designation in
different region and ages.

(ii) uparika: On the basis of the Gupta records it has been suggested that
it represented the office of the governor of the province.
(iii) dāṇḍapāśika: This has been taken to mean a police officer.
(iv) cāṭa and bhaṭa: The editor takes it to mean policemen and soldiers.
(v) dūta-sampreṣaṇika: The term is generally used to designate the
person who is appointed dūtas for the execution of royal charter.
(vi) drāṅgika: The editor takes it to be the Mayor of the town.It has,
however, been also suggested that draṅga means either a town or a
‘watch station’ and therefore the real meaning of drāṅgika should be
an officer in charge of a draṅga meaning a watch station or a station
for revenue collection.
32 Bhindon plates of Rāṣṭrakūṭa Kakkarāja. Journal of Epigraphic society of
India (hereafter referred to as JESI), X, 30–35. The charter carries no date
and the dating has been done on the basis of paleography.
33 It is stated in the charter that the gifted village was bounded on the north
by two aśvattha trees while, on the three remaining quarters, the east,
south and west, it was bounded by two rivers, ibid., 32.
34 Ibid. Exp. used: san[dhi]vṛṣabha-purohita-samakshaṅ datt[h], L. 22, 35.
35 Ibid. The editor of the inscription would like us to believe that that the
engraver was not able to follow the lines of the letters vigraha correctly and
had thus mis-inscribed the word as vṛṣabha. It should therefore be read as
sandhivigraha. 31.
36 D.C. Sircar, 1966, p. 295.
37 Ibid., p. 266.
38 Tiwarkhed plates of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa Nannarāja, EI, XI, pp. 276–280.
39 The charter opens with the following expression: ‘oṁ sva-achalapurād
vistīrṇē’. Ibid., L.1., p. 279.
40 The donor has been described as ‘…parama-brahmaṇyaḥ prāpta-
pañcamahāśabdaḥ śrī- Nannarāja…’ Ibid., p. 279, ll-5–6.
41 Ibid., p. 279, fn.13.
42 Ibid., p. 277.
43 D.C. Sircar, p. 188.
44 Sangalooda Plates of Rāṣṭrakūṭa Nannarāja: Śaka 615, EI, XXIX, 109–115.
45 The list runs as follow: ‘śrī-yuddhāsura-āparanāmā sa-sarvānnēnēva rāja-
sāmanta-vishayapati-grāma-bhogika-purillaka-chāṭa-bhaṭa-sēvak-ādīn’,
Ibid. 115, L14–15.
46 purillaka: the term has been taken to mean ‘the Mayor of the town’.
(i) cāṭa-bhaṭa: The term bhaṭa refers to king’s pāiks and pīadas and the
term cāṭa has been taken to mean the leader of the group of pāiks and
pīadas.
(ii) sevaka: it would normally mean somebody who serves. It is however,
also used in the sense of a soldier.
47 Ibid., p. 120.
48 D.C. Sircar, 1966, p. 120.
49 Multai copper plate grant of Nandarāja, IA (August 1889).

50 Tiwarkhed plates of Nandarāja, loc.cit.

51 Ibid. Exp. used: sarvvaneva rāja-sāmanta-viṣayapati-grāmabhogik- ādin
samanubodhayati, L. 15–16.
52 Art VIII, New copper plates grants of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa dynasty. J.Bo. BRAS,
XVI, 105–113.
53 The editor of the charter translates ‘Ādityavarmā rāja-dūtakam’ as ‘the
king Ādityavarmā as the dūtaka’, but it should be: ‘Aditya Varmā, royal
emissary’. See ibid. 11-, L.37.
54 Ibid., 110, l.37.
55 Hilol plates of Year 470, EI, XXXIV, 213–218, 219.
56 Ellora plates of Dantidurga, EI, XXV, 25–31.
57 It has been suggested that the figure must have been Garuda who usually
appears on the Rāṣṭrakūṭa seal. Ibid., 25.
58 (i) Rāṣṭrakūṭa: This term has been taken to mean the same as rāṣṭra-
mahattara which is generally taken to represent either the head of the
territorial unit, or group of villages, called rāṣṭra or a member of the
administrative council of a rāṣṭra.
(ii) mahattara: The term has been taken to mean the head of the village.
In some records it has also been used to indicate the mahājanas
or head of the family or communities, who constituted the vi.llage
council.
(iii) adhikārin: Literally meaning ‘an officer’, this has been taken to mean
the same as Sanskrit adhyakṣa meaning a superintendent, governor
or director.
59 Manor Plates of Dantidurga: Śaka Year 671, V.V.Mirashi. Studies in Indian
Indology, II, pp. 10–15.
60 It is stated that certain representatives of the mahājanas (Corporation)
of the Traividyas of the place viz. Boḍavarma bhogika, Durga bhogika,
Devamma bhogika, Goviyasaṅga bhogika and Goviya made the
donation.
61 Samangad copper plate grant of Dantidurga, IA (April 1882), p. 108.
62 Ibid., sarvvānevā rāṣṭrapati- viṣayapati-grāmakūṭam yathārha-pratipatty-
ājñpayatyastu vaḥ saṁviditaṁ, L.28–29, 112.
63 Ibid., Exp used: ‘sarvvānevā rāṣṭrapati- viṣayapati-grāmakūṭam yathārha-
pratipatty-ājñpayatyastu vaḥ saṁviditaṁ’ L. 28–29.
64 Talegaon copper plates of Kṛṣṇarāja I, EI, XIII, 275–282.
65 Ibid. Exp. used: ‘sarvvānevā rāṣṭrapati- viṣayapati, - mahattar- ādin
samājñapayatyastu vaḥ viditaṁ’ L. 23–24.
66 Alas plates of the Yuvarāja Govinda II, Śaka Saṁvat 692, EI, VI, 208–213.
67 Ibid., Exp. used: svāviditam astu, L. 29.
68 Bhandak plates of Kṛṣṇarāja, EI, XIV, 121–130.
69 Pimpri plates, EI, X, 81–89.
70 Jethwai Plates of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa Queen Śilamahādevi, EI, XXII, 98–109.
71 D.C. Sircar. 1966. 121.
72 Ibid., p. 221.
73 Ibid., pp. 386–387.

74 Ibid., p. 361; Also see B.D. Chattopadhyaya. 1990. Aspects of Rural

settlements and Rural Society in Early Medieval India. Calcutta: Centre for
Studies in Social Sciences, by K.P. Bagchi & Co. Chapter II, Section II.
75 Paithan plates of Govinda III, EI, III, p. 103.
76 Ibid., Exp. used: ‘kuśalī sarvvaneva yathā-saṁbadhyamānakān rāṣṭrapati-
viṣayapati, - grāmakūṭ-, āyukta-niyuktaka, -adhikārika- mahattara adin
samanudarśayat-astu vaḥ saṁviditaṁ’.
77 Anjanvati plates of Govinda III, EI, XXIII, pp. 8–18.
78 A grant of Govinda, JBBRAS, NS, No. 4, p. 187.
79 Wani plates of Govinda III, IA, XI, 156–163, and Dharur plate, EI, XXXVI,
286–296.
80 Ibid., Exp. used: ‘Sarvvaneva yathā-saṁbadhyamānakān rāṣṭrapati-
viṣayapati, - grāmakūṭa-, āyukta-niyuktaka, -adhikārika- mahattara adin
samadi astu vaḥ saṁviditaṁ’ L. 35–36, IA; ibid., 159, for Dharur plate see
293–294 L. 39–40.
81 It is interesting to note that Bhogpati disappears now and only grāmkūṭa
and mahattara occur with unfailing regularity in the list of officials.
82 Dhulia plates of Karkarāja, Śaka Saṁvat, 701, EI, VIII, pp. 182–187.
83 Dhulia plates of Karkarāja, EI, VIII, p. 182.
84 Ibid., Exp. used: ‘sarvvaneva rāja-sāmanta-bhogika-viṣayapati,raṣṭragrāma-
mahattaras adhikārikan samājñāpayatyastu vaḥ viditaṁ’ L. 29–30.
85 D.C. Sircar. 1966. p. 191.

11
POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE HILL STATES OF

BRAHMAPURA–KĀRTTIKEYAPURA IN CENTRAL
HIMALAYA (c. 6TH–10TH CENTURIES ce)
Dev Kumar Jhanjh
In the winter semester of 2016, I attended a course on Economic History

with the M.A. students at the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU, as I had
to write a chapter on political economy for my PhD thesis. I must admit
that my general notion of economic history—that ‘it is an assemblage
of boring economic data’—gradually altered after joining this course,
offered by Professor Ranabir Chakravarti. His lectures had no limits
in the truest sense. Even after delivering a lecture of two hours, he was
never tired, and discussions would continue beyond the boundaries of
the classroom. I was fortunate enough to work under his supervision
for my PhD programme. It was then that I saw how a sixty-two-year-
old man was still passionate about research, and provided references
just from memory without a piece of paper at hand. Whenever I could
get hold of him, he fascinated me with new ideas. Thus, it is indeed
with great pleasure and some trepidation that I write for Professor
Chakravarti on a subject that I directly learnt from him.
Introduction
This chapter will focus on the political economy of a less-explored

early mountainous state (parvatākara rājya) which falls in Central
Himalaya (present Uttarakhand). R.S. Sharma had highlighted several
stages of early Indian economic life by identifying specific factors
of continuity and change in a broad subcontinental background.1
Later, D.N. Jha also pointed out different trends of the North Indian
economy up to 1200 ce.2 While B.D. Chattopadhyaya mentioned the
interrelationship between the state and the economy of North India
from the 4th to 12th century ce, R. Champakalakshmi attempted the
same in the South Indian context.3 Vishwa Mohan Jha also focused
on different aspects of the North Indian economy in early India.4
259

The studies cited above on the North Indian economy addressed the
general pointers of this economy, rather than focusing on regional
specificities. Even in some cases, when region-centric discussions on
economy appeared, they mostly concentrated on the areas around
the Ganga valley. Though the mountainous states like the kingdoms
of Brahmapura and Kārttikeyapura maintained contact with the
territories of the Ganga valley and beyond, they failed to receive a
place in the general line of historiography. Therefore, in this chapter, I
will discuss the Brahmapura–Kārttikeyapura area. While Brahmapura
was a prominent locality and Kārttikeyapura formed an area within it
under the Pauravas during the 6th century ce, the mention of the latter
as the power base of the Devas indicates its continued importance till
the 9th to 10th centuries ce. Kārttikeyapura has been identified with
the present Baijnath area in Kumaon. Therefore, Brahmapura appears
to be the broader region of Kumaon and Garhwal in Uttarakhand.
At the outset, it is necessary to point out the limit of this work
due to the paucity of relevant sources. Even when the sources speak,
they whisper indirectly to the economic pursuits this paper is based
on. The primary sources for this study are the epigraphic records of
the Pauravas and the Devas. The travel account of Xuanzang also
help us to glean some economic data, and can sometimes be used
as corroborative evidence. Using these sources, we shall look at the
continuity and changes in the economic life of the Brahmapura–
Kārttikeyapura area during the 6th to 10th centuries ce. During this
period, and beyond up to the 13th centuries ce, a large number of tax-
exempted land-grants, often with the transfer of administrative rights,
was donated primarily to the Brāhmaṇas and religious institutions,
resulting in agricultural expansion on a subcontinental scale. The
Brahmapura–Kārttikeyapura kingdoms followed the same pattern
with distinct regional variations. However, unlike the fertile areas
of the Ganga valley, these areas, located on hilly terrains, were not
promising for large-scale agrarian growth. Thus, we have only two
land donation records between the 6th to 7th centuries, and seven
in the succeeding phase of the 9th and 10th centuries ce. In addition
to agricultural histories, these records will help us get an idea of the
non-agricultural sector.
The Land-Grant Economy during the 6th to 7th Centuries ce
A few areas of the Central Himalaya (such as Lakhamandal)

experienced the emergence of monarchy, or at least the nascent stage of
monarchical polity, in the pre-6th century ce phase. However, the two

Political Economy in the Hill States of Brahmapura 261
copper plate charters of the Pauravas issued during the ‘threshold times’
mark the beginning of the land-grant economy in central Himalaya (at
Brahmapura–Kārttikeyapura) around the 6th to 7th centuries ce. The
basic purpose of issuing these two charters was to record the donation
of landed property to the gods. In both the cases, a request was placed by
the temple priest Trātaikāsvāmin (in Dyutivarman’s record) and Trāta
Bhāripati Śarmma (in Viṣṇuvarman’s grant) and the assembly of the
Gaugullikas with some officials before the kings to (re)issue a grant in
favour of Vīraneśvarasvāmī (Dyutivarman’s record), and Vāmanasvāmi
(Viṣṇuvarman’s charter), specifying the names and size of the given
lands.5 Following a general phenomenon of acquiring validity through
religious donations in this period, the Pauravas actually sought to
validate their newly founded kingdom through these land-grants.
Unlike the general trend of this period that points to the spread of
agriculture largely in the erstwhile uninhabited and fallow land, the
area of central Himalaya saw the donation of lands largely in already
populated territories. The mention of the plots/lands in Dyutivarman’s
charter gives an impression of his donation in homestead areas and
the localities which were brought to its vicinities. This is evident from
the references to several pura(ī)s, pallikās, grāmas, vana (ka)s, vañjas,
vañjalīs, araṇyas, tolīs, karmmāntas, garttās, āśramas, etc. in his records.
While pura, palli and grāma are bigger in size (in ascending order) and
certainly habitatable areas, tolī was also a livable tract, as indicated
by mentions of Rājakya-tolī and Devadāsa-tolī. Āśrama, spiritual in
nature, indicates a habitual place of the sages. Karmmānta stands for
a factory in the Arthaśāstra. Garttā as a suffix is normally associated
with the names of villages, also suggestive of a pit, or a valley.6 Other
suffixes such as vāsa or vastuka also specify a residential area. We also
find the evidence of other types of lands like grazing land (carana),
garden (vāṭaka, ārāmaka), etc. The mentions of a fort (koṭṭa), market
town (karvvaṭaka) and the Uttarāpatha with many villages located at
the bank (taṭe) of river Pitṛgaṅgā point to the presence of residential
areas and highlight the importance of riverine tracts for agriculture.
Although vana literally means a forest area, the spatial distribution, its
association with the habitable tract and self-identity leave little room to
consider it within the territory of the habitable zone.
Contrary to Dyutivarman’s gift of lands in vana area, Viṣṇuvarman’s
record mentions the names of several lands located in jaṅgala areas. The
crop-producing capacity of these lands, referring to the measurement
units, is significant. The mention of Ḍaḍḍavaka-jaṅgala capable of
yielding one kulyavāpa speaks of the harvesting capacity of the land.
This speaks not only of agricultural spread in the forest area but also
highlights the changing character of these jaṅgala lands into arable

tract. Besides hinting against the general notion of the meaning of

the jaṅgala, its transformation into habitable space is attested by the
mention of vyāsosthāni-jaṅgala. Therefore, both Dyutivarman and
Viṣṇuvarman’s donations highlight their preference of land in the
habitation areas.
How did the state deal with the transfer of landed property in a
settled area? Unlike the uncultivable/unclaimed land typically located
in the forest zone, the transfer of land in a settled territory could be
problematic. Therefore, the ruler had to take balancing steps to avoid
any hindrance. By making the state officials witnesses to the grants, the
ruler acknowledged and incorporated the existing local elements into
his state system. Further, his warning about not burdening or outraging
the inhabited agriculturalist householders and artisans (kuṭumbināṁ
kāruka) created the impression that he was concerned about them.
Although Dyutivarman’s donation was an agrahāra (tax-free), the state
did not relinquish its administrative right for the donee.7
Over time, agriculture took deep roots in the limited favourable
space of the mountainous state of the Pauravas. While Dyutivarman’s
record does not refer to a kṣetra land at all, we see the rise of twenty-
three cultivated areas (kṣetra) in Viṣṇuvarman’s grant. The emergence
of these kṣetra lands marked with their area of capacity, in terms of
the amount of the seeds they could consume, can be deduced from
the use of different measurement units like kulyavāpa, khārivāpa,
droṇavāpa. The very name of a plot as Bhṛṣṭikā kṣetra documented in
Viṣṇuvarman’s charter proves that it was a deserted land subsequently
turned into an arable land. Thus, the plot came to generate eight
droṇavāpas of seed. Mention of the kṣetra lands and their production
capacity thus emphasises the proliferation of agricultural production
during Viṣṇuvarman’s time.
The role of hydraulic resources for agricultural growth is
indispensable.8 The references to the irrigation channel (kulyā), water
body (udaka) and the preference for settlement sites located at river
bank (nadi taṭe) highlight this importance. The suffix pānīya (like Cora-
pānīya) is also suggestive of water bodies. Place names ending with
anūpa (like Suṇṭhīnāva-anūpa) are also suggestive of their location
along the river and, thus, underline the role of the river for the rise
and growth of a settlement. The mention of the Kedāra field twice in
Viṣṇuvarman’s record in c. 7th century ce refers to underwater fields,
which are favourable for agriculture. Ranjan Anand proposes Kedāra
as a deity of the agriculturalists and claims that he was integrated into
Śiva later, as the latter was associated with fertility and agriculture.9
He rightly pointed out that, in Uttarakhand, the channel for irrigation
was created from the streams that came from the hills.10

The Himalayan belt has always had a profusion of water supplying

methods, some of which still exist today. The glaciers and rivers play
a crucial role in supplying this water in different regions even beyond
the Himalayas. Among various types of traditional water conservation
systems, the naula (natural water aquifer) and the dhārā (springs) are
associated with the sacred context. Gul (irrigational canal), chal and khāl
(ponds) are other kinds of water bodies which are primarily traditional
rain harvesting methods.11
The water bodies must have played a crucial role in the
agricultural intensification of Brahmapura, which explains the
mention of a number of cultivable lands in Viṣṇuvarman’s record.
However, Viṣṇuvarman, possibly by understanding the paucity of
agricultural land in this hilly terrain, did not make the donation
tax free (agrahāra) like his father did. The number of donated plots
is also comparatively lesser and limited to forty in comparison to
Dyutivarman’s sixty-five. The relatively limited agrarian space led
him to allow the rise of some landed elites who were simultaneously
state functionaries and donors. Although the concept of private
ownership existed since the time of Dyutivarman, the sale-cum-
gift by private individuals can be seen only in Viṣṇuvarman’s time.
We see four private landowners who were non-Brāhmaṇas and
were state officials in his time. There was the brother of bhogika
Gellaṇaṇṇāka who donated a piece of land measuring two khārivāpas;
and Varāhadatta holding three administrative posts respectively—
bhogika, dūtaka and pramātāra—who had many plots of land. Other
state functionaries who also held land are balādhakṣya Lavacandra
and kāyastha Naṇṇuka from whom another officer divirapati
Dhanadatta bought two lands called Śveta and Vetasa, along with
the trees, water bodies and jungles associated with those two lands,
for the price of total 5.5+8 = 13.5 gold coins (suvarṇa) and then
donated these to the temple. It shows the purchase of arable land
and its donation to the deity.12 That land could be a saleable item
and appear as sale-cum-gift is clearly evident here. This cannot be
seen anywhere except in some sub-regions of early Bengal during
this phase. Following R.G. Basak, Nihar Ranjan Ray and S.K. Maity,
Ranabir Chakravarti has attributed this specific feature of a land
transaction only to early Bengal.13 We would interpret this custom
as the exchange of ideas, given the apparently strong linkages that
these two regions shared during that time. The difference in price
for the two lands can be explained through their producing capacity
and the inclusion of water bodies (udaka) and jaṅgala land with the
Vetasa field. While Śveta field of Lavacandra was able to produce
five droṇavāpas, the Vetasa land of Naṇṇuka, on the contrary, was

more productive with one kulyavāpa. The latter, considering all the
regional variations, should be eight to nine times higher than the
former, and the biggest unit is khārivāpa, which according to Sircar
is equal to sixteen droṇavāpas or two kulyavāpas.14 The mention
of khāri as a measuring unit of rice was in vogue in Kashmir as
evidenced by the Rājataraṅginī.15
In the Maitraka realm in western India, the duty of land measurement
was entrusted to the pramātri.16 The Paurava record also speaks of a
pramātāra, but we are not sure whether he participated in the land
measurement system in the Paurava state. The reference to a storehouse
(koṣṭha) and a storekeeper/treasury officer (gañjapati) in Dyutivarman’s
inscription can thus be seen in the light of the profusion of grain
production, which further attests to the political-economic affluency of
the Paurava state.
The economic survey of Brahmapura, from where the two
Paurava records were issued, becomes clearer through the lens of
the contemporary travel account of Xuanzang. He records it as being
full of mountains, with cold climate. The chief town was around 20
li. It was densely populated, and householders were rich. The soil
was rich and fertile; the lands were sown and reaped in different
seasons. Most of the people were engaged in commerce.17 Upon
reaching Govisana, another area located in central Himalaya, he
found the natural boundary extremely strong, fenced with ‘crags
and precipices’. Besides flowers and groves on every side, what is
interesting is the mention of numerous lakes (ponds) situated side
by side.18 He also informs us about a tank which worked as a natural
boundary in the kingdom of Matipura. The mention of an artificial
canal through which the Ganges used to flow is also significant.19
That water bodies were important for various purposes, including
the agricultural one, is already clear.
These two Paurava records revealed donations made only to the
religious institutions and not to the Brāhmaṇas. They provide some
unique features of the agrarian life of Brahmapura during the 6th to
7th centuries ce. The ruler did not make the donation tax-free, nor
relinquish full control over the land. The reference to kaliyuga in
the context of the fear of snatching away of the land is an expression
which comes from the tension the new state was facing, and indicative
of the importance of the very limited space for the agricultural land.
The state had to protect the land and at the same time use its fertility
for agricultural production. The ruler juxtaposed local elements of
tribal society with monarchical rudiments to successfully run his
parvatākara rājya.

The Consolidation of the Land-Grant Economy:

8th to 10th Centuries ce
The time under discussion witnessed a noticeable increase in the

granting of revenue-free lands. The polity of Kārttikeyapura, which
dominated an impressive area of central Himalaya during this period,
is no exception. It is in this period that we find the highest number of
endowment documents from this area. We see a combination of the
continuation of practices of earlier centuries and the emergence of new
features as a result of the changes the society experienced.
The agrarian life of this period will mainly be discussed in the light
of seven records, among which six are copper plate grants and one
is incised on stone. These records were issued by the rulers of four
different branches of the Deva house, which has popularly but wrongly
been interpreted as the ‘Katyuri’ dynasty by several scholars.20 The
exact connection between this house and the preceding Pauravas, if
any, is obscure. The seven Deva records, which were issued between
the 9th and 10th centuries ce are primarily endowment documents
which recorded land donations earmarked for deities, and not to the
Brāhmaṇas like the Pauravas. The Devas introduced new terminology
for tax-exempted lands. While the term agrahāra is very common, and
was used in this locality in the preceding centuries, a new phrase called
prakṛti parihāra now came to be used.
That the Deva state had also stretched its boundaries to the tribal
area is attested by the references to non-Sanskrit names in their records.
The three grants of Lalitaśūradeva inform us about the location of
donated plots in settled areas which have suffixes such as viṣaya, palli,
grāma, āśrama and so on. The interesting information furnished by
these records is the presence of community land ownership beside
private landholding.21 Thus, in the first Pandukesvar plate (RY 21), we
find land ownership of three pallikās, one under the Khaṣiyākas and
two under the guggulas from whom Lalitaśūradeva first acquired the
land and then gifted it to lord Nārāyaṇa-bhaṭṭāraka, whose temple
was founded at Gorunnasārī by his queen mahādevī Sāmadevī.22
In the same way, Lalitaśūra took over the land named Thappalasāri
belonging to Denduvāka (second Pandukeswar plate, RY 22) for the
donation to Nārāyaṇa, whose idol was installed by bhaṭṭa-Śrīpuruṣa at
Garuḍagrāma.23 The procedure of acquiring land by cash or by force, if
any, has not been stated, but may be assumed. We are not sure whether
Denduvāka was a community or an individual’s name. The guggulas
appear as the community who lived their life on the guggulu, a fragrant
that was often used for a religious purpose. These guggulas were also
present as a community during the time of the Pauravas. However, they

did not appear as the owners of land at that time. The possession of land
within two centuries certainly speaks of their considerable importance.
On the other hand, the Kandara plate of Lalitaśūradeva enlightens us
about private ownership. Here we find the possession of Rāja-pallikā by
bhaṭṭa Harṣuka, Talasārikā, Nagaraparvata.24 Although, we do not find
any evidence of donation of lands to the Brāhmaṇas since the Paurava
times, in this case, the prefix bhaṭṭa to the name Harṣuka stands for a
Brāhmaṇa identity. Although Harṣuka is not mentioned here as a land
receiving authority, his presence as a landowner is clearly attested from
this evidence.
That the Brāhmaṇas possessed landed resources is also attested
by a phrase which says that, along with the donated lands, Lalitaśūra
also granted the trees, gardens, springs of water, cascades, but not
the territory of the gods and the Brāhmaṇas (deva-brāhmaṇa-bhukta-
bhujyamāna-varjitā). This clearly states that the lands belonging to
the deity and to the Brāhmaṇas were not counted and kept away from
this list of donated plots. However, it seems that the Devas were not
very much in favour of this practice. This is why, although they were
respectful to the Brāhmaṇas, not a single Brāhmaṇa appeared as a
land receiving authority in any of the Deva records. The Brāhmaṇas
were also associated with the execution of a grant as attested by the
presence of bhaṭṭa Hariśarman as the chief civil officer in Deṣaṭadeva’s
grant, and the mention of bhaṭṭa Dhaṇasra, who appeared as a
messenger (dūtaka) and an officer in charge of the records of great gifts
(mahādānākṣapaṭalādhikṛta) in Padmaṭadeva’s record.25
In the charters of Lalitaśūradeva, we witness the donation of lands
in settled areas. These lands are likely to have been used for cultivation,
but do not provide much information on the nature of land or
agricultural production. As a result, we are unaware of the capacity of
these lands to consume seeds. On the contrary, Padmaṭadeva, and also
Subhikṣarājadeva’s charter, besides continuing the practice of double
transfer of land, also describe the donated plots through measuring
units.26
From Padmaṭadeva’s record, we find the acquirement of four pallikās,
earlier enjoyed (paribhujyamāna) by Dīrghāditya, Buddhabala, Śidā(vā)
ditya and Gaṇāditya attached to Drumatī; fifteen bhāghas of (another
land) Paṅgara also located in Drumatī; two lands called Togalā-vṛtti
and two karmānta-sthalikā situated in Yośi; two more pieces of plots:
one in Drumatī and another one belonging to a person Dhanāka
in Randhavaka-grāma attached to Yośi, each land measuring one
droṇavāpa (by the king), and another land measuring two droṇavāpas
obtained at a price (exact amount not mentioned) by a person named
Nandūka and donated to Badrikāśrama-bhaṭṭāraka (Badrinātha or

Badri-Nārāyaṇa of the present day).27 These references to the lands with

measuring units possibly indicate their kṣetra (cultivable land) nature.
We also witness the state’s eye on the agricultural land in the next
generation when Padmaṭadeva’s son Subhikṣarājadeva emerges as
the biggest land donor to three different cults—Durgā, Nārāyaṇa and
Brahmeśvara. We further witness that Subhikṣa picked settled territory,
which also consists of the house site and acquired several private or
community properties which he offered to the deities.28 Fifteen lands
out of the total seventeen were given to the goddess Durgā, eleven out
of twenty-four lands along with a maṭhikā were offered to Nārāyaṇa and
one land from two pieces of lands was given to Brahmeśvara (and two
more pallikās to these three deities, all located in two different districts
of Ṭaṅgaṇāpura and Antaraṅga). These belonged to a third party, mostly
private individuals, sometimes community landholders, including a
whole village.29 Among private individuals, there is the unmistakable
presence of joint ownership of land. The method of acquiring private
land is not clear. It is possible that the private landholders were subdued
either by force or in the name of religion by the state, which grabbed
the land. The Arthaśāstra throws light on this issue and places the state’s
interest at the top, although the present charter does not provide any
information on the conflict. But the Arthaśāstra’s stand, that ‘conflict
with the apex authority should always go in favour of the state’s interest’,
perhaps has some bearing here.30
The next question that arises is why the state showed interest in these
lands specifically. The answer lies in their production capacity. While
Durgā received lands generating total 39 nālikāvāpas, 41 droṇavāpas, 1
hastaka, Nārāyaṇa got a share of 1 khārivāpa, 2 hastakas, 6 nālikāvāpas,
108 droṇavāpas (the largest one) and Brahmeśvara was credited with 7
nālikāvāpas, along with other lands (for three deities) without specifying
any measurement units.31 This statistical analysis shows that the given
land was favourable for agriculture. This underscores the power of
the state to bring these lands under its aegis. Subhikṣa’s donation
shows lands being given in the habitation areas as well as in a highly
agricultural one. Statistical analysis would show that more than 80 per
cent of the lands were earlier owned by private individuals or inhabited
by a group of people.
The numerous non-Sanskritic plot names suggest that
Subhikṣarājadeva extended his territory in a greater part of the tribal
areas. Besides mentioning the previous land units of khārivāpa and
droṇavāpa, Subhikṣarāja introduces us to two new measuring units
called nālikāvāpas, hastaka or hasta in this area. Nālikāvāpa could be a
unit which was measured with a rod (nala). We find the application of
nala in Bengal polity during the time of the Guptas and again witness

its reappearance in the same region during the time of the Senas in
the 12th–13th centuries ce.32 Hastaka indicates the use of the hand for
measurement. It seems from the description that the size of nālikāvāpas
and hastaka seem to have been smaller in comparison to droṇavāpa,
khārivāpa and kulyavāpa.
The Bagesvar record presents Tribhuvanarājadeva, practising the
same method of donating plots by referring to their crop-producing
capacity [two and a half droṇa(vāpa)s]. The same record also refers
to a Kirāta, who gave land measuring two and a half droṇa(vāpa)
s, and an Adhirājaputra (possibly a son of Tribhuvanarājadeva), who
donated one and a half droṇa(vāpa)s of land, two bīghās of another land,
another land of one droṇa(vāpa) and finally one more with fourteen
(bīghās), all offered to Vyāghreśvaradeva. Here, as in most cases, the
land earlier belonged to an individual, community or even to a local
deity.33 In addition to earlier units, we have bīghās. Maity compares 1
droṇavāpa to 4.56 bīghās and Sircar calculates it to be 16–20 bīghās.
However, we should keep in mind that all these measuring units could
differ from region to region. This is attested by the record of Padmaṭa,
who mentions the phrase tadīya-deśācara-mānena (according to
local custom), which implies a difference from region to region.34 The
presence of a kṣetrapāla, who is primarily responsible for measuring the
land, fits in this context.
The Deva records, like those of the Pauravas, underscore the
preference for lands situated at the riverside: there are lands at the river
bank (kūle) of Ganga, Viṣṇugaṅgā. This was done with the specific
purpose of using the water from the river for agricultural purposes.
There is the mention of a stream (prasravaṇa) as another source of
water. The importance of water bodies looms large when we see the
state creating officials connected to them. Thus, ghaṭṭapāla appears as
the superintendent of landing places on river banks, and tarapati as the
superintendent of ferries.35
D.D. Kosambi and R.S. Sharma argued that the creation of revenue-
free land weakened the royal treasury and authority, which contributed
to the development of feudalism between c. 600–1200 ce.36 Although
the Devas made the grants revenue-free, this did not mean that they
had lost control of the state’s authority. We have seen in many cases that
the state was tapping others’ lands and sometimes private individuals,
including state officials, were buying lands and then donating it to the
deity. The Devas continued the earlier practice (like the Pauravas) of
associating a large number of state functionaries during the sanction of
the grant. The increasing number of state officials gives an impression
of the growing power of the state. The Deva charters do not include
any mahattara in their records. Instead, with many other administrative

officers, the presence of a mahattama (village headman) is unmistakable.

Sircar considers the mahattama to be one grade higher than the
mahattara, who acquired an important status in the Paurava state.37
While, during Lalitaśūra’s time (mid-9th century), we mainly find
the granted lands in the settled territory, in the succeeding period,
the Deva state also extended its realm to the tribal society, essentially
because of their fertile land. An interesting feature of the Deva
polity is the continuation of the private land ownership of the earlier
phase. In fact, in this phase, private landowners became wealthier,
which is supported by their possession of pallis, unlike a plot of land
ownership of the previous period by a private individual. At the same
time, we also witness the community holdings and shared holdings of
individuals. This may suggest that the localities were not isolated and
people were living in a compact zone. The mention of kṣetra land in
the tribal areas and their specific crop-producing capacity indicate
that these areas, unlike the other tribal areas on a subcontinental scale,
had already come under cultivation before being donated. Therefore,
these may also be considered as settled territories like the mainland
of the monarchical state. However, the tribal society did not let go of
its self-identity completely after coming under the monarchical state
of the Devas. Instead, it seems that they retained their practices even
under the umbrella of the monarchy. And, in this entire procedure, it
was the temples which functioned as a central factor for generating this
economy.38 That different communities, professional and occupational
groups became attached to this process will be considered in the next
section.
Craft, Occupations and Professions
Field-archaeological reports and epigraphic materials provide the

backbone of this section. The rich presence of extensive mining sites,
particularly of copper, in different areas of central Himalaya such as
Rai-Agor, Sira, Bora-Agor, Gaul in Kumaon and Dhobri, Dhanpur,
Pokhari, Nota, etc. is unmistakable.39 The suffix Agor to two place
names may suggest that the term could refer to ākara or mines/mineral
resources. The large number of places with copper ores indicate a boom
of copper mines, and the details of industry has been documented
through regional surveys.40 Based on the arsenic content in the copper
of the Ganga valley, D.P. Agrawala strongly argues that Kumaon (over
Singhum which was earlier thought to have the resource base of the
Ganga valley copper) was the supplier of the copper of the Ganga
valley.41

The Arthaśāstra, the celebrated early Indian treatise on political

economy, considered mining activities as a state monopoly, and
advocated the employment of a ākarādhakṣya (in charge of mining
department, Book II, Chap. XII). At the end of this chapter, Kauṭilya
reminds us of the role of mining by stating that the mines were the source
of treasury wherefrom the power went to the government.42 The extracted
minerals, metals and gems/stones were sent to the respective factories
(karmāntas) under the direct supervision of the ākarādhakṣya.43 It is in
this context that we can cite the karmmāntas noted in the copper plate
records discussed above. We see the existence of karmmāntas since the
time of the Pauravas. The karmmāntas reappear in the Deva records of
Padmaṭadeva (lines 18, 21) and Subhikṣarājadeva (lines 24, 31). Barring
mining activities, karmmāntas also served as a place of cattle butchering
(paśu-kula-avadāra-karmmānta).44 The mention of Huḍukka-sūnā-
kṣetra in Viṣṇuvarman’s charter also supports this contention. In this
case, the suffix sūnā attached to the place name Huḍukka is suggestive of
a slaughterhouse of the animals. According to the Arthaśāstra, sūnā were
the royal dues collected by the superintendent of the slaughterhouse. If
Huḍukka stands for a personal name, then it may represent the owner
of this slaughterhouse. There is also a reference to tuṅgula karmmānta.
Here tuṅgula has been taken by G.C. Tripathi as daru-haldi.45 If tuṅgula
stands for turmeric, then we have another factory associated with
turmeric production. Thus, the role of karmmāntas of this area were
not limited only to mining activities, but had wider implications. It
should be pointed out here that the animal, skin particularly of sheep,
which is abundant in this area, is favourable for making warm clothes.
The inscriptions of this area inform us about jackals, bulls, buffaloes,
horses, elephants, camels, etc. If paśu-kula-avadāra-karmmānta served
the purpose of cattle butchering, then they must have separated the skin
too. Among other types of woolen blankets, the Arthaśāstra mentions
two types of warm clothes—vāravaṇa and kaṭavaṇaka.46 In our records,
we have terms ending with ‘vanaka’, but that is not enough to strongly
conclude anything in this regard.
The Arthaśāstra also considered salt manufacturing as a mining
activity, and left it to private enterprises.47 Needless to say, salt is an
important daily necessity. Viṣṇuvarman’s record refers to Lavaṇodake,
a water body (udaka) whose water is salty (lavaṇa). The same record
informs us about the conspicuous presence of a class of silk weavers
(paṭṭavāyaka). We are not sure whether silk was a locally manufactured
product, but this mention cannot be overlooked.48 Another luxury
product could be ivory. The Buddhist Jātaka present dantakāra as a
worker in ivory.49 The place names of Vurāsikā-danta-vaṇika and Puṣpa-
dantikā possibly denote their association with ivory making in this region.

Two Talesvar records introduce us to a number of artisanal,

professional and occupational groups while describing the donated
plots in different areas of Brahmapura–Kārttikeyapura. These charters
sometimes do not directly refer to these groups, but the place names
mentioned in them offer a crucial clue to this issue. That any interference
or burden on the artisans (kāruka) should not be tolerated is a statement
which is self-explanatory, and shows the importance of the artisans in the
Paurava society. Among the artisanal groups, we have (a) herb collectors,
garland makers (mālākhānaka), (b) carpenters, masons (varddhaki), (c)
ironsmiths (lohara), goldsmiths (suvarṇakāra), washermen (rajaka),
barbers (candulāka), drummers (ḍiṇḍika), roasters (bhṛṣṭaka). Besides
these artisanal groups, we have some more professional groups who
enjoyed a higher status in society. They are the scribe/clerks (kāyastha),
or engravers (utkīrṇakāra) of royal edicts. Further, we have already
referred to the silk weavers (paṭṭavāyakas) and the Gauggulikas, who
dealt in the aromatic called guggulu, the bards (bhaṭṭi), the Udumbaras,50
the Ābhīras (correct reading of gabhīra) during the time of the Pauravas.
Along with the continuity of the Gauggulikas and the cowherds (ābhīra),
we find merchants (vaṇika) and wealthy merchants (śreṣṭhī) from the
Deva records. However, unlike in many areas of the subcontinent, here
we do not have guild-like cooperative organisations which played the
role of rudimentary banks in early India.
Along with the agricultural life, mining activities, craft, occupational
and professional groups, a discussion on the early central Himalayan
economic life would be incomplete without a few words on plants,
trees and forest products. The Paurava and Deva states stretched
their boundaries into the forest, and even the deep forest area. In
some cases, if the landed property was not situated in the forest, but
its location was close to a forest, then that nearby forest was also
given away (sajaṅgalam). This was due to the power of the forest as a
generator of resources. That the natural resources also had an impact
on the economy is substantiated by the mention of a number of plants
and trees which have often been addressed as boundary markers.
Epigraphic records notify us about Malabar (jambu), garden (vāṭaka,
ārāmaka), types of flower plants (vāsanti, campaka, mallikā), Indian
oleander (karavīra), citron/lemongrass (vījakaraṇī), honey (madhu),
fruit (phala), root (mūla), neem (nimva). We are not sure about a couple
of names which seems local. Tripathi has identified many of these,
like groves (drumati), groves of gooseberry (āmalaka), pine (śilla),
rosewood/sisama (śiṁśipikā), a kind of date tree/jaral (jarolaka), patal
(patalika), rhododendron/burunsa (burāsika), bamboo (vannuvāka),
turmeric (tuṅgula), white rose (semmaka), paddy (siṭṭaka or sītyaka),
sesame/tila (vijjaṭa), etc.51

Trade, Commerce and Urbanisation
According to Kosambi, Sharma and other Marxist historians, the

emergence and proliferation of land-grant records resulted in the
ruralisation of economy in this period. Along with this, they have
also identified the dwindling condition of trade after the 3rd century
ce, and its subsequent revival after the 10th century ce. The decline
of craft, commerce and urban centres also worked as supplementary
causes for the waning economic condition of this period.52 The general
economic trend of this phase as explained by the Marxist historians
can be critiqued on empirical grounds in our area. If the circulation of
the coin means burgeoning trade, then its absence cannot necessarily
be explained as the decline of trade. The land-grants of this area also
offer a crucial clue about the coins. The Paurava record of Viṣṇuvarman
captures the selling of land property through the exchange of gold
(suvarṇa), which certainly addresses the circulation of the gold currency
in this area around the 6th century ce.
Although land-grants may be explained in terms of the rural
milieu, they also contain important insights on trade vis-à-vis the non-
agricultural sector of the economy.53 There are epigraphic references to
haṭṭas, similar to modern hats, which are usually rural-level exchange
centres of a periodic nature (generally functional once or twice a week).
This is captured in the mentions of go-haṭṭa vāṭaka in the context of
donated landed properties in Brahmapura from Dyutivarman’s grant
of the 6th century ce. It suggests a market where cows were being sold.
These were small markets, but suggestive of a rural level network of
exchanges. A study on the haṭṭas/haṭṭikās from other areas like early
Bengal would show the diverse nature of these markets, which were not
stereotypical rural level exchange centres.54
Certain aspects of continuity are visible during the threshold times
between the 5th and 7th centuries ce, where there are references
to the merchants (vanika) and trading activities. Moreover, the
appearance of Uttarāpatha with many villages (bahugrāma sahita)
placed at the river bank (taṭe) of Pitṛgaṅgā in the context of donated
lands is substantiated by Dyutivarman’s record. The mention of
Uttarāpatha is significant from the viewpoint of the trade network,
and its locational importance demands a brief discussion. Moti
Chandra has identified two routes that went through Uttarāpatha.
The first one stretches from Peshawar to Bengal via Saharanpur,
Lucknow, Bijnor and Bihar. The second route passes through
Saharanpur-Lucknow-Banaras-Gonda. The cities of Kurujāṅgala,
Hastināpura, Śrāvasti and Rājagṛha are situated in this route. Moti
Chandra has also spoken about some smaller routes to the Himalayas

in the Peshawar–Parvatipur sector of the Grand route. Some of these

are Sialkot–Jammu, Ambala–Simla, Laksar–Dehradun, Bareilly–
Kathgodam, etc.55
According to Nayanjot Lahiri, the Uttarāpatha consists of ‘multiple
feeder routes … intertwined with the major axis.’56 Jason Neelis’ study
on the polyvalent perceptions of the Uttarāpatha in history through
archaeological, epigraphic and literary lenses reveals the Uttarāpatha
to be a northern route, which refers to a network of constant shifting
itineraries for commercial and cultural exchanges between the north-
western borderlands of South Asia and the Ganga–Yamuna doab in
northern India. Further, he explains how this etymological meaning of
the Uttarāpatha overlaps with its general geographical connotation as
the northern country whose fluid boundary encompassed territories
from the Ganga basin to Mathura, Taxilā and Bactria in northern
Afghanistan. Neelis further denotes the Uttarāpatha as a geo-cultural
term to distinguish its flexible boundaries, which stretches in the
north-western frontier of the subcontinent, from the middle country
(Madhyadeśa) of Āryāvarta.57 He finds that the textual notices of the
Uttarāpatha with long distance travel and trade in a northern or north-
western direction correspond fairly well with the ‘archaeological reality’
of transregional contact and intercultural relationships with inhabitants
of the north-western frontier. His study shows the fluctuating
geographical position of the northern route that shifted according
to the perspective of a particular source. Combing the viewpoints
of all these varied sources, Neelis identified three branches of the
Uttarāpatha, traversing from the north-eastern to the north-western
part of the Indian subcontinent, along with many other ways split into
north–south to east–west transversal directions. These three primary
routes are (a) the northernmost one passing through the foothills of
the Himalayas via ancient Hastināpura, Ahicchatra, Śrāvasti, Vaiśālī,
Magadha and finally reaching Tāmralipta in Bengal, (b) the second or
the middle one followed the Gange–Yamuna doab through Saṁkāsya,
Kauśāmbī, Banaras and Pāṭaliputra and (c) the southerly one following
the Yamuna stretched though Mathura to Kauśāmbī.58 Both Chandra
and Neelis found the extension of the Uttarāpatha route to the north-
western side of the subcontinent via Mathura–Punjab–Taxilā. However,
seen in the light of our sources, another extension of the Uttarāpatha
can be traced back from the area of central Himalaya.
Along with the trader (vaṇika), the wealthy merchant known as
śreṣṭhī first appears in the Deva record of Subhikṣarājadeva in the
10th century ce. A śreṣṭhī, with his outstanding amount of wealth, is
different from a general trader. A case in point is the mention of śreṣṭhī
Jīvāka as the owner of land called Gāṅgeraka, which measures eight

droṇavāpas, and a part of another land of Paivitta measuring three

droṇavāpas underlining a glimpse of his wealth. All these lands come
under the district (viṣaya) of Ṭaṅgaṇāpura and Antaraṅga. The term
Ṭaṅgaṇā means borax in Sanskrit. Citing the references to the Ṭaṅgaṇā
tribe in the Mahābhārata, Purāṇas and Bṛhatsaṁhitā, Joshi and Brown
conclude that the Ṭaṅgaṇāpura of the Deva record is a tribal settlement
and received its name from borax or vice versa.59 The role of borax as
an indispensable item in goldsmithing and ironworking activities is
beyond any doubt. The earliest epigraphic reference to the goldsmiths
from this region comes around the 6th century ce.60 Based on this,
Joshi and Brown think that borax was imported from Tibet, where it
is available on a large scale, to this area at least since 6th century ce. In
support of this theory, they also highlighted the reference to Tibetan
borax, figuring as an imported item to this area in Trail’s list, and during
the time of Warren Hastings. They also point to the Mughal chronicle
which refers to Kumaon as the only source of borax in the then India.
Saklani’s study features the Ṭaṅgaṇās as an ancient trading community
of central Himalaya. Emphasising Tibet as the only source of borax
and supplier of this item to South Asia, Saklani regarded borax as the
main item of trade between India and Tibet along with gold and salt.
He then concluded that the people engaged in this Indo-Tibetan trade
of borax later came to be known as the Ṭaṅgaṇās. Further, highlighting
the similarities of trade practices between the ancient Ṭaṅgaṇās and the
present Bhotiyas, he has traced a possible route of the later from the
former.61
Besides Ṭaṅgaṇā’s role as borax, we should recall Kālidāsa’s applause
of northern horses in the context of Raghu’s digvijaya, in the Raghuvaṁśa
(4.69–70) and Bāṇabhaṭṭa’s Harṣacarita (c. 7th century ce) showering of
praise on Ṭaṅgaṇā horses.62 Ranabir Chakravarti draws our attention to
the north-east (Tibet, Bhutan) as the supply centre of mountain horses
in eastern India.63 A Jātaka story mentions the movement of a horse
dealer from the Uttarāpatha to Vārāṇasi.64 We have already mentioned
an extension of the Uttarāpatha route in central Himalaya. Hence,
this horse dealer of the Jātaka story may be an inhabitant of central
Himalaya. Seen in the light of the Jātaka, Raghuvaṁśa and Harṣacarita,
which talks of quality horses associated with the North, we may
presume that the Taṅgaṇāpura of Padmaṭadeva and Subhikṣarājadeva’s
(c. 10th century ce)65 was possibly the source of good quality of horses
and perhaps also supplied horses to eastern India as we have already
underlined the linkage between these two regions at least since c. 6th
century ce.
An in-depth probe into the epigraphic materials of this phase shows
a hierarchy of settlements which is also a pointer to urbanisation.

The presence of a fort (koṭṭa) in the Paurava state provides a glimpse

of city life and the mention of a koṭādhikaraṇika (head of a fort) in
Dyutivarman’s record, thus, perfectly fits here.66 The terms pura and
nagara are generally representative of urban or city life, and are different
from the village (grāma), palli (hamlet). From the Lakhamandal
inscription of princess Īśvarā (c. 7th century ce), we know about
Siṅghapura, which Xuanzang records as Seng-ho-pu-lo. While the
Pauravas, besides issuing their records from Brahmapura, also inform
us about Kārttikeyapura, Śivamuṣīcyāpurī, Kollapurī, Trayamvapura,
Dīpapurī, Madhyamapuraka, the Devas exercised their authority from
Kārttikeyapura, Subhikṣapura and also mention other urban centres
like Ṭaṅgaṇāpura and Śrīharṣapura during the transfer of landed
property to the religious institutions. The appearance of these pura/
purī(s) in their respective locations goes against the theory of ‘urban
anaemia’ vis-à-vis ‘monetary anaemia’ in this period. In sharp contrast,
it postulates a different form of urbanisation distinct from the previous
type of urbanisation (experienced in the preceding centuries of early
historic phase), that B.D. Chattopadhyaya labels as ‘third urbanisation’.67
Unlike the urban centres of the early historic phase that developed as
the result of influence circulated from the urban centres located at the
epicentre (the Ganga valley), these urban centres of third urbanisation
emerged from within as products of local state formation.
Conclusion
This economic survey of the hill states of Brahmapura–Kārttikeyapura

during the 6th–10th centuries ce brings to the fore the expansion of
agriculture from c. 6th century ce and its intensification during the
9th–10th centuries ce. The role of water bodies and the donation
of landed property in the river banks helped in this, as did several
forest products which gave a boom to the economy cutting across
the centuries. The presence of merchants and the trade activities with
different areas added extra impetus, and so did the presence of metallic
currency and the formation of cities in conjunction with the economic
activities. These are the hallmarks of the early Himalayan economy of
Brahmapura–Kārttikeyapura area. This discussion also suggests that the
economy of this land was not heavily dependent on the agrarian sector.
However, the folkloristic tradition of the land announces agriculture
as the best profession, followed by commerce. The comparison of rice
to the headman, millet to the king and wheat to the slave shows the
preference of rice production. The highland areas were favourable for
wheat production because of the snowfall which soaked the ground

and helped to produce better crops.68 The non-agrarian sector equally,

if not more, contributed to the development of the economic sector of
this area, which is writ large from the sources. Therefore, the nature
of the economy of this Himalayan belt should be designated as
multidimensional.
Notes
1 R.S. Sharma. 1966. ‘Stages in Ancient Indian Economy’. In Light on Early

Indian Society and Economy, edited by R.S. Sharma. Bombay: Manaktalas,
pp. 52–89.
2 R.S. Sharma and D.N. Jha. 1974. ‘Economic History of India up to c. AD
1200: Trends and Prospects’. JESHO, XVII/1, 48–80.
3 B.D. Chattopadhyaya. 1995. ‘State and Economy in North India: Fourth
Century to Twelfth Century’. In Recent Perspectives of Early Indian History,
edited by Romila Thapar. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, pp. 309–346; R.
Champakalakshmi. 1995. ‘State and Economy: South India Circa A.D.
400–1300’. In Recent Perspectives of Early Indian History, edited by Romila
Thapar. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, pp. 266–308.
4 V.M. Jha. 2008. ‘Economy of North India’. In A Comprehensive History
of India, IV/2, edited by R.S. Sharma and K.M. Shrimali. New Delhi:
Manohar, pp. 261–310.
5 Y.R. Gupte. 1915–16. ‘Two Talesvara Copperplates: Grant of Dyutivarman
and Grant of Viṣṇvarman’. EI, XIII, pp. 109–121. In Dyutivarman’s record,
it is explicitly mentioned that the earlier grant was burnt (dagdhāni).
Gupte is suspicious about the originality of both the plates. However, there
is enough proof of their authenticity. See, K.K. Thaplyal. 1970. ‘Are the
Taleshwar-Copper-Plates Spurious?’. PIHC, 32/1, pp. 60–62.
p. 112.
7 Gupte. ‘Grant of Dyutivarman’.
8 R.S. Sharma. 1957. ‘Irrigation in the North During the Post Maurya Period
(circa 200 BC–circa AD 200)’. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress,
pp. 20, 55–64. B.D. Chattopadhyaya. 1973. ‘Irrigation in Early Medieval
Rajasthan’. JESHO, XVI/2–3, pp. 298–316; Ranabir Chakravarti. 2009.
‘Interacting with Hydraulic Resources: Early Indian Experience’. In History
of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization: Science, Literature
and Aesthetics, XV/3, edited by Amiya Dev. New Delhi: Centre for Studies
in Civilizations, pp. 343–369.
9 Ranjan Anand. 1999. Social and Cultural History of Uttarākhaṇḍa (Kumaon
and Garhwal) from c. A.D. 600–1300, Unpublished PhD Thesis. New Delhi:
Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, p. 216.
10 Ibid., p. 120.
11 https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/water/saving-traditional-water-
harvesting-systems-in-uttarakhand-61480; also see Chandi Prasad and

Ramesh C. Sharma. 2019. ‘Water Resources and Their Traditional

Management in Kedarnath Valley of Garhwal Himalaya, India’.
International Journal of Hydrology, 3/3, 194–203.
12 Gupte, ‘Grant of Viṣṇuvarman’.
13 Ranabir Chakravarti. 2018. ‘Economic Life: Agrarian and Non-Agrarian
Pursuits’. In History of Bangladesh: Early Bengal in Regional Perspectives
(up to c. 1200 ce), edited by Abdul Momin Chowdhury and Ranabir
Chakravarti. Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, p. 124.
14 D.C. Sircar. 1947. ‘Kulyavāpa, Droṇavāpa and Āḍhavāpa’. Bhārata-
Kaumudī: Studies in Indology in Honour of Dr. Radha Kumud Mookerji, II.
Allahabad: The Indian Press Ltd., pp. 943–948.
15 M.A. Stein (trans.). 1900. Kalhaṇa’s Rājataraṅginī: A Chronicle of the Kings
of Kaśmīr, II/VIII. Westminster: Archibald, Constable and Co., iv. 495.31,
325.
16 N. Verma. 1992. Society and Economy in Ancient India: An Epigraphic
Study of the Maitrakas (c. AD 475–775). New Delhi: Vikas Publishing
House.
17 Samuel Beal. 1906. Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World,
Translated from the Chinese of Hiuen Tsiang (AD 629). London: Kegan
Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., pp. 198–199.
18 Ibid., 199–200.
19 Ibid., 190–198.
20 Among many scholars, E.T. Atkinson finds the trace of the Katyuris from
the Khasiya Katurs of the trans-Indus highlands and argues for their
connection with the Katures located at the west of the Indus and the Kunets
of Kunaor and Khos of Kashkara. Further, he asks whether the dynastic
name Katyuri was based on the valley or vice versa, which is a subject of
research and highlights the probability of deriving the Katyuri term from
Pāli Kārtiikeyapura, their capital city. He discards his own assumption by
stating it as mere accidental. See, Edwin T. Atkinson. 2002. The Himalayan
Gazetteer or the Himalayan Districts of the North Western Province of India
(in 3 vols, 6 parts). Allahabad: ASI, 1881–86 (reprint from Delhi: Cosmo
Publications, Low Price Publications, reprint 2002), pp. 381–383, 439, 468.
It is better to call this dynasty the ‘Devas’ simply going by the name ending
‘deva’ of the maximum rulers of this dynasty.
21 Noboru Karashima’s statistical analysis of the South Indian inscriptions
show that in south India, community land holding preceded the individual
land holding. Thus, we can see collective landholdings in the ūrs during
the early Cola times and burgeoning of individual landholdings due to the
grant of lands to the officials in lieu of their service in the later Cola period.
See, Noboru Karashima. 2014. A Concise History of South India: Issues and
Interpretations. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 135–138.
22 F. Kielhorn. 1896. ‘Pandukesvar Plate of Lalitaśūradeva’, IA, XXV, 117–184.
23 D.C. Sircar. 1955–56. ‘Three Plates from Pandukesvar: I. Plate of
Lalitaśūradeva, Year 22; II. Plate of Padmaṭadeva, Year 25; III. Plate of
Subhikṣarājadeva, Regnal Year 4’, EI, XXXI, 277–298.

24 Y.S. Katauch. 1999. ‘Kandara Plate of Lalitaśūradeva’. In Madhya Himalaya:

Sanskriti ka Padachinha (in Hindi), edited by Y.S. Katauch. Tehri Garhwal:
Bhagirathi Prakashan, pp. 97–104.
25 For Deṣaṭadeva’s record see, Atkinson. The Himalayan Gazetteer, II, 471;
for Padmaṭadeva’s see, Sircar. ‘Plate of Padmaṭadeva’.
26 For Subhikṣarājadeva’s charter, see Sircar. ‘Plate of Subhikṣarājadeva’.
27 Ibid.
28 We are not sure about the nature of some lands, whether some names
represent private or community ownership.
29 Sircar. ‘Plate of Subhikṣarājadeva’.
30 R.P. Kangle (trans.). 1960. The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, I & II (trans.),
Bombay: University of Bombay.
31 Ibid.
32 Cited in Chakravarti. ‘Economic Life’, p. 144.
33 Trail and Saroda Prashad Chakraborty. 1838. ‘Bageshar Inscription’, JASB,
VII, 1056–60. The wrong transcript and the translation of this record
reveal donations to different cults. When we compare it with other records,
a tentative correct reading is possible which shows that all the donations
were offered to only Vyāghreśvaradeva.
34 Sircar. ‘Plate of Padmaṭadeva’.
35 Ghaṭṭapāla can also stand for in charge of the pass (ghāṭs) as mountainous
regions are full of passes. An example of ghāṭ as pass can be seen in the
name Naneghat pass (in Deccan) which was quite prominent since the
time of the Sātavāhanas.
36 R.S. Sharma. 1965. Indian Feudalism, c. 300–1200. Calcutta: University
of Calcutta; R.S. Sharma. 2001. Early Medieval Indian Society: A Study in
Feudalisation, Kolkata: Orient Longman, 2001.
37 Sircar. Glossary, p. 190.
38 The replication of the same process of donation to temples and also to
individuals like the Brāhmaṇas is attested from other areas as well and
hence the role of institutional tools in the expansion of agriculture vis-
à-vis political economy of the state becomes clear once again. See, R.
Mahalakshmi. 2014. ‘Revisiting the Political Economy of Pre-modern
Tamil Nadu’. In The Complex Heritage of Early India: Essays in Memory of
R.S. Sharma, edited by D.N. Jha. New Delhi: Manohar, pp. 555–583.
39 Atkinson. The Himalayan Gazatteer, I, 259–298.
40 V. Ball. 1881. A Manual of the Geology of India: Economic Geology, III,
Calcutta: Geological Survey of India.
41 D.P. Agrawala. 2008. ‘Central Himalayas and the Ganga Valley: Mutual
Interactions’. In Intercultural Relations Between South and Southwest Asia:
Studies in Commemoration of E.C.L. During Caspers (1934–1996), edited
by E. Olijdam and R.H. Spoor. Bar International Series 1826, 48–55.
42 R. Shamasastry (trans.). 1967. Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra. Mysore: Raghuveer
Printing Press, pp. 83–89.
43 2.12.2–2.12.36, see, R.P. Kangle (trans.). 1960. The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, I.
Bombay: University of Bombay, 1960, pp. 45–48.
44 Gupte. ‘Grant of Dyutivarman’.

45 T.R. Tripathi. Year not mentioned. Historical Geography of the Central

Himalayan Kingdoms (7th Century ce to 12th Century ce). Nainital:
Gyanodaya Prakashan, p. 146.
46 Shamasastry. Arthaśāstra, 81–82.
47 Kangle. Arthaśāstra, II.12.
48 D.C. Sircar. 1965. ‘Mandasor Stone Inscription Mentioning Kumāra Gupta
I and Bandhuvarman-Mālava Years 493 and 529 (A.D. 436 & 473)’. In Select
Inscriptions Bearing on Indian History and Civilization, I, edited by Sircar.
Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 299–307. This inscription informs about
the silk weavers of the Lāṭadeśa who migrated to Daśapura and adopted
different professions.
49 Cited in Chakravarti. ‘Economic Life’, p. 151.
50 Moti Chandra informs us that the fine woolen material woven in the
region between Magadha and Kashmir was called oṭumbara in early
times. See, Moti Chandra. 1977. Trade and Trade Routes in Ancient
India. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, p. 16. It is possible that woolen
material was manufactured in the habitation territory of the Udumbaras
(udumbaravāsa) captured in Dyutivarman’s record.
51 Tripathi. Historical Geography, pp. 145–147.
52 Sharma. Indian Feudalism.
53 B.D. Chattopadhyaya. 2012. The Making of Early Medieval India. New
Delhi: Oxford University Press (Second edition).
54 Ibid., Chakravarti. ‘Economic Life’, pp. 166–168.
55 Chandra. The Trade and Trade Routes, pp. 12–22.
56 Nayanjot Lahiri. 1992. The Archaeology of Indian Trade Routes up to c. 200
BC: Resource Use, Resource Access, and Lines of Communication. Delhi:
57 Jason Neelis. 2013. ‘Polyvalent Perceptions of the Uttarāpatha in
History: Archaeological Evidence, Epigraphic References, and Literary
Demarcations’. In Revisiting Early India: Essays in memory of D.C. Sircar,
edited by Suchandra Ghosh, Sudipa Ray Bandyopadhyay, Susmita Basu
Majumdar and Sayantani Pal. Kolkata: R.N. Bhattacharyya, pp. 13–25.
58 Jason Neelis. 2011. Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks:
Mobility and Exchange within and beyond the Northwestern Borderlands of
South Asia. Leiden: E.J. Brill, pp. 183–228.
59 M.P. Joshi and C.W. Brown. 1987. ‘Some Dynamics of Indo–Tibetan Trade
through Uttarākhaṇḍa (Kumaon-Garhwal), India’. JESHO, 30/3, 303–317.
60 Cited in Gupte. ‘Two Talesvara Copperplates’.
61 D.P. Saklani. 1997. ‘Tanganas: An Ancient Trading Community of
Central Himalaya’. In Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, IV/1,
61–67; D.P. Saklani. 1998. ‘The Ancient Traders of Central Himalaya and
their Successors’, PIHC, 59, 116–137. That there were trade connections
between Tibet and the areas of Uttarakhand is clearly evident from the
recovery of a number of stone inscriptions from Mana. The engraving
of the famous Buddhist creed ye dhamma hetu in Tibetan scripts … and
sometimes iconographic depiction of the Buddha can be cited as a proof of
this linkage. See, Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy (1969–70), 55.

62 Bhagwat Saran Upadhyaya. 1968. India in Kālidāsa. Delhi: S. Chand,

20–22; E.B. Cowell and F.W. Thomas (trans.). 1897. The Harṣa-Carita
of Bāṇa. London: The Royal Asiatic Society, p. 201. If this resembles the
Ṭaṅgaṇāpura mentioned in Padmaṭadeva and Subhikṣarājadeva’s record
(c. 10th century ce), then Bāṇa possibly talked of the central Himalayan
horse.
63 Ranabir Chakravarti. 1999. ‘Early Medieval Bengal and the Trade in
Horses: A Note’. JESHO, 42/2, 194–211.
64 Jātakas, II, 287, line 15 cited in fn. 3 in D.R. Bhandarkar, B.C. Chhabra
and G.S. Gai (eds). ‘Allahābād Stone Pillar Inscription of Samudragupta’.
Inscriptions of the Early Gupta Kings: CII (revised), III. New Delhi: ASI,
1981, 211.
65 Sircar. ‘Plate of Padmaṭadeva and Subhikṣarājadeva’.
66 Gupte. ‘Grant of Dyutivarman’, line 7.
67 B.D. Chattopadhyaya. ‘Urban Centres in Early Medieval India:
An Overview’. In The Making of Early Medieval India, edited by
Chattopadhyaya. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 155–182.
68 G.D. Upreti. 1894. Proverbs and Folklore of Kumaun and Garhwal. Lodiana:
Lodiana Mission Press, pp. 4–6.

12
AGRARIAN EXPANSION, IRRIGATION AND

TRADE IN AGRARIAN COMMODITIES IN EARLY
MEDIEVAL KARNATAKA
Malini Adiga
Historical records for Karnataka begin from the mid-4th century when
the Kadambas and subsequently the Gaṅgas set up their kingdoms
around Banavāsi and Kolār respectively. Under their aegis, we find
clusters of agrarian settlements in various localities and a sustained
attempt to expand the arable by encouraging the growth of irrigation
facilities: primarily tanks, channels from local streams and, to a
lesser extent, wells. We hear of major irrigational works such as the
construction of a mahātaṭāka by a Brāhmaṇa Śivāryya, recorded in the
Gaṭṭavāḍi Plates of the early 10th century, which collected the waters
from three small rivulets flowing from a forest. Around this new tank, a
new village named Śivayyamaṅgala was set up, which was then granted
by the Gaṅga Eṟeyaṅga II to Śivāryya himself.1 This is an illustrative
instance where the Brāhmaṇas took a lead in the construction of tanks
and the extension of an arable. The Gaṭṭavāḍi Plates cited here also refer
in the course of the boundary details to a tank constructed by a queen
(arasiyukaṭṭidakeṟe).2 Other members of the elite also contributed
to the provision of irrigational facilities. In the early 8th century, the
Hallegere plates of Śivamāra Gaṅga I record the construction of a bridge
(inclusive of an embankment) over the Kiḻine river and the inclusion
of four hamlets to the north and south of the river, thus, forded to
create a new village named Pallavataṭāka which was then granted to a
large number of Brāhmaṇas. Two princes of Pallava descent, Jaya and
Vṛddhi, seem instrumental in the grant, though it is not clear who took
the initiative in building the bridge. The boundaries of the village (given
in great detail) mention several tanks such as the Kiṟukonnindataṭāka,
Pergonnindataṭāka, the Kiṟubaḷiyårkeṟe and Sellakeṟe, as well as
streams such as the Irggar̥ enadi and the Nesarupaḷa.3 Similarly, from
Tāḷagunda, we have a reference to a Pergaḍe Puliyamma who had a
tank constructed there.4 Such initiatives were rewarded with grants
of land or a share in the produce from the land irrigated which was
281

termed bittuvaṭṭa. An inscription from Rampura (Srirangapattana

Taluk, Mandya district) from the close of the 9th century records the
construction of a dam (kaṭṭu) by an individual named Śrikeśiga, for
which he received taxes from the irrigated lands. The rate of tax per
one arani of land irrigated was one-tenth (pattondi) in the first year,
one-seventh (ēḷaḻavi) in the second and one-fifth (aydaḻavi) thereafter.5
This grant of revenue was made by Matisāgara Paṇḍita Bhaṭārar, the
adhipati of Bēḷgola at this time, who evidently held these areas as estate.
Grants of land were also made as bittuvaṭa. An inscription from Hale
Budanur in Mandya taluk of the early 11th century records the grant of
several koḷaga of land as bittuvaṭṭa made by the gāvuṇḍas of Būdanūr
to Sōvirāśi Bhaṭārar, who had tanks constructed there.6 A different
kind of bittuvaṭṭa grant is registered in the Betamangala inscription
(Bangarapet taluka, Kolar district) of the mid-10th century, in which the
tank of Vijayādityamangaḷa was repaired by Vaidumba Vikramāditya
Tiruvayya at the direction of his overlord, Noëambādhirāja Noëipayya,
but the grant of bittuvaṭa for the perpetual maintenance of the tank
was made to the 500 Mahājanas of Kayvāra. The grant encompassed
the mahāgrāma of Vijayādityamangaḷa itself along with Kaṇṇanūr and
Manayūr.7
Apart from tanks, dams, embankments and wells, in the 12th
century, we also hear of a water lift device, the aravaṇṭige, a version of
the araghaṭṭa, that supplemented the irrigation sources already existent
in Karnataka. An inscription from Malghan (Sindgi taluka, Bijapur
district) during the reign of Tribhuvanamalla Cāḷukya (Vikramāditya
VI) records grants of lands at Mallagāṇa after purchase for the upkeep
of several temples, tanks, wells and aravaṇṭige for which a total of 30
mattars of land were granted. These grants were made by an individual
named Rēvaṇa.8 This highlights the importance attached by the elite to
the provision and maintenance of irrigation works. Another reference
to the aravaṇṭige comes from a 13th century inscription from Doḍḍa
Gaddavaḷi (Hassan taluka) which records the grant of six gadyāṇas by
a member of the Ubhaya Nānadeśi, Kumāra Nāraṇa Nāyaka, to the
Mahājanas of Gaddumbaḷi for the purpose of maintaining aravaṇṭige
on the road to Dōrasamudra in the summer months, out of the interest
on the money gifted. This seems to be a charity to provide water to
travellers on the road to the capital from Gaddumbaḷi, which, as we
shall see later, had a significant mercantile presence.9
This chapter studies at the process of agrarian expansion by looking
at the epigraphical record of three talukas of Karnataka, Bēlūr in
Hassan district, Yelaburga in Koppal district and Mysore district. The
socioeconomic developments and the use of agrahāras or temples to
integrate smaller settlements are also examined.

Agrarian Expansion, Irrigation and Trade 283
Bēlūr Taluka
Bēlūr taluka (Table 12.1) may be characterised as malnāḍ (hilly

and forested areas) and semi-malnāḍ, and is drained by the Yagachi
river. The settlement of this area seems to have stretched over a long
period, starting from the 5th century, but saw a spurt during the
Hoysaḷa period, when this area became the core of their kingdom. In
this period, officials and local dominant landed classes contributed
to the extension of the arable by cutting forests and setting up new
hamlets, often named after the sponsors, which were affiliated to
temples or brahmadēyas. The inscriptions studied here range from
the 5th to the 13th centuries.
The earliest record from what is now Bēlūr taluka is the famous
Halmīḍi inscription which is reckoned as the earliest Kannaḍa
language record dating to the mid-5th century. This epigraph registers
the grant as a bāḷgaḻcu (a grant made as a remuneration for meritorious
military service) to Vijaarasa of the Serakella family from the villages
of Palmāḍi and Mūlivaḷi.10 We are not given any information of the
politico-geographical units these villages belonged to. Palmāḍigrāma
is also the subject of a brahmadēya grant in the Bennūru Copper
Plates of the 5th century in the reign of Vijaya Śiva Kṛṣṇavarma, and
here it is identified as being in the Sēndrakaviṣaya. Apart from the
grant of the village, we are told that the Brāhmaṇa Bhavasvāmin, the
donee in this second record, was granted six nivarttanas of land and
the royal share of the daśavandha (a one-tenth tax?) on the village
of Palmāḍi.11 It is not clearly specified here, but the grant of the six
nivarttanas might have been of uncultivated land, thus, constituting
an expansion of the arable.
An early inscription with interesting ramifications for settlement
patterns in this region is the 6th-century Tagare Copper Plates of
Kadamba Bhogivarman. This epigraph records the donation of one
paḷi (hamlet), Kiṟukūḍalūr, out of the twenty-four attached to the
mahāgrāma of Tagare to a Brāhmaṇa, Bhūtaśarman of Kāśyapa gōtra at
the request of his son, Viṣṇuvarman, by the King Bhōgivarman.12 The
Hallegere Plates of Śivamāra I depict the integration of four hamlets to
create the village of Pallavataṭāka. Paḷis are usually understood to be
tribal hamlets. In a later context of Cōḷa period in Tamil Nadu, we have
references to hamlets (piḍāgai) being attached to or detached from larger
villages known as taniyūrs which were constituted as brahmadēyas or
temple donations.13 It is possible that a similar process can be seen here.
It would have been interesting to have known the social composition of
the mahāgrāma of Tagare. While one of the attached hamlets is being
given as a brahmadēya grant here, it is not clear whether the village as

Table 12.1: Bēlūr Taluka Inscriptional References to Settlements
S. No. Inscription Date Nāḍu/Viṣaya Settlement and Land
No. Units Details
1. EC IX 5th - Palmāḍi and Mulivaḷi
(1990) Bl century granted as bāḷgaḻcu to an
236 arasa.
2. EC IX 5th Sēndraka viṣaya Palmāḍi in this unit granted
(1990) Bl century as brahmadēya along with
231 daśavandha on it and six
nivarttanas of land.
3. EC IX 5th Vaḷḷāvi viṣaya Kolanellūru grama in
(1990) century this unit granted as
Bl 386 brahmadēya.
4. EC IX 6th - Tagare mahāgrāma with
(1990) century its twenty-four attached
Bl 536 paḷis ref to one of these,
Kiṟukūḍalūru granted as
brahmadēya.
5. EC IX 6th Sēndraka viṣaya Palaccoge grāma within
(1990) Bl century Vaḷḷāvi dēsa. these units granted
537 The latter as a as brahmadēya. Also
sub-unit of the refer to Ānandūr and
former Sikkamba, apparently
Brāhmaṇa settlements
whose Pērbārvas
(Mahābrāhmaṇas) acted as
witnesses to this grant.
6. EC IX 8th - Posavōr granted as
(1990) Bl century brahmadēya and land of
472 three khaṇḍugas in extent
granted as dēvadāna by an
individual named Lōkagaḷa.
7. EC IX 954 ce - Kellangeṟe given to a
(1990) Bl Jaina monk Mōnibhaṭāra
388 (located in Arsikere taluka,
a Jaina site at this time).
8. EC IX 971 ce Beṇṇeyūr -70 Five khaṇḍugas of land-
(1990) Bl granted to a fallen warrior.
551 Refer to the Prabhus of
Muguḷi, Basavanahaḷi,
Uppavaḷi and Māguṇḍi,
which were neighbouring
settlements. The Prabhus
to maintain the grant after
delineating the land.
9. EC IX 10th Tagare nāḍ Kōgōḍu raided by inhabitants
(1990) Bl century of Tagare nāḍu in which the
524 son of Rājaya the younger
brother of Śivāra Gāvuṇḍa of
Kōgōḍu died.

No. Units Details
10. EC IX 11th Gaṅgavāḍi Kōḍe referred to. (Probably
(1990) Bl century 96,000 the same as Kōḍihaḷi,
245 the provenance of the
inscription) Temple and
tank constructed here by
Sāmanta Cinna Gāvuṅḍa
and Ahitaraṅkuśaśeṭṭi, the
son of Kārika Sāmanta.
Grants of wet lands and
cultivable lands (beddale)
near the tank to the temple.
11. EC IX 1062 - Tollalahaḷi (probably
(1990) Bl identical to Toḷalu, the
542 findspot of the inscription)
Grant of land for a Jaina
shrine by Tippa Gauḍa,
Mudda Gauḍa and the
King Vinayāditya Poysaḷa
entrusted to Abhayacandra
Paṇḍita of Beḷave.
12. EC IX 11th - Also from Toḷalu, the
(1990) Bl century inscription records the
541 death of Abhayacandra
Paṇḍita and the completion
of the basadi by
Padmāvatiyakka along with
the surrounding walls at the
cost of 70 gadyāṇas (a gold
coin).
13. EC IX 1062 Gaṅgavāḍi ruled Dōrasamudra where a
(1990) Bl by Vinayāditya sluice was set up to a tank
338 Poysaḷa and a grant of bittuvaṭṭa
made. Indicative of
agricultural land in the
vicinity of the capital city.
14. EC IX 1096 Gaṅgamaṇḍala, Modalgaṭṭa in Baḷāvināḍ.
(1990) Bl Koṅgu and Bhāsa Gāvuṇḍa, the son
484 Maleyēḷu of the nāḷgāvuṇḍa, set
mentioned as up a new village named
the areas ruled Raṇakiyagaṭṭā (same as
by the Hoysaḷas. Rannagaṭṭā the findspot)
Baḷāvināḍ and built a tank and temple
there. Lands were granted
to the temple in the vicinity
of the tank and another
share cropping arrangement
(hannasa) with regard to
land below tank.

No. Units Details
15. EC IX 1097–98 Gaṅgavādi Vinayāditya Poysaḷa set
(1990) Bl 96,000 up the sluice to a tank at
341 Dōrasamudra.
16. EC IX 1093 Mayse nāḍ Tāvarekeṟe ruled
(1990) Bl with ubhayasāmya
473 by Mahāpradhāna
Manevergaḍe
Kundamārāyar. He had
a tank and a temple
constructed and made
grants of lands below
the tank sluice for the
Mendēśvara and the
Mūlasthāna Kalidēvar.
17. EC IX 1099 - Darvve - reference to
(1990) Bl the temple of Kōbēśvara
191 which was granted lands
in the vicinity of a toṟe
(stream) and a keṟe (tank)
by its patron Kōbi Gāvuṇḍa
which were entrusted to a
sthānapati.
18. EC IX 1101 - Darvveyahaḷi (the same as
(1990) Bl Darvve referred to in the
190 inscription above). The
Kōbēśvara temple received
the proceeds of the
banadateṟe (garden tax) for
the conduct of rituals from
the King Ballāḷa I Hoysaḷa.
Also, a maṇṭapa was added
to the temple and a tank
excavated in front of it by
Kōbi Gāvuṇḍa.
19. EC IX Close of - Darvve. The Kōbēśvara
(1990) Bl the 11th temple at Darvve granted
192 century the sum paid as rent
(guttage) on a wet field
below the embankment
(kaṭṭe) at Kariyahaḷi
for burning a lamp
by Herveyala Gōrava
Gāvuṇḍa.

No. Units Details
20. EC IX 1117 Dēvaḷige nāḍ Bēlūr, the temples
(1990) Bl and sub-unit of Vijayanārāyaṇa,
16 Emmesandi-12 Cennakēśava and
Koḍagi nāḍ Lakṣmīnārāyaṇa
and its sub-unit constructed by King
Bārasi-12 Viṣṇuvardhana and Queen
Tagare nāḍ Śāntala and granted lands
Baḷāvi nāḍ for rituals and officiating
Manali nāḍ staff.
Nekkundi nāḍ Grants of
and its sub-unit 1. Basavanahaḷi in Dēvaḷige
Morasu-12 nād
Maisa nāḍ 2. Niḍugunda and its
Āsandi nāḍ hamlets (nāḍu affiliation
unclear)
3. Abbidoṟe, Hasuḍehaḷi
and its two hamlets in
Tagare nāḍ
4. Hādiyavoḷalu in Baḷāvi
nāḍ
5. Attivaḷige in Manali nāḍ
6. Kesakōḍu and its hamlets
in Nekkundi nāḍ
7. Beḍāgeṟe in Maisa nāḍ
8. D ēvanūru in Āsandi nāḍ
21. EC IX 1117 Tagare nāḍ Grants to the
(1990) Bl Vijayanārāyaṇa temple’s
168 officiating Brāhmaṇas of
Cikanahaḷi hamlet of
Hiriyamuguḷi (probably
Āsandi nāḍ though it is not
specified).
Beṇṇeyūr and its associated
hamlets of Areyahaḷi
and Keḷeyabbehaḷi (nāḍu
affiliations not clear)
Niṭṭūru in Tagare nāḍ.
22. EC IX 1129 Ballava nād Niḍugōḍu in this nāḍ
(1990) Bl (same as Baḷāvi granted for provision of
145 nāḍ) food at the Malli Jinālaya.

No. Units Details
23. ECIX 1164 - Reference to Belpūr
(1990) Bl (same as Bēlūr). Records
136 the construction of
the Biṭṭīśvara temple
and the repair of the
Hoysaḷasamudra tank
at the cost of a 1000 hon
(gold coins) by Biṭṭi Bōva.
Grants of lands after
offering pādapūje to the
King Narasiṃha I, located
between the fort and the
lands of the Suggalēśvara
temple; six oil mills, two
streets to make a rājavīthi
for the temple and
contributions on the sale
of rice, oil and betel leaves
from the Nakara body of
Bēlpūr.
24. EC IX 1174 Tagare nāḍ Konerilu in Tagare nāḍ
(1990) Bl granted by Ballāḷa II for
108 the Biṭṭīśvara temple which
was then given over to
Tējōnidhi Paṇḍita by Biṭṭi
Bōva.
25. EC IX 1177 - Emmesandi and its kāluvaḷi
(1990) Bl (hamlet) Kūḍalūr which
225 formed part of the estate of
Mahāpradhāna Tantrapāla
Hermāḍi reference to temple
constructed and lands
granted after clearance of
forests. Also, the siddhāya of
Kumbarahaḷi was granted for
the temple amounting to 2
gadyāṇas and five haṇas.

No. Units Details
26. EC IX 1182 Āsandi nāḍ Koṇḍali renamed
(1990) Bl Drōhagharaṭṭā
240 caturvēdimaṅgalam and
granted to Brāhmaṇas.
A new ūr was set up after
clearing forests by a joint
family of gāvuṇḍas headed by
Ādi Gāvuṇḍā. A temple and
tanks were constructed and
lands granted for the temple.
Bl 241 of 1188 records the
construction of a basadi
in the new settlement and
grants thereto by the same
family. Bl 242 of 1255 calls
this new ūr ādigāvuṇḍanahaḷi
and relates to the basadi.
27. EC IX 1186 Mayse nāḍ Mudugeṟe with all its
(1990) Bl hamlets granted for
438 the Vīranārāyaṇa and
Acyutēśvara temples
constructed with four
tanks at Vīraballāḷapura, a
new settlement set up by a
Brāhmaṇa feudatory after
clearance of forests. It was
granted as an agrahāra.
28. EC IX 1196– Mayse nāḍ Elahakka in Mayse nāḍ
(1990) Bl 97 converted into an agrahāra.
134 A temple and two tanks
were constructed there and
grants of cash and lands
were made by Paḍiyaṟa
Sāvanta Māraya.
29. EC IX 1217 - Establishment of
(1990) Bl Śivanayanahaḷi attached
243 to Koṇḍali agrahāra by
Śivanayya Pergaḍe and the
construction of a Śiva temple
there to which grants of land
were made. This is an in-situ
inscription.

No. Units Details
30. ECIX 1221 - Grants made by Narasiṃha
(1990) Bl II Hoysaḷa for the rituals
309 and staff of the Kēdārēśvara
temple at Haḷebīdu
constructed by his father
Vīraballāḷa II and the latter’s
queen Abhinava Kētaladēvi.
Grants of Māvinakeṟe
Malligevāḷu Keṟegōḍi
Hālavāgilu Balleyakeṟe
Kaḍuduṟahaḷi Kundūru.
The total siddhāya of these
settlements said to amount
to 1,200 gadyāṇas. Location
of the villages is unclear.
31. EC IX 1265 Kalukaṇi nāḍ Kellangeṟe in this nāḍ
(1990) Bl granted along with
321 fourteen hamlets for the
upkeep of the Trikūṭa
Śāntinātha temple probably
at Haḷebīdu by King
Narasiṃha III Hoysaḷa. The
hamlets are named:
1. Karaḍiyahaḷi
2. Hōtanaḍakēyahaḷi
3. Aṟeyahaḷi
4. Ajjanāyakanahaḷi
5. Huliyakeṟe
6. Coṭṭānahaḷi
7. Nareganahaḷi
8. Sēṟanahaḷi
9. Cōḷyanahaḷi
10. Lokkihaḷi
11. Gauriyahaḷi
12. Kuñcadahaḷi
13. Hiriyakanneyahaḷi
14. Cikkakanneyahaḷi. It
is unclear whether this
Kellangeṟe is identical
with the one mentioned
in No. 7 above.
Inscriptions there record
it as an agrahāra in
Hoysaḷa times and do not
give a nāḍu affiliation.

a whole was an agrahāra. That it was the centre of a cluster of smaller

settlements is very clear.
Another copper plate grant found at Tagare relates to the
brahmadēya grant of Palaccoge grāma in the Vaḷāvi dēśa of Sēndraka
viṣaya to Nāgaśarma of Kauśika gōtra and Taittīrayacaraṇa by the
Gaṅga king Polavīra, the son of Nirvinīta (Durvīnata?) in the
6th century.14 This seems to be a settled village and its politico-
geographical context, in viṣaya and dēśa units, is clearly specified.
It is also interesting that the inscription mentions one Kannēḷarasar
(a subordinate chieftain), the Pērbārvas (the Kannada term for
Mahābrāhmaṇa) of Ānandūr and Sikkamba as witnesses. These
villages were neighbouring settlements and were probably agrahāras,
which confirms that the granted village was part of a well-settled
rural settlement unit with agrahāras in the vicinity and, thus,
probably already introduced to varṇa hierarchy. The existence of a
sub-unit of dēśa within the viṣaya would also suggest burgeoning
settlements within the Sēndraka viṣaya.
The 10th century yields several hero stone inscriptions that relate to
the Tagare nāḍu. The earliest among these refers to the alliance between
the village of Kōgōḍu and the Tagare nāḍu during the invasion of Nīti
Mahārāja and his general Gaṅḍara Dumma Kāṭayya. Māca, the son
of Rājaya, who was in turn the younger brother of Śivāra Gavuṅḍa of
Kōgōḍu, died defending his village in an episode which combined a
destructive raid, an assault on women, and a cattle raid.15 An inscription
from Alur also places the village in Tagare nāḍu and records the death
of Māci Gāvuṅḍa of Ālūr in the battle of Kāvi.16 Another fragmentary
reference to Tagare comes from a hero stone at Kauri, wherein a hero
died in an assault on women (peṇḍiruḍe) in which the taḷāri (watchman)
of Kāvuri participated along with someone from Tagare. The context is
unclear.
While epigraphic references upto the 10th century do not clearly
bear out agrarian expansion other than an increasing reference to
settlements and bigger politico-geographic units such as the deśa,
viṣaya and nāḍu, inscriptions from the early 11th century provide
ample evidence of the same.
Grants of villages and associated hamlets are seen on a large scale
in the Bēlūr Cennakēśava temple grants of 1117.17 Viṣṇuvardhana
Hoysaḷa and his queen Śāntala constructed and established temples
for the deities Vijayanārāyaṇa, Cennakēśava and Lakṣminārāyaṇa,
and made grants for their daily rituals, the aṅgabhōga, food offerings
thrice a day, and the livings (jīvita) of Brāhmaṇas and other staff
attached to the temple. Emmesandi-12 unit was within Dēvaḷige

nāḍu, Basavanahaḷi was within the same nāḍ and the Bārasi-12
unit was within Koḍagi nāḍ. Niḍugunda along with its hamlets,
Abbidoṟe, the two hamlets of Hasudehaḷi were within Tagare nāḍu,
Haḍiyanavoḷalu was within Baḷāvi nāḍ and Attivaḷige was located
in Manali nāḍ. The unit of Morasu-12, Kesakōḍu and its hamlets
were within Nekkunāḍ, Beḍageṟe was in Maisa nāḍ and Dēvanūra
within its four boundaries (cattussīmesahitam) was within Āsandi
nāḍ. Since this was a royal project, the grants are on a large scale and
span a number of different nāḍus. While Tagare nāḍ and Baḷāvi nāḍ
are in the region under consideration, given the repeated references
over time to these units in the inscriptions of Bēlūr taluka, the other
nāḍus seem to be in other regions, such as Chikmagalur (Āsandi
nāḍ). The repeated references to attached hamlets suggest the
association of hamlets of different social groups with brahmadēyas
and dēvabhōgas as a tool of acculturation and subordination within
the caste hierarchy. The same monarch made further grants of
villages and hamlets to Brāhmaṇas who performed hōmas in the
temple. A hundred and fifty Brāhmaṇas were granted Cikanahaḷi,
a hamlet of Hiriyamuguḷi (Hiremagalur in Chikmagalur taluka);
another twenty-one Brāhmaṇas were granted Beṇṇeyūr, Areyahaḷi
and Keḷeyabbeyahaḷi; and thirty-two Śrīvaiṣṇavas were granted
Niṭṭūru in Tagare nāḍ.
Later, royal grants to temples do not span several nāḍus in the
manner of the Bēlūr inscription. There are, however, a large number
of villages and hamlets that were granted to the Kēdārēśvara temple
at Haḷebīdu constructed by Vīraballāḷa II and his junior queen
Abhinava Kētaladēvi. The grants were made by Ballāḷa II’s son,
Narasiṃha II, and included seven villages whose nāḍu affiliation
is unspecified and their location unclear. We are told, however,
that the siddhāya of the villages amounted to 1,200 gadyāṇas and
were meant to provide a living to the Brāhmaṇas and to the Śūdra
parivāra (the Śūdra attendants) as well as the temple rituals,18 and
the epigraph goes on to specify how the revenues of the villages were
to be deployed on each head.
Later, in the Hoysaḷa period, a grant of Kellangeṟe with fourteen
of its hamlets was made to support the Trikūṭa Śāntinātha basadi,
probably at Haḷebīdu. The donor was Hoysaḷa Narasiṃha III in 1265.
Kellangeṟe was located in Kalukani nāḍ.19 There is a village of this
name in the Arsīkere taluka, which was granted to a Jaina monk in the
10th century20 but it is unclear if the Kellangeṟe in the present Haḷebīdu
inscription is the same. Inscriptions from Kellangeṟe itself in the
Hoysaḷa period show that it was an agrahāra at this time and its nāḍu

affiliation is not mentioned in any record. The affiliation of hamlets

with larger villages is brought out in all the royal grants. They were
granted either as brahmadēyas or dēvadānas and were, thus, integrated
into the socioeconomic structure. At least some of these hamlets were
set up as individual initiatives to extend the arable. Ajjanāyakanahaḷi,
for instance, listed as a hamlet of Kellangeṟe, seems to be the result of
such an initiative.
Specific evidence of agrarian expansion comes from the Rannagaṭṭa
inscription of 1096. This epigraph of the reign of Vinayāditya Poysaḷa,
who is said to have ruled over Gaṅga maṇḍala, Koṅga and Maḷeyēḷu
countries, records that Bhāsa Gāvuṇḍa, the nāḷgāvuṇḍa of Baḷāvi nāḍu
(probably the same as Vaḷāvi dēśa, which is referred to in the 6th century
Tagare Plates of Polavīra), set up the village (ūr) of Raṇakīyakaṭṭa,
excavated the tank of Baḷigeṟe and had a temple named Bācēśvara
constructed. As dēvasvam, a field of 300 units of paddy was granted below
the tank and in front of the temple and, below Baḷigeṟe, a further grant
of a hundred units of paddy lands was made, probably on crop-sharing
basis.21 A supplementary grant of land, details of which are unspecified,
seems to have been given to an ācāri, Tuḷuvāḷada Eṟeyaṇṇa. This would
indicate that this village, new as it was, had a range of occupational
groups, such as agricultural tenants and labourers, Brāhmaṇas for the
temple and artisans.
The Viradevanahalli inscription of 118622 mentions the establishment
after the clearance of forests of the settlement of Vīraballāḷapura and
the construction of four tanks, named Rudrasamudra, Gaṅgasamudra,
Acyutasamudra and Vīrasamudra, by Vīrayya Daṇḍanāyaka. He set up
a first charge of four gadyāṇas on the newly established town, and gave
it over as a sarvanamasya agrahāra to thirty-two Brāhmaṇas. He also
established two stone temples, the Vīranārāyaṇa and the Acyutēśvara
and, for their worship and maintenance, granted Mudugeṟe in Mayse nāḍ
as an agrahāra with all its hamlets and a tax yield of forty gadyāṇas for the
two temples. For the Vīranārāyaṇa, he also granted 500 kammas of wet
land with gardens (tōṭasahita) and two vṛttis below the Rudrasamudra
tank. For the Acyutēśvara, he granted a similar extent of wet lands and
gardens along with two vṛttis at Toṭṭigaḷe. Interestingly, the inscription
stipulates that for those who cleared lands and established tanks, there
were to be no taxes for twelve years and, thereafter, it would be fixed at ten
salages (a coin or measure of quantity).23
Several inscriptions from the close of the 12th century have
references to the clearance of forests to extend the arable. Such lands
were then granted for charitable purposes. The Kūḍalūru inscription of
1177–78 records that Mahāpradhāna Tantrapāla Hemmāḍi constructed

within his estate (prabhutvador) of Emmesandi, in its hamlet (kāluvaḷi)

of Kūḍalūr, a temple of Harihara. For the upkeep of this temple, he
granted lands after clearing the forests (kāḍukaḍidu).24
A similar process of forest clearance, establishment of an ūr and
the construction of tanks is mentioned in the Hirehaḷi inscription of
1182.25 Here, a joint family of gāvuṇḍas consisting of Ādi Gāvuṇḍa,
his younger brothers Mādi Gāvuṇḍa and Māra Gāvuṇḍa and his
children, Māca, Māra and Nāka, and Cikka Mārēya Gāvuṇḍa sought
permission from the king to construct tanks and went on to clear
forests (kāḍamkaḍidu), construct the Kaṇṇageṟe tank and set up an
ūr. They did this out of the income of the sante (weekly market),
accruing to Ādi Gāvuṇḍa. The temple of Ādi Mallikārjuna was
then set up, and for its ritual requirements and maintenance, two
salages of wet land below the Jakkavvegeṟe, two in the Mēlumakkiya
gadde (wet field in lands above the level of the valley), 300 kammas
of pasture lands (meyyalu) and a field subjected to slash and burn
agriculture (kummari) to the south, in addition to an oil mill in the
ūr were gifted. The conjoint processes of clearing the forest, setting
up tanks to ensure irrigation and the establishment of villages
and temples are clearly brought out in these inscriptions. It is also
interesting that the wealth invested in the processes of agrarian
expansion was derived from the weekly market.
It is significant that several hamlets bear the names of individuals.
By 1255, the village set up by Ādi Gāvuṇḍa came to be known as
Ādigāvuṇḍanahaḷi. Likewise, an inscription dated 1217 from
Śivanahaḷi records its establishment by Śivanayya Pergaḍe.26 Like
Ādigāvuṇḍanahaḷi, it was attached to the agrahāra of Koṇḍali.
Similarly, the Bastihalli inscription of 1133 record grants made by
Telliga Dāsa Gāvuṇḍa at Dāsagauṇḍanahaḷi, a hamlet he owned
and set up.27 Another Bēlūr inscription of 113628 mentions the
village of Bījavoḷalu as part of the boundary details, granted to the
Viṣṇuvardhana Jinālaya and constructed by Viṣṇu Daṇuḍādhipa, and
the hamlet of Hariyabbeyahaḷi, set up by a woman named Hariyabbe.
A tank named Īcabbeyakeṟe (tank of Īcabbe) is also mentioned, and
is also significant in the context of the extension of the arable at the
initiative of wealthy individuals.
It is crucial that much of the extension of the arable, clearance of
forests and setting up of new villages takes place under the aegis of the
Hoysaḷas for whom this was the core territory. The King Vinayāditya
Hoysaḷa himself is given the credit for the setting up of sluices of
tanks.29 Officials and dominant landed groups set up new villages
for which they seem to have received significant tax concessions and
lands.

Yelaburga Taluka
Yelburga taluka (Table 12.2) is part of the Koppal district in the north-
eastern part of Karnataka, which falls within the Tuṅgabhadrā basin.
The river flows along the border between the Bellary and Koppal
districts, and the plains of this region are irrigated by numerous rivulets
and streams which join the Tuṅgabhadrā. The inscriptions from this
area span between the 6th and the 12th centuries. While there are no
clear references to the clearance of forests and establishment of villages,
we can deduce the process of agrarian expansion by the gradual increase
in the number of villages mentioned as part of the boundary details
between the 10th and 12th centuries. Also noteworthy is the salience
of agrahāras and temples located therein. They were the focus of grants
made in the 12th century and the agrahāra of Kukkanūr and the village
of Kallūr ruled by the Sinda chieftains in the 12th century are the major
centres in this regard.
The earliest inscription from Yelaburga comes from the 6th to
7th centuries and is assigned to the Bādāmi Cāḷukyas by the editor.
This records a brahmadēya grant of the settlement of Iṭṭage to Nāgaṇa
Sōmayāji. The donor is not clear, but may be presumed to be the ruler,
Yuddhamalla Satyāśraya, referred to at the beginning of the record.30 We
have no further details as to the size or composition of the population
of the settlement. Nor are we told which politico-geographical unit it
belonged to.
Around the close of the 9th century, we have evidence that Mudhol
(ancient Muduvoḷal) was placed in the Bḷīvola-300 division. A hero
stone from here dated 897 ce31 records the death of the Sammagāṟa
(shoe-maker) Chanda in an attack on the village by Santaya, who had
been granted Muduvoḷal by the ruler of Bḷīvola-300. The grantee was
apparently resisted by the inhabitants. Resistance to grants is rarely seen
in the epigraphic record.
In the 10th century, the Gaṅgas, in their capacity as subordinates
and close allies of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas held the divisions of Purigeṟe-300,
Bḷīvola-300, Eḍadoṟe-2000 and Mā[savāḍi]-140, of which
Kukkanūru-30 was a sub-unit. Buṭṭayya is said to have held the
Pergaḍetana (post of Pergaḍe or superintendant) over the division of
Eḍadoṟe-2000. Būtuga II Gaṅga, the reigning ruler of these divisions,
is said to have come and worshipped the tīrtha and made a grant of
a field in the vicinity of Kelavāḍi-300 at the orders of Kannaradēva
(Kṛṣṇa III Rāṣṭrakūṭa).32 The precise location of the field is not
specified. References to the larger politico-geographical units indicate
the presence of agricultural settlements in good numbers. However,
it is only in the 11th to 12th centuries that there is clear evidence

Table 12.2: Yelaburga Taluka Inscriptional References to Settlements
S. No. Inscription Date Nāḍu/Viṣaya Settlement
No.
1. KUES II (1999) 6th to 7th - Iṭṭage granted as brahmadēya to Nāgaṇa Sōmayāji.
Ylg 64 centuries

2. KUES II (1999) 897 Bēḷvola 300 Muduvoḷal granted by ruler of Bēḷvola to Śāntaya, grant resisted by
Ylg 30 inhabitants.
3. KUES II (1999) 939 Refers to The first three units mentioned as the domain of Gaṅga Būtuga II.
Ylg 65 1. Purigeṟe300 Buṭṭāyya was Pergaḍe of Eḍadoṟe-2000. The fourth unit was where
2. Eḍadoṟe-2000 the granted land, a field was located.
3. Māsavāḍi-140 and
its sub-unit Kuk-
kanūr-30
4. Kelavāḍi-300
4. KUES II (1999) 968 Dhavala viṣaya Refers to the agrahāras of Kukkanūru and Rājapura in the vicinity
Ylg 56 of which the village of Aḍḍavurage was located which was granted
by Kundaṇasāmi, elder sister of Gaṅga Mārasimha II and queen
of Cāḷukya Rājāditya to a Brāhmaṇa from Kāñcidēśa. The granted
village was located in Dhavala viṣaya and the village of Nimbārāma
is also mentioned in boundary details.
04/07/23 11:53 AM
5. KUES II (1999) 1005 Kukkanūru-30 in Kukkanūru described as an agrahāra governed by the Thousand
Ylg 51 Bēḷvalanāḍu of Mahājanas. Grants of land made to a Śaiva temple entrusted to Cōḷa
Kuntaḷadēśa Sōmēśvara Paṇḍita of Hosamaṭha of Manneyavaḷi. Lands granted
after purchase from the Mahājanas. A merchant mentioned as
donor of a cash gift of a 100 gadyāṇas.

6. KUES II (1999) 1005 - Merchant īś varaśeṭṭi constructed a maṇṭapa to a temple and set up
Ylg 50 kalaśa to two others. Grant of a 100 gadyāṇas made to the Nakara
(mercantile) body of Kukkanūr for the maintenance of the maṇṭapa
and the grant of a tax on merchandise, and fines made to the
Gavarēśvara temple by the inhabitants of Kukkanūr.
7. KUES II (1999) 991 Refers to the two Six Śōbhanarasa ruling the 600 provinces from Banavāsi and Saviyaṇṇa
Ylg 59 Hundred Provinces ruling Kukkanūru-30 by his grace. Setting up of Taḷakallu as an
and Kukkanūru-30 agrahāra, and grants of lands and a flower garden to a temple there.
8. KUES II (1999) Early 11th - Manneya sāmya (estate) of Cāvuṇḍarāya mentioned within which
Ylg 34 century land was purchased by a Pergaḍe and granted to the Siddhēśvara
temple, probably at Arakēri, the findspot.
9. KUES II (1999) Late 11th - Estate of Māḷaparasa within which grants of lands were made to a
Ylg 70 century basadi constructed by him consisting of red soil fields to the west of
the ūr in the vicinity of a tank and lands near a pond.
04/07/23 11:53 AM
S. No. Inscription Date Nāḍu/Viṣaya Settlement
No.
10. KUES II (1999) 1163 Bēḷvala nāḍ Grant of Eḍehaḷi in Kukkanūr-30 at the request of the Nāḍādhipati
Ylg40 Kukkanūru-30 of Bēḷvala nāḍ and the karaṇas (accountants) to the Mallikārjuna
temple at Kukkanūru. Reference to Beḍavaṭṭi, Banniyakoṭṭūru and

Kukkanūru among the boundaries. Also several tanks mentioned.
11. KUES II (1999) 1170 Bēḷvala nāḍ referred to The nāḍādhikāri of Bēḷvala nāḍ acquired the hamlet of Hādalageṟe
Ylg 41 in Bēḷvala from the King Rāyamurāri Sōvidēva and gave it to the
Mallikārjuna temple at Kukkanūr and the Brāhmaṇas attached to
it. Refers to Maṅgaḷūru, Hiriyūru, Sirivūru, Ermesandi, Koṭṭūru,
Beḍavaṭṭe, Ballangeṟe, Goravombala and Rāvaṇike in boundary
details.
12. KUES II (1999) 1178 Bēḷvala nāḍ The Bēḷvala Nāḍādhipati granted the village of Selagāṟa with its
Ylg 52 hamlet Beṇatūrhāe to the temple of Kāḷikājyēṣṭhe at Kukkanūr en-
trusted to Rājaguru Kāḷeśvaradēvācārya. Boundaries of the granted
village included streams tanks and neighbouring villages of Kuḍu-
guṇṭe, Ballaṅgeṟe, and Kallūru as well as a horse stable (kudureya
koṭṭage) which is now a place name.
04/07/23 11:53 AM
13. KUES II (1999) 1098 Bēḷvala nāḍ The temple of Kallinātha in Kallūru recipient of several grants over
Ylg 17 1125 Kisukāḍ-70 the three dates given in the record. Lands near Bēṇatīr and Erabar-
1154 Nāreyaṅgallu-12 avi within the mānya of Cāmuṇḍarasa given. Kuḍuguṇṭe also refers
Each a sub-unit of the to in boundaries.
former On the second date grants of taxes on various commodities given by

the Heggaḍe who was in charge of the Hejjuṅka tax on the two 600
provinces.
On the final date, a priest received land and a house from Mahādē-
vi, the wife of Cāmūṇḍarasa who was ruling Kallūr at the time.
14. KUES II, (1999) 1186 Nāreyaṅgallu-70 The Kalidēvasvāmi temple at Kallūr ruled at this time by Vīra
Ylg 13 referred to bijjala and Vikramāditya, received lands on the road to Baḷageṟe
(probably the same as Baḷaṅgeṟe mentioned in previous records)
and in the vicinity of the big stream.
15. KUES II (1999) 1154 - Muduvoḷal an agrahāra governed by the Thousand Mahājanas.
Ylg 29 Grants of land and contributions on merchandise comprising
textiles and articles required in worship, granted to the Gavarēśvara
temple in Muduvoḷal made by the Thousand and the Five Hundred
of Ayyāvaḷe.
04/07/23 11:53 AM
for burgeoning settlements. The inscription is from Iṭagi. The Gaṅgas

seem to have held this region as vassals of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas till at least
968.33
Kukkanūru was one of the major brahmadēyas in this region, and a
temple centre. It was also the centre of a unit of thirty villages. The first
notice comes from a copper plate of the reign of Gaṅga Mārasiṃha II
of 968.34 His elder sister (agrajā), Kundaṇasāmi, married to a Cāḷukyan
prince Rājāditya, made a brahmadēya grant of the village Aḍḍavurage to
the north of the agrahāra of Kukkanūru, and to the west of the agrahāra
of Rājapura to a Brāhmaṇa named Kāñappārya who is said to have
descended from an immigrant from Kāñcidēśa. The granted village is
said to be located in the Dhavala viṣaya. Though the boundary details
mention a trijunction of three villages, and the village (?) of Nimbārāma,
the other details seem to focus of stone heaps, tanks, streams and trees
and hills (guḍḍa), which give an impression of sparse settlement at this
point of time. This changes in the course of time as we shall see below. The
village is said to yield tax siddhāya to the amount of ninety-nine dinaras
of gold (suvarṇavarṇanavanavatidinārasiddhāyaprativarśandēya),35
which indicates a prosperous agrarian settlement.
An inscription dated to 100536 gives a poetic description of
Kukkanūru agrahāra, the lead settlement of the Kukkanūru-30
division, in Bēḷvala nāḍu of Kuntaḷadēśa. This inscription mentions
that the agrahāra had forty-eight kēris (streets) and has a passing
reference to a street (vīthī) of shops (paṇa).37 Its status as the abode of
Vedic Brāhmaṇas is repeatedly stressed, as is the presence of temples. It
was governed by the Thousand (Sāsirvar) Mahājanas. The inscription
goes on to register grants of lands to a Śaiva temple which was under
the control of a Kālāmukha pontiff, the disciple of Cōḷa Sōmēśvara
Paṇḍita of the Posamaṭha (new monastery) of Manneyavaḷi. The
grants, which are partially lost, seem to be for the purpose of feeding
ascetics and for the aṅgabhōga rituals in the temple. We have references
to the grant of seven Kisukāḍ mattars and of 150 kammas of wet land
which seem to have been purchased from the Thousand Mahājanas.
It is unclear whether the hundred gadyāṇas given by Īśvaraśeṭṭi
mentioned towards the end of the record was the amount for which
the land cited earlier was purchased.38 Īśvaraśeṭṭi is also named in
another inscription of the same date from Kukkanūru, in which he is
said to have had kalaśa installed in two temples and had a mukhasāle
constructed. He also gave the Nakaras (corporate group of the town)
a sum of 100 gadyāṇas for the maintenance of the maṇṭapa which was
to be met out of the interest on the sum. The mention of the Nakaras
indicates the existence of a mercantile group and suggests the growth
of a market at Kukkanūru. We might recollect the reference to the

paṇavīthī cited above. In addition to the grant of cash, we also have a

grant of pasumbedeṟe (a tax on merchandise),39 daṇḍa and doṣa (fines)
made to the Gavarēśvara temple by the inhabitants (taḷasamastar) of
Kukkanūru on the occasion of the temple being established.40
At the close of the 10th century, we also see the emergence of another
agrahāra, Taḷakallu, in the reign of Cāḷukya Āhavamalla Taila in 991.41
Under him, Śōbhanarasa ruled the two 600 provinces and Banavāsi
while Sāviyaṇṇa ruled Kukkanūru-30 by the grace of Śōbhanarasa.
Taḷakallu is briefly referred to as being instituted as an agrahāra, while
the temple of Nāgalēśvara at Taḷakallu received a grant of four hundred
mattars of land and some land for a flower garden from Śōbhanarasa,
which were entrusted to Siddhēśvara Śaṅkarāśi Bhaṭārar of Baṅkāpura.
The boundary details do not give any further details of the agrarian
landscape other than the setting up of liṅga stones.
An inscription from Arakēri in the early 11th century states that
Pergaḍe Cāvuṇḍamayya purchased (krayapūrvakam koṇḍu) wet land
of extent of 450 kammas located in the estate (mannēya sāmya) of
Cāvuṇḍarāya and granted it to the Siddhēśvara temple. Further details
are lost.42 Another record from Rājūr, of the reign of Vikramāditya VI
Cāḷukya, which would place it in the close of the 11th century or the
beginning of the 12th, records the grant of red soil land (eṟeyamattar)
of ten mattars, in the fields to the west of the ūr and south of the
Kaṭattageṟe tank. Further, two mattars of land near the pond (maḍu?)
by the kisukāḍ measure were also given to a basadi constructed by
Māḷaparasa in his own lands.43 Both these records indicate that the land
here was distributed to secular feudatories as estates (mannēya), that
they were well irrigated agricultural tracts, and lands were given within
these secular estates to temples either by the feudatories themselves or
by their subordinates after purchase.
In the 12th century, a large number of inscriptions record the grants
of land and hamlets in the vicinity of Kukkanūru to various temples
and Brāhmaṇa localities associated with them at Kukkanūru. In 1163,
in the reign of Kaḷacuri Bijjaḷa, at the request of the Mahāpradhāna, the
Karaṇas and the nāḍāḍhikāri of Bēḷvala nāḍ, the hamlet of Eḍehaḷi in the
division of Kukkanūru-30, was bestowed on the temple of Mallikārjuna
at Kukkanūru. The lands were to be divided in equal parts between the
expenses of the temple and livings for the fifteen Brāhmaṇas resident
in its brahmapuri, who are then named. The boundaries of Eḍehaḷi
are specified. Apart from rocks and marker stones, streams and tanks
named Śeṭṭiyakeṟe, Kusuvanakeṟe and Beḷangeṟe, references are also
made to the neighbouring settlements of Beḍavaṭṭi, Banniyakoṭṭūru and
Kukkanūru. The hamlet is, thus, located in the midst of an established
agrarian tract.44

Another record from the same place dated 1170,45 in the reign of
Kaḷacuri Sōvidēva, mentions another grant for the Mallikārjuna temple.
This grant was made at the request of the Bēḷvala Nāḍādhikāri Tējirāja
Daṇḍādhipa, a Brāhmaṇa feudatory, along with the karaṇas of the royal
court and the sthaḷa, after the performance of mahāpūje to the deity.
Tējirāja is said to have acquired the hamlet (haḷi) of Hādalageṟe from
Rāyamurāri Sōvidēva and given it to the deity and to the Brāhmaṇas
attached to it. The hamlet is said to belong in the division of Bēḷvala
and the boundaries specify the neighbouring villages of Maṅgaḷūru and
Hiriyūru to the east; Sirivūr to the south and south-east; the pastures
of Ermesandi to the south-west; the boundary stones of Koṭṭūr to the
west along with the stream of Kusuvanahaḷa; to the north-west and
north, the fields of Beḍavaṭṭe, Ballangeṟe and Goravombala and, to the
north-east, the fields of Goravombala and Rāvaṇike. In other words,
this hamlet too is situated in the vicinity of Kukkanūru since the village
of Bedavaṭṭē, which occurred in the boundary details of Eḍehaḷi, occurs
in the boundaries of Hādalageṟe too. Also significant is the reference to
a number of villages and to pastures, streams, fields as elements of the
rural landscape.46 The details again bear out the fact that this tract was
well-irrigated and settled already by the 12th century. As in the earlier
grant, one part of the grant was to support the rituals in the temple
such as the aṅgabhōga and raṅgabhōga. The other part of the grant was
to be divided into vṛttis for the support of the Brāhmaṇas (bhūdēva)
who lived in the brahmapuri attached to the temple. Of all the places
mentioned in these records as neighbouring villages, only Beḍavaṭṭe,
Maṅgaḷūru and Sirivūru seem to have maintained a distinct identity to
this day.
The Mahāmāya inscription from Kukkanūru dated 117847 grants
the village of Seḷagāṟa with the hamlet Beṇatūrhāe which was attached
to it from ancient times (anādiyimpraviṣṭavāgirda) to the temple of
Kāḷikājyēṣṭhe, apparently a Tantric shrine in Kukkanūr. The grant
was made at the request of the Bēḷvala nāḍādhikāri, Dhaṇṇugi who
visited the temple to thank the deity for prayers granted. The request
was made through his maternal uncle (mātula) Mahāpradhāna
Daṇḍanāyaka Lakhmidēvayya and he received the village as vṛtti to the
goddess from the emperor, Saṅkamadēvarasar of the Kaḷacuri dynasty.
It was entrusted to Siddhānti Rājaguru Kāḷēśvaradēvācārya for the
maintenance of the temple, feeding of ascetics and the daily rituals. The
boundaries are specified and include streams like the Garūrhaḷa and
Modeyahaḷa, tanks like the Cauṇḍiśeṭṭiya keṟe (probably constructed
and belonging to Cauṇḍiśeṭṭi), villages like Kuḍuguṇṭe, Baḷangeṟe and
Kallūru as well as hillocks (kagguṇḍi). There is an interesting reference
to the horse stable (kudureyakoṭṭige)48 mentioned as part of the north-

western boundary. Within these lands granted to the temple, several

personnel are assigned lands. The hamlets and villages granted to
the various temples in Kukkanūr seem to cluster in its vicinity, as the
neighbouring villages mentioned in the boundary details overlap. The
references to the streams and the tanks suggest that the area was well-
irrigated. As mentioned earlier, the Koppal district is criss-crossed by
numerous tributaries of the Tuṅgabhadrā.
A composite record from Kallur’s Kallinātha temple dated 1098,
1125 and 115449 indicates that a number of agricultural settlements
had blossomed in this region by the close of the 11th century. We have
references to the division of Kisukāḍ-70 and Nāreyaṅgallu-12 within
Beḷuvala, of which Kallūru and Baḷageṟe were probably a part. The
boundary details refer to the settlements of Beṇatūru, Erabaravi and
possibly Baḷaṅgeṟe. Lands of fifty mattars in extent were given adjoining
Beṇatūru and around the stream of Kagguḍa; within the estate (mānya)
of Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara Cāmuṇḍarasa, on the eastern side, adjacent to
Beṇatūru and Erabaravi were given another fifty mattars. To the east
of the road to Erabaravi and to the south of the lands belonging to
the goddess (Bhaḷāriyakēy) three mattars of land were given, with an
additional reference to a well and a stream as boundaries. To the north
of the road to Kuḍuguṇṭe another three mattars were given. A flower
garden of one mattar was given to the north of the big stream (heddoṟe),
another to the west of the road to Erabaravi. An oil mill was also gifted.
All these lands were given to support the feeding of ascetics and the
aṅgabhōga rituals at the Kalidēvasvāmi temple which were entrusted to
the Kālāmukha monk Śivaśakti Paṇḍita. The gift was to be maintained
by the corporate group of the eight gāvuṇḍas of Kallūru and the arasas
(kings) ruling the place.
In 1125, we have grants of taxes made to the temple by Heggaḍe
Mahāḍēvayya Nāyaka, the son of Bammadēva Nāyaka of the agrahāra
of Bādāvi. The parentage might suggest that he was from the Mahājana
community of the agrahāra, though it is not clearly specified.
Mahādevayya supervised the collection of the herjuṅka (superior
tolls) of the two 600 districts (Bēḷvola and Purigeṟe). He gave away for
the caitra-pavitra rituals of the Kalidēvasvāmi temple, the herjuṅka,
bīravaṇa and vaḍḍarāvuḷa taxes on any commodities such as areca nuts
(aḍake), dhasari, saris, haḍa, turmeric (arasina), chillies (meṇasu) and
indigo (niliyakōḍa) within the division of Kukkanūr-30, whether carried
on carts (bhaṇḍadam), bullocks (ettinalu), asses (katteyalu) or he-
buffaloes (kōṇa), at the rate of one on ten (hattakondu daśavandavāgi)
to Rudraśākti Paṇḍita who seems to have been the pontiff in charge of
the temple at this time. Additionally, his subordinate Heggaḍe Suṅkada
Jakkarāja gave four paṇas to the temple to provide for the oil for the

maintenance of a perpetual lamp. For this supplementary grant, the

Heggaḍes (superintendents) of the tolls (suṅka) were in charge of
maintenance. It is interesting that the various commodities mentioned
were a mix of agricultural areca nuts, turmeric, chillies, indigo as
well as textiles (sīre). A robust caravan trade may be posited that later
inscriptions further ratify.
Finally, a priest (Kallidēvasvāmiya pādārādhaka) Molleya Bommayya
received a gift of six mattars of land from Mahādēvi, the wife of
Cāmuṇḍarasa, the ruler of Kallūr in 1154. A house was also gifted to the
temple in perpetuity.
In 1186, Cāmuṇḍarasa's son, Vīrabijjaḷarasa, made another grant
to Molleya Bommayya, of two hundred mattars of land as first vṛtti
(prathamavṛtti or living) of the Gaṇamaṭha. This individual seems
certainly to be growing rich, particularly since the land given was
well-irrigated, being surrounded by the streams of Hiriyahaḷḷa and
Koppalahaḷa. It is also worth noting that the control over Kallūr seems
to be held over nearly a century by the same family, with Cāmuṇḍarasa,
his wife Mahādēvi and son Vīrabijjaḷa mentioned as the arasa from
1098 to 1185.50 Another inscription of the same place and time
describes Vīrabijjaḷa and his younger brother, Vikramāditya, as ruling
from the neḷevaḍu (residence or camp) of Erambaravi and being the
sons of Cāmuṇḍarasa of the Sinda lineage by Siriyādēvi, the daughter of
Kaḷacuri Bijjaḷadēva.51 On the orders of the two brothers, Mahāpasāyita
Saṇṇagētēya Nāyaka gave to the deity Kalidēvasvāmi of Kallūru in
Nāreyaṅgallu-70 to the east and south-east (mūḍal-āgnēya) of the ūr,
to the north of the road to Baḷageṟe and to the south of the big stream
(hiriyahaḷa), twenty-four mattars of land, demarcating the boundaries
by liṅga stones on all side. The grant was entrusted to Sōmēśvara
Paṇḍita. Moreover, a half sollage (a measure of capacity) of pulses (bēḷe)
grown in the ūr was given to the temple, as was the one hāga per pon (a
gold coin) of revenue generated.52
Under the Kalyāṇi Cāḷukyas, we hear of the agrahāra of
Muduvoḷal under the authority of the Thousand Mahājanas. In
1154, in the reign of Trailokyamalla Cāḷukya, multiple grants of
land, as well as contributions on merchandise, were being granted
under the auspices of the Thousand as well as the Five Hundred of
Ayyāvaḷe, the famous trade guild, to the Gavarēśvara temple. This
suggests a brisk trade with textiles and items of worship as major
commodities in this region in the 12th century. Two kānes (a coin)
per pon (a gold coin) earned were set as a contribution for every
cart (bhaṇḍaigaḷ) of items like gandha (sandalwood), kuṃkuma and
karpūra. For every cart load of saris (sīrēyadiṇḍige), one paṇa was to
be charged. For every pack of oxen (ettinamaḷavege), five vīsa were

to be paid. For loads carried by asses (katteyamaḷavege), two vīsas

were charged. One vīsa and one kāṇi was to be charged on a head
load of saris. A pack of he-buffalo was to be charged at ten vīsas.
Additionally, the tenants were to pay a hāga annually to maintain the
caitra-pavitra festival. To the south of the ūr, tenants were to pay a
paṇa per mattar cultivated to support the deity. In addition to these
taxes and contributions levied on merchants and tenants, we hear of
two houses in Hāgalakēri and lands of six and seven mattars made
by Kariya Mādimayya, Bhīmayya Nāyaka and Būtavve Śeṭṭi. They
were entrusted to the care of Tārkika Cakravarti, and the Mahājanas
and the Five Hundred were to maintain the grant. The picture we get
of Muduvoḷal in the 12th century is, therefore, one of an agrarian as
well as a commercial settlement which lay on a trade route and was
visited by itinerant trade guilds and merchants carrying on a brisk
textile trade.53 Agricultural commodities are not much mentioned in
this record, unlike in the Kallūr record.
Overall, while the process of forest clearance and expansion of
the arable cannot be as clearly discerned in Yelaburga as in Bēlūr, the
process of attaching hamlets to agrahāras, which emerged as nodes of
settlement, can be clearly seen. It seems to have belonged to the division
of Bēḷvala-300, Māsevāḍi-140 and the sub-division of Kukkanūr-30.
Kallūr belonged to the Nāreyaṅgallu-70 division. It is interesting to note
that while the 10th century records mention units with a large number
of villages like the Bēḷvala-300 or the Eḍadoṟe-2000, the later records
concentrate on the smaller units like Kukkanūr-30 and Nāreyaṅgallu-70
which appear from the 11th century. It seems to indicate a growing
density of settlements with new, smaller units coming up in the older,
larger units. The increasing number of villages being mentioned in the
boundary details also suggest the same. Overall, this seems to have
been a region of agricultural abundance. This region also seems to have
been located on a trade route which would account for the numerous
references to guilds like the Ayyāvaḷe and to merchandise carried
on pack oxen, donkeys or buffaloes and carts and headloads being
repeatedly mentioned in 12th century records.
Mysore Taluka (Table 12.3)
This region lies in the Kāvēri river valley between the Kāvēri and
Kabini rivers, and is part of the Southern Maidan. It is a plateau with a
predominance of red soils and, since it lies in the rain shadow area of
the Western Ghats, it needs supplementary irrigation, mainly provided
by tanks.

Table 12.3: Mysore Taluka Inscriptional References to Settlements
S. No. Inscription Date Nāḍu/ Settlement
No. Viṣaya
1. EC V (1976) 8th century - Nokki-ūr and Kūḍalūr referred to.
My 192 The vṛtti of the latter given to a retainer as his living by

the oḍeya of Goṭṭāmāḍi (probably the same as Gaṭṭavāḍi in
Nanjanagūḍ). Also refer to Elemāḍi and Maḍagūr, whose
inhabitants were witnesses. The donee and the ruler of
Kūḍalūr seem to belong to the Araṭṭi tribe.
2. EC V (1976) My 183 8th century Eḍettoṟe nāḍu-1000 Cottamman, chief of the Araṭṭis said to be ruling this nāḍu
under Śrīpuruṣa Gaṅga. Arrangements made for feeding
the army in transit.
3. EC V (1976) My 117 8th century - Mahāprabhu Gōvapayya’s death commemorated, and a
kalnāḍ grant made by King Śrīpuruṣa, the details of which
are not available.
4. EC V (1976) My 186 9th century - Establishment of a temple of Bhagavatī at Mariyase (same
as modern Marase, the findspot) and grant of land of
unspecified extent to the north of the stream made by a
gāvuṇḍa, the local body, the Thousand and the śrīkaraṇa
(accountant) of the arasa.
5. EC V (1976) My 184 9th century - Construction of tank by a lady and grants for its upkeep.
04/07/23 11:53 AM
6. EC V (1976) My 223 10th century Pūrva Bayal nāḍ Construction of temple of Narasiṃhēśvara by Cāḷukya
Mahāsāmanta Narasiṃhayya and grant of Manalevāḍi
with abhyantara-siddhi. To be maintained by the three
Nāḻgāvuṇḍas of Pūrva Bayal nāḍ. Location of Manalevāḍi
unclear.

7. EC V (1976) My 173 10th century - Grant of two khaṇḍugas of wet land to a warrior of Goggi
Cāḷukya who died fighting in a fratricidal war between
Uttavagalla and Eḍavari. Location of the granted land
not specified. My 175 records a similar grant to another
warrior in the same war.
8. EC V (1976) My 169 10th century - The hamlet of Aragōḍupaḷi granted to the temple of
Būtēśvara at Varuṇa by Mahāsāmanta Goggi as dēvabhōga
and entrusted to Nannikarttāra Bhaḷāra.
9. EC V (1976) My 168 10th century - Grant of hamlet Torevaḷi in the vicinity of the Būtēśvara
temple and of two khaṇḍugas of land near the tank of
Bāsambaḷiyūr. Entrusted to Nannikarttāra Bhaḷāra.
10. EC V (1976) My 198 10th century - Cattle raid on Cikkānya by inhabitants Baḷadalastaḷa.
Reference to Gaṭṭavāḍi as the seat of Gaṅga Rācamalla. My
197 mentions an ūr-aḷivu attack on Cikkānya. My 113 and
114 also record cattle raids on Mallegauḍana Koppāḷ by
the Caṅgāḷvas in the 11th century.
11. EC V (1976) My 102 11th century - Grant of Kaḍekoḷa to Kuladhāri as kalnāḍ. Refers to
Kharavūr, Paydage, Taṇḍēya, Pervēḍu, Mariyase and Paṭṭāḷ.
Witnesses include people of different occupations.
04/07/23 11:53 AM
No. Viṣaya
12. EC V (1976) My 221 11th century - Tying of paṭṭa of Goggiyācāri on Būvācāri’s son by Goggi
Gāvuṇḍa of Nāgavāḍi. People of various occupations acted
as witnesses.

13. EC V (1976) My 206 1121 Maise nāḍ Candavanahaḷi in Maise nāḍ granted to the basadi at
Hādaravāgilu, a bīḍu (royal centre) constructed by
Gaṅgapayya Daṇḍanāyaka. Lands below tanks and garden
lands were also made to the same temple.
14. EC V (1976) My 224 1173 Name of nāḍ lost but Kuppūr granted to the Yeṟeyana basadi at Rājarājapuram
Prabhu Gāvuṇdas of nāḍ for conduct of rituals and entrusted to Nāgacandra
were to maintain grant Paṇḍita.
15. EC V (1976) My 206 1174 - A garden granted as a perquisite of headship of
Kumārabīḍu to Baṅgaya Nāyaka by a Mahāpradhāna.
16. EC V (1976) My 220 12th century - Reference to Mysore from which the deceased hailed and
Mariyase where he died. Land at Kannattahaḷi granted for
the Kēśava temple constructed in his memory.
04/07/23 11:53 AM
17. EC V (1976) My 215 1175 Māyenāḍ (same as Mayse Refers to Haḍadasa (Haḍājana).
nāḍ?) Hoṇara, Benagēnahaḷi, Būtugahaḷi, Mysore, Bōgavāḍi and
Hemmanahaḷḷi. Gāvuṇḍas from these places constituted
themselves as a nāḍ and land-grants were made to the
temple of Śaṅkaradēva at Hemmanahaḷi together with

income from tolls. Further grants made by the four
gāvuṇḍas of Hāḍuhaṭṭi and Hemmanahaḷi of lands below
the sluice.
18. EC V (1976) My 214 1188 - Mōkhari Lakkayya the father of Queen Bammaladēvi
ruling Hemmanahaḷi. Grants of land to the Gaṅgēśvara
temple and tolls on oil mills. Kannattara Gāvuṇdas
installed Nandi and Vināyaka as they had in the
Śaṅkaradēva temple. My 216 records a further gift of tolls
on bullock-driven oil mills and wet lands below a tank
sluice. My 217 of 1242 records the addition of pillars to the
Śaṅkaradēva temple by Gāvuḍas of Matigāvuṇḍanahaḷi.
19. EC V (1976) My 1191 Construction of an embankment to the Aṇṇayya Samudra
tank by Maṇḍalikācāri and grants of land at Gura-
ūr, Kesalegōḍu and below the tanks of Kallukeṟe and
Hiriyakeṟe by the Gavuḍas of Maruvase (Marase), the
gauḍike of Kesalegōḍu and by Maṇḍalika Bōva. Gold coins
also gifted.
20. EC V (1976) My 225 1223 Baya(L?) nāḍ Death of a Nāyaka of Kōmārabīḍu in the battle of Baya nāḍ
against Bilavōḷa Daṇṇāyaka.
04/07/23 11:53 AM
No. Viṣaya
21. EC V (1976) My 204 1274 - Seige of Dēvanahaḷi during a wider war under Kanna
Komāra in which Hemmādi died defending Dēvanahaḷi.
Inter-village conflicts.

22. EC V (1976) My 170, 13th century - Grant of vṛttis to two temples at Kaivalapura in Haḷi
171 Hiriyūr of Hōṇara of which Cikka Malaya Daṇṇāyaka was
the sthānika.
23. EC V (1976) My 119 13th century Eḍettoṟe nāḍu Hādaravāgilu and its hamlet Sāhaḷi in Eḍettoṟe nāḍ
granted to support the temple of Prasanna Kēśavadēva at
Sōmanāthapura made by the Prabhu Gauḍas of Toṟe nāḍ
(possibly the same as Eḍettoṟe nāḍ).
04/07/23 11:53 AM
Unlike the Bēlūr and Yelaburga talukas, where we have evidence

of settlement from the 5th or 6th centuries, Mysore yields its earliest
epigraphic records only from the 8th century. These records from the
reign of Śrīpuruṣa Gaṅga mention the rule of Cottamman, the chief
of the Araṭṭis (who seem to have been a tribal group), over the unit of
Eḍettoṟe 1000.54 It is possible that the other early record from the same
period from Dēvalapura also relates to the same group of Araṭṭis since
it mentions a grant of a living (vṛtti) to Araṭṭiga Taḷāra as the senior
retainer’s field (pērāḷvina key) and Araṭṭitīrar as the swordsman (bāḷāḷ)
of Singadīkṣar and the ruler of Kūḍalūr.55 Several other settlements
are named in this record, as the places from which the witnesses were
drawn. Also, unlike the other two talukas, the earliest records from
Mysore are secular grants and not eleemosynary grants to agrahāras or
temples. The linkage of tribal hamlets with agrahāras is not seen here
in the 8th century.
An undated inscription from Marase,56 palaeographically dated to
the 9th century, records the establishment of a temple of Bhagavatī at
Mariyase (evidently the same as Marase) and the grant of a hillock or
rising ground (tēmaru) to the north of the stream (paḷa) to the goddess,
by Permāḍi Gāvuṇḍa, the Thousand (sāsirvaru), the local body, and the
accountant (śrīkaraṇa) of the king (arasa). The extent of land thus granted
is unspecified. This would represent the earliest eleemosynary grant in
the region. Also interesting is the involvement of the local authorities
in the making of the grant. The local body of the Thousand, probably
comprised the major landholders either of the village or the nāḍu, the
village headman. Permāḍi Gāvuṇḍa and the local lord’s accountant,
representing probably a higher-level political power, cooperated in
making the grant. The emergence of the gāvuṇḍas as a dominant landed
social group in this region is also brought out here.
A highly fragmentary inscription from the weir of a tank at
Puṭṭegowdana Huṇḍi57 in 9th century characters seems to record
the construction of this tank by a lady, and depicts the grants for its
maintenance. This would indicate the spread of irrigation facilities and
agrarian expansion.
In the 10th century, the region around Mysore seems to be under the
control of minor Cāḷukyan chiefs. An inscription from Kukkarahaḷi58
refers to the rule of Cāḷukya Mahāsāmanta Narasiṅgayya who had
the temple of Narasiṃhēśvara constructed, and granted the village of
Maṇalevāḍi as abhyantara-siddhi grant for its upkeep. Abhyantara-
siddhi generally means the grant of internal revenues and judicial
rights. However, in Karnataka, it is usually used in the sense of a
rulership of a village.59 The three Nāḷgāvuṇḍas of Pūrva Bayalnāḍ are
said to be the protectors of the grant. This would imply that the village

of Maṇalevāḍi was situated therein. It is not possible to identify the

granted village. Most references to Bayal nāḍ occur in the Guṇḍlupēṭ
and Heggaḍedēvanakōṭe talukas. It is unclear whether Mysore and its
neighbourhood constituted its eastern extension. Narasiṃha and his
queen Gāvilabbarasi are mentioned in another inscription in 10th
century characters from Varuṇa60 but the purport is unclear as the
record is fragmentary.
In 1127, we have an inscription from Mysore’s Chamundi Hills61
which was known at the time as Mārbbala tīrtha and received the grant
of Maṇalevāḍi as arppataram siddhi (possibly an orthographical error
for abhyantara siddhi) from Narasiṃhadēva, whose identity is unclear.
The reigning king was Viṣṇuvardhana Hoysaḷa but his son and successor
Narasiṃha I was not born at this time. The location of Maṇalevāḍi in
this record cannot be determined. Nor is it clear whether it pertains to
the same village as in the Varuṇa record and, thus, represents a regrant
at a later period.
An inscription from the Mahābaḷēśvara temple at Varuṇa records
the grant of the hamlet of Aragōḍupaḷi to the temple of Būtēśvara
as dēvabhōga which was received by Nannikarttāra Bhaḷāra.
Mahāsāmanta Goggi is said to have made the grant.62 A similar
grant to the same temple is made by Mahāsāmanta Durgga, again of
the Cāḷukya vaṃśa, who is said to be endowed with the Ādivarāha
lāñchana, which was also entrusted to Nannikarttāra Bhaḷāra. The
grant was of the hamlet of Torevaḷi, which is said to be west of the
temple, and of two khaṇḍugas of land in the vicinity of the tank in
front of Bāsambaḷiyår.63 That the trustee in both records was the
same suggests that Durgga was the successor of Goggi. Būtēśvara
seems to be the older name of the Mahābaḷēśvara temple at Varuṇa
and the description of Torevaḷi would suggest that it was located in
the vicinity of the temple at Varuṇa. We cannot identify the hamlet
of Aragōḍupaḷi and the village of Bāsambaḷiyūr. Thus, in Mysore and
its vicinity, grants of hamlets were being made to temples; and these,
rather than brahmadēyas, are the focus of charity and function as
integrative institutions binding together smaller hamlets. Also,
wherever lands as opposed to villages are being granted, they are
specified as being wet lands or located around tanks, and are thus
probably irrigated.
The Cikkānya hero stone64 which refers itself to the reign of Satyavākya
Rācamalla and is in the 10th century characters, records that Śrī Mādi
died in a cattle raid by the (inhabitants of) Baladaḷastaḷa on Cikkānya.
Baladaḷastaḷa cannot be identified but Gaṭṭavāḍi, which is referred to
as the seat of Satyavākya Rācamalla, is evidently the modern Gaṭṭavāḍi
in Nanjangūḍ taluka. The hero stone brings out the importance of

cattle in the economy, even in what appears to be primarily an agrarian

tract. Another hero stone of the 10th century from here is an ūr-aḷivu
episode, a destructive raid on the village of Cikkānya, here referred to
as Kāniya, wherein Mārabbe’s father (tande) Muddayya died. His senior
son-in-law (piriyaḷiya), Kottayya, probably Mārabbe’s husband, set up
the memorial stone.65
The Mysore copper plates are dated palaeographically to the
11th century,66 and record a kalnāḍ grant to Kuladhāri, the son of
Dharimuttaṟa; the latter seems to have died in his house. The death
seems to have freed the besamakkaḷ (bonded servants) and the gāvuṇḍas
of Kaḍekoḷa. The grant is of Kaḍekoḷa, still identifiable in the vicinity
of Mysore and the boundary details names several other villages such
as Kharavūr, Paydage, Taṇḍēya (modern Tāṇḍavapura?), Pervēḍu,
Mariyase (modern Marase) and Paṭṭāḷ. Apart from neighbouring
villages, we have references to rocks (belmor̤aḍi, kalkuppe), trees such
as neṟile (Eugenia jambolanalam), ālada mara (banyan), tanks (Kalloḍa
keṟe), streams (Pasaṟekallupaḷḷa), a washerman’s field (Asaga pole)
among other details. The description of the boundaries indicates that
Kaḍekoḷa was surrounded by villages on most sides, though most of
the villages cannot be identified today. Also fascinating is the list of
people mentioned as witnesses to the grant made by Cāgi Permāḍi.
The goldsmith (Ponguḷan?), agricultural labourer (Maṇṇiga?), the
woodcutter (Koḍaliyan?), the outcaste (Poleyam?), all of Kaḍekoḷa,
together with the head (oḍeya) of the Muḷdagēri (a street) are named at
the end of the grant.
Another 11th century inscription from Haḷebōgaḍi registers the
tying of the paṭṭa (chaplet) of Goggiyācāri (artisan of Goggi) by Goggi
Gāvuṇḍa of Nāgavāḍi on Būvācāri’s son.67 The tying of the paṭṭa implied
a personal bond between the headman and the artisan in question and
was witnessed by a range of occupational specialists and inhabitants
of the village. We have Dumbaṟe Lappōṭi, the cowherd (tuṟuvāea)
Cīyalayya, the carpenter (pañcāla) Cāvuṇḍayya, the barber (nāvida)
Basava, the smith (kammāṟa) Bivāri, the washerman (asaga) Bīma, the
smith (ōja) Kāriga and Goggivaḷāra and Maḷege Bījaga from the outcaste
community (poḷeya). Thus, the village of Nāgavāḍi had residents with
various occupations, and their consent seems to be required for binding
a member to the headman or member of the dominant gāvuṇda
community.
During the 11th century, the Cōḷas held this area, as evidenced by
the Cikkānya inscription of 1064, which names a gāvuṇḍa chieftain
with characteristic Cōḷa titles.68 The 12th century saw the Hoysaḷas
ruling this area. The majority of the inscriptions are dated to the
reign of Ballāḷa II or later. But an inscription from Kumārabīḍu,

dated 1121,69 refers to the rule of Kuḷōttuṅga Cōḷa Vīragaṅga

Hoysaḷadēva, probably Viṣṇuvardhana at this time with the rank
of Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara, and evidently subordinate to the Cōḷa.70
This epigraph records that one of his subordinates, Gaṅgapayya
Daṇḍanāyaka, constructed a basadi at Hādaravāgilu in memory of
his younger brother Sōvaṇa Daṇḍanāyaka. Grants of land were made
for the basadi, which consisted of the hamlet of Candavanahaḷi
in Maise nāḍ, wet land of thirty salage below the Kammāḍikeṟe
(tank) which was to the east of the bīḍu; cultivable lands of two
belis of extent to the north of the tank’s sluice; below the western
embankment of the same tank, garden lands of five hundred gūḷis
(another land measure). Additionally, oil from two oil mills in the
bīḍu was assigned for the lighting of the lamps. Neither Hadaravāgilu,
which was a royal centre to judge from its description as bīḍu, nor
Candavanahaḷi can be identified. Once again, a hamlet is attached
to a temple, which seems to be the religious institution of choice in
this region rather than a Brāhmaṇa agrahāra. The individual lands
granted to the basadi also lay in the vicinity of a tank, and were
probably well irrigated.
Hādaravāgilu also occurs in a 13th century inscription from
Hārōhaḷi71 as a granted village with its associated hamlet (kaluvaḷi)
Sāhaḷi, both of which are said to be located in Eḍettoṟe nāḍu. Eḍettoṟe
nāḍu seems to be located in the region between the Kāvēri and
Kabini rivers, mainly in the Nanjangūd taluka. However, the village
cannot be located. It was granted to the deities Prasanna Kēśavadēva,
Gopāladēva, Janārdanadēva and Lakṣmī Narasiṃhadēva at
Sōmanāthapura (T. Narsipur taluka, Mysore district) for the offerings
of amṛtapaḍi. The inscription seems to be a regrant of the original
one made by Narasiṃha III Hoysaḷa. The donors in this case were the
Prabhu Gauḍas of Toṟe nāḍ.
One of the earliest records of Ballāḷa II’s reign comes from 1173
from Gujjegauḍanapura72 and records the grant of the village of
Kuppūr to the Yer̤ eyana basadi at Rājarājapuram (Talakāḍ) for the
conduct of rituals, feeding and for maintenance. The name of the
donor is unfortunately now lost but we are told that the Prabhu
Gavuḍas of the nāḍ were involved in the grant which was entrusted
to Nāgacandra Paṇḍita. Kuppūr’s boundaries are unspecified, and are
difficult to identify since the name of the nāḍ too is lost. Tentatively, we
may suggest that it was identical to Kuppalūr which is now subsumed
within Mysore town.
Another inscription from Kumārabīḍu dated 1174 records the grant
of a garden (tōṭavam) as the perquisite of the headship of Kumārabīḍu
(gāvuṇḍage koḍuge) by Mahāpradhāna Sarvādhikāri Daṇḍanāyaka

Biṭṭimayya Gāvuṇḍa to Baṅgaya Nāyaka.73 The location of the granted

land is lost. But it would seem that the grant was made at the time of
investing Baṅgaya Nāyaka with the headship.
A hero stone from K. Hemmanahaḷi of the 12th century74 records
the death of the son of Kannattara Kēśava Gauḍa of Mysore at Mariyase
(modern Marase). A temple (guḍi) of Kēśava was constructed in his
memory, for which the grant of land of 500 guḷis (a measure of area) at
Kannattahaḷi was made, in addition to cultivable land to the extent of
five gulas. The location of Kannattahaḷi cannot be determined but it is
significant that this is the earliest reference to Mysore.
In an interesting inscription from the same place dated to 1175,
in the reign of Vīraballāḷa II, the Mahāpradhāna Biṭṭimayya, with
the maṇḍalika of Māyenāḍu (possibly the same as Mayse nāḍu
which is referred to in other inscriptions) and Haḍadasa (probably
modern Haḍajana in Mysore district), Maṇḍalasāmi, Būta Gauḍa
of Hoṇara, Harada Gauḍa of Benagēnahaḷi, Nāce Gauḍa and Kabe
Gauḍa of Būtugahaḷi (possibly the same as modern Bhūgatagalli
in Mysore district), Hoysaḷa Gauḍa and Malla Gauḍa of Mysore,
Bīra Gauḍa, Mysu Gauḍa and Māra Gauḍa of Bōgavāḍi (modern
Bhogadi) all gathered at Hemmanahaḷi, constituted themselves as
the nāḍ (samasta nāḍāgi neṟedu) and made grants of land to the
temple of Śrīśaṅkaradēva at Hemmanahaḷi for burning a perpetual
lamp. The grant consisted of the income from tolls (suṅka) on the oil
mills run by bullocks (ettugāṇavam) which were made over by the
Suṅkada heggaḍe (superintendent of tolls) Boppaḍe to the stānikas
of the temple, Śaṅkaradāsi and Ekkōṭidāsi. A fragmentary reference
to these individuals at the end of the grant suggests that they were
also from the community of the Telligas (oil pressers). Additionally,
we are told that Gāvuṇḍēya, the son of Kannattara Cāma Gāvuṇḍa
had Vināyaka and Nandi installed in the temple of Śaṅkaradēva.
Further, the four gāvuṇḍas (nālvaru gāvuṇḍagaḷu) of Hāḍuhaṭṭi and
Hemmanahaḷi made grants of a hundred units of cultivable lands
and of wet lands below the lower sluice (kīḷēriya gadde) to the same
deity.75 This inscription throws light on the local administration, the
presence of the nāḍu, its membership, as well as the reference to the
four gāvuṇḍas at the village level. The reference to the kaḷēri also
points to the presence of irrigation works and their contribution to
the extension of the arable.
A third inscription from Hemmanahalli dated 118876 refers to the
rule of Mahāpasāyita Mōkhari Lakkayya, father of queen Bammala
Mahādēvi. It was held by members of this family during the reign of
Vīraballāḷa II. This inscription records the grant of land and tolls on
oil mills to the temple of Gaṅgēśvara temple (at present called the

Mahāliṅgēśvara) temple for the burning of a perpetual lamp. The

lands consisted of two salages of cultivable wet lands and one bēli77
(a land measurement unit) of cultivable lands (beddale). The location
is not clearly specified. Again, several gāvuṇḍas of Kannattara seem
to have contributed to the installation of Nandi and Vināyaka at this
temple. The gāvuṇḍas of Kannattara seem to have been major patrons
of temple building at this time.
In 1195–96, we are told that Hemmanahaḷi78 was held by Bammala
Mahādēvi’s elder brother (aṇṇa) Maila Nāyaka. Mādi Gauḍa seems to
have granted to the deity Kēśavadēva within the temple of Śaṅkaradēva
the proceeds from the tolls on the bullock-driven oil mills (ettugāṇada
suṅka) for lighting lamps to the deity. The Kannattara Gauḍa family
is said to have sponsored the installation of the deities Vināyaka,
Nandi and Kēśava at the temple of Śaṅkaradēva. Additionally, land-
grants were made by Muṇḍaga’s son, probably of the Kannattara
family. Wetland (gadde) below the lower sluice of a tank of a 110 koḷas
(probably same as koḷaga) and cultivable lands of unspecified extent
were made for the provision of the naivēdya of the deity Keśavadeva.
Oil of 200 guḷis79 was also provided for. The location of granted land is
not stated, but it is mentioned that the land was irrigated and located
below a tank sluice.
In the 13th century, in the reign of Hoysaḷa Sōmēśvara, in 1242–43,
pillars were added to the Śaṅkaradēva temple at Hemmanahaḷi.80 The
patrons in this case were the sons of Bāci Gauḍa of Matigavuḍanahaḷi,
who is said in one of the records to be the son of Cāma Gauḍa. The name
of the hamlet, Matigavuḍanahaḷi, suggests that the it was the product of
an extension of the arable by this individual and was named after him.
It is also interesting to observe that the family of Bammala Mahādēvi,
which had held sway in Hemmanahalli in the reign of Ballāḷa II, is
no longer mentioned. The Kannattara Gauḍas, who were prominent
patrons of temple-building in that period, are also not referred to. We
have a new family of patrons now.
The Marase inscription of 1191 records the grants of lands by
various individuals to Maṇḍalikācāri for the construction of an
embankment to the Aṇṇayya samudra (tank), possibly at Marase,
though it is not clearly specified. The grants consisted of ten salages
and ten koḷagas of wet land at the lower sluice of Baḍiyakeṟe; three
hundred guḷis of land at Maruvase (modern Marase) given by
Maṇḍalika Bōva, the son of Saṇṇa Bōva and Hēma Bōvitti; the Gauḍas
of Maruvase collectively granted fifty koḷagas of land at Gura-ūru,
five wet lands near the tank Kallukeṟe at the gauḍike of Kēśidēva
Mañcavīra at Kesalegōḍu (possibly modern Hale Kesare), two kuḷas
and fifty guḷis by the Viṇṇasarige (measuring rod), wet lands of ten

koḷagas below the lower sluice (kaḷēri) of Hiriyakeṟe. Apart from

these land-grants, two coins of gold (eraḍu honnu) were given to
him. These munificent grants indicate that the embankment was of
major irrigational value and, thus, the gauḍas of Marase as well as
those holding the gauḍike of Kesalegōḍu granted lands to the artisan
who created it. Bōvatana implies leadership,81 and Maṇḍalika Bōva
probably held a chieftancy of some kind.
A hero stone from Kumārabīḍu82 records the death of Dēpaya
Nāyaka, the son of Koṭṭigēya Mārēya Nāyaka of Kumārabīḍu in
the battle of Bayanāḍ (Bayal nāḍ). The inscription refers to the
campaign (bavane) of Bilavōḷa Daṇṇāyaka, in the course of which
the battle (bavara) of Bayanāḍ seems to have taken place. He was
commemorated by his sister Kāḷavve. This inscription would
suggest that feudatories of the Hoysaḷas based in the Bēḷvala region
(Dharwar-Koppala district tract) were attempting to extend their
influence over the southern parts of Mysore. It is unclear whether this
was a case of internecine quarrels among the nāḍus and feudatories
of the Hoysaḷas, or the quelling of a revolt. A similar picture of
internecine conflict is suggested by the Dēvagaḷi hero stone which
recorḍs the siege (muttikoṇḍihalli) of Dēvanahaḷi (probably modern
Dēvagaḷi), while another army under Kanna Komāra was in action
against Santeyūr. An individual named Hemmāḍi seems to have
died defending Dēvanahaḷi, whereupon Hoysaḷācāri of Dēvanahaḷi
made grants in memory of the hero.83
Inscriptions from the close of the 13th century from Varuṇa
mention Cikka Malaya Daṇṇāyaka, the son of Mahāpradhāna
Daṇṇāyaka, as the sthānika of two temples at Kaivalapura, which was
within the limits of Haḷi Hiriyūru of Hōṇara. None of these places
is identifiable. However, the inscriptions record the grant of a living
(vṛtti) each to the Cennakēśava temple as well as the Heggaḍēśvara
temples located here. Cikka Malaya Daṇṇāyaka acted as the sthānika
(manager) for both grants.84 Interestingly, the editor points out that
this individual also acted as sthānika to the temple of Yeriyūramma
at Yeriyūr and to temples at Gumbaḷi, both located in the Yelandūr
taluka of Mysore district.85 This would indicate that the feudatories at
this period constituted themselves in managerial positions in temples
in different areas, and could probably command their assets.
Overall, in contrast to Bēlūr and Yelaburga talukas, where agrahāras
were important institutions early on (in the first instance in the 5th
century) and were used to integrate other settlements into the state and
varṇa divided order, Mysore seems to have been settled later, only from
the 8th century, and it was under the control of secular feudatories who
patronised temples and used them as instruments for integrating tribal

hamlets. Private initiatives in tank construction and the settlement

of hamlets is also suggested by the names of these features in the
agrarian landscape. A few hero stones suggest the importance of cattle
as an economic resource. But political expansion by feudatories and
internecine quarrels among them seem to have contributed to battles
and attacks on villages, in which heroes died and were commemorated.
Repeated reference to oil mills and tolls on them suggest that sesame
was an important crop in this area and oil pressing an important
occupation. Generally, inscriptions from Mysore are rich in references
to occupational groups such as the oil pressers, masons and their bonds
to the dominant landowning group, the gauḍas. The constitution of
the nāḍu as an administrative body and its role in making grants and
taxation is also brought out. The 12th century Marase inscription cited
above is also of importance in bringing out the patronage of the local
chiefs and gauḍas to irrigation works undertaken by a mason.
Trade and Tolls
The earliest references to trade, merchants and tolls come from some
5th century records. The Keregalūr Plates of Gaṅga Mādhavavarman
II mention the Maṇigrāma śrēṇi in the course of a grant of villages
and a portion of taxes to Brāhmaṇas in which the Maṇigrāma śrēṇi
and the Tuviyāl Śrēsṭhi group are witnesses and seem to be based in
the Kirumuṇḍanīri nagara, which cannot be identified.86 The other
reference to the Maṇigrāma, which is probably a version of vaṇiggrāma,
as suggested by Subbarayalu,87 comes from the Melekōṭe Plates of
Avinīta Gaṅga, which record grants of land to the Buddhist Saṅgha
which were to be maintained by the Maṇigrāma śrēṇi88 of Pērūr, located
in the Koṅgu region, situated on a trade route.89 Pērūr is also mentioned
in the Nonamaṅgala Plates of Avinīta Gaṅga which register inter alia,
the gift of income from śulka levied outside Pērūr in kārṣāpaṇas to a
Jaina shrine at Uranūr.90 The mention of the Maṇigrāma, and of tolls
levied in cash, as well as the patronage to the Buddhists and Jainas with
which they are associated in these cases, is significant and bears out the
existence of trade and tolls levied. However, we have no information on
the commodities involved.
Another reference to tolls occurs in the Bīrūr Plates of Kadamba
Viṣṇuvarman in the 5th century, where we are told that Banavāsi was
adorned with eighteen custom houses (maṇḍapikas). These were places
where tolls were levied on goods entering a town91 and the reference
indicates the urban character of Banavāsi. The Sorab Copper Plates of
Vinayāditya Cāḷukya of the 7th century mention the presence of the

corporate body of the Nagara and a merchant, Āneseṭi, whose son-

in-law, Basanta Kumāra, made a grant of the village of Sālivoge in the
neighbourhood of Banavāsi.92 The presence of the mercantile body of
the town and the reference to the merchant again attests the urban and
mercantile character of the settlement in the 7th century.
At a slightly later period, in the 8th century, the Agara inscription
(Yelandur taluka, Chamrajnagar district) registers a temporary
exemption from tolls on headloads (tale por̥e) granted to the Twenty, a
local corporate group, by the Mane-oḍeya (Superintendent of the royal
household) of Queen Vinettinimmaḍi for the duration of the festival.93
The context seems to be of the peasants carrying their produce to the
local market centre. It is unclear whether the Twenty represents the
gāvuṇḍas or the Okkal (tenants) who began to be differentiated from
each other in this period. A village-level toll centre referred to in the
early 11th century Cittavaḷi inscription (Chikmagalur taluka) where
the tolls levied on the village (ūrsuṅkavam) was given to the Jīvitēśvara
temple situated there. We also have references to ghee, which seems to
be one of the commodities granted to the temple. It is not clear whether
the tolls granted were those collected at Cittavaḷi itself, or in the villages
of Urpavaḷi, Nēṟile and Kiriya Oralgōḍu, which were also granted to
the temple for its upkeep.94 The temple was constructed by Jīvitavāra
of the Sēnavāra lineage (which was claimed to have descended from
Jimūtavāhana), and was renovated by his grandson Mārasiṃghadēva.95
That ghee was a major item of merchandise on which tolls were
levied is also indicated by a 9th century record from Īśvarahaḷi
(Chikmagalur taluka) of the reign of Eṟeyapparasa Gaṅga, which
registers the remission of tolls and imposts on ghee in the Erenāḍu
in favour of a group of merchants (bāoiga bāeige) in perpetuity
(ellākālakkam).96 The grant was to be executed by the nāḍgāvuṇḍas and
nāḍabōvas (accountants) who ruled the nāḍu (Nāḍāevōru). A tax on
ghee (tuppader̥e) is also mentioned in an inscription from Kuñce (Hole
Narsipur taluka, Hassan district) wherein the Mahājanas of Kuñce
were the beneficiaries.97 Obviously, the tax was farmed to them.
Apart from ghee, rice is the other agrarian commodity mentioned
in epigraphs. It is unclear whether this was in connection with trade,
but we certainly have grants of paddy in kind made to temples. One
of the earliest is the Mūḍahaḷi inscription of the 9th century, where a
corporate group, the Thousand (Sāsira), was given paddy and dehusked
rice (nellakki).98 This might have been connected with a memorial
stone, given the reference to svargasta (deceased), but the context is
unclear since the inscription is very fragmentary. Another reference to
paddy (bhatta) with cow’s milk (kavilēya pālu) comes from a record
from Kigga (Sringeri taluka, Chikmagalur district), palaeographically

assigned to the 7th century, wherein only the parivāra (attendants)

of the deity of Kīḷgāṇēśvara were entitled to enjoy these, along with
the impressment of bullocks (eḷtu).99 While these references to paddy
or rice occur as part of grants to temples or to heroes, and not as
commodities of trade, a context of grain being taken to a nearby town
for sale does occur in a story in the early 10th century Kannada work
the Vaḍḍārādhane. We are told that the headman (ūrgāmuṇḍa) of the
village of Kauśala had come to Campānagara to sell paddy (bhatta) and
found two merchants using counterfeit measures and subterranean
chambers (nelamane) to store grain after cheating the peasants.100 As
noted above, the Agara inscription, with its reference to tolls levied
on headloads, seems to suggest a rural market centre or a fair held at
festivals, where the peasants brought their products for sale.
In the final quarter of the 11th century, an inscription from Bāgali
(Harapanahalli taluka, Bellary district) of 1079 mentions a temple grant
by Bācaladēvi, the daughter of Mahāprabhu Kaliyama Gauḍa and the
wife of Kanaka Piriyāḍa Pergaḍe, who gave lands within her share of her
father’s gauḍike, as well as cash contributions on merchandise produced
and taken out from there in carts (ūroḷage huṭuva hārikayavalava
tūguva bhaṇḍakke hoṅge hāga ondu).101
The commodities in kind were set apart for use by means of
contributions from peasant households and from artisans such as
oil pressers for the ritual requirements of the temples. The Suttūr
inscriptions of the early 11th century offer an interesting instance of this,
and of the association of merchant groups such as the Nānādeśis and
the Ayyāvoḷe Five Hundred, who appear as guarantors of the grant in
association with local bodies such as the Sabhā as well as local merchants.
The first of the Suttūr inscriptions, in Tamil, of the year 1015 in the reign
of Rājēndra Cōḷa, registers the sale of two khaṇḍugas and ten baḷḷas of
land to Tēvanāḍu Vēḷan and Muñcāḍi Āriyam Cimma by members of the
sabhā of śrōtriyūr for the purpose of endowing the goddess Durgaiyār
in the temple of Stāviṇṇar there. They received two kaḷanjus of gold in
return for the land of which the boundaries have been specified. At the
close, we are told that the grant was to be maintained by the Brāhmaṇa
oḍeya of Keṟeyūr in Kadambaḷige nāḍ, Aycamayya Cāvuṇḍamayya, the
Nānādēśis in the nāḍ and the Five Hundred Brahmaśeṭṭis of Ayyapoḷal.102
The second inscription, also of the reign of Rājēndra Cōḷa I and dated
1032, sees a more direct involvement of merchants in the transactions.
It registers the grant of land to the temples of Īśānaīśvaramuḍaiyār and
Mūlasthānamuḍaiyār at śrōtriyūr. The Mūlasthānamuḍaiyār temple had
been constructed at the instance of Guṇḍabbe, the wife of Mārayyaśeṭṭi of
śrōtriyūr, who made a gift of land after purchase. Her son, Doṟeyyaśeṭṭi, is
also said to have purchased lands and granted them to the same temple.

Additionally, Doṟeyyaśeṭṭi purchased lands for the deity śrōtriyūravve,

and a goat was also provided for, suggesting blood sacrifice to the goddess.
The sabhā of śrōtriyūr made endowments for the upkeep of the tank
(bittuvaṭṭa) and a contribution of one māṇa of oil for a perpetual lamp.
The other donor was Maṭhada Pūvina śeṭṭi (the merchant who provided
flowers to the maṭha), who purchased ten koḷagas of cultivable wet lands
(bedegaḻde) from Cāvuṇḍayya of śūrīyūr, and also gifted an oil mill for
provisioning a perpetual lamp. For providing a garden for the deity
(dēvara nandanavanamam malpuvarkkam) in the pastures of Mahādēva,
it was provided that each tenant would contribute a headload of hay, ten
koḷagas of paddy (bhatta), baṇṇige103 and three gulas of cloth (kappaḍa).104
The grant was made under the auspices of the Brāhmaṇa Mahājanas of
śrōtriyūr and the Samaya (a merchant guild).
In north-eastern Karnataka, in the district of Gulbarga in 1082,
during the reign of Cāḷukya Vikramāditya VI, in the division of
Aḷande-1000, which was under the administration of Yuvarāja
Mallikārjuna, we have a grant of the tolls of Perjjuṅka (the big tolls),
the vaḍḍarāvuḷa and bilkoḍe levied on a thousand pack oxen (Aḷande
sāsiradoḷagam sāsira pēruva ettiṅge perjjuṅka biḷkoḍe vaḍḍarāvuḷada
suṅkav-ellam parihāram māḍi biṭṭār) made to the temple of Sōmēśvara
under its pontiff, Surēśvara Paṇḍita.105 The Nagara (the mercantile guild
associated with the town) of Aḷande also contributed fifty betel leaves
per load sold (Aḷandeya nagaram dēvarige mārida pēriṅge ayvattu
eleyam biṭṭār).106 The urban mercantile character of the settlement of
Aḷande is also brought out by the reference to the Paṭṭaṇada Heggaḍe
Gommalayya and is further underlined by the grant at his request of
ten gold coins (hattu-hattu dravyamam) every month out of the tolls
levied in cash (mudrāvaṇada suṅka).107 Apart from all this, taxes such
as jalla, kaḷḷavaḷike,108 sāda and baṇṇige on the twelve villages governed
by the temple of Sōmēśvara were also remitted by the crown prince at
the request of the Pergaḍe of the nāḍ, Nāca Daṇḍanāyaka.109 The Aḷand
inscription shows that there was a flourishing caravan trade with a
thousand oxen carrying goods on which a number of tolls were levied;
the urban corporate group probably levied local tolls on merchandise
sold there and these tolls were levied in both cash and kind. This also
ties in with the references to trade in textiles and agrarian commodities
such as chillies, turmeric, betel leaves, etc. mentioned in inscriptions
from Yelburga taluka.
Betel leaves as a commodity of trade also figure in the Tumbigere
inscription (Harapanahalli taluka, Bellary district) of 1081, wherein
Caṭṭayya Nāyaka, the son of Māci Śeṭṭi of Gugguri, who seems to
have been in-charge of the Pannāya tolls along with Mēḷamayya
Daṇḍanāyaka, the in-charge of the Perjjuṅka, and Nambiyanna

gave to temple at Tumbigere the income from one load (pēr̥ u) of

betel leaves every month.110 Similarly, an inscription from Ambaḷi
(Hagaribommanahalli taluka, Bellary district) of 1083 grants to the
deity Kalidēvasvāmi of the place the monthly income from the pannāya
taxes on a load of betel leaves for the provision of betel leaves for the
ceremonies. The donor was Anantapaḷayya the pannāyādhiṣṭhāyaka
(superintendant of the pannāya tax).111
The Hoḷal inscription (Haḍagalli taluka, Bellary district) of 1074112
mentions several other agricultural commodities, interestingly in
connection with the mercantile guild of the Ainūṟṟuvar (the Five
Hundred of Ayyāvaḷe), who seem to have given to the Gavarēśvara temple
a pāga (one-fourth of a paṇa) by way of contributions on a pasumbe (the
peddler’s bag, pasumbeyasēse), a measure (sūṭige) of paddy (bhatta)
from every shop (angaḍi). The inscription shows an association of this
transregional mercantile guild with the local merchants (śeṭṭiputrar),
and other occupational groups such as the oil pressers and dealers (the
fifty Telligas-Telligara ayvattokkal). These local groups, along with the
Hundred and Twenty Mahājanas of the place seem to have granted
lands as estate to the temple to the south of a stream.113 A similar trend
of cooperation between the local merchants affiliated with the nagaram
and the Ainuṟṟuvar has been noted for the 12th century, in particular, by
Karashima, Subbarayalu and Shanmugam in their study of the Nagaram
in Tamil Nadu during the Chola period.114 Apart from these mercantile
contributions by the Ainuṟṟuvar, we also have a grant of a soṇṭige (measure
of capacity, a large spoon) of oil per oil mill which was contributed by
the Sixty Okkal (arvattokkalum) and a reference to tolls on corn or grain
(davasa) granted by Dāsayya, the Vaḍḍarāvuḷasuṅkavergaḍe.115
A composite record from Hire Haḍagalli (Haḍagalli taluka, Bellary
district) records several grants over the 11th and 12th centuries to the
Dēmēśvara temple, constructed by Dēmarasa of Kauśika gōtra in the
agrahāra of Posavadingale in Kogali nāḍu in 1057. The grants made
by Dēmarasa himself, after purchase from the Hundred and Twenty
Mahājanas of the place, included a reference to the betel garden of the
temple of Maḷavēśvara.116 Most of the lands granted by Dēmarasa were
wet lands in the vicinity of irrigational facilities like tanks or dams (kaṭṭa)
or lands in cleared forests (vasugēyasthaḷa.?).117 This is also another
inscription where Ainūṟṟuvar of Ayyāvaḷe granted contributions on
trade commodities entering the settlement (pāgabeḷeyabandupuguva),
whose details are unfortunately lost but which were, apparently
agrarian commodities, based on the word beḷe (crop). The Fifty Telliga
Okkal (Oilpresser tenants) granted a soṇṭige of oil. In 1107, additional
grants were made to this temple by Mācidēva, the Aḷiya (son-in-law/
nephew) of Mahāpradhāna Anantapaḷayya, who held the position of

the Vaḍḍarāvuḷasuṅkādadhikāri, gave for the aṅgabhōga rituals at the

Dēmēśvara, a proportion of the vaḍḍarāvuḷasuṅka on three lakhs of
areca nuts while Pergaḍe Attimmarasa gave on behalf of Pāṇḍyadēva,
the ruler of Kōgali nāḍ, a proportion of the Perjjuṅka on three lakhs of
areca nuts. This would suggest that areca nuts were a major and bulk
item in the trade at this time, which is borne out by references in the
Jewish Geniza letters which repeatedly refer to shipments of areca nuts
to Aden at this time.118
The Nīlagunda inscription (Harapanahalli taluka, Bellary district)
of 1079119 also has references to garden lands granted to the temple
of Rāmēśvara. Although the crop grown is not specified, it is possible
that areca nuts were grown since the inscription also has an additional
contribution by the local merchants, the Baṇajigas and the Ainūṟṟuvar
(of Ayyāvaḷe probably) of a kāṇi of areca nuts per load (adakeya
peṟondakke kāṇiyondu). The Baṇajigas and the Nānādēśis also granted
a cash contribution on corn.
Salt manufacture and a tax on salt is mentioned in an 11th century
inscription from Bāgali (Harapanahalli taluka, Davangere district),
which refers to several occupational specialists and taxes on them. Thus,
we have a grant of contributions in cash on all merchandise produced in
the ūr of Arasiyakeṟe, a māṇa of oil on every oil mill, a sari from every
washerman (asagara okkalu nibandi hiḍiyade sīre ondu), five paṇas on
every salt pan as well as five koḷagas of salt (uppina kāvalider̥ e paṇa 5
uppu kolaga 5) made by Bācaladēvi out of her share in the gauḍike of
Arasiyakeṟe. Her husband granted additionally contributions on the
bōva (accountant, leader), salt manufacturers (uppinika), the carpenters
and smiths (baḍagi kammār̥ a) and basket-makers (mādara) to the
temple of Svayambhū Kalidēva at Bāgaḷi. These contributions were
probably levied on people resident in the division of Bikkiga Seventy, of
which he held the superintendence (pergaḍetana).120
A similar situation can be seen in Southern Karnataka in the
Hoysaḷa realm as well. Inscriptions from Doḍḍagaddavaḷi (Hassan
taluka) record the construction of a temple of Mahālakṣmī in 1113 by
Mahāvaḍḍavyavahāri Kullahaṇa Rāhuta and his wife Sahajādēvī. The
temple was constructed for them by Mallōja and Maṇiyōja, for whom
grants of land below the big tank (piriyakeṟe) was made.121 The temple
continued to have mercantile patronage thereafter too. The presence
of a wide variety of occupational specialists who were tenants often
attached to the temple is also attested. An undated inscription from the
close of the 12th century refers to the attachment of a washerman and
an oil presser to the temple by the Rāhuta’s son, and the grant of the
baṇṇigedeṟe (probably a tax on dyers)122 to the temple of Mahālakṣmī.123
In the early 13th century, the management of the temple was vested

with Mahāvaḍḍavyavahāri Golleha Nāyaka, and his siblings, Siriyādēvi

and Māyidēva. In 1218, they gave a cash endowment for the garland
makers (māḷegāṟa), out of which five were to be supported.124 In 1194,
the superintendant of the weaver’s tax (jēḍadeṟe) Hollēya, his younger
brother Heggaḍe Nāgayya, along with Siriyavve (probably the same
as Siriyādēvi mentioned above) gave a couple of looms to each of the
deities enshrined in the temple and one to the temple pūjāri.125 In 1234,
taxes on looms (maggadeṟe), on the five artisanal castes (pañcakāruka)
and rent on lands given in tenancy (kaṭṭuguttage) were given to the
temple.126 These references give the impression of the village being a
centre of craft production. That it was also a centre of trade is indicated
by the grant in 1209 of several taxes on commodities of trade made
by the superintendant of tolls, Suṅkādhikāri Heggaḍe Sōmayya, to
the temple. These were tolls raised within the limits of the hamlets
under the control of the temple and the commodities mentioned are
horses, elephants, precious stones, areca nuts, turmeric, betel leaves and
chillies, carried in carts or on pack oxen.127 The tolls on areca nuts are
also referred to in a record dated 1200, which registers the grant of the
hamlet of Jagaravalli to the temple. The epigraph mentions a range of
dues and taxes raised in the village, which were apparently now to be
handed to the temple for supporting the daily rituals ostensibly by the
monarch, Vīraballāḷa II. The taxes referred to here are food and fodder
for the forces and for the elephants and horses (khāna, kudurēyasēse,
āneyasēse), forced labour for the construction of forts (kōṭṭeyahadike),
forced labour and impressment of carts (biṭṭiyabhaṇḍi), tax on
stables and cowsheds (koṭṭigedeṟe), money raised on the birth of a
prince (kumāragāṇike) and tolls on areca nuts (aḍakeyasuṅka). The
income arising out of all these were to be expended on the rituals
of the deities (apūrvāyavellavam māoisi sarvabādhāparihāram
enisi śrī Mahālakṣmīdēvīyara dharmakārya ācandratārambaram
salvantāgi…).128 The reference to the elephants and horses here deal
with the obligations of the tenants to feed the army on the move
rather than the taxes on horses and elephants as commodities of trade
mentioned in the grant by the superintendant of tolls.
The presence of the transregional mercantile guild, the Ubhaya
Nānādēśis at Doḍḍa Gaddavaḷi, is also mentioned in the inscription
recording a cash gift to maintain the aravaṇṭige on the road to
Dōrasamudra, which was cited earlier.129 Inscriptions from Hassan
attest to the presence of many merchants from Kerala belonging to
the Ubhaya Nānādēśis, who seem to have settled here, married here
and purchased lands. The family of Kuñji Śeṭṭi from Kolamūkanagara
in Kerala is particularly interesting in that they shifted from matriliny
to patriliny in the course of three generations and purchased lands in

Hiriyūr (Arasikere taluka, Hassan district) to endow on the temple

of Kuñjēśvara, constructed in memory of Kuñji Śeṭṭi (II), the son of
Kandanambi Śeṭṭi who became a Śaiva Jaṅgama (wandering ascetic).
The lands were managed by Candavve, Kandanambi’s daughter who
was invested as the Gaṇakumāri and manager of the temple.130 Daud Ali
points out that Kuñji Śeṭṭi (I), the progenitor of the family, performed
diplomatic services for the Hoysaḷa king Vīraballāḷa II in addition
to his mercantile role.131 The Hoysaḷas had to attract the presence of
merchants for military and financial reasons. The Ayyāvaḷe Baḷegāra
Māriśeṭṭi came south to trade and settled down as a gāvuṇḍa in Hoysaḷa
dominions.132 Another merchant from Kolamūkapaṭṭaṇa, who seems to
have settled in Karnataka and built temples here, was Dāmōdara Śeṭṭi
who constructed a Viṣṇu temple at Arakeṟe (Arsikere taluka, Hassan
district).133 The migrations of these merchants, and the references to
the mercantile guilds of Ayyāvaḷe and the Ubhaya Nānādēśis, attest
to the existence of a vigorous trade in elephants, horses, precious
stones and various agrarian commodities and textiles passing through
Karnataka from 11th century onwards that individual inscriptions
also corroboratee. We may also recollect the presence of the Ayyāvaḷe
guild and the references to cartloads, and pack oxen-carrying various
commodities in the inscriptions from Yelburga taluka.
Since trade began picking up in the 11th century, there were now
references to officials whose authority was defined in terms of their
right to tolls from specified territories. A mid-11th century record
from Isamudra in the Chitradurga district, for instance, records grants
of land and the remission of the vaḍḍarāvuḷa and pannāya taxes and
Nambiyaṇṇa of the Perjjuṅka tax134 in favour of a the Bhāgēśvara temple
by Pergaḍe Lālimayya. Similarly, an epigraph of 1093 from Hoḷalkere
(Chitradurga district) records that the Mahāsāmanta Ḍākarasa, who
was ruling (āḷuttum) the Hejjuṅka (same as Perjjuṅka) of Nāḷambavāḍi
32,000, granted to a basadi at Poḷalkeṟe the income of eleven haṇa due
monthly from the suṅka.135 It is not clear whether the suṅka was to be
collected from Poḷalkeṟe or from the entire division. Another inscription
from Bāḍa (Davangere taluka) of 1100 is more specific. Mahāsāmanta
Ḍākarasa is the donor here again, giving to the Allāḷēśvara temple for its
aṅgabhōga expenses, the daśavandha of Perjjuṅka on betel leaves, areca
nuts and davasāya (grains) collected from the same village. In a similar
fashion, the Asagōḍu inscription (Jagalūr taluka, Dāvangere district) of
1110 mentions that Pergaḍe Hemma Śeṭṭi, who held the Perjjuṅka of
Kadambaḷige 1000 under the Mahāsāmanta Mallarasa, who held that of
Nōḷambavāḍi, granted for the expenses of the Svayambhū Kalidēva temple
at Asagōḍu the proceeds from the suṅka levied in the village itself, on
loads (pēṟiṅge) of arecanuts, betel leaves and cartloads of grains (davasa)

from his share in taxes.136 The Bētūru inscription (Davanagere taluka) of

1108 registers the grant of five paṇas every month collected out of the
pannāyada suṅka by Bammarasa, the superintendent (Adhiṣṭhāyaka)
of the Accupannāya of Nōḷambavāḍi 32,000. The beneficiary was the
Sarpēśvara temple of Beltūru.137 Bammarasa is, in fact, eulogised in
this epigraph as contributing from his pannāya revenues to temples
and Jinālayas, feeding houses (satras) and supporting various irrigation
sources such as tanks and wells.
These records from Chitradurga and Davangere indicate that trade
in agrarian commodities such as grain, betel leaves and areca nuts
had grown enough to be a lucrative source of revenues, and to have
hierarchies of officials who could then use their share from these taxes
from specific territories to support charitable donations. This was made
possible by the steady growth and expansion of the agrarian base from
the 4th or 5th century onwards.
Notes
1 B.R. Gopal et al. (eds). 1974. Epigraphia Carnatica (henceforth EC), Vol
III. Mysore: University of Mysore Prasaranga, Nj 402.
2 Ibid., Line 92.
3 B.R. Gopal et al. (eds). 1979, EC, Vol VII, University of Mysore Prasaranga,
Md 35 of 713 ce.
4 B.L. Rice (ed.). 1902. EC, Vol VII. Bangalore: Government of Mysore, Sk
322.
5 B.R. Gopal et al. (eds). 1977. EC, Vol VI. University of Mysore Prasaranga,
Sr 85.
6 B.R.Gopal et al. (eds). 1979. EC, Vol VII. University of Mysore, Md 54.
7 B.L. Rice (ed.). 1905. EC, Vol X. Banglore: Government of Mysore,
Bangalore, Bp. 4.
8 G.S. Gai (ed.). 1964. South Indian Inscriptions (Henceforth SII), Vol XX
(Bombay Karnatak Inscriptions, Vol IV), No. 93.
9 B.R. Gopal et al. (eds). 1984. EC, Vol VIII. University of Mysore Prasaranga,
Hn 33.
10 A.V. Narasimhamurthy et al. (eds). 1990. EC, Vol IX. Mysore: University of
Mysore Prasaranga, Bl 236.
11 Ibid., Bl 231.
12 EC IX (1990), Bl 536.
13 B.P. Sahu. 2013. ‘Mapping the Patterns of Regional Land Systems and
Rural Society’. In The Changing Gaze: Regions and the Constructions of
Early India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 237.
14 EC IX (1990), Bl 537.
15 Ibid., Bl 524.
16 Ibid., Bl 549.

17 Ibid., Bl 16.
18 Ibid., Bl 309 of 1221–22.
19 Ibid., Bl 321.
20 Ibid., Bl 388 of 954.
21 Ibid., Bl 484. The second grant of a hundred units of paddy land is said to
have been made as hannasam, which is probably derived from pannasa,
a 50 per cent share. D.C. Sircar. 1966. Indian Epigraphical Glossary. New
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, q.v. pannasa.
22 Ibid., Bl 438.
23 D.C. Sircar. Indian Epigraphical Glossary (henceforth IEG), q.v. śalāka. F.
Kittel, 1894. A Kannaḍa-English Dictionary, Basel Mission Book and Tracts
Depository, Reprint AES, 1986, New Delhi, gives śalāka as another word
for salage, though he explains it as an iron rod. However, Sircar explains
śalāgai as a coin. However, in other contexts it appears as a land unit. It
is possible that like the khaṇḍuga which started as the khaṇḍukāvāpa, or
land required to sow a khaṇḍukas of seed, it might have been a measure of
capacity converted into a land unit. If that is so, ten salages might imply a
measure of grain in kind in this particular inscription.
24 EC IX (1990), Bl 225 of 1177.
25 Ibid., Bl 240.
26 Ibid., Bl 243.
27 Ibid., Bl 389.
28 Ibid., Bl 106.
29 Ibid., Bl 341.
30 Devarakonda Reddy (ed.), 1999, Kannaḍā University Epigraphical Series
(henceforth KUES), Hampi Kannaḍā University Prasaranga, Vol II, Ylg
64.
31 Ibid., Ylg 30.
32 Ibid., Ylg 65 of 939.
33 Ibid., Ylg 63.
34 Ibid., Ylg 56.
35 Ibid., Ylg 56, ll 219–20.
36 Ibid., Ylg 51.
37 F. Kittel. A Kannaḍa-English Dictionary, q.v, paṇa 12.
38 Devarakonda Reddy (ed).1999, KUES, Vol II, Ylg 51, ll 63–64.
39 F. Kittel, op.cit, q.v. pasube, pasumbe is explained as a long bag and a
pasube-vaḷa, a carrier of a pasumbe/pasube is explained as a merchant, so
pasumbedeṟe would seem to imply a tax on merchandise or merchants.
40 Devarakonda Reddy (ed). KUES, Vol II, Ylg 50.
41 Ibid., Ylg 59.
42 Ibid., Ylg 34.
43 Ibid., Ylg 70.
44 Ibid., Ylg 40.
45 Ibid., Ylg 41.
46 B.P. Sahu. ‘Mapping the Patterns of Regional Land Systems and Rural
Society’. In The Changing Gaze, 219–250, draws attention to how there is a
shift in boundary marks from trees, boulders, anthills to adjoining villages

and plots of land owned by others. Also landmarks such as tanks, rivers,
wells, etc. multiply over time and give us a better idea of the rural settlement,
235–236.
47 Devarakonda Reddy (ed.), Ylg 52.
48 Kudureya Kottige has survived as a place name in Yelburga taluk in the
form of Kudri Kotgi. Available at https://villageinfo.in/karnataka/koppal/
yelbarga/kudri-kotgi.html.
49 Devarakonda Reddy (ed.). KUES II, Ylg 17.
50 Ibid., Ylg 12.
51 Ibid., Ylg 13 of 1185.
52 Ibid., Ylg 13.
53 Ibid., Ylg 29.
54 B.R. Gopal et al. (eds). 1976. Epigraphia Carnatica, Vol V, My 183.
55 Ibid., My 192.
56 Ibid., My 186.
57 Ibid., My 184.
58 Ibid., My 223.
59 Malini Adiga. 2006. The Making of Southern Karnataka: Society, Polity
and Culture in the Early Medieval Period (400–1030). Hyderabad: Orient
Blackswan, Hyderabad 2006, 212.
60 B.R. Gopal et al. (eds). 1976. EC V, My 167.
61 Ibid., My 135.
62 Ibid., My 169.
63 Ibid., My 168.
64 Ibid., My 198.
65 Ibid., My 197.
66 Ibid., My 102.
67 Ibid., My 221.
68 Ibid., My 196.
69 Ibid., My 206.
70 This is interesting in the light of the battle of Talakāḍu in 1117 in which
the Hoysaḷas defeated the Cōëa general and the control of Gangavāḍi is
believed to have passed to the Hoysaḷas after this. B.R. Gopal et al. (eds).
EC, Vol V, TN 150, 151.
71 Ibid., My 119.
72 Ibid., My 224.
73 Ibid., My 206.
74 Ibid., My 220.
75 Ibid., My 215.
76 Ibid., My 214.
77 Bēli means a hedge. Kittel, op.cit., q.v. bēli. Here it seems used in the sense
of a land measure. It is possible that it refers to a piece of enclosed land,
Alternatively, it may be identical to the unit vēli referred to in records of
Tamil Nadu.
78 B.R. Gopal et al. (eds). 1976. Epigraphia Carnatica, Vol V, My 216.
79 Guli seems to be a sub-division of kuḷa, a measure of capacity. F. Kittel,
kuḷa.

80 B.R. Gopal et al. (eds). My 217, 218.

81 Kittel, bōvatana, leadership. However, in the 8th–10th centuries, the terms
sēnabōva and nāḍabōva implied accounting functions, but the nāḍabōvas
were counted among the rulers of the nad (nāḍāëvōru) along with the
nāḍgāvuṇḍa.
82 Ibid., My 225 of 1223.
83 Ibid., My 204 of 1274.
84 Ibid., My 170, 171, undated.
85 B.R. Gopal et al. (eds). 1974. Epigraphia Carnatica, Vol IV. Mysore: Mysore
University Prasaranga, Yelandūr 38, 192, 193.
86 B.R. Gopal et al. (eds). 1984. EC, Vol VIII. University of Mysore, Hn 10.
87 Y. Subbarayalu. 2013. ‘Trade Guilds in South India up to the Tenth Century’,
Paper presented at the Panel on Merchants, Trade and Commerce at the
74th Session of Indian History Congress. Cuttack: Ravenshaw University,
112–117.
88 K.V. Ramesh (ed.). 1984. Inscriptions of the Western Gangas. New Delhi:
ICHR, No. 11, 37–39.
89 R. Champakalakshmi. 1986. ‘Urbanization in Tamil Nadu’. In Situating
Indian History for S. Gopal, edited by S. Bhattacharya and R. Thapar. New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 59.
90 K.V. Ramesh, No. 12, 40–43.
91 H.M. Nagaraja Rao et al. (eds). 2003. EC, Vol XII, University of Mysore.
Kd 141. On the meaning of maõḍapika; D.C. Sircar. Indian Epigraphical
Glossary, q.v. maṇḍapika,
92 B.L. Rice (ed.). 1904. EC, Vol VIII. Bangalore: Government of Mysore, Sb
57.
93 B.R. Gopal et al. (eds). 1975. EC, Vol IV. University of Mysore, Yl 138.
94 A.V. Narasimhamurthy et al. (eds). 1998. EC, Vol XI. University of
Mysore, Cm 130 of the early 11th century.
95 Ibid., Cm 129.
96 Ibid., Cm 216.
97 B.R. Gopal et al. (eds). 1984. EC, Vol VIII. University of Mysore, HN
97.
98 B.R. Gopal et al. (eds). 1974. EC, Vol III. University of Mysore, Nj 192.
99 A.V. Narasimhamurthy et al. (eds). EC, Vol XI. Sg 55.
100 D.L. Narasimhachar (ed). 1986.Vaḍḍārādhane of Śivakoṭyācārya, 7th ed.
Mysore: D.V.K. Murthy Publishers, 64.
101 Shama Sastry and N.L. Rao (eds). 1939. SII, Vol IX, ASI, New Delhi,
Reprint ed 1986 No. 145.
102 B.R. Gopal et al. (eds). 1974. EC, Vol III. University of Mysore, Nj 213.
103 F. Kittel, banni, hullu, a grazing tax. It is not clear that is what is meant
here; it could alternatively be related to the process of dyeing cloth, baõõa,
to colour or dye.
104 Ibid., Nj 215.
105 P.B. Desai (ed.). 1953. ‘Aland Inscription of Yuvarāja Mallikarjuna’. In
Epigraphia Indica, Vol XXVIII. Delhi, 31–38, ll. 49–51
106 Ibid., ll. 58–59.

107 Ibid., ll. 55–56.

108 F. Kittel, Kallavaḻa, kalyapāla, kalpapāla, distiller of liquor, kallavaëike was
probably a tax on distilling of liquor. The meaning of the other terms is
unclear. Baõõige has been discussed above, fn 103.
109 Ibid., ll 52–54.
110 SII, Vol IX, No. 149, ll 2–5. Kittel explains pēr̥ u as a load, particularly a
bullock-load. F. Kittel, pēr̥ u 3.
111 Ibid., No. 153.
112 Ibid., No. 139, ll. 39ff.
113 Ibid., ll. 33–38.
114 N. Karashima, Y. Subbarayalu and P. Shanmugam. 2011. ‘Nagaram:
Commerce and Towns, 850–1350’. In Rethinking Early Medieval India: A
Reader, edited by Upinder Singh. New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
151–165.
115 SII, Vol IX, No. 139, ll 42 ff.
116 SII, Vol IX, No. 118, l. 50.
117 Kittel, one meaning of vasu is forest.
118 Ranabir Chakravarti. 2013. ‘One Who Is Present Can See What Is Not
Seen by One Who Is Absent: India and the Indian Ocean Trade in the
Jewish Geniza Letters’. Paper presented at the Panel on Merchants, Trade
and Commerce at the Indian History Congress, 74th session. Cuttack, 155–
171.
119 SII, Vol IX, No. 141, ll. 29–32.
120 SII, Vol IX, No. 145.
121 B.R. Gopal et al. (eds). 1984. EC, Vol VIII. University of Mysore, Hn 36.
122 Vide fn 103. The presence of weavers in Doḍḍagaddavaḷi makes the dyer’s
tax a real possibility in this context.
123 Ibid., Hn 27.
124 Ibid., Hn 28.
125 Ibid., Hn 29.
126 Ibid., Hn 31.
127 Ibid., Hn 35.
128 Ibid., Hn 41.
129 Supra, fn 9.
130 A.V. Narasimhamurthy et al. (eds). 1997. EC, Vol X. University of Mysore,
Ak 317.
131 Daud Ali. 2009. ‘Between Market and Court: The Careers of Two Courtier-
Merchants in the Twelfth-century Deccan’. In Journal of the Economic and
Social History of the Orient, Vol 52, 795–821.
132 EC IX. 1990. Bl 225.
133 EC X. 1997. Ak 314.
134 B.L. Rice (ed.). 1902. Epigraphia Carnatica, Vol XI, Chitradurga (Cd) 78 of
1059.
135 Ibid., Holalkere (Hk) 3.
136 Ibid., Jagalur (Jg) 9.
137 Ibid., Dg 12.

III
SETTLEMENTS, LANDSCAPES AND REGIONAL

FORMATIONS

13
EARLY HISTORIC CULTURAL LANDSCAPES OF THE

PERIYAR AND VAIGAI VALLEYS IN SOUTH INDIA
AND THE AFRO-EURASIAN–INDIAN OCEAN
WORLD INTERACTIONS
V. Selvakumar
Introduction
Tamiḻakam region of South India, consisting of Tamil Nadu and Kerala,

in the extreme southern part of South Asia, along the Indian Ocean
rim witnessed cultural transformation in the early historic period,
from c 500 bce to 300 ce. In the cultural process of the early historic
Tamiḻakam, both internal cultural developments in the hinterlands
and long-distance connectivity with the Afro-Eurasian–Indian Ocean
world had significant contribution. Available archaeological, textual
and inscriptional sources are useful in understanding the internal
cultural developments and the overseas and hinterland connectivity
and interactions. This chapter, which is preliminary in nature, seeks
to present an overview of the cultural developments in the corridor/
landscapes, stretching from the port of Muciri on the west coast to
Azhagankulam on the east coast of India, respectively, in the Periyar
River Valley of Kerala and the Vaigai River Valley of Tamil Nadu
(Map 13.1) and their Afro-Eurasian–Indian Ocean interactions based
on archaeological, literary and epigraphical sources.
The Study Area

The Periyar River, the longest river of Kerala, originates in the Western
Ghats and flows through Kothamangalam, Aluva and its main
branch meets the Arabian Sea near Kodungallur, which is identified
with ancient Muziris (Muciṟi). The river valley, which covers the
mountainous Western Ghat slopes, the mid-land and coastal regions
in Kerala, has ideal forest environments supplying pepper, cardamom
and several other spices, roots, edible plants and animal resources, and
has a drainage basin of 5,398 sq km.1 The high-land area of the valley
333

Map 13.1: Map of South India with the Vaigai and Periyar River Valleys
Source: Drawn by Shikha Rai.
has pre-Cambrian crystalline rocks. The mid-land and coastal areas

have sedimentary deposits of tertiary age and deltaic plains and palaeo
channels.2 The mid-land region which mostly has exposure of lateritic
formations, is suitable for the cultivation of horticultural and millet
crops and the riverine tracts close to the coastal areas support rice
cultivation and fishing. The coastal region offers marine resources and
the river courses, and backwaters are very convenient for navigation in
the lower reaches, in addition to supporting subsistence activities. The
diversity of resources in the Periyar River Valley led to the development
of intense regional exchange networks, probably from the iron age.
The river Vaigai originates in the Varushanād–Andipatti hills, an off-
shoot of the Western Ghats, and the Suruli river drains the Kambam
valley, which meet near Kottapatti and then flows towards southeast as
the Vaigai and joins the Bay of Bengal near Rameshwaram island. Many
granite hillocks are found west of Madurai. The Vaigai valley covers an
area of 7,009 sq km. The Vaigai valley has hard crystalline rock masses
of Archaean age on the western part, and sedimentary rocks of upper
Gondwana, tertiary and quaternary epochs are found on the eastern
part. Rocks of upper Gondwana, tertiary alluvium and coastal alluvium
occur over Archaean formations from Manamadurai up to the east
coast.3 The Vaigai River Valley has access to the hilly Western Ghats
and the dry regions lying in the flanks of the Vaigai river is famous for

Early Historic Cultural Landscapes 335
agro-pastoral resources. While the riverine tract adjacent to the Vaigai

supported rice cultivation, the black soil region south of Tirumangalam
would have been ideal for cotton cultivation and the coastal region
is famous for pearl and chank fishery (Turbinella pyrum) and salt
production.
Landscape Archaeology
Landscape archaeological approaches to understand the interactions

between past cultures and their environmental contexts developed
from the second half of the 20th century.4 Landscape archaeology
offers a better framework to interpret human and nature interactions
in a holistic manner, and several approaches, influenced by processual,
post-processual and other schools of thought, are used in landscape
archaeological study. In this chapter, the concepts of landscape from the
ancient Tamil poetics5 and archaeology are employed to understand the
importance of environmental contexts in the cultural formations.
Archaeological sites are micro loci with a concentration of human
activities over a long period of time, but the necessary resources and the
cultural activities of the humans are spread across the entire landscape,
so as the movement of people for political, cultural and economic
activities. While the site and micro region-specific studies reveal about
the concentration of activities and their nature and function in the micro
loci called sites, the landscape-oriented perspectives help to understand
the long-distance networks and macro regional interactions.
Previous Research
Several publications are available on the cultural formations and the

economic activities of early Tamiḻakam, and the Periyar and Vaigai River
Valleys.6 This chapter attempts to look at the cultural developments,
diversity and landscapes in the context of the early historic period in
these two river valleys, based on the recent findings.
Settlements and Material Culture in the Periyar

and Vaigai River Valleys
Archaeological investigations in the Vaigai and Periyar river valleys

have brought to light microlithic sites of mesolithic period, iron
age-early historic megalithic burials and habitation sites, suggesting
continuous human occupation and proliferation of settlements across
the landscapes in the coastal, riverine and forested hilly areas with the

occupation of microlith-using hunter-gatherers, at least from the early

and mid-Holocene.7
The Periyar River Valley in Kerala
Microlithic Sites and Hunter-Gatherer Communities

The Periyar River Valley witnessed continuous human occupation
from the mesolithic period at a few localities, but prehistoric cultures
of this area have not been researched, except for a few exploratory
attempts exposing microliths at Kodussery, Poyali hills,8 Marayur rock
shelters and a few other sites. Microlithic scatters are reported widely
in Kerala and it appears, as in Tamil Nadu, Kerala witnessed microlith-
using hunter-gatherers from the early holocene, at least, although their
settlement could go back to the late pleistocene. These hunter-gatherer
communities had intimate knowledge on the ecosystem and the
environmental resources and their traditional knowledge system had an
important role in the early cultural formations. In the post-mesolithic
context, hunter-gatherers were generally confined to forested, dry and
mountainous areas, and they have been actively engaged in interactions
with the agro-pastoral neighbours. Even today, the mountainous areas
of Kerala and Tamil Nadu have many communities, often labelled as
‘tribes’ and the Sangam texts do have references to such communities.9
In fact, across India, there is evidence of microlith-using and other
hunter-gatherers as one of the major population groups, which have not
been given due representation in Indian historiographical traditions
that revolve around the colonial and nationalist obsessions with the
Harappans, Aryans and Dravidians.
Polished Stone Axe Finds

Evidence of neolithic culture in southern Tamil Nadu and Kerala is
not clear, as no prominent habitation site of the neolithic period are
reported in this region. Polished stone axes have been collected by Mr
Ali from Kaladi region in the Periyar River Valley,10 and several such
isolated finds have been recorded in Kerala and these tools appear to
belong to iron age or later period. Kaladi area could be a major locus
for the production of these axes in the Periyar valley, since the area
has dolerite intrusions according to geological reports.11 It needs to
be researched if any of the rock shelters and settlements in the hills of
Kerala has any early evidence for cultivation, along with the hunting-
gathering economic evidence. It is not necessary that the neolithic/
agro-pastoral culture in Kerala developed along the similar lines of the
southern neolithic culture.

Iron Age: Early Historic Megalithic Burials

In the Periyar River Valley of Kerala, numerous megalithic burials and
monuments and coin hoards have been identified,12 and the megalithic
burial sites of Kunnukara13 and Kurumasserry14 and the late iron age
habitation and early historic port town of Paṭṭaṇam15 and the site of
Marayur16 have been excavated. Another site at Ambalamedu, exposed
while digging for cultivation, has revealed several important bronze
artefacts and carnelian beads17 and these artefacts are housed in the
museum of School of Social Sciences, M.G. University, Kottayam.
Several such accidental discoveries of megaliths have exposed rich
grave goods in the Periyar Valley.
Absence of habitation sites associated with the megaliths is a much
debated issue. It appears that Kerala had small clan groups settled
in multiple locations across the landscape in a dispersed settlement
pattern, and the use of organic materials and a steep gradient of the
terrain and the high rainfall and soil erosion have all contributed to the
poor visibility of settlement remains. As noticed at Anakkara, Idukki,
Marayur and Attappadi, the habitation sites should have existed nearby
the burials areas. The method of approach of archaeologists is also a
problem here. The burials show diversity in the distribution of types
from the hill region to the coast. Urn burials are the dominant burial
types, while the rock-cut caves, unlike the northern part of Kerala, are
found in the mid-land lateritic zone in limited frequency, and menhirs,
cists and dolmens occur in the mountainous Western Ghats, where
granite rock formations are exposed.
The megalithic burial sites, in the context of poor visibility and
identification of habitation sites, are important for understanding the
society and its material cultural aspects of the iron age-early historic
period. The burials have produced diverse objects, including iron
implements, carnelian beads and bronze artefacts, which indicate
the long-distance trade interactions and the diverse nature of craft
production. Several megalithic burials are found in this region.18
Rock Shelters and Rock Art Sites

Several rock-painting sites have been reported in the mountainous
regions of Kerala in the Anjunad Valley and some of which seem to
belong to the iron age-historical context.19 Sanalkumar has located a
rock art site with petroglyphs resembling the site of Edakkal at Ezhuttala
near Puyamkutty.20 The forested mountainous areas were inhabited by
hunter-gatherers and shifting cultivators, who perhaps produced some
of the existing rock art vestiges in the area. These communities have
been part of the early trade networks and were important partners in

the collection of forest produce for the hinterland and overseas markets
throughout history.21
Coin Finds
Coin finds of the early historic period are found all across South India.22
Punch marked coins, coins of the Cēras and Roman coins are found
in Kerala.23 Punch marked coins identifiable as kārṣāpaṇa have been
recovered at Kodussery near Angamali24 (Map 13.2). Roman coins
have been found at Niranam, Punjar, Valluvally and Nedunkandam in
Central Kerala.25 The Roman coins are concentrated around the Palghat
Gap, in Coimbatore region, which in a sense verifies the descriptions
and references in the early Tamil literature on the Roman trade and
the wealth brought by the trade and the importance of Coimbatore
region in the trade activities.26 These hoards and stray finds, although
some of the coins could be of later or secondary context, do suggest the
important nature of the maritime transactions and the dispersal of the
generated wealth into the hinterland.
Generally, it is argued that the Roman coins were mainly used as
bullion.27 Ancient coins had their value fixed based on the metal content
and purity. It is possible that the coins had a specific value based on
weight and purity of metal. In most contexts, they might have been used
as bullion. Since these coins were of different denomination, they would
have checked for their purity and weight by the traders. Old coins,
Map 13.2: Early Historic Settlements in the Periyar River Valley
Source: Drawn by Yathees Kumar.

possibly Roman coins, are referred to in the medieval inscriptions as

paḻaṅkācu28 and diramam.29 There existed multiple exchange systems
and, while redistribution, barter and gift trade were the common modes
of exchange,30 coins were used as a form of monetary exchange in some
contexts among the traders and other agencies. The traders, who
appropriated the profits through the long distance exchange needed
such a currency system and, hence, the circulation of coins became
common in the early historic period.
Local Cēra coins have been found in a large number at Paṭṭaṇam.31
Did these local coins have only symbolic value? Did they have any
transactional value? There is a possibility that they had served as smaller
denomination in the currency system. There must have been specific
values of equivalence fixed on these local coins in relation to the Roman
gold coins. The metal source for the coinage and other metal objects most
possibly came through long-distance trade with northern part of India,
East and South-east Asia and West Asia and the Roman Empire. It could
be argued that the Roman coins were used both as currency and bullion.
Apart from the Roman coins, jewellery also occurs, the site of Tenur has
produced gold jewellery with Tamil-Brahmi label inscription.32
Muciṟi and Paṭṭaṇam

Paṭṭaṇam is an important early historic urban settlement on the
Kerala coast33 and eleven seasons of archaeological excavations at
the site by KCHR and one season of excavation by PAMA in 2020
led by P.J. Cherian have provided voluminous material evidence for
the commercial, maritime and industrial activities. Evidence of well-
planned township, possible warehouse, a wharf facility, brick structures,
ring wells, toilet features, industrial and residential facilities and the
large volume of material culture of local and non-local origin suggest a
large scale industrial production of stone ornaments and beads, metal
objects and glass beads.34 Besides, the material culture of amphora,
torpedo jars, terra sigillata, turquoise glazed pottery and numerous
other commodities reveal the nature and function of Paṭṭaṇam, as
a port, market and industrial centre that interacted with the Afro-
Eurasian and Indian Ocean worlds.35 Paṭṭaṇam was obviously connected
with ports such as Berenike36 and Khori Rori37 and several other sites
and landscapes. Muciṟi, the celebrated port mentioned in the Classical
literature, could have referred to the entire Periyar delta landscape
and Paṭṭaṇam was perhaps the port and settlement of traders within
the Muziris landscape that included Kodungalur. There is a probability
for an early historic settlement on the northern bank of the Periyar
around Kodungalur as a river crossing point, which would have been

convenient for the commodities bound by land routes from the north
through the Palghat Gap.
Foreign accounts clearly mention that Muziris (or Muciṟi) was
an important emporium in the context of the Mediterranean trade.38
Analysis of the settlements mentioned in the Periplus using network
approach by Seland39 reveals that Muziris was in a higher order of
importance in the interactions with the Mediterranean region when
compared to other South Indian ports. The port of Muziris was
under the control of Kepropothras, that is, the Cēras, as indicated by
the Periplus and the Sangam Tamil texts. The Periplus lists Muciṟi as
infested with pirates, who pilfered the commercial goods from the
ships. The pirates were from Nitrias, which is identified with Maṅgalūr
(Mangalore in coastal Karnataka), based on the name of Netravati river.
Pliny mentions that the port of Neacyndi was a better port and it is
possible that there was a shift of trade activities to the port of Nelkynda
in the later period, when Ptolemy wrote. This port has been variously
identified with Nākkiḍa40 and Alumthuruthu–Kadapra area near the
river Pampa.41
The choice of Muziris as a trade emporium was perhaps due to
several factors such as its location in the south-western corner of India
with open access to the Indian Ocean and beyond, the monsoon systems
favouring its location, a large volume of pepper, spices and other hill
resources available in the Periyar river valley, in the hinterlands and the
demand for such commodities in the Roman and Indian Ocean world,
and the river course and network of canals that allowed navigation
smooth navigation. Muciṟi was located in a little interior from the sea,
according to the texts;42 perhaps, it was not ideal to locate such a market
right on the beach or river bank in Kerala, because of the possibility of
flooding. Large ships were, most possibly, berthed near the backwaters
and smaller canoes and boats transported the goods to the port of
Muziris, as pointed out by the literary references.
The Peutingerian Table mentions about the region of Ariakê and the
same is mentioned in the Periplus and Āryake or Āryaka perhaps derived
from the name as land of the Āryas. Although Gujarat region had major
ports, some of the maritime traffic to the Roman Empire from western
and north-western parts could have been directed through the port of
Muziris, because of logistics. The Periplus is clear as it says ‘Muziris, in
the same kingdom, owes its prosperity to the shipping from Ariakê that
comes there as well as to Greek shipping’.43 While Sri Lanka has early
historic ports and maritime trade activities,44 Sri Lankan ports do not
figure prominently in the account of the Periplus. Obviously, while a
few of the Roman ships might have reached Sri Lanka, it is probable
that some of the Sri Lankan ships reached Muciṟi, like the ships from

Ariake and the eastern coast of India. Muziris, the primum emporium
Indiae, acted as a trading centre for the hinterland goods of South India
and also as a transhipment location for the ships from West Asia, East
and North Africa, northern and eastern parts of South Asia as well as
the eastern front with South Asia and East Asia. Marine shells from the
Maldives and other coasts and islands were traded extensively in this
period, as there was demand for shell in eastern India and Muciṟi was
also part of the shell trade network. Muciṟi was also linked with South-
east Asia and China as revealed by texts. Therefore, it appears that Muciṟi
was extensively connected with Indian Ocean trade networks. Traders
and sailors settled at Muziris perhaps seasonally, after crossing the
oceans and landscapes between the voyages. These trade networks and
the long-distance interactions together constitute as one of the factors
contributing to the coastal urbanisation in the Indian Ocean region.
Political Dimensions of Muciṟi

The Sangam Age towns were definitely controlled by the Vēndar
polities45 as indicated by the texts. The Sangam Tamil and Greco–
Roman texts clearly mention about the existence of a political system.
The Cēras controlled Muciṟi and the Pānḍyas controlled Becāré,
Nelkynda on the west coast Korkai, and Nellin Ūr on the east coast
and the Cōḻas were in control of Kāvérippūmpaṭṭinam. Sangam poems
mention about the invasion of the town by the Pānḍya king, who took
away an image.46 Could this be the bronze image of Temple em Augusti
of the Peutigerian Table? Keprabothos is mentioned in the Periplus and
similarly early Aśokan inscriptions mention about Kéloputō referring
to the Cēras and, hence, the political control of the town and territory
is clear. The references to the emblems of the Vēndars in the texts
and the coins of the Cēras with the emblem of bow and arrow and
elephant do suggest that the local polities (Vēndars and chiefs) adopted
various symbols of royalty. Domestication of elephants was known and
the Cēras used it as a symbol of royalty as noticed on the Cēra coins.
Maduraikkāňci47 refers to the use of elephants in warfare. The Vienna
Papyrus refers to the trade activities linked to the port of Muziris48 and
it lists out ivory as one of the traded materials. The political formations
of the Sangam Age had adopted several methods for asserting the
authority and control, and they were not state systems, but they were
politically powerful entities and definitely had territorial control.
They were collecting tributes, and controlled hinterland and overseas
networks. The theoretical category of state is not relevant here and the
Vēndars were one early type of political formations, and state system
developed only from the medieval period in South India.

Community Activities Hinterland Exchanges around Muziris

Agricultural production of rice in the wetlands and, toddy tapping,
iron working and ceramic production were predominant in the coastal
landscape of Muciṟi. While the material cultural remains excavated
at Paṭṭaṇam, the texts such as the Periplus, Vienna Papyrus and Tamil
literature suggest the presence of Greco–Roman merchants and sailors,
and people of diverse cultural background. The fisher-folk, one of
important groups of local people, and their activities are graphically
portrayed by the Sangam poems,49 which suggest the interactions,
especially the fisher-folk exchanging paddy for fish. This clearly brings
out the existence of two distinct communities, namely, the fisher-folk
producing fish and farmers involving in rice cultivation in the marshy
coastal areas of the Periyar Valley. In addition, the toddy tapping
activities around the port of Muciṟi is evidenced by the references to
toddy in the literature.50 Perhaps the community called Īzhavas, referred
to in the medieval inscriptions, were specialised in toddy tapping at
that point in time. While most of the settlements associated with the
megaliths and those in the hills of Kerala were in a dispersed pattern
in the early historic period, some of the coastal towns like Paṭṭaṇam
witnessed dense occupation with several groups of local and non-local
people assembling here for trade activities. Such as a large volume of
people and trade activities led to urbanization in certain pockets of
Kerala, as in many parts of the Indian Ocean region.
The Vaigai River Valley, Tamil Nadu
The Vaigai River Valley witnessed human occupation from the

prehistoric times and several settlements are found in early historic
context (Map 13.3).
Microlithic Sites and Hunter-Gatherers

The Vaigai River Valley and the adjacent areas have microlithic sites
ascribable to early and mid-Holocene period (e.g., Upper Gundar
Basin).51 The Upper Gundar river basin has produced several microlithic
sites and similar sites are also reported in the Vaigai River Valley. In
addition, some of these microlithic sites have evidence of occupation
in the Iron Age, which possibly reveals about the continuing hunter-
gatherers in the area during the Iron Age-Early Historic period. The
Sangam texts and the post-Sangam work of Cilappatikāram refer to
the activities of hunters in the area between Madurai and Uṟaiyūr, the
capital of the Cōḻas, along the paths traversed by Kōvalan and Kaṇṇaki,
the main characters of Cilappatikāram. In the hill areas of Kerala and

Map 13.3: Important Early Historic Settlements in the Vaigai River Valley
Source: Drawn by Yathees Kumar.
Tamil Nadu, which have witnessed the occupation of food-gathering

population from the early Holocene to this date, rock paintings and rock
shelter sites occur at several sites and some of them have paintings,52
which can be historical in date.
Iron Age: Early Historic Megalithic Sites

The archaeological sites of the Vaigai valley include megalithic burials,
habitation sites and urban centres of Madurai and Keezhadi, the port of
Azhagankulam and several other coin-find sites, and hero stones and
rock/cave shelter sites with Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions. In the Vaigai
Valley and adjacent regions of Tamil Nadu, the megalithic/early historic
sites of Kovalanpottal,53 Keezhadi54 and Azhagankulam55 have been
excavated, and the explorations in the Vaigai Valley and the adjacent
Gundar river basin have revealed several prehistoric sites and early
historic settlements with trade evidence.56 The burials of this region are
mostly urns and a few cist burials have also been reported. Presence of
rouletted ware in the interior settlements such as T. Kallupatti and S.
Pappinayakkanpatti57 suggests the linkages between the maritime and
hinterland networks.58 Numerous agro-pastoral settlements were active
in the Vaigai River Valley and its neighbourhood as early as 2nd century
and 1st century bce. Recent dates from the excavations in Tamil Nadu

suggests that some of these settlements could have emerged in the first
millennium bce.
S. Pappinayakkanpatti, in the Gundar basin, where trial trenches
have been excavated, suggest that Madurai region was densely occupied
by people in the early historic times. This site has produced an adult
male skeleton that shows evidence for the existence of a medicinal
system.59 While Madurai emerged as an urban landscape, the rural
settlements were proliferating and the resources from the hill areas to
the coastal areas were exchanged.
Madurai
Madurai is spoken of in the early Tamil literature60 and its early historic
archaeological vestiges have not been located, although rouletted
ware is reported in the RG Mill area near the bank of river Vaigai
(Map 13.4).61 The Sangam literature is very clear about the nature of
the town, and the convergence of trade routes does suggest the location
of ancient Madurai within the modern town of Madurai. Madurai
region must have emerged as an important agro-pastoral settlement
in the early first millennium bce. The Sangam literature portrays the
town that had several markets busy with commercial activities in first
millennium bce. Madurai is also referred to in the Arthaśāstra as a
centre of cotton cloth production.62 It was the seat of the Pāṇḍyas and a
busy town as illustrated by the Maduraikkāňci, a text of Sangam corpus.
The Buddhist chronicle of Sri Lanka, the Mahāvamśa, mentions about
the relationships between Pāṇḍya kings and Sri Lankan kings. There is
Map 13.4: Archaeological Sites in the Vaigai Valley
Source: Amarnath Ramakrishna.

a claim for Pāṇḍyas sending embassy to the Roman Empire, which is

disputed.
Keezhadi
Keezhadi is a settlement located east of Madurai on the highway
connecting Madurai and Azhagankulam about 10 kilometres in the
east. This site was excavated by the Archaeological Survey of India in
2015–16 and later by Tamil Nadu State Archaeology Department. The
excavations conducted at this site have produced evidence of an early
historic town63 with brick architecture as part of a well-planned town
definitely pointing to busy commercial activities at the site about 2,500
years ago. The artefacts from the excavations include rouletted ware
sherds, more than 200 in number in two seasons, and jewellery and
numerous varieties of goods. This settlement perhaps produced metal
and textile goods. Presence of roulette ware very clearly links this site
with Azhagankulam and the early historic Indian Ocean commercial
network. The names from the Tamil–Brahmi inscription are interesting
and some of the names are in Prakrit and many of them are in Tamil.
The site has produced a date of 6th century bce for the early levels
with Tamil–Brahmi inscription.64 As details of the excavated findings
have not been published, further understanding of the chronological
developments has not yet clearly emerged. Names of individuals
such as ātan, tiśan, utiran, iyanai, surama, catan’, eravātan, santan,
maḍaicime, avati, vendan, muyan, sampan, perayan, kuvirankuravan,
vasaiperumuvarun have been found on ceramic vessels in Tamil–
Brahmi script.65 The names rajakatasa (?) and guthasa are considered
to be of Sri Lankan origin, but they could perhaps belong to persons
from the northern part of India or local people who assumed such
names. Another tricky issue has been the affiliations of the merchants,
whose names are in Prakrit and it is certain that the names were clearly
non-local, but they do show Tamil influence. The Prakrit names need
not always point to ‘Northern Indian’ or ‘Aryan’ identities. It is possible
that some of them were Tamils who adopted non-local names. Such
assumptions need to be relooked. The complete report of the first two
seasons of excavations has been submitted to ASI and the newspaper
reports say the site dates back to 800 bce.66
Settlement of Śramaṇas: Rockshelters with Brahmi Inscriptions

Several natural rock shelters, possibly associated with the Jaina/Śramaṇa
monks, with Tamil–Brahmi inscriptions, which are concentrated
around Madurai, along the key trade routes, offer information on
the political, social, cultural and commercial spheres of the early

Tamil society.67 These rock shelters have simple provisions such as a

dripline carved on the roof of the rock shelter to keep the rain water
off rock beds with carved stone pillows and added tiled roofs to make
the caves liveable. They are located far away from the settlements,
in isolated granite hillocks, which have water sources. The hills of
Tirupparangunram, Amanamalai, Muttupatti, Kongarpuliyankulam,
Vikkiramangalam, Arittatpatti and Mettuppatti and other sites have
cave beds and Tamil–Brahmi inscriptions. They were carved for the
monks, often by the merchants, and also by the kings, but rarely, and
lay devotees. The view of the surrounding landscapes from the cave
shelters is picturesque and induce philosophical thoughts. Perhaps
these locations were chosen as they were in isolated contexts, away
from the settlements, since the śramaṇas preferred to stay away from
the settlements, because of their highly restricted ways of life. One
really wonders why such a large number of śramaṇas had settled around
Madurai. Many of the traders supported the śramaṇas as indicated
by the inscriptions referring to cloth merchants, iron merchants
and commodity merchants (Table 13.1). A merchant possibly from
Muyirikodu was present at the site of Nakkaperur near Madurai, as an
inscription mention about Muyirikōḍan Iḷamakan (Table 13.1). Some of
these monks could themselves have been merchants, who preferred to
choose the life of celibacy in the later part of their life. The reference to
nigama occurring in the Tamil–Brahmi inscription from Sittannavasal
suggests the presence of association of merchants.68 In one inscription,
with the name, there is reference to a Pāṇḍya king or a name akin to
Neḍunchezhiyan (Table 13.1).
The abundance of inscriptions possibly suggests the concentration
of these settlements along the ancient trade routes. Mercantile activities
perhaps led to the development of strong Ājīvika/Jain ideology in this
region and there is reference to the Vajranandi who established a Jaina
Sangam at Madurai at a later date. Pulankurichi inscription datable to
the early medieval period, mentions about the presence of a monastery
of Jain or Buddhist origin (Thāpathappaḷḷi) and Vasidevanar kōṭṭam
in Madurai. Possibly one of these could be Brahmanical migration
of people. Why did numerous monks assemble at these sites?
Prakrit names in the Tamil–Brahmi inscriptions clearly indicate the
development of strong pan-South Asian networks of cultural contacts
and interactions in the first millennium bce. The development of the
town of Madurai and other urban centres was definitely influenced
by the long-distance trade interactions, apart from the local cultural
developments. Evidence of Northern Black Polished ware and the
rouletted ware finds do support the evidence of interactions with
eastern and northern India.

Table 13.1: Traders and Trade Guilds, Settlements and Landscapes in Tamil–Brahmi Inscriptions
Sl. Place of Inscription Date Reference Meaning Settlement Name Mahadevan 2003
No. Catalogue No
1 Méṭṭuppaṭṭi 2nd century bce Matira Antai Viśuvan Personal name Matirai 2769
2 Azhagarmalai 1st century bce Veṇpaḷḷi Aṛuvai Vaṇi- Cloth merchant from Veṇpaḷḷi 4670

gan Elaaḍan Venpalli
3 Pugalūr 2nd century ce Amaṇṇan Amana or Sramana Yāṛṛūr 6171
4 Tirupparaṅgunṛam 1st century ce Erukkāṭṭūr Izha Person from Sri Lanka Erukkāṭṭūr 5572
Kuḍumbikan or Izhava
5 Pugalūr 3rd century ce Pon Vāṇigan Trader in metal or gold Karūr 6973
6 Vikkiramaṅgaḷam 2nd century bce Pikan makan Personal name Ven aran 374
7 Azhagarmalai 1st century bce Kozhu Vanigan Trader in iron metal 4375
8 Mānguḷam 2nd century bce Nigamatōr The people of the niga- Veḷḷaṛai 676
ma or merchant guild
9 Mānguḷam 2nd century bce Nedunchazhiyan A Pānḍya king 277
10 Mānguḷam 2nd century bce Nigama Merchant guild Veḷḷaṛai 378
11 Azhagarmalai 1st century bce Panita Vanigan Trader in jaggery 4279
12 Azhagarmalai 1st century bce Matirai Ponkolvan Gold merchant from Matirai 3680
Madurai
13 Azhagarmalai 1st century bce Upu vanikan Salt merchant 3981
Viyakan
14 Anaimalai 2nd century ce Iva kunrattu urayul Elephant hill Ivakunram 4282
04/07/23 11:53 AM
Coin Finds
Accidentally located treasure sites as well as excavated sites have
revealed Roman coins, Pāṇḍya coins and punch-marked coins in
the Vaigai Valley. For example, the coin finds at Bodinayakkanur,83
Madurai, Nattapatti near Srivilliputtur and Azhagankulam.84 These
coin finds reveal that metal money was used by people, mainly traders.
The later Roman coins from Azhagankulam suggest that trade activities
continued even in the 4th and 5th centuries or later.
Hero Stones with Tamil–Brahmi Inscription

Hero stones of Sangam Age with Brahmi inscriptions were found
for the first time in Tamil Nadu at Pulimankombai and Thathappatti
suggest that the use of script for communicating the meritorious deeds
of the warriors through such inscriptions.85 Thus, the use of script was
common among warriors, merchants and perhaps royal personnel.
A few ash-mound sites have been reported in the Vaigai Valley at
Tattanodaimedu near Theni and Chinnakkattalai in the Upper Gundar
Basin and these sites perhaps date to the early iron age. This tradition
suggests that clashes existed over the cattle resources and the dead
heroes were honoured by erecting hero stones.
Azhagankulam
Azhagankulam is an important trading centre and port located near
the mouth of the Vaigai river and the island of Rameshwaram on the
east coast. The location of the site may point to the fact that the ships
that came from the east and north reached the port of Azhagankulam
and then reached Sri Lankan ports. Azhagankulam has a lot evidence
for the shell bangle production, and material remains such as amphora,
terra sigillata, turquoise glazed pottery and torpedo jars fragments86 and
possible Sri Lankan Prakrit inscription has been found on a ceramic
sherd reading cāmutaha.87 The site has produced Northern Black
Polished Ware and Rouletted ware ceramics. There is reason to believe
that the hill produce, mainly spices, from the Western Ghats reached
the east coast through the Vaigai River Valley and Azhagankulam was
one of the eastern ports that was connected the Western Ghat for the
hill resources. Azhagankulam, in fact, has evidence of Roman coins of
Valentine II (383–395 ce), Theodesius I (388–393 ce) and Arcadius
(395–408 ce) datable to the 4th and 5th centuries ce,88 suggesting
the continuity of trade even as late as 5th century. The Sangam text
of Maduraikkāňci89 has a reference to Nellin Ūnūr which is identified
with Azhagankulam.

Mould-Made Decoration on Pottery from Azhagankulam

A mould-made ceramic decorative motif from Azhagankulam has an
interesting narrative scene. It depicts a person carrying menorah like
lamp in hand and in front of him is a lady holding an amphora jar.
This lady image displays African physical features. Another menorah
lamp is also seen partially. The seven-branched lamp of menorah is
lighted during the festival of Hanukkah by the Jewish people. Although
the sherd is broken and the figures are incomplete, the image definitely
indicates the external connections associated with the Indian Ocean
trade in this period. The clay fabric of the sherd on which the depiction
found appears to be non-local in origin. This depiction suggests the
Yavana presence in this region.
Trade Routes from the Periyar Valley to the Vaigai Valley

In the early historic cultural developments and urbanisation, movement,
connectivity and interactions were important. The Sangam Tamil
texts, Tamil–Brahmi inscriptions and the Greco–Roman texts and the
distribution of material culture across the Indian Ocean sites clearly
attest to the regional and transregional interactions. Trade routes linked
with various settlements across the landscapes and the description of
the trade routes and travel became one of the important themes of the
Sangam poems. The poets and bards were travelling to the centres of
chiefs who had accumulated wealth through prestation, taxation and
tributes. Several groups of people were also travelling—people in search
of wealth, travellers, craftsmen, traders and pilgrims, salt merchants
and finally the kings and warriors. We hear about Pānḍya invasion
of Muciṟi,90 but it is not clear as to how they reached Muciṟi whether
through the Western Ghats or the Pālghat Gap?
The hill resources including the spices from the Western Ghats
regions were reaching the east coast, as evidenced by the reference of
‘kālin vanta karunkaṛi mūḍaiyum’, which means ‘the pepper bags that
came through the mules’ in Paṭṭinappālai, mentioned in the context
of the port of Kāvirippūmpaṭṭinam. Pepper perhaps came from the
Western Ghats region. Muciṟi was perhaps connected with the east
coast through the Western Ghats. The resources from the Western
Ghats could have reached through Madurai and Azhagankulam to East
Asia.
Muciṟi’s connection was not only with the western Indian Ocean, but
also with the eastern Indian Ocean. Muciṟi was a major transhipment
point for the goods from many parts of peninsular India and beyond.
The connectivity of Muciṟi involved the movement of land bound
traders and overseas traders from all directions, including the east

coast. A main route of connection between the Periyar Valley and Vaigai
valley would have been through the land. Perhaps commodities were
transported from the southern Tamil Nadu as far as Madurai through
the land routes rather than the sea route around Kanniākumari and Sri
Lanka.
Madurai region being in the deep in the centre of the hinterland,
there are two possible routes for Muciṟi-Madurai connections, one
across the Palghat Gap and another through the Western Ghats. The
Western Ghat–Vaigai Valley trade route would have been convenient
for individual traders, and animal bound trade, and for those from the
mountain areas. The Pālghat Gap route would have been suitable for the
movement of cāttu of traders from Muciṟi. Coastal navigation around
Sri Lanka would have connected Paṭṭaṇam through Azhagankulam.
The sites of Azhagankulam, Keezhadi, Madurai were linked with
Muciṟi through the sites Kongarpuliyankulam, Vikkiramangalam and
Siddharmalai with Tamil–Brahmi inscriptions and the settlements
of Kambam, Tevaram and Bodinayakkanur. The sites of Rajakkadu,
Nerimangalam, Kothamangalam, Perumbavur, Aluva and Paṭṭaṇam/
Muziris would have been linked through the land as well as riverine
routes, and some of these sites have evidence of megalithic or urn
burials. There are megalithic burials all along the multiple routes and
it would have been easier to transport the goods from the high-ranges,
downstream from Kothamangalam. A few megalithic sites and Roman
coin finds are found along the trade routes. Perhaps the region from
Kumali to Marayur might have served as a source for pepper and other
spices that reached the east coast.
Kottayam–Nelkynda Region and the Pāṇḍyas
The wealth brought by the long-distance trade would have induced the
interest of the Pāṇḍyas in controlling the west-coast ports. While Muciṟi
and its Roman connections are discussed frequently, generally not
much information is available on the ports of Nelkynda and Becare.91
These two ports were also equally important in the Roman as well as
the Indian Ocean trade and they are discussed in the Periplus; these
ports are considered to have been under the Pāṇḍyas, the reference to
the Pāṇḍyan invasion of Muciṟi is also important. In such a case, the
trade route through Tevaram and Kottayam was an alternate passage of
interactions of the Pāṇḍyas with the west coast. The wealth of the trade
might have attracted the Pāṇḍyas to move and control the west coasts
of Kerala. Maduraikkāňci92 refers to the Pāṇḍyas conquering Kuṭṭuvars,
that is, the Cēras. Punjar on the route connecting Tamil Nadu and

Kerala through Kattappana, Erattapetta and Kottayam, and the site of

Niranam near Tiruvalla have yielded Roman coins.
Landscape Perspectives: Discussion
The early historic settlements of the Vaigai Valley are discussed from
a landscape archaeological point of view in this section. A few select
observations are made here, since a detailed analysis of the landscapes
is beyond the scope of this chapter.
The archaeological sites in the Vaigai River Valley have been
documented by several researchers93 and a higher concentration
of historical sites is noticed in the middle Vaigai Valley, although
archaeological sites are distributed in the neighbourhood region as
well. The distribution of sites in specific geographic contexts offers
ideas on the cultural and natural factors determining the locations and
development of settlements. Based on the archaeological sites of the
Vaigai valley,94 the following observations are made. These sites include
iron age and historical sites. In the Upper Vaigai Valley, lying in the
mountainous region, within a stretch of about 75 kilometres, twenty-one
sites have been identified. The upper central Vaigai Valley, a stretch of 50
kilometres distance, has twenty-five sites. In an area of 87.5 kilometres
of the Middle Vaigai Valley, over one hundred seventy sites have been
identified. In the coastal stretch of 25 kilometres, three sites are found.
Overall, the sites in the Vaigai Valley seem to have concentrated in the
Middle Vaigai Valley area that receives better rainfall and has a higher
concentration of alluvial deposit. The distribution of nadu formations
in the medieval period is also seen mainly in the central Vaigai Valley.95
Tamil–Brahmi inscriptions in the cave shelters are mainly concentrated
around the town of Madurai, and along the trade routes, while the
western part of the Vaigai Valley, the cave shelters of Śramaṇa are
absent, although a few Jain caves are found in the Upper Gundar basin
in the medieval period (for example, Kuppalnattam and Puttur Malai).96
The Periyar River Valley has several sites and the patterns appears to
be scattered settlements in the entire valley with the large settlement
of Paṭṭaṇam in the coastal area. The alluvium of the river Vaigai and
the water source supported the development of agrarian and pastoral
economy in the middle of the Vaigai Valley. The Sangam literature
suggests the development of tank irrigation and the utilisation of river
water for cultivation by diverting it to the tanks. Therefore, the water
source, alluvial soil and tank irrigation supported the development of
early agrarian settlements in the Central Vaigai Valley, which would
have offered the infrastructural support for the early urbanisation.

The landscapes of the region under discussion consist of kuriňji

(hilly area), marutam (riverine tract), mullai (Forest area), pālai (dry
region) and neytal (coastal) regions in the scheme of Sangam poetic
landscapes.97 While only kuriňji, marutam and neytal landscapes are
present in the Periyar Valley of Kerala, the Vaigai Valley has mullai and
pālai landscapes, in addition to these three landscapes noticed in the
Periyar River Valley of Kerala.
Coastal Landscapes (Neytal)
Coastal landscape is important for maritime resources and long-

distance trade, and this landscape produced fish, marine shells and
salt which were exchanged with the hinterlands. The coasts were the
meeting points of the hinterland routes and maritime routes, and more
particularly the river mouths were acting as centres of trade and they
were convenient for the ports, markets and industrial centres. The
fisher-folk, salt makers and the Paratavas98 were part of the coastal
cultural landscapes of Tamil Nadu. The marine shells which are called
kavāṭaka in Arthaśāstra were in demand in different parts of South
Asia. Evidently pearl fishery and shell bangle production existed at the
coastal sites, and the excavation at Azhagankulam and Koṛkai in the
southern Tamil Nadu produced a vast amount of shell bangle fragments
and waste materials. Dry fish and salt were also produced in this area
and we do hear about the Umaṇars (itinerant salt traders from the
coastal areas possibly the Paratavas)99 reaching out to the hinterlands
using their bullock carts. In the case of Muciṟi, we already noticed
about the exchange of fish and rice in the coastal areas as reflected by
the Sangam texts. Puṛanānūṛu100 speaks about the exchange of fish for
rice and the abundance of warehouses with pepper bags.
Nellin Ūr is mentioned in Maduraikkāňci101 as a town of Pānḍya king
and it is identified with Azhagankulam. Maduraikkāňci vividly narrates
the town: the scary black sea merges with sky. Tearing the waves of the
sea with the help of wind powered sails, the large ships bring gold and
prosperity to the country. Such large ships that are surrounded by sea
appear like the hills surrounded by clouds. The moving ships (according
to the waves) and natural sea acting as a moat characterise Nellin Ūr,
which was under the control of or was conquered by the Pānḍyas, from
a local chief.
Maduraikkāňci102 poetically narrates the activities in the villages—
the farmers irrigating the fields with piccotah (a water lifting devise)
while singing (possibly ‘piccotah songs’), the women of the coast
dancing on the sand dunes, the festive occasions in the villages, etc. The
poet presents the soundscapes of the settlements too.

Another coastal village called Muduvellilai is spoken in

Maduraikkāňci.103 In this village, the river brought floods that nurtured
rice, and the village had a beach covered with white sand and a thicket
of tāḻai (Pandanus) tree. Fisherfolk after fishing through the timil type
boats, reach the shore in a large number and the large salt pans in the
settlement were busy.
The coastal landscapes are narrated in Maduraikkāňci as possessing
shining pearls from the noisy ocean, the fine shell bangles cut by the
saw, diverse commodities brought by the Paratavas, while salt, the cut
chunks of fish brought by the fisherfolk, who use kaṭṭumaram, the
captains of large ocean going ships and the horses that came by the large
ships from foreign countries in the Maduraikkāňci.
Mountain Tracts (Kuriňji)
The mountainous Western Ghats, with rain forests and various other
forest types and wild animals and plant resources, cater to both the
Periyar and Vaigai valleys. Horticulture and shifting cultivation must
have begun in the high mountainous area in the early period. There
existed hunter-gatherers and shifting cultivators on the hills. Several
rock shelters with paintings are found here. This region supplied
natural resources such as pepper, animal meat, herbal medicine and
other produce. The hunter-gatherers and shifting cultivators did play
an active role in the collection of forest produce for the markets. Muciṟi
is spoken as the centre where the hill commodities and the goods from
the overseas reached the court of the Cēra king.104 The find of Roman
coins adjacent to the hills and in the burials of Nilgiris and also in
Nedunkandam suggest the extensive trade networks in the forest areas
of Western Ghats. Maduraikkāňci105 narrates the resources of the hills
such as aloe, wood, sandal, varieties of rice in the hills—tōrai and
aivanam—ginger, turmeric and pepper. In the tiṇai fields, women chase
away the birds and wild boars are caught by Kuṟavas by trapping them
in pitfalls.
Hill Ranges/Isolated Hills/Inselbergs
Away from the Western Ghats, in the piedmont zone, isolated hills are
characteristic features of Madurai region. The isolated hills of higher
altitude are found in the western part of the Vaigai Valley, and several
hunter-gatherer groups probably lived in this area in the early historic
period. Isolated hills are an important feature on the landscape and most
of the hills that stand tall in Tamil Nadu have early historic settlements
and, sometimes, microliths and rock paintings in the Madurai region.
The hills become obvious choice of settlements because of their strategic

nature and the water availability and the commanding landscape view.
Tirupparangunram, Anaimalai and Amanamalai were chosen by the
people for locating their settlements or certain centres in the area.
Tirupparangunram, south of Madurai, is the name of hills on which
Murugan temple is located and is spoken of in Tamil literature.
In Kerala, such inselbergs are limited in the Periyar Valley and, at
a site near Kallil in Ernakulam district, medieval Jain sculptures are
found.
Pastoral, Scrub Forest Areas (Mullai)
The piedmont zone east of the Western Ghat is largely pastoral tract
and this region has scrub forest cover, in the areas away from the hills.
Cattle and sheep goat wealth was predominant in this area and clashes
for cattle and sheep-goat would have existed in this region.
Presence of inscriptions is another major feature of the trade route.
From the site of Azhagankulam through Keezhadi and the Jain sites of
Madurai with Tamil–Brahmi inscriptions are found all along the trade
route. One rare inscription of cattle fight comes from Pulimankombai
and suggests that there existed feuds over the cattle, a feature of the
mullai land, as elaborated in the Sangam text. The inscription mentions
about the fight for cattle held at Gudalur, which is located in the Vaigai
Valley. Maduraikkāňci106 mentions about the mullai land in which the
tinai (foxtail millet or Panicum italicum) crops, sesame plants and
varagu (Kodo millet or Paspalum scrobiculatum) plants were cultivated
and deer were seen. The areas of the Upper Gundar Basin, south of the
Vaigai, could be considered to be a mullai landscape.
Riverine Tract (Marutam)
Marutam lands mainly located near the Vaigai river, which is the only
major river of this region with a good catchment area, witnessed the
cultivation of rice and millets. This tract, because of the rich alluvial soil
and water, supported large settlements such as Madurai and Keezhadi,
which could undertake production activities that required water. The
Sangam poems speak about the fresh flood in Vaigai witnessed by
people and they bathe in the river in the month of Āḍi as mentioned
in the Paripāḍal. The landscape around the river is relatively fertile
and has alluvial deposits and perhaps because of these resources the
riverine tract was selected for sacred centres and settlements. The fertile
agrarian tract of Cholavandan region, west of Madurai, is considered
to be the region of Velvikudi donated to the Brāhmaṇas, and the
Copper Plate of Velvikudi mentions about the fertile land of Pāganūr
kūṛṛam with gardens, although there is some degree of exaggeration in

these descriptions; Cilappatikāram too narrates about the settlements

along the river. Some of the important temples and settlements are
located on this riverine landscape and it was known as Kundidévi
Caturvédimaṅgalam.107 Brahmadéya villages are located in the well-
watered areas in the Vaigai River Valley.
The marutam lands are narrated in Maduraikkāňci:108 The river flows
towards the east and the river water fills the tanks and rice fields. The
fresh water fishes are caught and sold by people, sugarcane is crushed,
farmers drink palmyra toddy and harvesting farmers play paṛai
drums.109 At Tirupparangunram,110 festivals are celebrated and fresh
floods appear in the Vaigai. The Pāṇars clean the fishes (that they caught
in the water bodies) wherever trees exist.
Dry Region (Pālai)
Pālai is a seasonally dry area in the Sangam poems and it is said to be

known as an area infested with thieves and robbers. However, in reality,
this would not have been the case, although plundering of resources
existed. The main dry region in the Vaigai Valley is in the north-eastern
part of the Vaigai Valley around Ramanathapuram, which receives
meagre rainfall. The areas between the rivers are also dry. An important
community that occupies this region is the pastoral Kuṛubās, sheep goat
pastoralists, who migrate to the Kaveri delta and to the Upper Vaigai
and Gundar Basins in the summer months. This migration pattern
exists today and it is not certain how far back this migration pattern
extended back in time. Maduraikkāňci111 portrays in the pālai land
where the young warriors rest in the thatched huts on the deer skin and
wear the leaf crown and protect the people along the highways.
Toponymical Perspective of Landscapes
Analysis of toponyms offers clues to the perceptions of the cultural

landscapes in the ancient times. Landscapes and settlements are
labelled as part of cultural formations. The naming of settlements and
landscapes has been based on the landscape features, cultural factors
and cultural perception. Study of place names is also attempted here
wherever possible. The literary references and epigraphic evidence
and contemporary places offer clues to understand the perception of
landscape and its features.
The Bay of Bengal is referred to in the literature as eastern sea
(Kuṇakaḍal) while the Arabian Sea as the western sea (Kuḍakaḍal). The
name of the river is mentioned as Vaiyai in the Tamil literature. Similarly,

the river Periyar occurs in Akanānūṛu.112 While Périyaṛu means large

river, the same river seems to have had the name Cuḷḷi, or it is a branch.
The hills were perceived based on their appearance and shapes.
Nāgamalai or snake hill is a long hill range extending from west to east
and it terminates west of Madurai. Ānaimalai or elephant hill lies north
of Madurai near the highway, and the name (iva) (=ibham) occurs in a
Tamil–Brahmi inscription. The Western Ghats is referred to as Saiyam
in Tamil literature reminding Sahyadri.
Madurai perhaps had the name Matirai in the early historic period
as revealed by the Tamil–Brahmi inscriptions (Table 13.1), and its
Sanskritised form Madurai must have appeared in the later medieval
period. Matirai might have been derived from matil + turai, which could
mean a fortified settlement. The town has another name called Ālavāy
and its meaning is not clear. Ālam refers to water and vāy or vāyil means
gate, referring to entrance in Tamil, and perhaps the town had a gate of
access from the river. The name Āluvā in Kerala is interesting and from
this town the Periyar river bifurcates and the name of this settlement
matches with the alternate name of Madurai, that is, Ālavāy. Madurai
was also known as kūḍal and perhaps the town was in the junction of
the trade routes. Tirumaruta Turai is another name for this.
Similarly, a settlement located near the confluence of the Vaigai and
Suruli is mentioned as Gūḍalūr. This settlement exists today and is
referred to in the inscriptions and in the Tamil–Brahmi inscription of
Pulimankombai as the site of a fight for cattle.
The settlement of Muciṟi perhaps obtained its name from the location
near the confluence of river. Muciṟi is identified as the location of the
site near the confluence of river. Muciṟi is mentioned as Pseudostomus in
the work of Ptolemy and is identified with the Kodungalur confluence
of Periyar and Chalakkudy rivers.113
Paṭṭaṇam is a Prakrit name and it referred to ports and market
towns. Paṭṭaṇam is mentioned in Arthaśāstra. The Tamil equivalent
for this name is Turai or Malayalam Tura. The name Paṭṭaṇam might
have existed from the early historic times and in the medieval time
Kodungallur was known as Mahōdayarpaṭṭaṇam.
The Urban Landscape of Madurai
Maduraikkāňci narrates the urban landscapes of Madurai, although

the precise chronology of the text is not known. It is possible that the
text speaks about the urban landscapes of Madurai first millennium
ce. Obviously, the text cannot be taken to be a literal narrative of the
town and developments, but it does reflect the condition of Madurai
at some point in time in the early historic period. The song speaks

about the settlement of the Pāṇars, which are located nearby the river
crossings or access points to rivers called tuṛai. Perhaps these people
who were bards were also dependent on fishing and hunting to some
extent. At these céri settlements of the Pāṇars, people danced and these
settlements were usually located amidst flower gardens and trees. The
day-market (nāḷaṅgāḍi) and the night-market (allaṅgāḍi) of Madurai
are spoken in the literature. People speaking different languages were
present in the town. Betel nut, betel leaves, lime flowers were sold at the
town. Exclusive streets of traders who exchanged precious commodities
and the streets of people who involved in administration are spoken
of. Crafts persons such as those who made shell bangles, who drilled
the fine stone beads, who tested gold and who sold beads are narrated.
Thus, the busy commercial activities in the town of Madurai are spoken
in Maduraikkāňci.
Ideological Landscapes of the Vaigai River Valley
In the early historic cultural landscape of Vaigai Valley, ideological

diversity is noticed, according the variation in the cultural formations
and the natural landscape. Most of the settlements have evidence of
megalithic traditions in the early historic period suggesting the worship
of the dead and ancestors. Megalithic burials were a part of continuing
tradition that was socially embedded and associated with the belief
systems that originated in the Iron Age. Hero worship of the warriors
who lost their lives for protecting the cattle was also prevalent, but at
limited contexts, and the finds of hero stones at Pulimankombai and
Thathapatti reveal about the skirmishes over cattle wealth in the pastoral
tracts. This tradition was necessitated by the competition over the cattle
and other agrarian resources. These were the ideological systems of the
pastoral tracts.
The urban landscape around Madurai was very clearly dominated
by several faiths and some received the royal and mercantile support.
The references in Tirumurugāṛṛuppaḍai reveal the development and
continuance of Murugan worship in the hill areas. Some of the rock
shelter sites that have water sources have evidence of microliths, rock
paintings and black-and-red ware pottery. The tradition of Murugan
or Vélan worship could be a native tradition and the hillocks, and rock
shelters, which were considered sacred had the shrines of Murugan.
Murugan was perhaps originally the gods of hunter-gatherers.
Interestingly, some of these hills were also occupied by the Jains
or śramaṇas. Jainism and related faiths were concentrated around
Madurai in the early times and along the trade routes with ten sites in

the hillocks around Madurai and a few sites in the Upper Vaigai Valley.
The traders patronised the Ājīvika/Jain monks who were residing in the
rock shelters. These rock shelters have carved beds which were called
pāḻis or atiṭṭānam and they had facilities of water ponds and springs.
Some of the sites witnessed the activities of Jainism in the medieval
period as revealed by the sculptures and inscriptions.
Vedic religion was patronised by the kings of the Pāṇḍyan
dynasty as revealed by the name of Sangam Age king Palyāgasālai
Mudukuḍumipperuvaḻuti mentioned in the Velvikkudi copper plate
inscription. Cilappatikāram also registers the presence of Vedic
Brāhmaṇas in the area and it refers to the locations of mutts. The
Pulankurichi inscription refers to Thāpathapaḷḷi near Madurai and it
also mentions about Dévakulam.
In the remote areas of Vaigai Valley and in the Gundar Basin, there
are rock shelters with paintings and Paliyans had the traditions of
constructing burials by simply placing stone boulders. Azhagankulam
has an inscription referring to Sinhala Prakrit and the term Cayālan
found at Muthupatti refers to a person of Sri Lankan origin. Some
of the poets of the Sangam period were Brāhmaṇas and the Prakrit
inscriptions do suggest the presence of diverse groups and religious
ideologies as normally seen in the context of urbanisation. While
evidence of Buddhism is found in Sri Lanka and Maldives, and at
Kāvēripūmpaṭṭinam and Kāňcipuram, not much evidence is found in
the Vaigai Valley. It is possible that the coasts witnessed Yavanas and
probably, traders of Jewish faith and possibly Buddhists who were
travelling to Sri Lanka. It seems that the hill areas of the Western Ghats
had the hunter-gatherers with their worship of animism and rock-
shelter centres, which were sacred in nature. Some of the rock shelter
sites with paintings and engravings served as samanistic centres.
Conclusions
The cultural formations in the Mesolithic and later in the Iron Age from
the early first millennium bce contributed to the growth of agro-pastoral/
horticultural/hunting-gathering cultures in Periyar and Vaigai River
valleys. The diversity of these landscapes and uneven distribution of
resources in the mirco-regions led to cultural interactions and exchanges
among these landscapes. Kinship-dependant chiefdom-like or ranked
political formations emerged in the early first millennium bce. In the
early historic period, ‘territorial polities’ of the Cēras and Pāṇḍyas, which
extended beyond the kin-groups, emerged in gaining control over the
key settlements and towns and resources. The market places of the early

period perhaps emerged as political centres. The concept of state cannot

be applied to the Vēndar formation of the Sangam Age. These Vēndars
created political formations that controlled important landscapes, while
chieftains were functioning in the areas between the riverine areas.
Political battles for plunder and cattle raids were constant occurrences
in this period. The Indian Ocean trade and Indo-Roman trade had a
contributing role in the development of towns and urbanisation around
the beginning of the Common Era. It is possible that land donations
were given to Brāhmaṇas in the cusp of early historic and early medieval
periods, if one has to rely on information from the Velvikkudi copper
plate. However, such occurrences were not numerous at this juncture. On
the landscapes, the persistent places, mainly the rock shelters witnessed
the activities of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers at first. The hunter-gatherers
of the later period and pastoralists seem to have used these landscapes.
The Śramaṇas began to live in the hills and caves. Thus some of the early
caves became the sacred centres of the Jainas. A few of the caves might
have acted as the centres of gods like Murugan and other local deities,
even when the Jainas occupied some of the shelters. The agro-pastoral
communities lived on the plains and worshipped the ancestors through
the construction of megaliths. The hero worship was predominant among
some of the communities. The Vēndars perhaps patronized Vedic ritual-
based ideologies that contributed to the legitimisation process. Traders
seem to have supported the Jainism and śramaṇic religions, while alien
ideologies could have been adopted by the Yavaṇas on the coastal towns
such as Paṭṭaṇam and Azhagankulam, although clear material evidence
has not emerged from the early historic context.
In ancient Tamiḻakam region, the peak of trade activities seems to have
happened from 2nd century bce to 3rd century ce. However, the trade
activities did not die out in the post-Sangam Age as revealed by the coin
and other finds from Azhagankulam and several other sites. The so called
‘urban decline’ might not have happened in the case of some settlements,
for example, Madurai and Uraiyur, where trade and other cultural
activities continued. The available archaeological, literary and textual
evidences need to be carefully evaluated and studied to understand the
finer chronological resolution and the developments during the 800 years
from 500 bce to 300 ce.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Prof. Suchandra Ghosh and Prof. R. Mahalakshmi

for the invitation to contribute a chapter. I would like to thank Darsana
for proof-checking.

Notes
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16 Das, Nikhil and P.P. Joglekar. ‘Archaeology of the Anjunad Valley, with
Special Reference to the Megaliths and Rock Art, Idukki District, Kerala’,
Bulletin of the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute 76,
2016, pp. 212–217.
17 Gurukkal, R. and M.R. Raghava Varier (eds). Cultural History of Kerala,
Volume 1. Thiruvananthapuram, Department of Cultural Publications,
Government of Kerala, 1999.
18 For details see, note 12.
19 Padmanabhan Thampi, ‘Prehistoric. Archaeology of South Central Kerala
with Special Reference to the Valley of Anjunad’, 1983; Das, Nikhil N. and
P.P. Joglekar. ‘Archaeology of the Anjunad Valley, with Special Reference
to the Megaliths and Rock Art, Idukki District, Kerala’, Bulletin of the
Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute 76, 2016, 212–217.
20 IGNCA. Multidisciplinary Documentation of Rock Art and its Allied
Subjects in Kerala (IInd Phase of Field Documentation), 29th October–3rd
November 2016 (accessed September 2020). Unnikrishnan, H. ‘Rock art
site discovered in Pooyamkutty’, The Hindu, Kochi, 15 February 2016.
Available at https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Kochi/rock-art-site-
discoveredin-pooyamkutty/article8239294.ece.
21 See, Morris, Brian. Forest Traders: A Socioeconomic Study of the Hill
Pandaram. London: The Athlone Press, 1982; Stiles, D. ‘Hunter-Gatherer
Trade in Wild Forest Products in the Early Centuries A.D. with the Port of
Broach, India’, Asian Perspectives 32(2), 1993, pp. 153–167.
22 Suresh, S. Symbols of Trade: Roman and Pseudo-Roman Objects Found in
India. New Delhi: Manohar, 2004.

23 Sathyamurthy, T. Catalogue of Roman Gold Coins. Tiruvananthapuram:

Department of Archaeology, Government of Kerala, 1992; Sathyamurthy,
T. ‘Angamaly Hoard of Silver Punch Marked Coins’, Studies in South
Indian Coins, 4, 1994, 45; Augustine, Joseph. Coins and Currency of Pre
Modern Kerala till 1600 ad. PhD Thesis, Kottayam, School of Social
Sciences, M.G. University, 2014.
24 Gupta, P.L. Early Coins from Kerala. Trivandrum: Government Press,
1965.
25 Augustine, Joseph. Coins and Currency of Pre Modern Kerala till 1600 ad,
2014.
26 Pillai, Kanakasabhai V. The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Age Chennai,
Asian Educational Services, 1997, Reprint. 1904; Singaravelu, S. ‘Social Life
of the Tamils: The Classical Period’. Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaya,
1966; Zvelebil, K.V. Tamil Literature. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz (A
History of Indian Literature, Vol. I), 1974; Deloche, Jean. ‘Roman Trade
Routes in South India: Geographical and Technical Factors (C. 1st Cent.
bc - 5th Cent. ad)’, Indian Journal of History of Science 45(1), 2010, pp.
33–46.
27 Cobb, M.A. Rome and the Indian Ocean Trade from Augustus to the Early
Third Century CE. Leiden: Brill, 2018, pp. 270–271.
28 South Indian Inscriptions, XIV, 27.
29 South Indian Inscriptions I XIV, 209.
30 Gurukkal, R. Social Formations of Early South India. New Delhi: Oxford
31 Cherian, P.J. and Jaya Menon. Unearthing Paṭṭaṇam: Histories, Cultures
and Crossings. Tiruvananthapuram: Kerala Council of Historical Research,
2015.
32 Amarnath Ramakrishna, K., Nanda Kishor Swain, M. Rajesh and N.
Veeraraghavan. ‘Excavations at Keeladi, Sivaganga District, Tamil Nadu
(2014–15 and 2015–16)’, Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in
Archaeology 6, 2018, pp. 30–72.
33 Shajan, K.P., Roberta Tomber, V. Selvakumar and P.J. Cherian. ‘Locating
the Ancient Port of Muziris: Fresh Findings from Paṭṭaṇam’, 312–320;
Cherian, P.J., V. Selvakumar, K.P. Shajan. ‘The Muziris Heritage Project
Excavations at Paṭṭaṇam’, 1–10; Selvakumar, V. ‘Ancient Ports of Kerala:
An Overview’, in Imperial Rome, Indian Ocean Regions and Muziris: New
Perspectives on Maritime Trade, K.S. Mathew (ed.). New Delhi: Manohar,
2015, pp. 269–296.
34 Cherian, P.J., V. Selvakumar, K.P. Shajan. ‘The Muziris Heritage
Project Excavations at Paṭṭaṇam’, Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology
4: 1–10, 2007; Cherian, P.J. Paṭṭaṇam Archaeological Research: Paṭṭaṇam
Excavations. Fifth Season Field Report. Trivandrum: Kerala Historical
Research Council, 2011; Cherian, P.J. and Jaya Menon. Unearthing
Paṭṭaṇam: Histories, Cultures, Crossings. Tiruvananthapuram: Kerala
Council of Historical Research, 2015.
35 Ray, H.P. The Winds of Change: Buddhism and the Maritime Links of
Early South Asia. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994; Mukherjee, R.

‘Ambivalent Engagements: The Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean World’,

International Journal of Maritime History, 29 (1), 2017, pp. 96–110.
DOI: 10.1177/0843871416679119; Selvakumar, V. ‘Ancient Tamiḻakam,
Urbanization and the Cultural interactions in the Afro-eurasian World’.
Sectional Presidential address, Archaeology, Art and Cultural History
Section. Tamil Nadu History Congress Proceedings (Twenty Fourth Session),
Tamil Nadu Historical Congress, 2017, pp. 345–366; Gupta, Sunil. ‘The
Archaeological Record of Indian Ocean Engagements: Bay of Bengal
(5000 BC–500 DA)’, Subject: Archaeology, Archaeology of South Asia,
Production, Trade, and Exchange, Migration. Online Publication Date:
June 2018, DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935413.013.46.2018.
36 Sidebotham, Steven E. ‘Overview of Fieldwork at Berenike (Red Sea
Coast), Egypt, and in the Eastern Desert: 2011-2015’, in A. Manzo, C.
Zazzaro and D.J. de Falco (eds), Stories of Globalisation: The Red Sea and
the Persian Gulf from Late Prehistory to Early Modernity. Selected Papers of
Red Sea Project VII (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2019, pp. 183–224).
37 Avanzini, A. ‘The Port of Sumhuram (Khor Rori): New Data on its History’,
in Imperial Rome, Indian Ocean Regions and Muziris: New Perspectives on
Maritime Trade, K.S. Mathew (ed.). New Delhi: Manohar, 2015, pp. 179–206.
38 Casson, L. The Periplus Maris Erythraei: Text with Introduction, Translation,
and Commentary. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.
39 Seland, E.H. ‘The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: A Network Approach’,
Asian Review of World Histories 4 (2), July 2016, pp. 191–205. Available at
http://dx.doi.org/10.12773/arwh.2016.4.2.191.
40 Joseph, T.K. ‘Ports and Marts of Travancore (ad 50 to 150)’, Travancore
Information and Listener, 1947, pp. 30–34.
41 Kumar, Ajit. ‘A Probe to Locate Early Historic Port of Nelcynda’, Journal of
Indian Ocean Archaeology 5, 2008, pp. 97–106.
42 Puṛanānūṛu 343; Casson, L. The Periplus Maris Erythraei: Text with
Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Princeton: Princeton
43 Bram, Fauconnier. ‘Graeco-Roman Merchants in the Indian Ocean:
Revealing a Multicultural Trade’, in Topoi. Orient Occident. Supplément 11,
2012. Autour du Périple de la mer Érythrée. Available at https://www.persee.
fr/doc/topoi_1764-0733_2012_act_11_1_2679.2012.018; Bopearachchi,
Osmund. ‘Ancient Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu: Maritime Trade’, in South
Indian Horizons (F. Gros Felicitation Volume), Jean-Luc Chevillard, Eva
Wilden (eds), Institut Français de Pondichéry/Ecole Française d’Extrême-
Orient, 2004, pp. 539–551. Bohingamuwa, W. Sri Lanka and the Indian
Ocean contacts: Internal Networks and External Connections.[PhD Thesis].
Oxford: University of Oxford. 2017; Gunasena, Kaushalya Gangadari.
Interactions between Sri Lanka and South India in the Early and Middle
Historic through the Perspective of Personal Adornment. PhD Thesis. Exeter,
Exeter University. Available at http://hdl.handle.net/10871/34653, 2018.
45 Gurukkal, R. ‘Forms of Production and Forces of Change in Ancient
Tamil Society’; Gurukkal, R. Social Formations of Early South India. New
Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2012.

46 Akanānūṛu 149.
47 Maduraikkāňci 43–48.
48 Romanis, F.D. ‘Playing Sudoku on thè Verso of thè ‘Muziris Papyrus’:
Pepper, Malabathron and Tortoise Shell in thè Cargo of thè Hermapollon’,
Journal of Ancient Indian History 27, 2012, pp. 75–101.
49 Puṛanānūṛu 343.
50 Puṛanānūṛu 343.
51 Selvakumar, V. ‘Hunter-Gatherer Adaptations in Madurai Region, Tamil
Nadu, India: From c. 10,000 B.P. to c. A.D. 500’.
52 Selvakumar, V. ‘A Study of The Rock Art in The Upper Gundar Basin,
Madurai District, Tamil Nadu’, in Exploring the Mind of Ancient Man:
Festschrift to Robert G. Bednarik, P. Chenna Reddy (ed.). New Delhi:
Research India Press, 2007, pp. 380–388.
53 Sridhar, T.S. Excavation of Archaeological Sites in Tamilnadu (1969-1995).
Chennai: Tamil Nadu State Archaeology Department, 2004.
(2014–15 and 2015–16)’, in Keeladi: An Urban Settlement of Sangam Age
on the Banks of River Vaigai, R. Sivanandam, and M. Cheran (eds), pp.
30–72. Chennai: Tamil Nadu State Archaeology Department, 2019.
55 Nagaswamy, R. ‘Alagankulam: An Indo-Roman Trading Port’, in Indian
Archaeological Heritage, C. Margabandhu et al. (eds). New Delhi: Agam Kala
Prakashan, 1991, pp. 247–254; Vasanti, S., D. Thulasiraman and S. Selvaraj.
‘Alagankulam: An Ancient Roman Port City of Tamil Nadu’, Chennai,
Tamil Nadu State Archaeology Department, 2005; Tomber, R. Indo-Roman
Trade: From Pots to Pepper. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2008.
56 Raman, K.V. ‘Distribution Pattern of Cultural Traits in the Pre and
Protohistoric. Times of Madurai Region’, Aaraichi, 1970, 1: 499–509; Rajan,
K., V.P. Yatheeskumar and S. Selvakumar. ‘The Earliest Hero Stones of
India’, History Today 7, 2007, 118–121; Selvakumar, V. ‘Investigations into
the Iron Age Early Historic Cultures of the Upper Gundar Basin, Madurai
District, Tamil Nadu, India’, South Asian Studies, 16 (1), 2000, 119–132, DOI:
10.1080/02666030.2000.9628584; Amarnath Ramakrishna, K., M. Rajesh
and N. Veeraraghavan. ‘Archaeological Explorations in the Vaigai River
Valley with Special Reference to Inscribed Jewellery Hoard from Tenur,
Madurai Dt., in Amravati’ (Essays on History, Archaeology, Epigraphy
and Numismatics), S. Rajavelu, N. Athiyaman and V. Selvakumar (eds),
Chennai, Prof. P. Shanmugam Felicitation Committee, 2017, pp. 170–183;
Balamurugan, P. ‘Archaeology of Lower Vaigai River Valley, Tamil Nadu’,
in The Megalithic Culture of South India, K.N. Dikshit and Ajit Kumar (eds).
New Delhi: Indian Archaeological Society, 2014, pp. 148–157.
57 Selvakumar, V. Archaeological Excavation at S. Pappinayakkanpatti.
Thanjavur: Department of Epigraphy and Archaeology, Tamil University,
2016.
58 Selvakumar, V. ‘Hunters and hunter-gatherers in Historical South India’,
The Eastern Anthropologist 67 (3), 2014, pp. 257–274.

59 Walimbe, S.R. and V. Selvakumar. ‘Anthropological Investigations on

An Iron Age Adult Male Skeleton from S. Pappinayakkanpatti, Madurai
District, Tamil Nadu’, Journal of Human Ecology 9 (Issue 1), 1998, pp.
19–34. Available at https://doi.org/10.1080/09709274.1998.11907329;
Selvakumar, V. ‘The Paliyars and Shiva Temples of the Caturagiri Hills,
Virudunagar District, Tamil Nadu, South India and the Caturagiri
Vazhinadaiccindu’, HuSS International Journal of Research in Humanities
and Social Sciences 5(2), 2018, 60. DOI: 10.15613/hijrh/2018/v5i2/181531.
60 Devakunjari, D. Madurai Through the Ages, Chennai, SAHER, 1979.
61 Vedachalam, personal communication, 2020.
62 Arthaśāśtra, Book II, Chapter II, Sec. 29, line 115.
(2014–15 and 2015–16)’, pp. 30–72.
64 Sivanandam R. and M. Cheran. Keeladi: An Urban Settlement of Sangam
Age on the Banks of River Vaigai. Chennai: Tamil Nadu State Archaeology
Department, 2019.
(2014–15 and 2015–16)’, pp. 30–72.
66 Hindu Online News. 9 February 2023. Available at https://www.thehindu.
com/news/national/tamil-nadu/asis-keeladi-report-pushes-sangam-
agefurther-back-to-800-bce/article66486407.ece#:~:text=Keeladi%20
continues%20to%20redefine%20Tamil,about%2013%20km%20from%20
Madurai.&text=K.,-Amarnath%20Ramakrishna%2C%20who. The
newspaper report says that Sangam Age dates to 800 bce and many
laypersons are mislead by such reports and they believe that Sangam Age
and Sangam literature date to 800 bce, which is debatable.
67 Rajagopal, S., P. Rajendran, V. Vedachalam and C. Santhalingam. ‘Tamil
Brahmi Kalvettukal’, Chennai, Department of Archaeology, Government
of Tamil Nadu, 2010.
68 Mahadevan, I. Early Tamil Epigraphy from the Earliest Times to the Sixth
Century A.D. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
69 Ibid., p. 355.
70 Ibid., pp. 380–381.
71 Ibid., p. 405.
72 Ibid., p. 393.
73 Ibid., p. 417.
74 Ibid., p. 345.
75 Ibid., p. 377.
76 Ibid., p. 323.
77 Ibid., p. 317.
78 Ibid., p. 319.
79 Ibid., p. 376.
80 Ibid., p. 369.
81 Ibid., p. 372.
82 Ibid., p. 403.

83 Vanaja, R. Indian Coinage. New Delhi: National Museum, 1983;

Krishnamurty, R. Sangam Age Tamil Coin. Chennai: Garnet Publications,
1997; Seetharaman, A. Tamizhagak Kasukal (bce 400 to 1845 ce).
Thanjavur: Thanalakshmi Pathippakam, 2014.
Archaeological Heritage, C. Margabandhu et al. (eds). New Delhi: Agam
Kala Prakashan, 1991, pp. 247–254; Vasanti, S., D. Thulasiraman and
S. Selvaraj. Alagankulam: An Ancient Roman Port City of Tamil Nadu,
Chennai. Tamil Nadu State Archaeology Department, 2005.
85 Rajan, K. and V.P. Yatheeskumar. ‘Thathappatti: Tamil-Brahmi Inscribed
Hero Stone’, Man and Environment 32(1), 2007, pp. 39–45.
86 Tomber, R. Indo-Roman Trade: From Pots to Pepper. London: Bloomsbury
Academic, 2008.
Archaeological Heritage, C. Margabandhu et al. (eds). New Delhi: Agam
Kala Prakashan, 1991, pp. 247–254 ; Vasanti, S., D. Thulasiraman and
S. Selvaraj. Alagankulam: An Ancient Roman Port City of Tamil Nadu,
Chennai. Tamil Nadu State Archaeology Department, 2005.
88 Majeed, A., D. Thulasiraman and S. Vasanthi. Alagankulam: A Preliminary
Report, Chennai. Tamil Nadu State Archaeology Department, 1992.
89 Maduraikkāňci, 74–88.
90 Akanānūṛu, 149.
91 Ajitkumar. ‘A Probe to Locate Early Historic Port of Nelcynda’, Journal of
Indian Ocean Archaeology 5, 2008, pp. 97–106.
(2014–15 and 2015–16)’, pp. 30–72; Balamurugan, P. ‘Archaeology of Lower
Vaigai River Valley, Tamil Nadu’, in The Megalithic Culture of South India,
K.N. Dikshit and Ajit Kumar (eds). New Delhi: Indian Archaeological
Society, 2014, pp. 148–157.
(2014–15 and 2015–16)’, pp. 30–72.
95 Vedachalam, V. Pandiyanattu Varalaarrumurai Samuka Nilaviyal (Ce 600–
1400). Thanjavur: Thanalakshmi Pathippakam, 2019.
96 Raman, K.V. ‘Distribution Pattern of Cultural Traits in the Pre and
Protohistoric: Times of Madurai Region’, pp. 499–509.
97 Kailasapathy, K. Tamil Heroic Poetry. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1968.
98 Maloney, C. ‘The Paratavar: 2000 Years of Culture Dynamics of a Tamil
Caste’, Man in India, 49 (1), 1969, pp. 224–240.
99 Ibid.
100 Puṛanānūṛu, 343.
102 Ibid., 89–98.
103 Ibid., 106–119.
104 Puṛanānūṛu, 343.


106 Ibid., 271–285.
107 Vedachalam, V. Pandiyanattu Varalaarrumurai Samuka Nilaviyal (ce
600–1400). Thanjavur, Thanalakshmi Pathippakam, 2019, p. 224.
109 Ibid., 254–262.
110 Ibid., 262–270.
111 Ibid., 302–314.
112 Akanānūṛu, 149.
113 Gurukkal, R. and D. Whittaker. ‘In Search of Muziris’, Journal of Roman
Archaeology 14, 2001, pp. 35–50.

14
BARYGAZA/BHARUKACCHA: A LONG-RANGE
HISTORY OF THE PORT
Suchandra Ghosh
Introduction
Ports are human settlements in which both land and water are integral
to the residents. The distribution of the ports along the coast does not
only depend on an advantageous geographical position. The nature
and function of each port is also determined by various environmental
factors, and by its relation to the inland—its supply zone or production
centre.1 The coast-inland relation was highlighted by Michael Pearson,
who emphasised that port cities need to be seen as part of coastal or
littoral society, as much as entrepôts servicing an inland hinterland.2 The
umland, hinterland and foreland play crucial roles in the efflorescence of
a port, and hinterlands can be continuous or discontinuous.3 The word
‘umland’, with its intimate, neighbourly ring, should not be applied to a
place which is distant from the primary centre. Thus, while ports (and
port towns) were more or less defined physical spaces, their hinterlands
were not. The forelands refer to the places where ships/products of a
port were headed.
It is well known that the Arabian Sea, with its seasonal reversal
in wind systems, is highly favourable to mercantile ventures, with
trading vessels moving along the coast or across the sea. Consequently,
the western sea board of India was dotted with numerous ports
among which the ports of Gujarat, which has a long coastline (1,600
kilometres), played a vital role across history. Backed by numerous
safe harbours and accessible ports, as well as a vast and richly endowed
hinterland, Gujarat was absolutely central to the history of the Indian
Ocean maritime exchange, involving not only goods, but also people
and ideas. Explorations along the western coast of the Gulf of Khambat
yielded remains beginning from the Harappan times to the recent past.
The tidal range facilitated the movement of boats with time efficiency.4
For the north Indian plains, Gujarat is the only opening to the sea from
the western side. The first important port in Gujarat was Lothal, that
369

flourished during the days of the Bronze Age Harappan Civilisation

c. 2600–1800 bce.5 The other important ports were Broach, Cambay,
Diu and Surat among many others in different periods. These reflect
Gujarat’s long engagement with the sea.
This chapter will study the port of Broach, also known as Barygaza,
Bharukaccha and Bhṛgukaccha, which has the most extensive history of
all the ports in the west coast of India. In spite of its ubiquitous presence
in works on the Indian Ocean trade network, the history and dynamics
of this port have not been fully explored. The Narmada delta, on which
it is located, played a distinct role in its growth.
The port gained visibility in the post-Mauryan period. Sopara was
known as a north Konkan port during the time of the Mauryas, but, in
spite of Mauryan interest in Kathiawar, Bharukaccha does not figure
in their records. Though scholars have mostly focused on the life of
this port from the 1st century ce to the 3rd century ce, when there
were strong maritime ties between the eastern Mediterranean zone
and the western seaboard of India, Bharukaccha was significant to
maritime history much before this period. A close reading of a few
classical sources, the Geographikon of Strabo6 (late 1st century bce),
the Periplus Maris Erythraei (hereon PME, mid-1st century ce)7 and
the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder8 (possibly composed around
77 ce), leaves little room for doubt that the eastern Mediterranean
region came into regular interactions with the subcontinent through
sea-borne commerce, largely due to the increasingly better utilisation
of the monsoon wind system.9 The most elaborate account of the port
comes from the PME. Barygaza is also given its due importance in the
Geographike Huphegesis by Claudius Ptolemy (c. 150 ce) as the premier
port in western India. Significantly, Pliny is silent about Barygaza:
perhaps his attention was drawn towards the Malabar coast, Limyrike
of PME (Section 53).
Sara Keller has conducted an excellent study on the port city of
Bharuch during the Sultanate and the Moghul periods.10 A close
scrutiny of the multiple sources (textual, archaeological, epigraphic
and numismatic) of the pre-Sultanate period allows us to suggest that
there was no hiatus in Bharukaccha’s labelling as a port. However, the
popularity and fortune of the port did endure their share of high and
ebb tides.
It is unfortunate that Barygaza could not be excavated, as the present
town of Broach thrives on the extensive mound. The Archaeological
Survey of India could only excavate the eroded peripheral fringes on
the river side at the eastern and south-eastern limits.11 The excavated
remains demonstrate a flourishing bead industry. Lead and copper
Kṣatrapa coins of the 3rd century were found at the lowest and middle

Barygaza/Bharukaccha 371
levels of Period II. Following the general nature of early historical

towns, there was a mud rampart and deep ditch outside, reflected in
the first stage. The mud and brick construction can now only be seen
at Katpur gate.
Barygaza through the Lens of the Periplus Maris Erythraei
The entry point to the study of this port is the PME, an anonymous
seafarer’s manual which gives a detailed account of the sea route from
the Red Sea up to the Indian subcontinent. This account is a narration
of the author’s own experience written in the style of a detailed
documentation, a log book which describes the routes, introduces us
to the ports where the merchants were travelling, the hazards of travel,
the kind of merchandise that was imported or exported and related
subjects. In Grant Parker’s words, ‘reading it is much like overhearing a
conversation between sea-captains and merchants’.12
We are introduced to Barygaza (the Greek name is borrowed
from Prākr̥ t Bharukaccha/Bharugaccha, and not the Sanskrit form
Bhr̥ gukaccha, which indicates that the author picked up the name from
a common man or a local sailor)13 in the PME, in Section 36 in the
context of Apologos and Omana, which were prominent ports of the
Persian Gulf. However, a tangible description of the port begins only
from Section 43. The hazards that a mariner might encounter while
reaching the port of Barygaza are distinctly narrated in Section 43 of
the PME.
The PME mentions that ‘the gulf which leads to Barygaza, since it is
narrow, is hard for vessels coming from seaward to manage’. This is the
case with both the right and left passages, but there is a better passage
through the left: ‘For on the right-hand side, at the very mouth of the
gulf, there extends a rough and rock-strewn reef called Herone, near
the village of Kammoni’.14 Kammoni has been identified as Kamrej. The
PME further states that, even if one manages to navigate the gulf, the
very mouth of the river on which Barygaza stands is difficult to find
as its shore is low and is invisible even from a close distance. Once
the mouth is found, it is hard to negotiate because of the shoals in the
river around it. However, as the local ruler had a distinct interest in the
products that would reach the port, he arranged for the mariners to be
navigated by fishermen and rowers employed in the service of the king
with large boats called Trappaga15 and Kotymba. These were coasters
employed by King Manbanos (Śaka Kṣatrapa King Nahapāna) to guide
non-local ships to the port of Barygaza at the mouth of the Narmada
river (Lamanaios). Thus, fisherfolk acted as nāvikas (boatmen), being

well conversant with the local waters. They went as far as Syrastrene
(Saurashtra) to meet the mariners, and guided them to the port of
Barygaza. Barygaza’s location was about 300 stadia upstream from the
mouth. Syrastrene is mentioned by Ptolemy as a part of Indo-Skythia,
lying to the south of Patalene (in the mouths of the Indus delta) and near
the Gulf of Kanthi. Ptolemy places Barygaza to the east of Indo-Skythia,
along the coast within the country of Larike (Lāra/Lāṭa country) on the
river Lamanaios (identified with Namados of Ptolemy and Narmada).16
Significantly, the PME emphasises that Barygaza marked the beginning
of the kingdom of Manbanos and all of India. Beyond Barygaza was the
region of Dachinabades (Deccan).
After this description of how to reach the port of Barygaza, the
PME goes on in the subsequent sections (47–51) to describe Barygaza’s
connection with the hinterlands, and the commodities that were
exported and imported from this port. The account of the diverse
commodities handled by this port is quite elaborate. The imports
included wine, preferably Italian, Laodicean and Arabian, copper, tin
and lead, coral and peridot, all kinds of unadorned clothing or printed
fabric, multi-coloured girdles, storax, yellow sweet clover, raw glass,
real gear, sulphide of antimony.17 Roman money, costly gold and silver,
unguent that’s inexpensive and of limited quantity were also mentioned.
For the king and other royalty, there were precious silver ware, slave
musicians, girls for concubinage, quality wines, thin clothing of the
finest weaves and ointments. The port exported spikenard, costus,
bdellium, ivory, onyx, agate, lykion, cotton cloths, Chinese (silk) cloth
carnelian, silk cloths, mallow cloth, yarn, long pepper and other articles
brought to the port from nearby ports of trade. This demonstrates the
reach of the port. The list clearly indicates that the trade goods were
not confined to luxury items, but were often for ordinary everyday
requirements. The distinct identification of the royalty’s demands shows
how meticulous the documentation by the author of the PME was.
About two centuries ago, Eudoxus of Cyzicus took along young slave
musicians, doctors and artisans on his third trip to India. Thus, though
there was a demand for slave musicians, slave trade was not a separate
sphere of economic activity.18 All the export goods were not produced in
Barygaza: some were brought through coastal routes, while others came
from the continuous and discontinuous hinterlands of the port. This
presupposes the existence of a well-established overland distributive
network of caravan goods. The itinerant merchant (sārthavāha) with
his loaded cart was a common image found largely in the Jātakas
and other texts. We are fortunate that the PME refers to a few of the
hinterlands of Barygaza and offers clues to identify its forelands. These
merit discussions here.

The Hinterland and the Foreland
Section 41 of the PME describes the landscape of Ariaca, the opening

fertile stretch of inland adjoining Scythia and the littoral, Syrastrene,
the starting point of Manbanos’s (Nahapāna) realm. It was a rich agro-
pastoral country, producing clarified butter and growing wheat, rice,
sesame oil and the cotton from which the coarse cloth was manufactured
at Minnagara, the main metropolis from where a good quantity of cloth
was brought down to Barygaza for shipping. Thus, the land of Ariaca
was the first hinterland mentioned in the PME. In Section 47, the PME
lists a number of people whose land lay behind Barygaza. These people
lived in Arachosia (Kandahar region), Gandhara (the land to both
the east and the west of the Indus) and Proklais (ancient Puṣkalāvatī,
modern Charsada), a town in Gandhara. The PME also refers to Bactria,
Alexander, and provides crucial information regarding the circulation
of old drachms belonging to the Graeco–Bactrian rulers Apollodotus
and Menander. Arachosia is historically important due to its location:
it was a strategic, political and economic link between the Iranian and
the Indian worlds, and was also connected with the Oxus valley north
of the Hindukush.19 The province encompassed much of what is now
southern Afghanistan in the city of Kandahar. The other urban centre,
Charsadda, is located strategically at the confluence of the Swat and
Kabul rivers, on routes from west and central Asia, within the fertile
valley of Peshawar. In 1863, Sir Alexander Cunningham identified
the site as Puṣkalāvatī, the ancient capital of Gandhara.20 Charsadda’s
location on the route from Bactria to Taxilā, and the fact that roads
leading to the Upper Indus valley—to Kashmir and to Central Asia—
actually met in Charsadda, made this site a close rival of Taxilā, another
important Gandhara site. Taxilā is distinguished by its location on the
great trade route that linked the Gangetic region with the north-west. In
fact, it is located on the shortest possible way from Mathurā to central
Asia. These regions fall under the category of discontinuous hinterland,
and the products that came from these areas were significant as items
of export; Chinese silk cloth and silk yarn are mentioned as exports.
In a later section (64) of the Periplus, it is also said that from Thina
(China), silk floss (wool) and yarn were shipped via the Bactria to
Barygaza.21 The main path of the silk route during the first two centuries
ce coursed through Central Asia to the Indus valley. Going directly to
the sea coast along the Indus to the port of Barbarikon, or detouring
through Mathura, it connected Barygaza with the Roman world by
sea.22 Moreover, agate, carnelian and precious stones from the valley
of the Narmada river could have been in demand in Central Asia and
China.

Significantly, the following section speaks of Ozene (Ujjain) as a city

lying to the east of Barygaza, connected to Mathura through a capillary
route. Ozene was indisputably Barygaza’s foremost hinterland. The
section states that ‘from which everything that contributes to the region’s
prosperity, including what contributes to trade with us, is brought down
to Barygaza: onyx, agate(?), Indian garments of cotton, garments of
molochinon and a considerable amount of cloth of ordinary quality’.23
It further states that nard (an aromatic plant from which essential oil
can be extracted), costus (essential oils are extracted from its roots and
have medicinal values) and bdellium (a gum resin) came from Proklais
to Ozene, and were then finally shipped from Barygaza. Another route
through Scythia embraced parts of Rajasthan. It may be worthwhile
to mention here that the linkage between Ujjayini and Bharukaccha
(Barygaza) goes a long way: according to the Jaina text Āvaśyakacūrṇi,
Bharukaccha was included in the kingdom of Ujjain, which was ruled
by king Caṇḍa Pradyot (c. 528 bce).24 Written in Jaina Mahārāṣṭrī,
the Āvaśyakacūrṇi has its provenance in western India and, despite
its relatively later date, there can be little doubt that it at least partially
preserves story traditions traceable to the 1st centuries ce or even
earlier. According to the text, Naravāhana (Nahapāna) was involved in a
protracted struggle with the Sātavāhana ruler from Paithan. Nahapāna
is referred to in this text as the lord of incense (guggulabhagavān).
According to Ranabir Chakravarti, the epithet probably implies that he
amassed immense wealth by participating in the trade of guggula, or
by levying taxes on its trade.25 This was quite possible since Nahapāna
controlled Barygaza. The port of Barygaza played a significant part in
the struggle: the author of the Periplus writes that the port of Kalliena,
which was under the Sātavāhanas, faced an economic blockade when
the Greek ships that came to Kalliena were brought under guard to
Barygaza (Section 52). The Nasik cave inscription of Nahapāna26 also
refers to Daśapura (Mandasore), Govardhana (Nashik) and Sorpāraga
(Sopara) as a part of the kingdom. The same inscription also mentions
the Dahanu river in present Maharashtra.27 Evidently, Bharukaccha had
an extended hinterland.
In the context of Ujjain’s linkage to Barygaza or Bharukaccha, the
Malwa region provided a passage linking northern India to peninsular
India on one hand, and to the western seacoast on the other.28 Famous
for being a gateway to the Deccan, Malwa had several important
urban centres such as Ujjayinī, Vidiśā-Besnagar, Eran, Māhişmatī,
Indrāpura (Indore), Tumbavana (Tumain) and others. From the
viewpoint of agriculture, parts of this region such as Dhar, Ujjayinī,
Indore, Dewas and Mandasor (ancient Daśapura) were well-inhabited
by agriculturalists, and the hilly areas by the pastoral communities and

tribal groups.29 Federico Romanis writes about the import of nard,

costus and bdellium from the ‘upper places’ to Barygaza via Ozene, ‘just
midway between the Himalaya and the Deccan regions, the Barygaza–
Ozene region was perhaps the only Indian area, where the alternative
between a Haimavata and a Dakṣiṇāpatha land route made sense’.30
Paithan (ancient Pratiṣṭhāna) and Tagara are referenced in the
PME as outstanding trading centres. Section 51 highlights that in
about twenty days’ travel to the south of Barygaza, one could reach
Paithan and about ten days further, east Tagara (Ter). A large quantity
of onyx was brought through wagons, implying carts drawn by oxen,
over roadless stretches from Paithan and from Tagara. The list also
includes large quantities of cloth of ordinary quality, all kinds of cotton
garments and garments of molochinon. The references to textiles in the
PME indicate that a range of textiles was traded together. Significant
is the fact that for cotton karpasos (Section 41) is used which is the
local word for cotton. The author of the PME states that from this
othonion, Indikon (Indian cloth) is made.31 This movement of goods
was undoubtedly conducted by the itinerant merchants known as
sārthavāhas, who generally traversed long distances from one market
to another with cartloads of goods.32 Going by the PME, the point of
departure for the port of Barygaza was Tagara, and then Paithan. There
could have been other halting stations not mentioned in the PME. The
district of Osmanabad, where Ter is located, is a rich cotton-growing
area in Maharashtra. Barygaza acted as a clearing house for all the
textile that was collected from the hinterlands. These two places can be
identified as the discontinuous hinterland of Barygaza. Many different
kinds of glass beads were found in the 1967 excavations at Ter, pointing
to the linkage of the Gujarat port as far as central Deccan.
With these goods reaching from the hinterlands, the port of
Barygaza naturally became prosperous. This was further enhanced by
the rich agrarian resources of the umland and the Ratanpura, Zagadia
and Rajpipla hills which are rich in different types of agate.33 The forests
to the south of the Narmada provided varieties of useful timber. The
area around Barygaza was agricultural land, as well as a manufacturing
and trade centre.
The Foreland
We can now turn our gaze from the umland and the hinterland towards
the foreland, the final destination of the trade goods. In the case of
Barygaza, there were two distinct routes through which the goods
travelled: the Persian Gulf route and the Red Sea Lane. Barygaza was

mentioned first in the PME in the context of the ports of Apologos,

situated near Spasinou Charax and the rivers Euphrates and Omana in
the Persian Gulf. It stated that the merchants of Barygaza sent big vessels
loaded with supplies of copper, teak wood, beams, saplings and logs of
blackwood and ebony. As a return cargo to Barygaza, the merchants
would send pearls of inferior quality, purple cloth, native clothing, wine,
dates, gold and slaves.34 Slaves featured both in the Persian Gulf and the
Red Sea network. Jean Francois Salles argues that there is no reason to
deny that these ships were Indian. The archaeological findings in and
around the area points to the fact that Indian vessels started to hang
up at the harbours of the Persian Gulf in the first centuries ce.35 The
significant status of Apologos is also illustrated in the PME, in which it
is called ‘a market town designated by law’. This expression, according
to Casson, means ‘one whose ruler insisted that all trade pass through
his hands or those of his agents, where there was no free bazaar but only
an authorised office of trade’.36
For the Red Sea Lane, the premier foreland of Barygaza was the site
of Berenike, which was developed as a strategic harbour by Ptolemy
II in 275 bce.37 There was also the rival entrepôt of Myos Hormos38
(Quseir al-Qadim). This was 300 kilometres north of Berenike, and
closer to the Nile, therefore, being easier for transshipment. However,
Berenike was preferred, as the ships had to brave the Red Sea against
adverse winds to reach Myos Hormos. Archaeological finds suggest that
there were residents from South Arabia, India and other places. The
findings also indicate linkages with ports of western India and southern
India. Sidebotham has discussed the findings from the excavation at
Berenike and its relation with different ports both in India and Africa.39
I shall borrow some of his observations to suggest the importance of the
Red Sea network in the context of Barygaza. Excavations at Berenike
and Myos Hormos recovered a substantial number of fragments of
cotton textiles from all periods of the Roman occupation. Resist dyed
cotton was found in a Late Roman trash deposit at a commercial and
residential quarter in Berenike.40 Similar textiles were seen in Ajanta
paintings and along the Silk Road in western China. Sidebotham
opines that the striking similarities among these textiles from China,
Berenike and the Ajanta Cave paintings suggest that the cloth was likely
mass-produced in India for a domestic market, and for export to the
Roman world, Central Asia and China.41 Though it is not clear from
which port these textiles were exported, we can perhaps take the port
of Bharukaccha as the departure point, considering that Ajanta was
closer to Bharukaccha, had linkages with the Silk Road and was also
connected to Berenike. Moreover, the cotton growing-areas formed the
hinterland of Barygaza. The PME pointed towards the export of onyx

from Barygaza. Significantly, quite a number of onyx blanks have been

excavated at Berenike, which were most likely brought from Barygaza.
These were used to make cameos. Similar cameo blanks have been
recovered from excavations at Kamrej (ancient Kammoni, mentioned
in the PME 43), Kamanes (in Claudius Ptolemy Geography 7.1) and on
the Tapi river, southeast of Barygaza.
A very important export from Barygaza was long pepper. Since it
has not been unearthed in any of the sites, Capper believes that it was
not a staple item of trade even though it was in demand in Rome.42
This is perhaps not the case. Long pepper was a perishable item and,
unlike black pepper, did not have hard seeds which could survive. The
seeds are tiny and there is a possibility that they were ground. The PME
specifically mentions long pepper from Barygaza.43 Gujarat has always
been an important production centre for long pepper. Mung beans
(green gram) have been unearthed from two trenches in Berenike.
According to Cappers, they were traded as whole seeds. Subfossil mung
beans from India that coincide with the Roman trade with India have
been recorded from Narhan (Uttar Pradesh) and Taradih (Bihar), both
located in north India, and from Nevasa (Maharashtra), east of Bombay.
This would suggest the import of mung beans from Barygaza.44
Indian ceramics were also found in Berenike. Sidebotham correctly
puts them in the category of ‘prosaic finds’ as they were part of the
mundane existence of the mariners and traders. These were mostly
rouletted ware, which could be transshipped both from Barygaza and
Muziris, and were said to originally have been from the east coast. Coarse
wares, mostly cooking pots with traces of use, have been unearthed.
Perhaps these were used by crews on ships or by the Indian residents.
Amphoras carrying wine were labelled and, thus, we find labels like
Italika, Keramika, Ladikena and so on. The label Ladikena appears in
twenty-three ostraca on ceramic vessels, presumably containing wine
from Laodicea in Syria (an important wine-producing centre).45 It is
evident that the port of Barygaza imported Laodicaean wine. Perhaps
these were being prepared for trans-shipment to Barygaza.
Another significant item of import to the port of Barygaza was
Roman coins. In fact, the PME (Section 49) mentions that Roman coins
could be exchanged at a profit at Barygaza. Romans issued coins of finer
purity and traded these in various emporia in India. Far from losing
money in this trade, these ‘Roman’ merchants stood to make a profit
if they exchanged their denarii elsewhere in India for local silver at as
advantageous a rate as they received it at Barygaza.46 Rajan Gurukkal
argues that the Roman silver and gold coins constitute an item bartered
in all the Indian ports against spices.47 This could be true for the ports
in the Malabar coast, but not in case of ports like Barygaza. At Barygaza

and Sopara, these coins collected by the merchants were sent to the
mints for reminting as the coins of the Kṣatrapas and Sātavāhanas.
Federico de Romanis has discussed the issue of the exchange of Roman
coins in greater detail in this volume.
Socotra and Barygaza
The journey to Berenike was perhaps made comfortable by halting

at Socotra. The island of Socotra (Suqutra, Republic of Yemen) stood
close to the opening of the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa. As
early as the 2nd century bce, Agatharchides of Cnidus noted that
the Fortuante Island (usually identified with Socotra) was visited by
seafarers from everywhere, especially Potana at the Indus delta. The
importance of Dioscurides or Socotra in the maritime communication
between Egypt and the west coast of India is underscored by the
PME. But now, with Ingo Strauch’s publication of the corpus of Indian
inscriptions (till 5th century ce) found at Socotra, its importance is
further demonstrated.48 Personal names recovered from the cave of
Hoq on the Socotra Island are quite revealing. We have names which
are associated with Buddhism like Buddhamitra and Buddhanandin,
or Viṣṇupati and Viṣṇusena with Vaiṣṇavism and Śivamitra and
Śivaghoṣa with Śaivism. In these inscriptions, seven people referred
to their place of origin as Bharukaccha, such as Suraganja, along with
his father Suranandin. Interestingly, the names of this father–son duo
also feature in sites 11 and 14. One of the inhabitants of Bharukaccha
was a niryāmaka named Viṣnudhara. The niryāmaka, as per Buddhist
and Jaina literature would be a navigator of a ship or a captain.49 A
niryāmaka was part of the maritime community. The epithet Devaputra
is associated with the Kuṣāṇas, whereas, Kṣatrapa is generally used by
the Śaka rulers of western India and Mathura. The presence of the Śakas
is indicated by another inscription which said that Ajitavarman, the son
of Saṁgharangin, the Śaka, has come. Ajitavarman could have come
from Bharukaccha, which was under the Śaka Kṣatrapas, and was one
of the members of the Śaka population. The Devaputra and Kṣatrapa
in this case could be members of the royal family, who probably came
from Bharukaccha. It is possible that they took to mercantile activities.
There are also engravings of sea-going vessels at Socotra, which closely
resemble the ships represented on the coins of the Sātavāhanas (c. 50
bce–225 ce), the first formidable power in the Deccan.50 There is a ship
graffiti at Khor Rori/Moscha Limen which is carved into wall plaster,
and depicts an ancient two-masted sailing vessel. The depiction is
similar to that of the two masted ships found stamped on coins minted

by the Sātavāhanas, and it may have been one of the vessels trading
along the Red Sea.
The presence of residents of Bharukaccha as well as a niryāmaka
highlights the involvement of Bharukaccha in the early maritime
network. Along with Bharukaccha, there is the name of the port of
Hastakavapra (Hatab) among the inscriptions. This was the Astakapra
of the PME and Ptolemy’s Geography.51 A large number of seals with
the name Hastakavapra were unearthed in Hatab excavations52 and the
Socotra inscriptions tally with the Hatab seals. The seals come from a
pocket of the mud-fortified ancient town, which is surrounded by a
moat. The moat has an inlet that leads to the Gulf of Cambay, thus,
suggesting sea trade. Bharukaccha and Hastakavapra continued to
be active port towns even after the trade with the Roman Empire.
Hastakavapra was perhaps a feeder port of Bharukaccha. The coins
of King Kaniṣka I and one of Abhiraka were unearthed at the site of
Sumhuram, located within the territory of Khor Rori in the Dhofar
region, which was identified in the second half of the 19th century with
the ruins of Moscha limén, mentioned in the PME. Moscha is listed
with Okelis, Eudaimon Arabia (Aden) and Kane as one of the most
important ports of call in ancient Arabia. The coin of King Kaniṣka
I and one of Ābhiraka, generally taken to be a Kṣatrapa of Kṣaharāta
origin, are the only Indian coins discovered in the whole of the Arabian
Peninsula. However, recently, it has been argued that Ābhiraka should
be taken to be an Ābhira ruler rather than as a Kṣaharāta.53 The coins
could have reached Sumhuram from Bharukaccha, which had regular
sea-faring till the 4th/5th century ce.
Bharukaccha in the Epigraphic Records of the Deccan
In addition to the Socotra records, Bharukaccha was also present in

the epigraphic records of western India. The Nashik Cave inscription
mentions Bharukaccha and Govardhana. A late Brāhmī inscription
from Bagavalena in Sri Lanka refers to a cave donated by a certain
Mala, a mariner sailing to Bharukaccha (the cave of the chief Mala, the
mariner sailing to Bharukaccha, is given to the saṅgha).54
An inscription from Junnar55 refers to the donation by two brothers
Buddhamitra and Buddharakṣita, now living in Bharukaccha, who
came from Sri Lanka. These brothers were known as Laṅkkuḍiya, which
perhaps refers to one working/dealing with lakkuḍa, meaning wood.56
They were probably collecting wood from Junnar, and then trans-
shipping from Bharukaccha. The Sātavāhanas made systematic efforts to
develop Junnar, which was linked with Bharuch. A significant discovery

from Junnar was a carved alabaster depicting the birth of Eros in an egg
shell. The figure of Eros could represent the personal possession of a
Roman (or Western) merchant brought from Alexandria to the site of
what is now modern Junnar, or it could also have been brought back
by an Indian merchant as a souvenir. Whatever it may have been, the
residents of Junnar had some contact with the Mediterranean world.
Naneghat served as an outlet for the products around Junnar. This was
an ancient pass acting as an important trade route, and is active even
today.
The previous sections of this chapter on the port of Barygaza/
Bharukaccha focused mainly on the consumption and network of
hinterland and foreland. Put differently, the productive and distributive
part was foregrounded. There are no archaeological finds around
this port for the entire period. While Barygaza/Bharukaccha was the
point of arrival for the vessels from the Persian Gulf and the Graeco–
Roman world, it was also the terminus for many of the land routes
from the north and south of Narmada. Such a burgeoning port should
have had some structures to accommodate the merchants and their
merchandise, craftspeople and other inhabitants. Unfortunately, we
have no such tangible evidence for Barygaza. Nor do we have a text like
Cilappatikāram, which gives a vibrant description of the port town of
Pukar (Puhar). The importance of this port is clear from the fact that
the PME notes the proper time for setting out (which benefits skippers
intending a round trip) only for the major ports. Barygaza features in
this group along with Adulis, Muza, Kane, Barbarikon, Muziris and the
nearby pepper ports.57
Bharukaccha in Jātaka Stories
I will now briefly discuss the Pālī Jātaka stories which were written
down by the mid-first millennium ce, and were contemporary to the
heydays of the port. Jātakas represented the cultural geography of
the mid-Gaṅgā plains: the stories were drawn from popular lore and
were used for Buddhist teaching. There are numerous stories referring
to different categories of merchants, trade, sailing into distant lands,
Suvarṇabhūmi (mainland South-east Asia in general) in particular. The
port of Bharukaccha is referenced precisely in the context of sailing
to Suvarṇabhūmi. The Suppāraka Jātaka (no. 463) tells us that the
Bodhisattva was a mahānāvika, a master mariner who lost his eyesight
because of the effect of sea breezes. He then became an assessor to the
king of Bharukaccha, pricing the worth of elephants, horses, chariots
and precious rugs brought to the court of the king. A group of 700

merchants then got ready a ship for a voyage to Suvarṇabhūmi, a faraway

land, but did not have a captain. They asked the Bodhisattva to be their
skipper. It is said that the Bodhisattva was born in the family of a master
mariner and was named Suppāraka Kumāra. He returned safely with
the merchants and merchandise to the home port of Bharukaccha.58
The Sussondi Jātaka (no. 360) mentions that ‘certain merchants from
Bharukaccha were setting sail for the Golden Land (Suvarṇabhūmi)’.59
It appears that the merchants in the Jātakas were mostly sailing towards
countries of South-east Asia. The Jātaka references to Bharukaccha
highlight that ships always moved to distant lands from Bharukaccha.
On a slightly different note, a shorter form of Bharukaccha, the kingdom
of Bharu, is mentioned in the Bharu Jātaka (no. 213). The story revolves
around the contestation between two ascetic groups over a sitting space
under a particular tree in the kingdom of Bharu. The point to be noted
is that these ascetics came all the way from the Himalayas to collect salt,
which indicates that the kingdom could be on the sea, and there is a
possibility that Bharu was Bharukaccha.
Political Interest in Bharukacchha: 4th Century ce–8th Century ce
It is difficult to demonstrate any tangible evidence of interest in the

port of Bharukaccha during the time of the Gupta rulers. However, if
we carefully observe the political inclination of the Guptas, we see that
there was a thrust during the early 5th century towards the conquest of
western India, which is evident from the defeat of the Śakas at the hands
of Candragupta II. The drama Devīcandraguptam by Viśākhadatta
retains the memory of their victory over the Śakas. Why this urge to
acquire Śaka territories? One reason could be the desire to possess
Bharukaccha, a premier port till the 4th/5th century ce. Is it possible
to say, following Ranabir Chakravarti’s proposition in other contexts,
that the port of Bharukaccha exerted a pull? The minting of the silver
currency in the model of the Śaka coins by Candragupta facilitated
trade. In the post-5th century ce, Bharukaccha’s fortune must have
declined due to a lack of interest from the rulers. This dwindling
importance is clear if one reads Christian Topography (late 6th century
ce) by the Syrian–Christian monk Cosmas Indicopleustes.60 Cosmas
is silent about Barygaza and speaks of the nearby Kalliena (Kalyan)
as an important port in the Konkan coast. This tallies well with the
inscriptional evidence, where we find that Bharukaccha became more of
an administrative centre. Perhaps the Gurjara rulers of Lāṭa, also known
as Gurjaras of Nandipuri, were not oriented to trading activities. Their
capital was at Nāndīpurī or Nāndor, the modern Nandod near Bharuch.

From around the late 7th and early 8th centuries, Bharukaccha became
an administrative centre under the early Gurjara kings, and copper
plates began to be issued from here. The plates reveal that Bharukaccha
was the name of a town as well as a viṣaya. The land-grants were
issued from Bharukaccha with the expression Śrī Bharukacchāt-satata
Lakṣmī–nivāsa-bhuteh, which shows that it was active as the capital of
the early Gurjara rulers. The honorific Śrī was attached to Bharukaccha
in all the references during this period, reflecting its importance. The
Gurjaras were more engaged in the interior and control of Kanauj.
When Xuanzang (travels in India from 629 to 645 ce) came to Po-lu-
kie-che-to (Bharukaccha), he spoke about the commercial activities
thereof, but his accounts did not leave an impression of the thriving
long-distance coastal trade. He wrote about salt production and that
people were provided ‘profitable occupation by the sea’. This statement
may indicate that during his stay, the port was definitely active, if not
very vibrant. It is interesting to note that the Chinese pilgrim reached
Bharukaccha from Mo-ha-la-cha (Maharashtra, then under the rule
of Cālukya Pulakeśī II, c. 610–642 ce); he left Bharukaccha to reach
Mo-la-po (Malava, possibly the area around Ujjaiyini).61 The linkages of
Bharukaccha with western Deccan and the Malwa plateau in the early
7th century ce closely correspond with the account in the Periplus.
Bharukaccha in the Post-8th Century ce
In the maritime history of the west coast, a port started gaining visibility
from the 7th century, known in epigraphic records as Samyāna velākula
(port), Samyāna pattana (town) and Sindan/Sanjan in Arabic texts.62 Its
location on a creek made it an anchorage for sea-going vessels, providing
easy access to the hinterland. The port almost touched southern Gujarat.
Sanjan was under the possession of the Rāṣtrakūṭa rulers of Maharashtra
and Karnataka, who were interested in trade. Bharukaccha might have
continued as a feeder port. From around 1000 ce, another great port
began to gain prominence in the Gujarat coast, namely, Stambhatirtha/
Stambhapura, from which the name Khambayat/Khambat/Kanbaya was
derived in the Arabic and Persian texts on geography and travel.63 The
port figures in these texts, and in the travel accounts of Marco Polo (late
13th century) as the premier port of Gujarat.64 A perusal of these sources
leaves little room for doubt that Kanbaya benefitted from the overseas
network with both the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. Thus, in the Gujarat
coast, the position of a primary port, which was Bharukaccha’s in the
early historic period, now went to Khambat. However, all was not lost
for Bharukaccha. Though Khambat remained a primary port in the

10th century, Bharukaccha did not fade away into oblivion and made a
wonderful comeback with the rise of Caulukyas (10th century ce) and the
development of maritime activity. Alberuni writes, ‘Bihroj (Broach) along
with Rihanjur (Rander) formed the capital of the country of Lāradesa,
Lāṭa’.65 Al Masudi (915 ce) speaks of Barus as being famous for its lances
and shafts called Barusi.66 Al Idrisi (12th century) writes,
Baruh/Baruch is a large handsome town, well-built of bricks and

plaster. The inhabitants are rich and engaged in trade, and they
freely enter upon speculations and distant expeditions. It is a port
for the vessels coming from China as it is also for those of Sind. The
inhabitants had high ambitions, copious resources, solid wealth and
recognized trade. They were always interested in going out to foreign
countries.67
The port of Bhaṛukaccha resurfaces as a point of departure for long-

distance trade in the Moharājaparājaya, a drama written in Prākṛt by
Yasapāla during the time of Kumārapāla of the Caulukya dynasty (1144–
1174 ce).68 The context of the drama is the embracing of Jainism by
King Kumārapāla. We are told that Kubera, a wealthy merchant referred
to as nagara śreṣṭhī (chief merchant of the town) of Anahilapura, visited
Bharukaccha for trade in the company of fifty-five merchants with
500 ships (jaladhiyatrabhisandhanena bhṛgukaccha velākulam gataḥ
kubera śreṣṭhī). The text also speaks of other merchants of Anahila
purapattana. Interestingly, the ship used for the voyage is a pravahana,
which is a coastal vessel as suggested by Ranabir Chakravarti.69 The use
of pravahana shows that the port actively participated in the coastal
trading network of the western sea-board. The same text tells us that
kings used to appoint niryāmakas to salvage the ships wrecked off the
coast of Bharuch. This tallies well with the description in Periplus,
according to which the passage to Barygaza was difficult, as there
were rocks and shoals. Thus, the native fishermen in the king’s service
would be stationed at the very entrance to pilot vessels to Broach. The
practice described in the Periplus still continued in the 12th century
ce. It appears that Kubera śreṣṭhī undertook the coastal route from
Anahilapura to reach the port of Bharukaccha, and presumably went
further down along the Konkan coast for merchandise, or for high sea
voyages with sea-going watercrafts. Surprisingly, the merchant Kubera
from Anahilapura chose Bharukaccha instead of Khambat, a primary
port in the 12th century.70 This narrative reinforces the importance of
Bharuch as a Gujarati port, which had direct shipping linkages with
Aden. This linkage of Bharuch with Aden is evident from some business
letters of the Jewish merchants of the period from the 11th to the 13th

centuries.71 The letters also underscore the continuity of Bhaṛukaccha as

a port. These will be briefly discussed here.
From the Geniza records, a letter, A Successful Voyage of Joseph Lebdi
to Nahrwara, reported that Joseph Lebdi had safely arrived in Aydhab,
located on the western coast of the Red Sea, with 80 bales of lac and
other goods coming from Nahrwara in India.72 As mentioned earlier,
Nahrwara is identified with Anhalwara/Anahilapura and present Patan
in Gujarat. This was about nine times the quantity of lac he carried on
his previous voyage, when he bought nine bales, eight of which were
lost by shipwreck. Through which port did Joseph Lebdi sail back? The
Jewish merchant could have used either Khambat or Baruj. Considering
the reference to linkages with Baruj in the Geniza documents, the
probability is that the port of Bharuch was used. Moreover, Kubera’s
journey from Anahilapura to Bharuch indicates that this was the port
used by merchants travelling from Anahilapura.73 This town was thus
linked to Aydhab, situated on the west coast of the Red Sea. Anahilapura
was an impressive hinterland of the ports of the period. Ranabir
Chakravarti draws our attention to the presence of Nahrwara dirhems
in the context of a court document issued at Fustat, Old Cairo, which
informs us about a legal dispute between two Jewish India traders.74
The same Joseph Lebdi mentioned earlier is involved in the matter
happening in 1097–98 ce. It speaks of the sale of storax in Dahlak (a
port located in the southern tip of the Red Sea) for 40 Dahlak dinars,
equivalent to 10 Egyptian dinars; then the remainder of the storax was
taken to India by Joseph Lebdi. The remainder of storax was sold for
120 Nahrwara dirhems, worth about 8 Egyptian dinars. This shows the
importance of coined money named after Nahrwara (Anahilapura),
which entered in the currency zone of Red Sea ports to be exchanged
with or converted into Egyptian dinars.75 Thus, like the port of the Red
Sea which had a dinar to its name, an inland city Nahrwara gave its
name to the local dramma coins of the region.
Another Geniza document demonstrates the continuity of Broach as a
port during the 1100–1300 phase. Barus/Baruj is mentioned specifically
in a letter from 1139 written from Aden by Khalf b. Isaac to Abraham b.
Yiju. Among various information passed on to Yiju was news regarding
a shipwreck killing two young voyaging Jewish merchants, named Judah
and Harun, both sons of Musa, who journeyed to Broach. Their ship
was struck at the Khawar, or the shallow gulf. There is little doubt that
Broach was the intended destination of this ship sailing from Aden. The
content and context of the letter suggest that this was a direct voyage
from Aden to Broach. That piracy near Broach was a cause of distress
for the Jewish merchants is evident from two letters. One written from
Al Manjarur or Mangalore by Mahruz b. Jacob in 1145 ce speaks of

an attack of pirates suffered by Abu Zikri Kohen near the port of Tāna
(Thana), who eventually reached Broach safely. Abu Zikri Kohen was
urged to come to Mangalore following the coastal route by Mahruz b.
Jacob. So, the route would be from Barus/Broach to Thana. Ranabir
Chakravarti argues that this insistence on travelling from Tana does not
accord importance to Barus/Broach in the coastal shipping network.76
However, it could also imply the linkage between Broach, Kanbaya and
Tana. A similar incident of piracy near Broach figures in another letter
dated somewhere in 1145–49 ce. It was written by Madmun b. Hasan
from Aden to Abraham b. Yiju. It stated b. Yiju that the ship carrying
two types of iron faced attacks by pirates (al-surraq) who seized the ship
in the Fam al Khawr, identified with the Gulf of Broach. Whatever might
be the level of importance of the port of Barus/Broach, these letters
reinforce the active presence of the port.
This chapter will close with a recent study by Najaf Haider, commented
upon by Ranabir Chakravarti, on the Broach hoard, which had coins
datable from 1260 to 1382 ce.77 The hoard suggests that diverse types of
gold and silver currency travelled to Broach from the Persian Gulf and the
Red Sea lane. Gold coins from the Delhi Sultanate also reached Broach.
This might imply, as suggested by Chakravarti, that the coin hoard signifies
the revival of the long-distance overseas linkages of the port of Broach.
There was perhaps never a total disengagement with the port.
Conclusion
It appears that ports like Bharukaccha were active points of exchange

where long-distance merchants, craftspeople and providers of goods and
services converged in connection with the trade with the Eastern Roman
Empire. Extensive inland trade networks with circuits of itinerant
merchants and the availability of coins, both local and non-local in
plenty, jointly indicate a wide zone of economic activities and exchange.
It was a major point of convergence for many long-distance overland
routes and must have had arrangements for the receiving, storing and
shipping of goods, besides accommodating the caravans. All was not lost
after the decline of India’s trade with the eastern Roman empire. The
Jātaka references are indicative of the continuation of trading activities
from Bharukaccha in around the 3rd century, and the inscriptions from
Socotra suggest continuous movement from Bharukaccha to the west. Sri
Lanka was always a part of this network. Cosmas, who writes around the
6th century ce, is silent about Barygaza and speaks of the nearby Kalyan
as an important port. The scene changed between the 11th and 12th
centuries, when three different sources describe the vibrant character

of Bharuch as a port town. Recent discoveries of ceramic assemblages

of glazed ware and porcelain also indicate such an image. Thus, the
combined evidence of archaeology (though meagre at this level) and
different genres of textual evidence indicate that the historiography of
Barygaza/Bharukaccha/Bharuch should not be limited to the period of
1st–3rd centuries ce, or from around the 15th century, when Bharuch
featured prominently in different accounts. Between the 10th and 13th
centuries, in spite of its relegation as a secondary port, the port town of
Bharuch continued with spirit and vigour, and attracted both local and
foreign merchants to posit itself within the broader maritime setting of
the western Indian Ocean.
Notes
1 Rila Mukherjee (ed.). 2014. Vanguards of Globalization: Port Cities from

the Classical to the Modern. Delhi: Primus Books. See the ‘Introduction’,
1–22.
2 M.N. Pearson. 1985. ‘Littoral Society: The Case for the Coast’. The Great
Circle, 7(1): 1–8.
3 A variety of definitions of both the terms are given in a very interesting
essay published in 1941 by Eugene van Cleef, called ‘Hinterland and
Umland’. Many geographers refer ‘hinterland’ exclusively to ports. To
them, a considerable water frontage is not essential. On the other hand,
the ‘back country’ is emphasised, and the hinterland is delimited in
terms of the valley of the river on which the port is located, or even of the
drainage basin of the river. This area is sometimes identified as the ‘natural’
hinterland. Again, the hinterland is defined by some as the region readily
accessible from the port or as the terrain tributary to the port. Finally, the
limits of the hinterland can also be expressed in economic terms as the area
most of whose trade relations are with the port. There could be continuous
hinterland as well as discontinuous hinterland. ‘Umland’ appeared as early
as 1883 in the third edition of ‘Handworterbuch der deutschen Sprache’
by Daniel Sanders. Here its meaning is given as ‘das umliegendeland (all
the surrounding land)’. Umland was used by Andre Allixin the sense of
contiguous economic domain of a town; see Eugene van Cleef. 1941.
‘Hinterland and Umland’. Geographical Review, Vol. 31(2): 308–311;
Andre Allix. 1922. ‘The Geography of Fairs’. Geographical Review, Vol. I2:
532–569.
4 A.S. Gaur, Sundaresh and Sila Tripati. 2011. ‘Ancient Anchorage Systems
in India with Reference to the Gujarat Coast’. In Gujarat and the Sea,
edited by Lotika Varadarajan, 89–104. Vadodara: Darshak Itihas Nidhi
Publishers.
5 S.R. Rao. 1979. ‘Lothal: A Harappan Port Town (1955–62)’. In Memoirs of
the Archaeological Survey of India, Vol. 1(78).

6 Strabo. 1959–61. Geographikon. Translated by H.L. Jones. London and

Cambridge: Loeb Classical Library (Reprint).
7 Lionel Casson (ed. and trans.). 1989. The Periplus Maris Erythraei, Text
with Introduction, Translation and Commentary. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
8 Pliny. 1942. Naturalis Historia, 6.24. Translated by H. Rackham. London,
Cambridge, MA: William Heinemann.
9 Ranabir Chakravarti. 2015. ‘Examining the Hinterland and Foreland of
the Port of Muziris in the Wider Perspective of the Subcontinent: Long-
distance Networks’. In Imperial Rome, Indian Ocean Region and Muziris:
New Perspectives on Maritime Trade, edited by K.S. Mathew, 307–338. New
Delhi: Manohar.
10 Sara Keller. 2015. ‘Bharuch, the City-Fortress’. In Port Towns of Gujarat,
edited by Sara Keller and Michael Pearson, 213–229. Delhi: Primus Books.
11 A. Ghosh (ed.). 1959–60. Indian Archaeology—A Review, p. 19.
12 Grant Parker. 2009. The Making of Roman India. Cambridge: Cambridge
13 This was brought to my notice by Ranabir Chakravarti. I am thankful to
him. It is also suggested that the local people called it Bargacha and the
Greeks borrowed from this. See J.W. McCrindle. 1885. Ancient India As
Described by Ptolemy. London: Trubner, p. 154.
14 PME, Section 43.
15 Trapyaka ships are mentioned in B.N. Mukherjee. 1990. ‘Kharoṣṭī and
Kharoṣṭī-Brāhmī Inscriptions from West Bengal (India)’. Indian Museum
Bulletin. Vol. XXV(11).
16 McCrindle. Ptolemy, p. 152.
17 Realgar and antimony were also objects of import to the ports of Muziris
and Nelkynda (Section 56 of PME).
18 Grant Parker. 2009. The Making of Roman India. Cambridge: Cambridge
19 P. Bernard. 2005. ‘Hellenistic Arachosia: A Greek Melting Pot in Action’.
East and West, Vol. 1–4, p. 13.
20 Alexander Cunningham. 1863. ‘Charsada’. Annual Report of the
Archaeological Survey of India, vol. II. Calcutta: Archaeological Survey of
India, p. 89.
21 For details, see Casson, PME, 238–239.
22 Xinri Liu. 1998. Ancient India and Ancient China: Trade and Religious
Exchanges AD 1–600. Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 19; Suchandra
Ghosh. ‘Barbarikon in the Maritime Trade Network of Early India’. In
Vanguards of Globalization: Port Cities from the Classical to the Modern,
edited by Rila Mukherjee, 81–96. Delhi: Primus Books.
23 PME, Section 65.
24 M.R. Majumdar. 1960. Historical and Cultural Chronology of Gujarat.
Baroda: M.S. University of Baroda, p. 26.
25 Ranabir Chakravarti. 1986. Warfare for Wealth. Calcutta: Firma K.L.
Mukhopadhyay, 101.

26 The Nasik inscription of Nahapāna (c. 119–24 ce), which is the earliest
epigraph providing information related to Daśapura, mentions that
‘Ushavadāta, Dinika’s son, son-in-law of King Nahapāna, the Kshaharāta
Kshatrapa ... has given eight wives to Brahmanas at religious tirtha
(puṇyatīrthe) of Prabhāsa, who at Bharukachha, Daśapura, Govardhana
and Sorpāraga has given the shelter of quadrangular rest-houses…’
See D.C. Sircar. 1993. Select Inscriptions Bearing on Indian History and
Civilization; repr., vol. I. New Delhi: V.K. Publishing House, p. 168.
27 The inscription referred to the establishment of free ferries by boats on the
rivers Iba, Parada, Damana, Tāpi, Karabeṇā and Dāhanukā. See Sircar, p.
168.
28 O.H.K. Spate and A.T.A. Learmoth. 1967. India and Pakistan: A General
and Regional Geography. London: George Allen and Unwin, 624–625.
29 For the importance of the Malwa corridor, see Ashish Kumar’s unpublished
thesis Kings, Merchants and Forest Societies in the Mālava-Ḍāhala Region
(circa AD 400–800). Thesis submitted to Jawaharlal Nehru University for
the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 2015.
30 Federico de Romanis. 2012. ‘On Dachinabades and Limyrike in the
Periplus Maris Erythraei’. Topoi, Orient/Occident Anneé ́ Supple-11, 329–
340.
31 John Peter and Felicity C. Wild. 2014. ‘Berenike and Textile Trade in the
Indian Ocean’. In Textile Trade and Distribution in Antiquity edited by
Herausgegeben Von Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, 91–109 Wiesbaden: Verlag.
32 For a description of Sārthavāha, see Moti Chandra. 1977. Trade and Trade
Routes in Ancient India. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications (Reprint).
33 D.K. Chakraborti, 1995. The Archaeology of Ancient Indian Cities. Bombay:
34 PME, Section 36.
35 Jean Francois Salles. 2016. ‘Towards a Geography of the Harbours in the
Persian Gulf in Antiquity (Sixth Century BC–Sixth Century AD)’. In Ports
of the Ancient Indian Ocean, edited by in Marie Francoise Boussac, Jean
Francois Salles and Jean Baptiste Yon, pp. 137–161. New Delhi: Primus
Books; also see in this book Jean-Baptiste Yon, pp.. 125–136. ‘Ports of the
Indian Ocean, The Port of Spasinu Charax’.
36 Casson. PME, p. 276.
37 Stephen E. Sidebotham. 2011. Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice
Route. California: University of California Press.
38 The archaeological and documentary evidence suggest that Myos Hormos
played a major role in facilitating trade along the northern reaches of
the Red Sea coast, and its sister port, Berenike to the south, acted as the
departure points for exports from the Roman world. For Myos Hormos
see Peacock D. and Blue L. (eds). 2011. Myos Hormos–Quseir al-Qadim
Roman and Islamic Port on the Red Sea Coast. Volume 2: The finds from the
1999–2003 excavations. Southampton Monograph Series No. 6. Oxford:
Archaeopress.
39 Sidebotham. Berenike, pp.. 243–244.

40 J.P. Wild and F.C. Wild. 2004. ‘Rome and India: Early Roman Cotton
Textiles from Berenike, Red Sea Coast of Egypt’. In Textiles in Indian Ocean
Societies, edited by R. Barnes. London and New York: Taylor and Francis,
11–16.
41 Sidebotham. Berenike, pp. 243–244.
42 Rene T.J. Cappers. 2006. Roman Food Prints at Berenike, Archaeobotanical
Evidences of Subsistence and Trade in the Eastern Deserts of Egypt. Cotsen
Institute of Archaeology, University of California, 117–118.
43 PME, Section 49.
44 Cappers, 133; M.D. Kajale. 1991. ‘Current Status of Indian
Palaeoethnobotany: Introduced and Indigenous Food Plants with a
Discussion of the Historical and Evolutionary Development of Indian
Agriculture and Agricultural Systems in General’. In New Light on Early
Farming. Recent Developments in Palaeobotany, edited by Jane M. Renfrew,
155–189. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
45 Sidebotham, p. 234.
46 Ibid., p. 247.
47 Rajan Gurukkal. 2016. Rethinking Classical Indo-Roman Trade, Political
Economy of Eastern Mediterranean Exchange Relation. Delhi: Oxford
48 These records have been palaeographically assigned to the first five
centuries ce by Ingo Struach. 2012. Foreign Sailors on Socotra. Bremen:
Hempen Verlag.
49 Ranabir Chakravarti. 2016. Exploring Early India. Delhi: Primus Books.
50 Strauch, 2012.
51 McCrindle, 1885.
52 Hatab excavations were carried out by Subhra Pramanik.
53 Dev Kumar Jhanjh. 2020. ‘The Ābhiraka Coin: Search for a New Identity’. In
Art and History, Texts, Contexts and Visual Representations in Ancient and
Early Medieval India, edited by R. Mahalakshmi. New Delhi: Bloomsbury,
pp. 20–34. The Ābhiraka coin perhaps signalled the victory of the Ābhira
group over the Kṣaharāta.
54 Parumaka-Baruka[ca]ga-Malahaleṇesagaha; see S. Paranavitana. 1970.
No. 1183.
55 Junnar inscription.
p. 170. Laṅkā was a carpenter also.
57 Casson. PME, p. 277.
58 E.B. Cowell. ‘The Supparaka Jātaka (Jātaka no. 463)’. 2001. In The Jātaka or
Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births, edited by E.B. Cowell, 86–87. Delhi:
D.K. Publishers (reprint).
59 E.B. Cowell. 2001. ‘The Sussondi Jataka’ (Jātaka no. 360). In The Jātaka or
Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births, edited E.B. Cowell, pp. 123–124.
60 Cosmas Indicopleustes. 1897. Christian Topography of Cosma. London:
Hakluyt Society.
61 Xuanzang. Li Rongxi (trans.). 2016. The Great Tang Dynasty Record of the
Western Regions. America: BDK, 298.

62 D.C. Sircar. 1957–58. ‘Rashtrakuta Charters from Chinchani; Grant of the

time of Indra III, saka 848’. Epigraphia Indica, vol. XXXII: 45–55. For the
importance of these ports, see Ranabir Chakravarti. 2019. ‘A Subcontinent
in Enduring Ties with an Enclosed Ocean (c. 1000–1500 ce): South Asia’s
Maritime Profile “Before European Hegemony”’. Journal of Medieval World,
I (2): 27–56; Suchandra Ghosh and Durbar Sharma. ‘The Port of Sanjan/
Sindan in Early Medieval India: A Study of its Cosmopolitan Milieu’. In
Subversive Sovereigns Across the Seas, Indian Ocean Ports of Trade from Early
Historic Times to Late Colonialism, edited by K.R. Hall, Rila Mukherjee and
Suchandra Ghosh. Kolkata: The Asiatic Society, 67–88.
63 Makrand Mehta. 2015. Genesis and Growth of Khambat as a Port Town,
c. 600 to c. 1600 ce. In Port Towns of Gujarat, edited by Sara Keller and
Michael Pearson. Delhi: Primus Books, 123–137.
64 Henri Yule (ed. and trans.). 2010. The Book of Ser Marco Polo, Volume II.
Delhi: Pilgrims Book (revised), 385.
65 E. Sachau. 1992. Alberuni’s India. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.
66 S. Maqbul Ahmad. 1960. ‘Al Masudi on the Kings of India’. In Al Masudi
Millenary Commemoration Volume, edited by S. Maqbul Ahmad and A.
Rahman. Aligarh.
67 A. Maqbul. 1960. India and the Neighbouring Territories in the Kitab
Nuzhat al-Ushtaqfi’khtirāq al-‘afaq of al-Sharif al-Idrisi. Leiden: Brill, p. 58,
cited by Jean-Charles Ducène. 2016. ‘The Ports of the Western Coast of
India according to Arabic Geographers (Eighth-Fifteenth Centuries ad):
A Glimpse into Geography’. In Ports of the Ancient Indian Ocean edited
by Marie-Francoise Boussac, Jean Francois Salles and Jean-Baptiste Yon,
165–178. Delhi: Primus Books.
68 Muni Chaturavijayaji (ed.). 1918. Moharājaparājaya of Yasahpāla, with
an introduction by C.D. Dalal. Gaekwad’s Oriental Series, no. IX. Baroda:
Central Library.
69 Ranabir Chakravarti. ‘Coastal Trade and Voyages in Konkan: The Early
Medieval Scenario’. IESHR, XXXV, 97–124.
70 Suchandra Ghosh. 2018. ‘Anahilapura: Understanding Its Expansive
Network During the Time of the Chaulukyas’. Asian Review of World
Histories, Vol. 6, Leiden: Brill, pp. 236–245.
71 S.D. Goitein and Mordechai A. Friedman. 2008. India Traders of the
Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza (‘India Book’). Leiden: E.J.
Brill. These letters were recovered from a Jewish synagogue in Old Cairo
(Egypt). They allow us to enter the commercial and social network of the
Jewish merchants who were active in India during the later half of the
early medieval period. There are about 459 letters of these merchants who
participated in the Indian Ocean trade network.
72 Goitien and Friedman, p. 207.
73 Ghosh. 2018, p. 242.
74 Ranabir Chakravarti. 2020. ‘Gujarat’s Maritime Trade and Alternative
Moneys’. In Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society, edited by Ranabir
Chakravarti (third revised and enlarged edition). Delhi: Manohar, pp.
288–300.

75 Ibid.
76 Ibid.
77 Najaf Haider. 2007. ‘The Network of Monetary Exchange in the Indian
Ocean Trade 1200–1700’. In Cross Currents and Community Networks: The
History of the Indian Ocean World, edited by Himanshu Prabha Ray and
Edward Alpers. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 181–205.

15
READING THE MULTILAYERED MATERIAL

CULTURE THROUGH ARTEFACTS FROM HATHAB,
GUJARAT (4TH CENTURY bce TO
6TH CENTURY ce)
Krishnendu Ray
Several early Indian sites (up to 1300 ce) have been excavated, such as
Dholavira (Rann of Kutch, Gujarat),1 Sirpur (Chhattisgarh),2 Paharpur
(Bangladesh),3 Sisupalgarh (Odisha),4 Kāveripaṭṭinam (Tamil Nadu),5
Paṭṭanam (Kerala)6 and Kamrej (Gujarat).7 These sites have brought to
light various types of material objects like polished stone pillars, temple
buildings, iron clamps, locks, terracotta reliefs with socioeconomic
motifs, stone sculptures, knobbed ware, rouletted ware, bronze Buddha
images, amphorae, bricks, beads and shells. These artefacts are the results
of human skill and workmanship.8 This extends not only to material
artefacts, but also to beliefs, values and ideas,9 which are also created
and modified until they gain social acceptance. People have made, used
and modified these objects according to necessity10 in the course of life
through the ages. For example, people have made and modified the
plough11 so it can fulfil the purpose of affordably producing crops and
cultivating the land. Boats were built by applying techniques12 to solve
the problem of crossing a river or sea with articles. Historically, earlier,
Indians spatially located their material artefacts at Mathura, Chaul,
Sirpur or Chandraketugarh, for example, and conducted their lives at
these places, which then became the material setting for ‘relationships
and interactions’13 in the social space. At the same time, they established
emotional and subjective relationships with these areas.14 This is true
for both the interior as well as the coastal regions of early India.
People impart meanings to places through diverse artefactual activities
and achievements. Some of these places, however, have gained more
importance than others. Accordingly, some have become well-known
as urban centres, like Siyadoni (Lalitpur, Jhansi district, Madhya
Pradesh)or Tattanandapura (Ahar), some as centres of art activity, like
Gandhara (Peshawar and Rawalpindi districts, Pakistan) or Amarāvatī
392

Reading the Multilayered Material Culture 393
(Andhra Pradesh), some as sacred centres, like Somanātha (Gujarat)

or Kāśī (eastern Uttar Pradesh) and some as ports, like Nāgapaṭṭinam
(Tamil Nadu) or Bhṛgukaccha (Broach, Gujarat).
It has now been established that both the west and east coasts of India
have to be considered to understand the regional political powers in terms
of the theory of integrative polity and early Indian historical dynamics.15
Places like Mamallapuram, Nāgapaṭṭinam, Ārikāmeḍu, Korkai on the
east coast as well as Muziris, Chaul and Sanjan on the west coast have
witnessed significant human activities.16 These prominent areas have not
merely remained territorially bound spaces; they have been influenced
by human connections and non-human communications like routes,
overland and water. Thus, Mathura has become historically meaningful
through its interconnections with other places in early India, and beyond
the ages. This is also the case with Broach, which was mentioned in a
Geniza text.17 It is in this historical context that this chapter will consider
Hathab, geographically located (long. 72°E, lat. 21°N) in the district of
Bhavnagar in south-eastern Gujarat.
Hathab has brought a buried human habitation dated to the long
period from the 4th century bce to the 6th century ce to light. The
habitation is said to have developed through the three periods I, II and
III. Period I has been dated from the 4th–1st centuries bce, Period II
to the 1st–4th centuries ce and the Period III to the 5th–6th centuries
ce. We find the Period II to have been sub-divided as Period IIA,
Period IIB and Period IIC.18 These cultural sequences were probably
made according to the antiquities found from the site. The material
artefacts from the excavations at Hathab include Black ware, Coarse
Grey ware, Black Slipped ware, Red ware, copper bowls, a bronze-
made spouted pot, a seal reading Hastakavapra and burnt bricks (49
× 39 × 9 cm, Period I). It is possible that people began to use varying
types of wares such as Grey ware and Red ware of coarser types, along
with Red Polished ware and iron. These changes in the use of different
wares have probably been marked as Period IIA. Similarly, the use of a
brick-made structure supported by a rectangular brick (42 × 32 × 8 cm)
structure (3.50 × 4.40 cm) with post-holes found from the site seems
to have been underlined as Period IIB. They might have continued to
develop their knowledge of the use of the artefact, particularly the brick,
in making a well, as evidenced by the brick-made (48 × 31 × 7 cm)
twin wells (diameter 1.50m) within a certain complex, a pebble-based
mud-made wall complex with different chambers, Red Polished ware,
Rouletted ware, pieces of amphorae and shelled grains from one of the
wells. These have, therefore, been further marked as the Period IIC. The
people of Hathab appear to have gradually developed their knowledge
of artefactual use, as indicated by the discovery of gold, ivory, glass,

iron and stone, along with terracotta, beads and shell bangles. This
artefactual development has been marked as Period III.
Historiographical Position
Naturally, the artefactual activities of the people of Hathab have received

archaeological attention.19 A number of inscribed terracotta sealings
have provided scholars with insight about Hathab’s involvement in
maritime trading activities.20 The people of Hathab were not only
engaged in hunting and marine fishing, but also relied on goats and
cattle for their livelihood.21 Attempts have been made to introduce the
Periplus’s Astakapra in the light of the artefacts unearthed at the site of
Hathab.22 Along with these studies, the varied artefacts from Hathab and
their making indicate that there were different categories of people who
defined their culture materially according to their skills and capabilities.
This chapter aims to understand the multilayered material culture the
residents of Hathab developed through artefacts and land usage.
Material Culture
A brief introduction to material culture is in order at this juncture. It is

not difficult to understand that humans made artefacts they required,
and used them to carry out social activities according to their abilities,
requirements and expectations.23 They made these artefacts to satisfy
practical purposes24 related to living. The early Indians also made
diverse material objects with varying ‘size, shape, color, design, weight
and volume’25 to realise their goals. The artefacts from Hathab show
that people’s intelligence and beliefs affected the objects they made for
their culture. Seen from this angle, these artefacts are the visual signs
not only of the beliefs of the people of the local society of Hathab, but
also those of the people of the larger society26 to which the artefacts
might have belonged. This brief note on material culture may give
one the impression that the physical space of Hathab is ‘an outcome’
of the artefactual activities of the people of the place. In other words,
their social relations through these artefactual functions gradually
constituted the site. Thus, the making of Hathab, as a place through the
development of material culture, may be described as ‘a process’.27 To
do this successfully, the artefact had to be made functionally effective
enough to satisfy the wants of the people.28 This required both knowledge
and capabilities, which constituted the prime resource of the people of
Hathab, and enabled them to define the material objects mentioned

above. This might not have been an isolated phenomenon, and could
have been influenced by the knowledge and capabilities of the people of
the larger Indian subcontinent. They appear to have modified and used
the land residentially by constructing dwellings as at Harappa. They also
utilised it politically by establishing power centres, like the capital at
Pāṭaliputra. The land was used for the economy to produce agrarian and
non-agrarian products which were transported for consumption, as is
apparent from the Kauṭīlīya Arthaśāstra and Pāli canonical literature. It
was also utilised for religious purposes through the building of temples.
Thus, as they gained knowledge through centuries of experience, they
made the land functionally effective to fulfil their diverse purposes.
The Locational Significance of Hathab
Land was also used as a resource at Hathab. This trend seems to

have emerged from the patterns of both the overland and water
communications of Gujarat in general. We are told that Gujarat had
three overland outlets and one water outlet. One could reach the
Persian Gulf, Red Sea and the Mediterranean through one of the
ports of Gujarat, such as Broach, Cambay, Prabhas or Dwarka. Of
the overland roads, the northern route went through Palanpur and
beyond. The route through Dohad and Ratlam in the north-east
reached Mālwā, Central India and the Gaṅga Plains. The road from
Broach reached Ujjain, Vidiśā, Kauśāmbī (modern Kosam near
Allahabad), Pāṭaliputra (modern Patna, Bihar), Tāmralipti (modern
Tamluk, Midnapore district, West Bengal).In the south, the route
from Broach passed through the Narmada, Tapti, Surat, the west coast
to Kānherī and beyond.29 Thus, from the pre-Christian time, Gujarat
was well-connected to several interior places in early India and the
Mediterranean world through both the land and the sea routes. In this
context of the network of communication, it is not unlikely that both
the inland and sea transport connections also converged at Hathab,
from where articles and or people could be sent to the sea, and from the
sea to the interior points.30 The port of Hathab was situated on the bank
of a small river called Maleswari, which met the Gulf of Khambhat31 1.5
kilometre away to the north-east. Therefore, Hathab was also connected
to a navigable waterway to the Gulf. Due to this location, Hathab’s
geographical space was of interest to people, and it was provided with
other land transport lines. In this process, artefacts enabled human
interaction with surrounding physical environments. Thus, the artefact
served as an interface for people to effectively use their surrounding
physical space to satisfy their needs. Human relationship with material

objects is as old as the Mehrgarh period (7000 bce), whence people

had gradually come to know of making and using objects, including
pottery (Mehrgarh Phase II 4000 bce)32 for fulfilling their purposes.
The people enriched their knowledge by making potteries during the
Harappan period (2600–1800 bce), evinced by a number of utilitarian
artefacts like storage jars with cord impressions and decorated pots
from Gujarat.33 These century-old neighbouring pottery-making
traditions might have influenced and enabled the people of Hathab to
interact with their surrounding physical environment for the purpose
of catering to human needs.
Discussion
As previously discussed, people occupied the geographical space of

Hathab, and developed their habitation with artefactual achievements
across a long time span. To facilitate habitation, they established
society by ensuring interaction, cooperation, coordination and
accommodation34 through the networks of social relation. They had to
think of the surrounding sociocultural circumstances, or the ‘cultural
context’ of the artefacts.35 The different qualities of material artefacts like
coarse grey ware, black slipped ware sherds, black ware, as mentioned
above, show that the people evaluated the artefacts according to the
‘cultural context’. These object-based evaluative activities were their
social wealth,36 which enabled them to develop thoughts related to
the objects. This is probably why they created Red ware sherds with
decorations or fingertips. They also made a bronze pot with a spout37
in order to regulate the pouring of water. The Suśruta-Saṁhitā (early
Christian era) advised that water should be drunk in a vessel made of
copper, silver, bell metal/bronze, precious stones, an earthen goblet
or a golden bowl. The bowl was, therefore, made with the objective of
preserving human health, as the text records that contaminated water is
harmful for the human body.38 The inclusion of this phenomenon in the
text of the Suśruta-Saṁhitā indicates that the people were aware of the
importance of health. Context adds to the understanding of the meaning
of a phenomenon through the combination of the linguistic units of
sentences and/or words constituting a text.39 Thus, the textual message
from the Suśruta-Saṁhitā for the making of a healthy vessel reached
the people of Hathab in view of its spatial and overseas connections,
as stated above. That is probably why the concerned artisan made the
bronze pot, by designing it with a spout so as to facilitate the drinking
or pouring of water and, thus, provided the utilitarian service to the
user concerned. It may be noted that the coarse ware, black ware, black

slipped ware and red ware with fingertips were purposefully created40 to
cater to the needs of the people of the local society at Hathab. It may be
assumed that there were artisans with different skills in pottery-making
technology at Hathab. This assumption is supported by the spouted
pot made of bronze and copper bowls, and the burnt bricks mentioned
earlier. This shows that the artisans had acquired the requisite skills to
make metal objects and burnt bricks to satisfy the needs of the user as
the things were useful, usable and durable. The artisans appear to have
gradually enriched their mechanical/technical skills.
This is reflected in the potteries like Grey ware, Coarse Grey ware,
Rouletted ware sherds and decorated sherds from the excavations at
Hathab.41 The Rouletted ware sherds indicate that the concerned artisan
produced these table wares in response to the demands of the Egyptian
merchants.42 In other words, there might have been some especially
skilled artisans at Hathab, who produced items for export. The artisans
who produced the Red Polished ware (RPW) used well-levigated clay
fired at a high temperature to make the artefacts sturdy. Common
RPW forms like jars and bowls found at different sites like Aledhar,
Amreli, Umbari and Una influenced the production of these objects at
Hathab, which were used for practical purposes.43 In connection with
the production of the RPW shapes, our attention has been drawn to
oval pits at Hathab, which might have been used as hearths, as ash and
burnt earth have been found.44 Besides making the RPW objects, some
people were also engaged in iron-working. This is signified by several
iron objects such as nails, chisels, sickles, axes and knives found from
Hathab. It is significant to note that each of the items have types. Thus,
the nails have Type A featuring rounded heads, Type B carrying angular
heads tapering towards the point and Type C bearing wedge-shapes and
square heads. The chisels also have several types, such as rectangular
bar or bar metal with a square section. The knives are straight, single-
edge or straight-edged. The sickle has a curved blade and the axe is
socketed.45 At a distance of 3 kilometres away from Hathab, at a place
called Khadsliya, iron slags of different shapes have been found. It
is said that these iron slags were used to make iron wares.46 It is not
difficult to understand that the ironsmith designed the iron metal so
that the users/consumers could effectively use it to solve their problems.
The iron worker made these iron artefacts in response to the demands
of the overseas consumer. This may be supported by the significant
evidence from the Periplus Maris Erythraei (c. 1st century ce).
According to the text,47 axes, knives and adzes were imported to Malao
(Berbera in Somalia).48 We also find that iron ware was imported to
Mosyllon (possibly nearer Mundu) and possibly to Mundu (in northern
Somalia).49 In this context, we are told that Indian iron and steel were

also imported: iron was imported from India because of its finer grade.
This finer quality iron was needed for the making of spears and such.50
These overseas lands provided markets, which might have boosted the
iron workers at Hathab, who accordingly manufactured the iron goods
mentioned above for exporting to the overseas user. Excavations have
unearthed hearths in which streaks of charcoal and ash have been
noticed. Even artefacts like shell pieces were found scattered in the area
surrounding the furnaces. This shows that there were skilled artesans
who made shell objects for the consumer at Hathab or beyond.51
The purpose of packaging artefacts to be carried across the sea
was served well by the specially designed artefact called the amphora,
which had a number of varieties.52 At Hathab, our attention has been
drawn to some amphora sherds from the Mediterranean world.53 An
amphora is essentially a jar which was designed with two handles, a
bottle-shape, a fat body for storage, a narrow neck for secure closure
and a pointed/narrow base. Of these characteristics, the handles and
pointed base made the amphora artefact ergonomically efficient, so
that it could be rolled by gripping the handles. Thus, it was a useful
package for carrying liquids like wine, oil54 or other things. The
availability of the amphora sherds at Hathab may indicate that some
persons were engaged in packaging goods in bulk amounts for the
purpose of trade with the place. Therefore, it may be assumed that
Hathab was in the network of trade in the western Indian Ocean in
the early Christian era. But we do not know the names of the persons
involved in the trading activities across the ocean.
In this connection, we are provided with a number of inscribed
terracotta seals found from the excavations at Hathab. The published
readings of the seals are Varmasya, Mitra (sa), Devilasya and
Buddhamitra (sya). These are probably individual names.55 If the
readings are accepted, then the individuals appear to have been
mentioned in the genitive case (of the person). We have seen that
iron was exported to northern Somalian areas. At this point, it is
significant to note that, recently, several inscriptions and drawings have
been found from the Cave Haq at Socotra Island56 (45° long. E and
15° lat. S) off the north-east coast of Somalia. According to Strauch,
193 inscriptions of the Socotra epigraphic corpus are concerned with
visitors from western India. These Indian epigraphic records are in
Brāhmī (192 inscriptions) and Kharoṣṭī (1 epigraph) scripts and dated
to the period from the ce 2nd to the early 5th or 6th centuries.57 Some
of the individual names occurring on the Hathab seals may seem to
be the same as in the Indian inscriptional texts referring to ‘personal
names’ from the Haq cave, such as Varma, Devila, Buddhamitra and
Mitrasya.58 People from Hathab probably went to Socotra. Besides the

names, we have also some significant drawings from the Haq cave. These
drawings concerning the Indian visitors, according to Strauch, include
five triśūlas (tridents), three ships, three symbols (unidentified), two
nandyāvartas, two stūpas, one pūrṇaghaṭa (filled up pot), one svastikā
and one wheel.59 In addition to Indians, people from Ethiopia, Palmyra,
Egypt and South Arabia went to Socotra, stayed there and visited the
cave Haq. According to the Periplus Maris Erythraei, Indians, Arabians
and Greeks went to the island to trade. The island yielded tortoise shell.
This textual statement about the presence of these mixed peoples in
Socotra is now epigraphically confirmed.60 The seamen might have gone
to Socotra in December–January by using the north-east monsoon and
came back in May–June as the southwest monsoon in June–August was
very dangerous for sailing across the ocean; although recommended
by the Periplus as ‘absolutely favourable and shorter’.61 The southwest
monsoonal impact on the return journey across the ocean may explain
why the visitors, including the Indians, stayed at Socotra. Humans
associate sacred symbols or objects with prosperity and as defences
against fears and dangers. Even today, people worship objects such as
idols or scales for safety and wealth. The Indian visitors to Socotra were
no exception. They drew the symbols they considered as sacred for a
safe return from their overseas journey and for prosperity.62
However, the religious association of the Indian seamen in Socotra
might have been materially formed and expressed at Hathab. The
excavations at Hathab have brought to light a brick-made (45 × 37 × 7 cm)
and semi-circular Chaitya-shaped step-well, having 9.5 m height and
5.7 m diameter. The well could be entered through a stepped path that
reached a platform from where the two narrow paths along the side
walls descended like a ‘coil of snake’.63 The descending of the two paths
in the shape of the coil of a snake may lead one to assume that the well
was constructed by the skilled artesan in honour of the god Viṣṇu.
According to the Viṣṇusmṛiti, the lord Viṣṇu was on the Śeṣa serpent
in the milk-ocean.64 In other words, Viṣṇu’s association with the ocean
was traditionally conceived of. From this point of view, people who
interacted with the sea might have dug up the well at Hathab according
to the traditional conception of Viṣṇu’s dwelling on the Śeṣa serpent
in the ocean. Besides this stepped well, we have also twin wells made
of wedge-shaped burnt brick within the complex as mentioned above.
Evidently, the artesan concerned had acquired the requisite skill to
make a brick in the shape of a wedge.
Therefore, it may be assumed that there were different categories
of artisans at Hathab. They materially developed their culture
according to their skills and capabilities to satisfy the needs of
people. The potential of the site might have attracted the attention

of the Maitraka ruling authority (ce 468–788). A few epigraphic

records of the ruling dynasty point to the fact that attempts were
made to keep Hastakavapra or Hathab under royal control. Thus,
the Bahmodra Mohota plate of Droṇasiṁha (ce 502) records the
village grant for a religious cult in Hastakavapra-āharaṇī.65 The
third ruler of the Maitraka dynasty, Dhruvasena I (525–44 ce),
granted lands to a Brāhmaṇa for the maintenance of the donee’s
sacrificial rites and rituals in Hastavapra-āharaṇī.66 The same king
settled another Brāhmaṇa named Viṣṇuśarman with some land in
Hastakavapra-āharaṇī.67 Dhruvasena I also settled two Brāhmaṇas,
namely, Viśvadatta and Vasudatta, for the maintenance of the donee’s
sacrificial rites in Hastakavapra-āharaṇī.68 It appears that the Maitraka
kings, particularly Dhruvasena I, strengthened their royal power and
authority through the land-grantees in Hastakavapra or Hathab and
they incorporated Hastakavapra as a unit of their administration.69
Conclusion
This discussion may be closed with a few observations. The

physiographic features of the site of Hathab facilitated the people
to realise their aims and expectations. The residents established
relationships with the place through their activities individually as
well as collectively, according to their multilayered skills, capabilities
and capacities. Hathab was not merely a small place; it was an active
part of the larger whole that incorporated not only the interior lands,
but also the overseas lands. The people of Hathab, according to their
respective capabilities, endeavoured to feel this whole through their
artefact-making experiences. The location and locale70 of Hathab and
the active involvement of the people of the place gradually developed
a spatial sense of belonging. This sense of belonging in turn led them
to develop a sense of attachment, as reflected in the typically made
stepped well. Thus, they developed an attachment not only to the
artefacts, but also to other people whose needs they served individually
or collectively. The material culture they developed enabled them to
change the geographical space into the meaningful place71 of Hathab.
Thus, the meanings they attached to the place encouraged them to
significantly build their habitation over a long time. Studying the
multilayered material culture of a people of a particular place may,
therefore, become a worthwhile agenda of historical, particularly
early Indian historical research.

Notes
1 Dilip K. Chakrabarti. 2007. India an Archaeological History Palaeolithic

Beginnings to Early Historic Foundations, Second impression. New Delhi:
2 A.K. Sharma. 2007. Excavations at Sirpur Chhattisgarh, Special Report No.
1. New Delhi: Indian Archaeological Society.
3 Swadhin Sen and Md Safiqul Alam. ‘Paharpur’. In History of Bangladesh
Early Bengal in Regional Perspectives (up to c. 1200 ce), edited by Abdul
Momin Chowdhury and Ranabir Chakravarti, Vol. 1: 351–376. Dhaka:
Asiatic Society of Bangladesh; K.N. Dikshit. 1999. Excavations at Paharpur,
Bengal. Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India. No. 55. New Delhi:
Archaeological Survey of India.
4 Rabindra Kumar Mohanty and Monika L. Smith. 2008. Excavations at
Sisupalgarh. Special Report No. 2. New Delhi: Indian Archaeological
Society.
5 K.V. Soundararajan. 1994. Kaveripattinam Excavations 1963–73 (A Port
City on the Tamil Nadu Coast). New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India.
6 P.J. Cherian. 2011. Report of the Fifth Season Excavation at Pattanam
(Hereafter Excavation at Pattanam). Trivandram: Kerala Council for
Historical Research.
7 S.P. Gupta et al. 2004. ‘On the Fast Track of the Periplus: Excavations at
Kamrej—2003’. Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology, 1: 9–33.
8 Ken Friedman. 2007. ‘Behavioral Artifacts: What Is an Artifact? Or Who
Does It?’. Artifact 1: 6.
9 Jules David Prown. 1982. ‘Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material
Culture Theory and Method’. Winterthur Portfolio, 17. No. 1: 1. Available
at http//www.jstor.org.
10 Eric Katz. 1993. ‘Artefacts and Functions: A Note on the Value of
Nature’. Environmental Values, Vol. 2: 223–232. Available at http//www.
environmentandsociety.org/node/5496.
11 Don Norman. 2013. The Design of Everyday Things, Revised and Expanded
Edition. New York: Basic Books, pp. 10–11.
12 V. Selvakumar. 2011. ‘Contacts between India and Southeast Asia in
Ceramic and Boat Building Traditions’. In Early Interactions between
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by Pierre-Yves Manguin, A Mani, Geoff Wade. Singapore: Institute of
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13 Ranabir Chakravarti. 2009. ‘Relationships and Interactions in the Economic
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Chattopadhyaya. Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, pp. 129–56.
14 Tim Cresswell. 2015. Place an Introduction (hereafter Place), Second
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15 Ranabir Chakravarti. 2020. The Pull towards the Coast and Other Essays the
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16 R. Champakalakshmi. 1996. Trade, Ideology and Urbanization South India

300 BC to AD 1300.Delhi: Oxford University Press; Ranabir Chakravarti.
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the Hinterland and Foreland of the Port of Muziris in the Wider Perspective
of the Subcontinent’s Long-distance Networks’. In Imperial Rome, Indian
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K.S. Mathew, 307–338. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers & Distributors;
Hermann Kulke et al. (eds). 2010. Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa
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17 S.D. Goitein. 1973. Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders. Princeton: Princeton
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18 Shubhra Pramanik. 2004. ‘Hathab: An Early Historic Port on the Gulf of
Khambhat’. Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology, Vol. 1: 136–137.
19 Shubhra Pramanik. ‘Hathab’. JIOA: 133–140.
20 Shubhra Pramanik. 2005. ‘Navigational Sealings of Early Historic Vanij
(Merchants) at Hathab, Gujarat’. JIOA, no. 2: 107–109.
21 Arati Deshpande-Mukherjee et al. ‘Early Historic Livestock, Herding
and Marine Fisheries: Evidence from Hathab on the Bhavnagar Coast of
Gujarat’. In Rethinking the Past: A Tribute to Professor V.N. Misra, edited by
S.G. Deo, Andre Baptista and Jayendra Joglekar. Pune: ISPQS, p. 193.
22 Krishnendu Ray. 2013. ‘Revisiting the Periplus Maris Erythrae’s Astakapra
in the Light of Recent Archaeological Discoveries in Gujarat (c. 4th
Century bce—c. 6th Century ce)—A Preliminary Attempt’. In Revisiting
Early India Essays in Honour of D.C. Sircar, edited by Suchandra Ghosh et
al. Kolkata: R.N. Bhattacharya, pp. 73–84.
23 Ian Woodward. 2007. Understanding Material Culture. London: Sage
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24 Ken Friedman. ‘Behavioral Artifacts’, p. 7.
25 Richard Grassby. 2005. ‘Material Culture and Cultural History’. The Journal
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26 Jules David Prown. ‘Mind in Matter’, pp. 1–2.
27 L.A. Staeheli. 2003. ‘Place’. In A Companion to Political Geography, edited by
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28 Thomas R. De. Gregory. 1987. ‘Resources Are Not; They Become: An
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29 Hasmukh D. Sankalia. 1941. The Archaeology of Gujarat (Including
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1967. Social and Rural Economy of Northern India. Calcutta: Firma K.L.
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30 Guido G. Weigned. 1958. ‘Some Elements in the Study of Port Geography’.
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31 Shubhra Pramanik. ‘Hathab’. JIOA: 133–134.
32 Ranabir Chakravarti. 2017. Exploring Early India up to c. ad 1300, Third
Edition, Reprinted. Delhi: Primus Books, pp. 13–15.
33 Ibid., 26; Dilip K. Chakrabarti. 2003. India an Archaeological History
Palaeolithic Beginnings to Early Historic Foundations, Second impression.
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 186.
34 Kar Parimal Bhushan. 1988. Samājtatta (Sociology) (in Bengali).
Fifth edition. Calcutta: West Bengal State Book Board, pp. 118–122;
Whitham Monica M. 2012. ‘Community Connections: Social Capital and
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Forum, 27, no. 2:454. Available at http://www.jstor.org.
35 Magnus Johansson. 2003. Designing with Culture in Mind. Goteborg: IT
University of Goteborg, p. 2.
36 Whitham Monica M. ‘Community Connections’, pp. 442–443.
37 Shubhra Pramanik. ‘Hathab’. JIOA: 136.
38 Lal Bhisagaratna Kaviraj Kunja. 1907. The Sushruta Samhita, Vol. I,
Sūtrasthānam. Calcutta: Wilkins Press, p. 423.
39 Ibid.; Shen Lihong. 2012. ‘Context and Text’. Theory and Practice in
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40 Xuesong Wu. 2017. ‘The Social Purpose of Design Activity’. The Design
Journal, 20, no. 1:s3578. Available at www.tandfonline.com.
42 Roberta Tombar. 2000. ‘Indo-roman trade: The ceramic evidence from
Egypt’. Antiquity, 74: 626, 629–630.
43 Nancy Pinto Orton. 1992. ‘Red Polished Ware in Gujarat: A Catalogue of
Twelve Sites’. In Rome and India: The Ancient Sea Trade, edited by Vimala
Begley and Richard Daniel De Puma. Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp.
46–48, 51ff; A. Ghosh (ed.). 1989. An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology,
Vol. 1. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd, p. 259.
44 Shubhra Pramanik. ‘Hathab.’ JIOA: 137.
45 R.N. Kumaran et al. 2003–04. ‘Iron Objects from Hathab’. Puratattva, 34,
91–93.
46 Ibid., p. 93.
47 Lionel Casson. 1989. Periplus Maris Erythraei: Text with Introduction and
Commentary (hereafter Periplus). Princeton: Princeton University Press,
p. 53.
48 Eivind, Heldaas, Seland. 2016. ‘The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: A
Network Approach’. Asian Review of World Histories, 4, no. 2: 195.
49 Lionel Casson. Periplus, pp. 16, 126.
50 Ibid., pp. 28, 53–55.

52 Roberta Tomber. 2008. Indo-Roman Trade from Pots to Pepper. London:

Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd, pp. 39–40, 126–127, 165–166. In connection
with the Roman amphora the torpedo jar is also met with (ibid., p. 167).
54 Diana Twede. 2002. ‘Commercial Amphoras: The Earliest Consumer
Packages?’ Journal of Macromarketing, 22, no. 1:98–100 (DOI:
10.1177/027467022001009).
55 Shubhra Pramanik. 2005. ‘Navigational Sealings of Early Historic Vanij
(Merchants) at Hathab, Gujarat’. JIOA, 2:107–108.
56 Strauch Ingo. 2012. Foreign Sailors on Socotra the Inscriptions and Drawings
from the Cave Haq (hereafter, Foreign Sailors). Bremen: Hempen Verlag.
57 Ibid., pp. 30, 540.
58 Ibid., pp. 266, 271, 273, 281–284.
59 Ibid., p. 30.
60 Lionel Casson. Periplus, pp. 67–69; Strauch Ingo. Foreign Sailors, p. 543.
61 Ibid.; Lionel Casson, Periplus, pp. 75, 283.
62 This trend is also seen, though later (9th–14th centuries), in the south
Indian merchant guilds. The symbols on the inscribed slabs related to
the south Indian merchant guilds are Durgā, water pot, ploughshare,
umbrella, dagger, basket, elephant, etc. The people considered these
symbols as ritually important. Thus, their association with the deity, the
warrior community and the artisan is socially significant to note. (S.
Rajagopal. 2002. ‘Symbols on the Inscribed Stones of the Merchant Guilds’.
In Ancient and Medieval Commercial Activities in Indian Ocean: Testimony
of Inscriptions and Ceramic-sherds, edited by Noboru Karashima. Tokyo:
Taisho University, pp. 101–106. I am thankful to Mr Manikandan of
Mysore ASI office for giving me this important information.)
64 Julius Jolly. 1995. The Sacred Books of the East, The Institute of Vishnu, Vol
VII, First LPP. Reprint. Delhi: Low Price Publications, 7 (I. 39, 40).
65 Lionel D. Barnett. ‘Bahmodra Mohota Plate of Dronasimha: The Year 183’,
Epigraphia Indica (hereafter EI), XVI, no. 4 (1921–22/1983) 18, text-line 3.
66 V.S. Sukthankar. ‘Bhavnagar Plates of Dhruvasena I: [Valabhi]-Samvat210’,
EI, XV, no. 12 (1919–20/1982) 256–257, text-line 13.
67 Sten Konow. ‘Palitana Plates of Dhruvasena I; [Valabhi]-Saṁvat210’, EI,
XI, no.9 (II) (1911–12/1981) 109, 111, text-line 16.
68 Madho Sarup Vats. ‘An Unpublished Grant of Dhruvasena I’, EI, XIX, no.
55 (1927–28/1983) 303–304, text-line 14.
69 H.G. Shastri. 2000. Gujarat under the Maitrakas of Valabhī. Vadodara:
Oriental Institute, 2000161.
70 Tim Cresswell. Place, p. 12.
71 Mina Najafi and Mustafa Kamal Bin Mohd Shariff. 2011. ‘The Concept of
Place and Sense of Place in Architectural Studies’. International Journal of
Humanities and Social Sciences, 5, no. 8:1054ff. (https://publications.waset.
org › the-concept-of-place-an...)

16
CONTEXTUALISING SAMATAṬA–HARIKELA IN
THEIR POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SCENARIO
AND EXCHANGE RELATIONS WITH KĀMARŪPA
AND CHINA
Priyam Barooah
This work will enquire into the emerging socioeconomic and political
patterns of Samataṭa, a sub-region of early Bengal, and contextualise
Samataṭa and Harikela in the itineraries of economic exchanges and
geographical connectivity in the first millennium ce. Samataṭa and
Harikela represent the large spatial segment to the east of Meghna and
were two separate kingdoms with overlapping boundaries. Samataṭa is
located on the eastern margins of Bengal, and included the hilly region
east of the Meghna River in the south-eastern delta, corresponding to
modern Comilla, Noakhaliand Chittagong. Harikela referred to the
delta’s north-eastern hinterland, including modern Mymensingh and
Sylhet. Thus, the trans-Meghna region represents the present territories
of Noakhali, Comilla, Chattagram in Bangladesh, and Tripura in India
and was known in earliertimes as the Samataṭa–Harikela region.1 This
present work will study economic exchanges with special emphasis on
the procurement of gold (which was non-indigenous to the delta), in the
early historical period of Bengal. Further, it will look into the possibilities
of the network of linkages between Samataṭa and Kāmarūpa (as
indicated by the contemporary literary—both indigenous and foreign—
archaeological, epigraphic and numismatic sources) and beyond the
latter, towards China via Myanmar. Early Assam was generally known
as Kāmarūpa in epigraphic and textual documents, though we also
have references to Prāgjyotiṣa as denoting the Assam region.2 In the
4th century ce, Kāmarūpa was represented as a Pratyanta state in the
Allahabad Praśasti of Samudragupta3 along with Samataṭa. Kāmarūpa
features in the Nidhanpur and Dubi Copper Plates of Bhāskaravarman4
and we learn that Puṣyavarman, the first historical ruler of Kāmarūpa,
can be placed around ce 350 or little before that. With little fluctuations
in the political boundary of Kāmarūpa, it mostly ‘denoted the area lying
405

on both the upper and lower banks of the Brahmaputra and also the
surrounding hilly areas’.5
The network of linkages between Samataṭa and Kāmarūpa must
have been used for the procurement of gold in the early historical
period, as gold was not locally available in abundance in the delta.
This chapter will also look into the possibilities of linkages through
overland connections between Samataṭa and China via Assam and
Burma. The route moving southwards from Assam through Samataṭa
to the sea port of Chittagong played a significant role in this regard.
Nicholas Rhodes6 suggested that Samataṭa’s access to gold may have
been from Tibet, Kāmarūpa, via Assam, or via Nepal. Kāmarūpa is
a more probable source for Samataṭa’s procurement of gold as it was
strategically located intermediately between Samataṭa and China.
Another issue, closely associated with the central theme of the chapter,
is the socioeconomic process that constituted the quotidian experience
of the spatio-temporal context. The procurement of the precious
metal must have been accompanied by trade in other commodities as
well. Economic exchanges, as essential constituents of the everyday,
undoubtedly influence socio-politico-economic organisation, family
and kinship, techniques of production, rituals and rites, arts and crafts,
cooking and dietary patterns, housing, modes of communication,
dressings, festivities and ceremonies, technological applications and
tools. Economic exchanges also immensely shape the technological
knowhow, knowledge base, socioeconomic organisation, relations of
production and material artefacts. These aspects are definitely part of
the social process embedded in the materiality of human experience.
Regional culture assumes a recognisably distinct shape and pattern
through different levels of interaction and integration with other
regions. Bengal’s strategic location between the mid-Gangetic plains and
the Brahmaputra valley provides regular access to the Gangetic basin in
the west and the north-eastern part of India in the east. Moreover, the
Ganga delta, which opens out to the Bay of Bengal is the only outlet of
the land-locked Gangetic Valley to the sea.7 Bengal’s strategic location
and physiography make it extremely communicable: overland, riverine
and marine. The most significant rivers of the delta are Brahmaputra,
Ganga and Meghna–Surma, though there are numerous other rivers
and rivulets. These rivers flow towards the south to the sea. The delta
is also marked by the inter-braiding of the tributary system of the
Ganges and other significant rivers. Bengal is primarily a riverine
region. The Ganga is the principal river of Bengal, and enters the delta
through the north-west of the Rajmahal hills. The Ganga flows in two
courses through Bengal: the Padma, running from the east to the south,
and the Bhagirathi, running straight in the southern direction. The

Contextualising Samataṭa–Harikela 407
Brahmaputra, which flows through the north-east and eastern areas, is

a significant river, as is the Meghna, which flows primarily through East
Bengal. The important rivers of north Bengal are Teesta and Karatoya.
The courses of the rivers—Bhagirathi, Ganga, Padma, Karatoya and
Meghna—roughly constitute their boundaries,8 thus, acting as arteries
of communication and ensuring a certain degree of interaction among
them. Bengal’s eastern perimetre is formed by the Tippera surface,
which lies at the eastern edge of the flood plains of the Meghna and
Padma.9 Thus, the principal parts of Bengal were constituted by four
main historical subdivisions of the region. The four subdivisions are
Puṇḍravardhana or Varendra, Rāḍha, Vaṅga and Samataṭa. These four
subdivisions never experienced political unification under a single
political authority and witnessed uneven political developments.10
Puṇḍravardhana corresponded to the northern part of the delta and
later came to be known as the Varendra region. It was situated in the
north-western part of the delta, which is north of the Padma river and
comprised of the territories which are now the districts of Malda, Pabna,
Rajshahi, Bogra, Dinajpur and Rangpur. Puṇḍravardhana offered an
overland connection with the mid-Gangetic valley through the Rajmahal
gap. It caused the earliest advent of the NBPW in the Puṇḍravardhana
region in the Bengal delta along the traits of urbanism in the 4th–3rd
centuries bce. Another important evidence of this cultural inflow to the
deltaic Bengal from the mid-Gangetic valley is the Mahasthan Stone
Inscription.11 The sub-region of Vaṅga, geographically demarking the
southern part of Bengal, represented the proper deltaic part of the lower
Gangetic Valley. The Rāḍha area lies in upland West Bengal and is a
semi-arid terrain, situated at the eastern fringe of the Chota Nagpur
Plateau and the Rajmahal hills. Rāḍha, unlike Vaṅga and Samataṭa,
continued to experience an urban society and its various concomitant
features in the form of trade—both short-distance and long-distance—
circulation of money and art diversification, particularly a flourishing
terracotta art tradition for the next three centuries (ce 300–600). By
the early 4th century ce, Samudragupta had already encountered
Candravarman of Puṣkaraṇa during his victorious campaign against
the rulers of Āryavarta (in the present-day Bankura district in West
Bengal).12 Significantly, Gopacandra’s political centre was located at
Vardhamanapura at Rāḍha, with firm control over the Vaṅga region
and the Daṇḍabhukti region in the south-western part of Rāḍha.13
Gopacandra could have been a forerunner of Śaśāṅka (c. ce 600–637),
who integrated Gauḍa, Rāḍha and Vaṅga regions for the first time and
extended his authority up to the Ganjam district of Odisha. These six
crucial centuries, c. 300 bce–ce 300, helped Rāḍha gain prominence in
the 4th century ce to the end of the 6 thcentury ce. Puṇḍravardhana

and Rāḍha were characterised by old alluvium and mature deltas, while
Vaṅga and Samataṭa had active deltas. The relative ease of reclamation
and the proximity to the mid-Ganga heartland contributed to the early
development of the former sub-regions, while the latter also facilitated
the early establishment of the administrative apparatus and urban
settlements.14
While Samataṭa was located on the eastern margins of the delta,
Harikela constituted the north-eastern hinterland of the delta. The
Śrīhaṭṭa and Harikela sub-regions were located on its northern and
southern fringes respectively. Śrīhaṭṭa corresponds to the depression
called Haor basin in the present Sylhet division of Bangladesh, and
Harikela corresponds to the coastal regions of the present Chittagong
district, Bangladesh.15 Geographically, the sub-region is a lowland,
consisting of a delta and floodplains made by the activities of the rivers
of Surma and Meghna and the Tippera surface, with the low hill range of
Lalmai at its eastern end.16 The inscriptions and coins discovered from
the area around Lalmai indicate that it was known as Pattikera from the
8th century ce. The narrative of Hiuen Tsang (ce 629–645) is helpful in
locating Samataṭa. It is stated in the narrative that the Chinese traveller
proceeded from Kāmarūpa southwards and, after a journey of 1,200 or
1,300 li (6 li = l mile), reached the country of Samataṭa, and that this
country on the sea side was low and moist, and was more than 3,000 li
in circuit.17 From Samataṭa, the pilgrim journeyed west for over 900 li
and reached Tan-mo-lih-ti, which was decidedly Tāmralipti, modern
Tamluk in Midnapur district. The Meghna constituted the boundary
between Samataṭa and Vaṅga.18
The earliest reference to Samataṭa is found in the Allahabad Pillar
Inscription of Samudragupta (ce 340–376) where it is mentioned as a
frontier state (Pratyanta-raja) along with Davaka, Kāmarūpa, Nepala
and Karttrapura.19 The Bṛhatsaṁhitā (6th century ce) of Varāhimihira
distinguishes it from Vaṅga.20 Samataṭa, as already mentioned, was
referred to by Hiuen Tsang (ce 629–645), and also by I-tsing (ce
673–685). Samataṭa is also mentioned in the Kailān Copper Plate
Inscription21 of Śrīdharaṇarāṭa of the Rāṭa Dynasty. The Copper Plate
grant of Bhavadeva found at Devaparvata22 suggests that the capital
of Samataṭa was Devaparvata on the banks of the river Kṣīroda.23
Devaparvata is identified with the ruins lying on the southern end of
the Lalmai–Mainamati hills.24
The sub-region of Samataṭa was, thus, located on the south-eastern
margins of the delta, and was relatively less developed and settled than
Puṇḍra or Rāḍha, as this area was an active delta. This delineation
shows that sedentary agriculture and agrarian societies developed
earlier,and the proliferation of agrarian settlements became visible due

to the grants of landed property to groups of Brāhmaṇas or Buddhist

monasteries, recorded in the various copper plate inscriptions. This
process continued unabated in the following period, from the 7th to the
9th century ce.25 And it is not before the 6th century ce that Samataṭa
witnessed a complex state-based society.
The existence of coins denotes a complex politico-legal and economic
organisation. However, it is still an overestimation to establish a direct
correlation between minted coin and royal power. The presence of
money economy is a part of other variables that can be decidedly
considered to be the traits of an urban centre, particularly trade-related
activities. Of the various types of exchanges of the pre-industrial society,
trade is comparatively a more complicated activity.
Samudragupta reduced Samataṭa to the status of a tributary polity.
By the end of the 6th century ce, the area of Samataṭa appears to have
been ruled by the king Vainyagupta, which shows for the first time
the spread of the Gupta authority to the eastern part of the delta. The
Gunaighar Copper Plate Inscription shows that Samataṭa experienced
a monarchical state-system by the 6th century ce.26 However, some
political powers could extend their influence over the other sub-
regions. Consequently, at certain points in time, terms like ‘Gaụda’
and ‘Vaṅga’ connoted wider territories, including more than one
geographical segment of early Bengal. From this background, Samataṭa
took a recognisably distinct identity in terms of settlements and the
subsequent growth of a major centre of power in the form of a complex
politico-legal organisation like the state. The state became more
elaborate and economic activities intensified in the next three centuries,
as attested by contemporary epigraphic evidences. The Kailan Copper
Plate Inscription27 of Śrīdharaṇarāṭa informs us that, in the middle of
the 7th century ce, when the Khaḍgas were ruling over Vaṅga, the Rāṭas
were holding sway over Samataṭa, although very soon Devakhadga ̣
extirpated the Rāṭa rule and annexed Samataṭa to his dominions.28 This
inscription provides us with information regarding the character of the
transferred property, location, year, the donor’s dynasty, the existing
form of politico-legal organisation and the social status of the donee
and the donor. Thus, this inscription helps reconstruct the politico-
cultural geography of Samataṭa and ‘the historic change in the control
and disposition of landed resources’.29 However, it was not until the long
reign of Śrīcandra (ce 925–975) that Samataṭa was well integrated as
a political unit to cover the whole of this sub-region. The significance
of the emergence of the highly complex and organised institution
called ‘state’ on the basis of the authority and subordination definitely
requires an anterior development, which is essentially processual and
dynamic. The basic pattern of agrarian expansion from the plains of

Puṇdravardhana and Rāḍha to the deltas of Vaṅga and Samataṭa, with

encroachments on forest tracts at margins, is discernible from the
copper-plate grants.
Ryosuke Furui argues, ‘State formation with variegated adaptations
proceeded in connection with such a pattern of agrarian developments
in the sub-regions, which had acquired different characters through the
early historic process’.30 The culmination of such processes is the state,
which acts as the ‘physical repository of political power’.31 Settlements
become the centre of religious and ritual activities, politico-legal
functions and economic interactions in trading centres and market
places. This chapter will examine how socioeconomic networks
remained significant and stable even in a politically fragmented area
like Samataṭa, vis-à-vis other areas both within and without the delta.
Even in the case of political reshuffling, nodal points of communication
remained stable, and these interactions resulted in transformative
interrelations among these nodes over a period of time.
The numismatic scenario of Bengal becomes much clearer from
the 4th century ce onwards. However, gold and silver coins started to
be minted and put to circulation for transaction purposes in Bengal
as early as the 3rd century bce, circulating without any interruption
till the 8th century ce. The site of Mahasthangarh is famous for its
fragmentary inscription, which records the filling up of a royal treasury
at Puṇḍranagara with ganda and kakini (gandaka and kakanika). This
naturally implies their acceptance as a medium of exchange. It can
be surmised from scholarly interpretations that cowries were used as
a medium of exchange, and the value of gandaka and kakanika was
probably assessed in terms of a certain number of cowrie shells.32 The
Puṇḍra or the Varendra area witnessed silver coins in the early phase.33
Apart from the silver punch-marked coins, copper and billion punch-
marked coins were also struck in the delta. The existence of lower-
denomination coins indicated the likelihood of market orientation.34
These distinctively patterned coins could be integrated into the larger
north Indian silver coinage zone. The availability of a large number of
imperial Gupta coins, generally of excellent quality and execution, is an
important feature of the later centuries. The Varendra region became
a bhukti of the Gupta empire, at least from ce 414–550, coming to be
known as the Puṇḍravardhana bhukti. The Gupta imperial authority
was extended over the Comilla region of Bangladesh by the early
6th century ce, resulting in the regular circulation of the Gupta
gold currency in Bengal. ‘The imperial Gupta rulers starting from
Candragupta I (c. AD 320–35) to Viṣṇugupta (around the middle of
the 6th century) issued gold coins of different types with the maximum
varieties of gold coins being struck by Kumāragupta I (c. 414–54)’.35

‘Ancient Bengal’s familiarity with the Gupta gold coins is also evident
from the references to dināras in the sense of gold pieces in about nine
copper plates of the Gupta rulers, recording the sale of land in north
Bengal from c. ad 433 to 544’.36 The successors of the Imperial Guptas
in the Vaṅga and the Gaụda regions, roughly from the second half of
the 6th century to the mid-8th century ce, continued to issue gold
and silver coins. The post-Mauryan period in the Rāḍha area saw the
emergence of the copper coins, with gold currency eventually being
introduced. From the 4th century ce, Puṇḍra, Rāḍha and Samataṭa
experienced gold coinage for higher-value transactions. As lower
denominations, copper coins and cowrie shells served the purpose of
transaction.
The Samataṭa and the Harikela coins had their own regional
distinctiveness. ‘In Samataṭa one encounters the continuity of gold
currency contemporary to the Kuṣāṇas or post-Kuṣāṇas through the
Gupta up to the 7th and 8th Centuries, followed by the circulation of
silver coins. In Harikela, silver coins had an uninterrupted presence
from the 7th to 12th Centuries.’37 ‘In the very end phase of the early
historic, an impressive number of gold coins were found in the Samataṭa
region but these were imitation type of Kuṣāṇa gold: these are the
earliest gold coins anywhere in Bengal’.38 The provenance of these coins
in the Samataṭa/Harikela regions signifies their importance in the trade
itineraries involving innumerable goods and commodities, as they was
never directly under the control of the Kuṣāṇas. ‘These coins seem to
have reached Bengal by way of trade and subsequently adopted to the
system of coinage in Bengal’.39 Samataṭa’s proximity to the coast made it
a nodal point in itineraries of trade exchanges. The finding of a series of
small silver coins of high metallic purity in south-eastern Bengal, which
circulated mainly in the Samataṭa and Harikela regions from the 7th
to the 13th centuries, also indicates economic interaction between the
Samataṭa–Harikela region and Burma. Interestingly, around thirty-one
gold coins were discovered at Paglatek near Goalpara, when labourers
were digging in the village market. The State Museum, Guwahati, was
able to recover fourteen pieces with the help of the Civil Authorities.40
Other coins were reported to have been melted for their metallic value.
These coins are thought to be from the 7th century ce on stylistic
grounds. While examining the hoard, it was noted by S.K. Bose that
one of the fourteen coins, arguably the best among the lot, bears the
name Śrī Kumāra.41 Interestingly, all the coins in the Paglatek hoard
are typical Samataṭa types,42 similar to the gold coins with the legend of
Śrī Kumāra found in the Mainamati area.43 These bear slight variations
in style: they have a cruder reverse, and the king on the obverse has a
more pointed head.44 The Paglatek hoard and the similar coins found

at Mainamati, therefore, indicate linkages between Kāmarūpa and

Samataṭa during the 7th century ce.
The type, appearance, weight standard and provenance of the locally
made copies of the gold coins found in Samataṭa also throw some
interesting light on trade and trading links. Although the earlier imitation
of Gupta gold coins appear to be debased, they carried 60 per cent of
purity, weighing around 6.5 grams, which is significantly lighter than
the imperial Gupta coins.45 In the region of Gaur, some late Gupta coins
along with some coins of their successors Samācāra Deva, Jaya Nāga and
Śaśāṅka were also found. These coins are much more debased than the
earlier group, and carried a purity of around 15 per cent, although they
weighed 9 grams, following the standard weight of the imperial Gupta
coins. Thus, they were heavier than the earlier Gupta coins. The second
category has been termed the Samataṭa type of coins. As discussed earlier,
the operation of two parallel yet separate currency zones is discernible
here. In both the Puṇḍra area and Samataṭa, distinctions are suggested on
the basis of appearance, type, weight standard and provenance, though
the coins carried the names of the same kings. Though they were debased,
the Samataṭa type of coins carried a higher percentage of the precious
metal. Śaśāṅka (ce 600–637), the powerful ruler of Gaụda issued gold
coins in the Gauḍa–Vaṅga region of the Suvarṇa standard of 144 grains,
which were quite debased. However, conspicuously, a different group of
Śaśāṅka’s gold coins have been discovered from the Samataṭa area, which
are of the half śatamāna standard of 90 grains. The second group of coins
was meant for circulation in the Samataṭa area only. Thus Śaśāṅka minted
two groups of gold coins circulating in two different currency zones.46 It
can be assumed that Samataṭa had more access to gold and could have
also played a very active role in trade-related activities.
The early specimens of these Harikela coins are typologically
and metrologically related to the coins of the Candra dynasty of the
Arakan region, and might have been acceptable in the Arakan region
too.47 The interaction between the political authorities of both sides
is indicated by the use of Burma era in the metal vase inscription of
Devatideva, belonging to the 8th century Harikela.48 Interestingly, this
is also indicated by names ending with ‘-eba’, which is a characteristic
of Burmese names, in the Mainamati Copper Plate Inscription of
Harikāladeva, dated 1141 Saka Era, or ce 1220.49 There are rich
possibilities of associations and connections between the Candras of
Arakan and the Candras of Samataṭa.50 This indicates a close connection
and interaction between south-eastern Bengal and Burma.
To study the procurement of gold in Samataṭa, it is pertinent to
understand the availability of gold in the region as well as in the
neighbouring areas. In early India, the gold mines of Mysore, Hyderabad

and Madras were famous for gold production.51 Gold was also obtained
from Odisha, Midnapur, Baghmundi Thana of Purulia district and
Bankura (West Bengal) and Chhotanagpur. The Suvarṇarekhā, as the
name suggests, is well known for the gold content of its sands. After
heavy rains, the local villagers washed and obtained small quantities
of gold from the river and stream-stands.52 Although gold occurrences
have been recorded from several rivers of Assam, the Subarnasiri
riverbed was the best gold-producing area in Assam in the early days.
Maclaren has dealt exhaustively with the origin of gold mining in
Assam, where the Sonowals ran the gold-washing industry.53 The sands
of the river Brahmaputra in Assam were also famous for high natural
content of gold, and gold was procured by washing these sands. It may
be suggested that East Bengal was also benefited by the gold-washing
industry of the Sonowals in Assam. The antiquity of the gold-washing
industry in Assam is also attested by the Arthaśāstra, which refers to
Suvarṇakundya, famous for gold in Kāmarūpa.54 The Periplus55 dated to
the last quarter of the 1st century ce refers to the use of pieces of gold
(ingots of certain weight standard) as pieces of money (nomismata),
or gold coins known as Caltis in the Gange area in Bengal. However,
although these ingots are identified by many historians as gold coins,
this is not supported by archaeological evidences. The Periplus56 locates
a gold mine in the Ganges country.57 According to Suchandra Ghosh,58
these coins might represent the gold currency of the Kuṣāṇa empire,
which she argues to be ‘reasonable’, keeping in view the epigraphic
information furnished by the Rabatak Inscription. This inscription
suggests Śrī Champa near Bhagalpur to be the easternmost boundary
of the Kuṣāṇa empire, from which these coins penetrated to Bengal
through trading network. But these could have been imitation of Kuṣāṇa
coins minted locally, and the gold could have been actually brought
from outside, procured by washing river sands of Assam, or brought
through the riverine route of Brahmaputra to south-east Bengal and
then to Vaṅga. Interestingly, the Arthaśāstra referred to a class of silver
as Gauḍika:59 produced in the territory of Gauḍa or within the limits of
Vaṅga. But there is no evidence of old silver mining in the area as such.
The silver in question could have been imported to the subcontinent
through a port located in the area concerned, thus, acquiring its name.
While Tāmralipti maintained its significant position as a major port
of international trade, the 7th century ce witnessed the rise of another
port in the Bay of Bengal. However, it is not clear which port is referred
to as Harikela in the accounts of the journey of the Chinese monks.
Two of the Chinese monks, whose biographies were included in the
account of I-tsing, disembarked at Harikela. Among them, T’ang-kuang
travelled from China to Harikela through South-east Asia, though his

travel was not minutely recorded.60 Another monk, Wu-hsiang, travelled

from Kedah to Nagapattinam, Simhala and then to Harikela.61 Before
understanding the locational context of the various gold mines, we must
understand how Bengal’s placement could have successfully helped it
to procure the precious metal not only from within the subcontinent
but also from outside the subcontinent. The interconnectivity within
the subcontinent and beyond the subcontinent is quite evident from the
itineraries of the Chinese pilgrims Fa-hien, who travelled in India during
ce 399–414, and Hiuen Tsang, who visited India during ce 629–645.
These show the contemporary sub-regional connectivity. Hiuen Tsang
first proceeded from Nalanda to Kajangala, the present Rajmahal and
then to Puṇḍravardhana, from where he went to Kāmarūpa in present
Assam and then south to Samataṭa, according to his account edited by
Pien-chi.62 The biography of Hiuen Tsang, written by Hui-li and Yang-
zong, states that he travelled from Puṇdravardhana to Karṇasuvarṇa,
then to Samataṭa.63 However, according to both the versions, he travelled
from Samataṭa to Tāmralipti.64 Thus, the itinerary of Hiuen Tsang as
provided by various sources has some discrepancies; but it still alludes to
certain routes. The first route ran from Kajangala to Kāmarūpa through
Puṇḍravardhana, and the second route ran from Puṇḍravardhana to
Tāmralipti via Karṇasuvarṇa, along the Bhagirathi river. The third
route connected Assam with Samataṭa in south-east Bengal through the
Brahmaputra. The fourth route ran between Karṇasuvarṇa and Samataṭa,
probably along the Padma, and the fifth route ran through coastal Bengal,
which connected south-east and south-west Bengal. Perhaps this was
the route which connected Samataṭa and Suhma through lower Vaṅga.
Thus, the route connecting Samataṭa and Kāmarūpa as referred to in
the account of Hiuen Tsang65 probably went along the Brahmaputra. As
opposed to the land route from India to China, the sea route between
the two was lesser-known in the early centuries ce. The two were not
directly in contact through the sea, but through local sailing circuits in
peninsular South Asia. During this period, China controlled the eastern
part of Central Asia. The Yangtze flows within 600 miles of the northern
reaches of the Bay of Bengal, whereas, it is some 4,300 miles by sea from
Calcutta to Shanghai. Hence, the most obvious route to south-western
China, avoiding the Malay Peninsula, is across Burma. This international
land route has been named the ‘South West Silk Road’ by scholars.66
The earliest textual source of the Silk Road is Zhang Qian’s exploration
in the Western Regions (xiyu) in the late second century BC, recorded
by Sima Qian in his Shiji. Nevertheless, Zhang Qian’s report indeed
leads to another Silk Road: a road connecting Southwest China with

India, where he found Sichuan cloth (Shubu) and bamboo cane

(Qiongzhu) in Daxia (Bactria).67
Emperor Wu of Han (140–87 bce) was unable to open this road. ‘Many
fragmentary and obscure records in Chinese historical writings prior to
the Tang dynasty (618–907 ce) referred to the exchange between China
and India through jungles, forests, rivers and mountains from Sichuan,
Yunnan, Burma and Assam to India’.68 The hill ranges between the
valleys of Eastern or Upper Assam and the great Hukong (Hookhoom)
valley, on the Upper Chindwin River in Northern Burma, have long
presented tempting lines for direct communication between Burma
and Assam. The line of communication is from Upper Assam to the
Naga Hills, and thence to the Patkai range. On the southern slope
of the Patkai range lies the Kamiyan Valley from which the Hukong
Valley can be reached.69 Yunnan in China can be reached from the
Hukong Valley. We have no first-hand account of anyone completing
this journey in the early periods. Chinese documents after the Tang
have detailed records but offer little help for the purposes of drawing a
map of regions far away from the Chinese empire. Yunnan, like Upper
Burma, was quite rich in precious metals like gold and silver, along with
other metals. Yunnan probably supplied the additional gold and silver
used in Samataṭa and Harikela, apart from the gold procured from the
Brahmaputra Valley. This indicates the existence of a close connection
and interaction between south-eastern Bengal and Burma. The existence
of the coins in precious metals in Samataṭa and Harikela is significant
because gold and silver are non-indigenous to the delta. Thus, the local
sources definitely did not yield the required quantity of gold to meet
the additional requirement of the lower Gangetic delta. This additional
amount could have been procured by Bengal from the Brahmaputra
Valley and also from outside the subcontinent, particularly from upper
Tibet and Yunnan in China. Bengal and Burma are connected by several
routes passing through the mountainous ranges, which further lead to
the south-eastern frontier of China.70 Here, the coastline of Chittagong
must have played an important role.
The exchanges related to gold were also accompanied by other
commodities of trade and exchange. The Periplus of the Erythraean
Sea (second half of the 1st century ce) is an invaluable source for the
study of India’s long-distance trade network. The ‘Gange’ country (lower
part of the Ganga delta) prominently figuring in the Periplus refers to
the availability of malabathrum (Sanskrit Tamalapatra, Bangla Tejpata)
and nard (Sanskrit nalada, nārada, probably Nardostachys grandiflora),
a particular type of fragrant oil. The Periplus clearly suggests that these
exotic items were in considerable demand among the rich in the Roman

Empire.71 A significant corroboration of this comes from a recently

discovered loan contract document written on a mid-2nd century ce
papyrus.72 According to this document, Gangetic nard of considerable
quantity was loaded at the famous Malabari port of Muziris (near
Cranganore in Kerala) and exported to Alexandria onboard the ship
Hermopollon. Though the Periplus considered malabathrum and nard
as Gangetic, these were not locally grown in coastal Bengal region, but
were plant products of Assam, from where they reached the Bengal
coast. These exotic items were sent to Malabar, obviously by a coastal
route for their final shipping to the eastern Mediterranean region. Bengal
was, thus, involved in the transit trade of malabathrum and nard. The
inscription of Balavarman III mentions that in Kāmarūpa there are
areca nut trees covered by encircling betel leaf creepers and the trunk
of the black aloe (kṛṣṇāguru) encircled by cardamom trees.73 Areca nut
and betel leaf had ritualistic utility, and could have been a valuable item
of trade. It is significant that the Paschimbhag Copper Plate,74 in the
context of Śrīcandra’s conquest of Assam, describes that the woodlands
along the river Lauhitya or Brahmaputra were darkened by the black
aloe wood trees; drowsy yaks ruminated on the plains of Lauhitya river
(Romanthālasa baddhanidra chamarīsaṁsevita prāntarā Lohityasya
vanasthalī-parisarāḥ kālāguru śyāmalāḥ; Sircar, Epigraphic Discoveries:
65, verse, 12). Ibn-Khurdadhbeh75 and al-Idrisi76 both refer to Samandar
as a thriving port and the bringing of aloe wood from Qamrun (identified
with Kāmarūpa) which is ‘fifteen or twenty days journey by the river,
which water is sweet’. Other important items of trade could have been
elephants and ivory: Kāmarūpa was also known for an abundance of
elephants and ivory art. Many archaeological sites of early Bengal are
reported to have been associated with the findings of ivory artefacts.77 The
Bhatera Copper Plate Inscription78 of Sylhet (datable to the 11th century
ce) mentions the donation of a piece of land by the ruler of Śrīhaṭṭa,
Govindakeśava Deva for the construction of a temple, and that some
ivory craftsmen were appointed to work for it. Kāmarūpa could have
been an important source of timber. The abundant presence of silk cotton
trees (śālmali vṛkṣa) provided raw material on which the silk worms were
fed, and this made Kāmarūpa famous for silk.79
Hiuen Tsang proceeded eastwards as far as Samataṭa and when he
was turning back, he mentioned six countries80 which he had heard of
but could not visit. Their names (as has been assumed though not with
all certainty) with the identifications generally admitted are:81
1. Shih-li-ch’a-ta-lo = Śrīkṣetra (Prome?);

2. Ka-mo-lang-ka = Kamalāṅka (Tenasserim?);
3. To-lo-po-ti = Dvāravati (Lower Siam?);

4. I-shang-na-pu-lo = Iśānapura (Cambodia);

5. Mo-ha-chan-p’o = Mahā-Campā (Annam);
6. Yen-mo-na-chou = Yavadvīpa (Java)
These identifications are greatly debated. What is important is that the six
places mentioned by Hiuen Tsang in relation to the location of Samataṭa
definitely portray the significance of the nodal position that Samataṭa
enjoyed in terms of networks that went even beyond the subcontinent.
It also clearly shows the gradual emergence of Samataṭa for overseas
connections with mainland South-east Asia, even when Tāmralipti
was the premier port in the Ganga delta. The lower deltaic region was a
sphere of maximum interaction and multi-dimensional linkages wherein
Tāmralipti and Chandraketugarh acted as the two nodes. These linkages
involved the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, with interactions
and trade exchanges with Central Asia, the littorals of India, north Egypt
and the Mediterranean world, as well as with South-east Asia and China.
The urban character of the settlement at Chandraketugarh with maritime
activity and the transformation also of Tāmralipti as a ‘port city was thus
parts of broader historical processes, and once the pattern of linkages
became relatively weak, the nodes of the region may have continued as
settlement centers but lost their vigorous urban characteristics’.82 Thus,
the geological position of both Tāmralipti and Chandraketugarh enabled
them to play leading roles in the maritime commerce in the early period.
After the 8th century ce, Tāmralipti ceased to hold its pivotal position as
a premier entrepôt. Samataṭa was linked to the Suhma area through lower
Bengal, as this route ran through coastal Bengal.
The growing significance of Samataṭa and Harikela in the commercial
network of early Bengal after the gradual eclipse of the Tāmralipti port
is attested by the various contemporary Perso–Arabic accounts of the
Muslim travellers. Silsilat-al Tawarikh by Sulaiman and other Arab
merchants compiled in ce 851 refers to the Bay of Bengal as the Bahr-i-
Harkand, meaning the ‘Sea of Harkandh’.83 Harkandh has been identified
with Harikela. The northern part of the Bay of Bengal is strategic, being
nodal in connecting South Asia and South East Asia, and the shift of the
importance of the trade network centres to the south-east of the Bengal
delta by the 8th–9th centuries ce can be gleaned from the aforementioned
sources. It can be further attested by the references to the Samundar on
the Meghna estuary and to Sudkawan (Chittagong) and Sunurkawan
by Ibn Battuta.84 Ibn-Khurdadhbeh85 and al-Idrisi86 mention Samandar.
Idrisi describes Samandar to be thriving with trade and merchandise
and they both mention that Samandar brings aloe wood from Qamrun
(identified with Kāmarūpa), which is ‘fifteen or twenty day’s journey by
the river, which water is sweet’. The reference to Samandar as a major

port in the network map connecting the south-eastern part of Bengal

delta with South-east Asia and to Ceylon indicates Samataṭa’s interactive
connection with these places, as Harikela was contiguous to Samataṭa.
The descriptions point to the fact that Samandar was a premier port
in of south-eastern Bengal at that time. Thus, it can be surmised
that by the mid-ninth century ce, both the sea and its port attracted
the attention of Arabic and Persian writers and became a part and
parcel of Arab geographical world. That the sea was named after a
particular unit—Harikela—speaks for the region’s importance and
also its popularity among the sea-farers of the time.87
Ibn Battuta has further mentioned the innumerable boats commuting

on this river. This indicates the existence of a thriving trade linkage
between Kāmarūpa and Samataṭa, at least by the 13th–14th centuries
ce. However, these linkages were not contained within the Bengal
delta, and extended beyond it and connecting the deltaic region with
the rest of the subcontinent. The thriving port of Samataṭa, thus,
developed burgeoning commercial exchanges in the eastern part
of the delta through fluvial networks and land routes. The Candra
polity seems to have coalesced into the coastal Harikela–Samataṭa,
central deltaic Bengal and some parts of the Brahmaputra Valley, thus,
bringing about an integration of the coast with the mainland Bengal
delta and the Brahmaputra Valley to some extent.88 The connectivity
between Samataṭa and Kāmarūpa at that time was possibly along the
Brahmaputra. Information regarding the other routes connecting both
Kāmarūpa and Samataṭa can be gleaned through some later sources,
which are outside the scope of the present study.
Thus, there is an immense scope to reconstruct, through various
contemporary sources, the significant position of the Samataṭa–
Harikela region as a nodal point in a network that ran through not only
the delta of Bengal and the mid-Gangetic Valley, but also to Burma
and China overland through Assam. The nature of this contact was in
all probability both cultural and commercial. The enumeration of this
historical-geographical setting and inter-linkages stresses the immense
sociocultural complexity of various geo-social units in a particular
spatio-temporal context.
Notes
1 Suchandra Ghosh. ‘The Trans Meghna Region: Making of a Sub-

Regional Identity’. Journal of Ancient Indian History, vol. XXVII, 2010–
11, pp. 220–231.

2 Suchandra Ghosh. ‘Kamarupa and Early Bengal: Understanding their

Political Relationship’. Proceedings of the IHC, vol. 71, 2010–2011, pp. 110,
110–118.
3 D.C. Sircar. Select Inscriptions Bearing on Indian History and Civilization
(henceforth referred to as SI), vol. 1. Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass, New
Delhi, 1993, p. 266; Suchandra Ghosh. ‘Kamarupa and Early Bengal:
Understanding their Political Relationship’. Proceedings of the IHC, vol.
71, 2010–11, p. 110.
4 M.M. Sharma. Inscriptions of Ancient Assam. Dept. of Publication, Gauhati
University, 1978, p. 20.
5 Nirode Boruah. Historical Geography of Early Assam. Guwahati: DVS
Publishers, 2010, pp. 48–49.
6 Nicholas Rhodes, ‘Trade in South East Bengal in the First Millenium ce’.
In Numismatic Evidence in Rila Mukherjee (ed.), Pelagic Passageways: The
northern Bay of Bengal before Colonialism, Delhi: Primus Books, 2011,
pp. 263–275, 265.
7 Ranabir Chakravarti. ‘Trade and Commerce’, retrieved on 20 February
2018. Banglapedia, p. 1.
8 A. Bhattacharyya, Historical Geography of Ancient and Early Medieval
Bengal. Calcutta: Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar, 1977, p. 72.
9 Barrie M. Morrison. Political Centers and Cultural Regions in Early Bengal.
Arizona: University of Arizona Press, 1970, p. 8.
10 Ranabir Chakravarti. ‘Trade and Commerce’, retrieved on 20 February
2018. Banglapedia, p. 1. Prior to ce 600, the political integration of the sub-
regions was attempted by Gopacandra (ce 525–40). During Śaśāṅka’s (ce
600–637) time there was further strengthening of this political integration
and his authority was extended till Gauḍa, Daṇḍabhukti and as far south as
Ganjam in Odisha and perhaps to Samataṭa as well. His seat of power was
Karṇasuvarṇa.
11 Renewed excavations at Mahasthangarh have provided geological data to
suggest that the earliest settlement at the site dates to the post-Mauryan
period (S. Gill. ‘Mahasthangarh: A Riverine port in Ancient Bengal’. In The
Archaeology of Sea-faring in the Indian Ocean in the Ancient Period, edited
by H.P. Ray. New Delhi: Pragati Publishers, 1999, p. 156). It was between c.
2nd century bce and 2nd century ce that sites in the coastal area became
active and this was marked by a quantitative and qualitative improvement
in the material culture (Gautam Sengupta 1996, p. 120).
12 Candravarma figures in the Allahabad Praśasti as one of the rulers defeated
by Samudragupta, Select Inscriptions, I, p. 265.
13 Gopacandra’s earliest record of regnal year 1 comes from the Balasore
region (Jayrampur CP, see Sircar. Select Inscriptions, I, 530–531),
demonstrating his authority over Daṇḍabhukti region. His occupation
of the Vaṅga area will be evident from his Faridpur CP of regnal year 18
(see, Sircar. Select Inscriptions, I, 370). The latest record, in regnal year 33,
was issued from Vardhamanapura and was found from Mallasarul, near
Bardhaman (see, Sircar. Select Inscriptions, I, 372). This inscription enlists
a very impressive number of officials many of whom were connected with

collection and administration of revenue. The administrative model was

largely derived from that of the Gupta dynasty.
14 Ryosuke Furuyi, ‘Variegated Adaptation: State Formations in Bengal
from the Fifth to the Seventh Century’. In Interrogating Political Systems:
Integrative Processes and States in Pre-Modern India, edited by Bhairabi
Prasad Sahu and Hermann Kulke, New Delhi: Manohar, 2015, p. 258.
15 A. Bhattacharyya. Historical Geography of Ancient and Early Medieval
Bengal, pp. 69–70.
16 M. Harunur Rashid. ‘The Geographical Background to the History and
Archaeology of South east Bengal’. Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal:
Dhaka, 1979–81, vol. XXIV, VI: pp. 169–177.
17 T. Watters, On Yuan Chwang’s Travels in India, vol. II. New Delhi:
Munshiram Manoharlal, 1961, pp. 188–189.
18 A. Bhattacharyya. Historical Geography of Ancient and Early Medieval
Bengal, pp. 69–70.
19 CII, vol. 3 (rev.): 213,1.22.
20 D.C. Sircar, Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India, New
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1971, p. 156.
21 IHQ. 1947. Vol. XXIII: 221–241; S. I., 2, pp. 36–40; D.C. Sircar. Studies in the
Geography of Ancient and Medieval India, p. 149; The Kailan Copper Plate
Inscription supplies a variety of interesting information regarding ancient
Samataṭa, but not much about the dynasty itself or of its rule. Śrīdharana
Rāṭa, the second ruler of the dynasty, issued it in the eighth year of his reign
from his capital Devaparvata. By this charter, the king donated 25 pāṭakas
of land for charitable purposes: 4½ pāṭakas to Buddhist organisations, 13
pāṭakas to Brāhmaṇas and 7½ pāṭakas to be retained (temporarily) by the
king’s minister. The lands lie in two Visayas: the well-known Guptinatana
(in or near Mainamati) and Patalyika, not yet identified. The description
of the donated lands contains certain interesting place-names and local
terms such as Dashagrama village, Advaganga river, Billa (Bil), Naudanda
(Naudara), Nau-Shivabhoga, etc. They quite clearly indicate that some
of these lands were situated in an area where water and boats played a
significant role in the life of the people. The description agrees well with
the geographical and topographical condition still prevailing in the areas
round Kailan and indeed in most of the areas of central Comilla outside the
Lalmai-Mainamati hills.The inscription mentions the ruling king, parama-
vaiṣṇava śrīdharana rāṭa, his father and predecessor and the founder of the
dynasty śrī Jivadharana Rāṭa, Yuvaraja Baladharana Rāṭa, and the king’s
mother Bandhudevi. Both the Rāṭa kings are styled as Samataṭeśvara. But
except a few vague general eulogies, the record supplies no significant
information about them or their kingdom. However, the description of the
capital and the river Kṣīroda is graphic and picturesque. The vast capital
city was centred round the royal residence, probably inside a hill-fort,
and is aptly described as sarvatobhadraka because of its four prominent
gateways facing the four cardinal points. And the river Kṣīroda encircled it
like a moat, and ‘elephants played in its waters and both of its banks were
adorned with a cluster of boats’.

22 Journal of Asiatic Society, letters, vol. XVII, 83 ff; B.M. Morrison. Political
Centers and Cultural Regions of Early Bengal, p. 162; D.C. Sircar. Studies in
the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India, p. 150, where it is mentioned
as the Tippera copper Plate Grant of Bhavadeva. It suggests that the capital
of Samataṭa in the Eight and the following centuries was not at Karmanta
but at the city of Devaparvata on the river Kṣīroda. The grant was issued in
the 8th century ce.
23 The river Kṣīroda is identified with the dried up river bed of modern Khira
or Khirani which flows by the eastern side of the Mainamati hills and skirts
their southern end near the Chandimuda peak where another branch of
the river which flows by the western side of the hill meets it. The southern
end of the Mainamati hill is thus surrounded by the erstwhile Kṣīroda
river where Devaparvata seems to have been situated.
24 N.K. Bhattasali, IHQ, XXII, pp. 169–171.
25 Richard M. Eaton. 1993. The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier (1204–
1760), (Comparative Studies on Muslim Societies), Berkeley: University of
California, pp. 194–227.
26 D.C. Sircar. SI, 1, pp. 340–345; IHQ, 6, 45–60; B.M. Morrison. Political
Centers and Cultural Regions in Early Bengal, p. 159. The Gunaighar Copper
Plate Inscription of Vainyagupta (c. 508 ce) was found in at Gunaighar
village which is about 18 miles north east of Comilla. It is a royal grant of
eleven pāṭakasin the village of kantedadaka to the avaivartika congregation
of monks in the Āśrama vihāra dedicated to the ārya Avalokiteśvara.
27 IHQ. vol. XXIII, pp. 221–241; D.C. Sircar. S. I., 2, pp. 36–40.
28 D.C. Sircar. Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India, Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, p. 149.
29 B.M. Morrison. 1968. ‘Sources, Methods and Concepts in Early Indian
History’. Pacific Affairs, 41, No. 1: 78.
30 Ryosuke Furui. ‘Variegated Adaptation: State Formations in Bengal
from the Fifth to the Seventh Century’. In Interrogating Political Systems:
Integrative Processes and States in Pre-Modern India, edited by Bhairabi
Prasad Sahu and Hermann Kulke. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2015,
p. 258.
31 M.L. Smith. ‘Urban Social Networks: The Early Walled Cities of the Indian
Subcontinent as “small worlds”’. In The Social Construction of Ancient
Cities, edited by M.L. Smith. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institute Press,
2003, pp. 269–289.
32 Suchandra Ghosh. ‘Monetization and Exchange Network in early Historic
Bengal: A Note Defining Certain Problems’. In IHC, vol. 66, 2005–06, pp.
110–119.
33 Ibid. Here, Ghosh refers to the Silver punch marked coins being unearthed
at Mahasthangarh in association with the NBPW along with a similar but
small hoard from Baigachha in Rajshahi district. The interesting aspect
highlighted by Ghosh in these two cases is their deviation from the
standard metrology of the kārṣāpaṇa weight. And explains the deviation
with Shailendra Bhandare’s hypothesis of ‘regional pattern’ and terms it as
‘local pattern of currency’.

34 Ibid., p. 112. Here, Ghosh indicates towards the existence of petty

transactions.
35 Ranabir Chakravarti, ‘Coins’. In www.Banglapedia.com. Accessed on 10
February 2018.
36 Ibid.
37 Susmita Basu Majumdar. ‘Media of Exchange: Reflections on the Monetary
History’. In History of Bangladesh, edited by Abdul Momin Choudhury
and Ranabir Chakravarti. Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 2018, p. 239.
38 Ibid., p. 245.
39 Suchandra Ghosh. ‘Monetization and Exchange Network in early Historic
Bengal: A Note Defining Certain Problems’. In IHC, vol. 66, 2005–2006, p. 113.
40 R.D. Choudhury and M.C. Das. ‘Gold Coin from Paglatek’. In Journal of
Assam Research Society, pp. 56–61.
41 S.K. Bose. ‘Numismatics—Gold Coin of Bhaskaravarman’, Arunodoi,
pp. 26–27. Śrī Kumāra can be identified with Bhaskaravarman. Bana’s
Harshacharita mentions him as Kumāra. Hiuen Tsang also referred to him
as Kumāra or Kumārarāja (Rhodes, 2003, p. 16).
42 Nicholas Rhodes. ‘Trade in South East Bengal in the First Millenium ce’.
In Numismatic Evidence, edited by Rula Mukherjee. Pelagic Passsageways:
the Northern Bay of Bengal before Colonialism, Delhi: Primus Books,
2011, pp. 265, 263–275. The Samataṭa type of coins can be attributed to the
rulers of Bengal: Samācāra Deva, Jaya Naga and Śaśāṅka.
43 B.N. Mukherjee, Post-Gupta Coinage of Bengal. Calcutta: Munshiram
Manoharlal Publishers, 1989, pp. 20–21.
44 N.G. Rhodes and S.K. Bose. 2003. The Coinage of Assam, Pre-Ahom period,
vol. 1. Kolkata: Library of Numismatic Studies, p. 72.
45 N.G. Rhodes. ‘Trade in south East Bengal in the First Millenium ce’. In
Numismatic Evidence, edited by Rula Mukherjee, Pelagic Passsageways:
The Northern Bay of Bengal before Colonialism, Delhi: Primus Books,
2011, pp. 264, 265, 263–275.
46 Ranabir Chakravarti. ‘Coins’. In www.Banglapedia.com, retrieved on 13th
February, 2018; B.N. Mukherjee. 1993. Coins and Currency Systems of
Early Bengal, Calcutta: Progressive Publishers, 1993; N.G. Rhodes and S.K.
Bose. The Coinage of Assam, Vol. 1. Kolkata: AOP India Pvt Ltd., 2003.
47 B.N. Mukherjee, ‘A Survey of the Samatata and Harikela Coinage’. In JBA,
8, 2003, pp. 199–212.
48 Gouriswar Bhattacharya. ‘A Preliminary Report on the inscribed Metal
vase from the National Museum Bangladesh’, in Essays on Buddhist Hindu
Jain Iconography and Epigraphy, edited by Enamul Haq. Dhaka: The
International Centre for Study of Bengal Art, 2000, pp. 71–480.
49 IHQ, 9, pp. 282–289.
50 A.M. Chowdhury. Dynastic History of Bengal (c. 750–1200 AD). Dhaka:
Asiatic Society of Pakistan, 1967, pp. 162–165; Bin Yang. ‘Horses, Silver
and Cowries: Yunnan in the Global Perspective’, in Journal of World
History, Vol. 15(3), 2004, pp. 162–165.
51 Marshall, Taxila, Vol. I–III, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1951, p. 610.

52 Meher D.N. Wadia (ed.), Minerals of India. New Delhi: National Book
Trust, 1966, p. 95. Literary evidence also supports mining operations in
Bihar a few centuries before the Christian era as Ajatasatru is said to have
a fight with the Licchavis over the issue of sharing of some jewel mines
operated in partnership (H.C. Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient
India, 6th ed., Calcutta, 1953, pp. 211–213).
53 J.M. Maclaren, Gold: Its Geological Occurrence and Geographical
Distribution. London: Mining Journal, 1908.
54 Niranjan Pathak and Guptajit Pathak. 2008. Assam’s History and its
Graphics. New Delhi: Mittal Publications, p. 40.
55 Lionel Casson (ed. and trans.). Periplus Maris Erythraei. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1989, p. 9.
56 Ibid., Section 63; B.N. Mukherjee. 2000. Coins and Currency Systems of
Early Bengal. Calcutta: Progressive Publishers, p. 33.
57 Ibid., Section 63.
58 Suchandra Ghosh. ‘Monetization and Exchange Network in Early Historic
Bengal: A Note Defining Certain Problems’. In IHC, vol. 66, 2005–06, p.
113.
59 R.P. Kangle (ed. and trans.). III vols, KAS, II, Bombay: Bombay University
Press, 1965–72, 1f.
60 Ryosuke Furuyi. Rural Society and Social Networks in Early Bengal: From
the Fifth to the Thirteenth Century AD. Doctoral Thesis, JNU, 2007.
61 L. Lahiri (trans.), I-ching, Chinese Monks in India: Biographies of
Eminent Monks Who Went to the Western World in Search of Law the
Law During the Great T’ang Dynasty. Delhi: Motilal Banarssidas, 1986,
pp. 79–80.
62 S. Beal (trans.). Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World:
Translated from the Chinese Hiuen Tsiang (AD 629). Delhi: Books
for All (Reprint), 1981, 194–195. Henceforth, it will be referred to as
‘Buddhist Records’.
63 S. Beal (trans.). The Life of Hiuen Tsiang by the Shaman Hwui Li (2nd ed.).
New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1973, pp. 131–132. Henceforth, it will be
referred to as ‘The Life of Hiuen Tsiang’.
64 S. Beal. Buddhist Records, pt. 2: 199–200; S. Beal (trans.), Life of Hiuen
Tsiang, p. 133.
65 S. Beal. Buddhist Records, pt. 2, p. 199.
66 Bin Yang. 2004. ‘Horses, Silver and Cowries: Yunnan in the Global
Perspective’. Journal of World History, 15(3), September, 2004, p. 284.
67 Ibid., p. 282.
68 Ibid.
69 ‘Direct Communication between Upper Assam and Northern Burma’,
1892 (June), p. 405.
70 H.B. Sarkar, ‘Bengal and her Overland Routes in India and Beyond’,
Kkata: JAS, 16, 1974, pp. 92–119.
71 Ranabir Chakravarti. ‘Trade and Commerce’. Available at www.
banglapedia.com (accessed on 27 February 2018).

72 V. Begley and R.D. de Puma. Rome and India—The Ancient Sea Trade,
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992, p. 30.
73 Suchandra Ghosh. ‘Kamarupa and Early Bengal: Understanding Their
Political Relationship’. Proceedings of the IHC, vol. 71, 2010–11, p. 116.
74 Ranabir Chakravarti, ‘Vaṅgasāgara-saṁbhāṇḍāriyaka: A Riverine Trade
Centre in Early Medieval Bengal’. In Trade and Traders in Early Medieval
Society, edited by Ranabir Chakravarti. New Delhi: Routledge, 2007;
Ranabir Chakravarti, ‘Between Cities and Villages’. In Explorations in
South Asian History, Essays in Honour of Professor Dietmar Rothermund,
edited by George Berkemer, Hermann Kulke and Jurgen Lutt. New Delhi:
Manohar publishers, 2000; B.N. Mukherjee, ‘Commerce and Media
Exchange in the Western and Central Sectors of Eastern India (c. ad 750–
1200), Indian Museum Bulletin, XVI, 1982, pp. 65–83.
75 ‘Khurdadhbeh, Kitabul-Masalik wa-l-Mamali Mamalik’ (late 9th century
ce)’. In The History of India as told by its own Historians:The Muhammedan
Period, edited by Elliot and Dowson. Allhabad: Kitab Mahal, 1960, p. 16.
76 Al Idrisi. ‘Nizhatu-i-Mushtak’, in Henry Miers Elliot and John Dowson
(eds), The History of India As Told by Its Own Historians: The Muhammadan
Period, Volume 1, Allahabad: Kitab Mahal, 1960.
77 Ivory artefacts have been unearthed in Mangalkot, Pandu Rajar Dhibi and
Chandraketugarh. Mokammel H. Bhuiyan. ‘Ivory Works’. In Archaeological
Heritage. Ed., Sufi Mostafizur Rahman, Dhaka: Asiatiac Society of
Bangladesh, 2007, pp. 479–485.
78 EI, Vol. XIX, part-IV. 1928. ‘Bhatera Copperplate Inscription of
Govindakesava’, pp. 277–286.
79 Suchandra Ghosh. ‘Kamarupa and Early Bengal: Understanding their
Political Relationship’. In Proceedings of the IHC, vol. 71, 2010, pp. 11, 116.
80 T. Watters. On Yuan Chwan’s Travels, 187, vol. II. New Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidas, 1961.
81 Louis Finot. ‘Hiuen Tsang and the Far East’. Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1920, No. 4: 447.
82 Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya. ‘Urbanization in Bengal’. In Studying Early
India. New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2002, p. 81.
83 Maqbul Ahmad (trans.). Arabic Classical Accounts of India and China.
Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1989, pp. 34–35.
84 M. Husain (trans. and comm.). The Rehla of Ibn Battuta: India, Maldive
Islands and Ceylon. Baroda: Baroda Oriental Institute, 1953, pp. 235–236,
241.
85 Khurdadhbeh. ‘Kitabul-Masalik wa-l-Mamali Mamalik. (Late 9th
century ce)’. In The History of India As Told by Its Own Historians: The
Muhammedan Period. Vol. 1, edited by Elliot and Dowson, Allahabad:
Kitab Mahal, 1960.
86 Al Idrisi. ‘Nizhatu-i-Mushtak’. In Henry Miers Elliot and John Dowson,
The History of India As Told by Its Own Historians: The Muhammadan
Period, Volume 1, Allahabad: Kitab Mahal, 1960, pp. 90–91.
87 Suchandra Ghosh. 2019. ‘Crossings and contacts across the Bay of Bengal:
A Connected History of Ports in early South and Southeast Asia’. In Journal

of the Indian Ocean Region’, vol. 15(2), pp. 1–16, online available at www.
researchgate.net (accessed on 27 January 2020).
88 Ranabir Chakravarti. ‘The Pull towards the Coast: Politics and Polity in
India (c. ad 600–1300 ad)’, Presidential Address, Section I. Proceedings of
the IHC, 72nd Session, Patiala, 2011, pp. 21–41.

ABOUT RANABIR CHAKRAVARTI
Ranabir Chakravarti retired as a professor from the Centre for

Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, in 2018 after teaching
there for more than fifteen years. His teaching career of over thirty-
seven years comprised tenures at Visva-Bharati University (1981–84),
University of Burdwan (1984–90) and University of Calcutta (1990–
2002). He was awarded the Fulbright Fellowship at Florida International
University in 2002. He went on to receive the prestigious membership
at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (2005–06). He has been
the recipient of the Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellowship at
SOAS (1988–89) and the Hiriyama (UNESCO) and Smuts Fellowship
in Cambridge (1993, 1995–96); was Fellow in Residence, Netherlands
Institute for Advanced Study, Wassenaar (2009–10) and a visiting
professor at Rabindranath Tagore Centre for Human Development,
Kolkata (2010). He was a member of the research group Religion and
Urbanity: Reciprocal Fromations with the project ‘Religious Networks
and the Making of Maritime Cities: Case Studies of Reciprocity in
South Asia (c. 500–1300 ce)’ at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced
Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt, Germany, in
the summer semester of 2022. His doctoral thesis submitted to the
University of Calcutta was published as Warfare for Wealth: Early
Indian Perspective (1986). He is the author of several books and articles,
including Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society (Manohar, 2002),
Exploring Early India up to c. ad 1300 (MacMillan, 2010; Primus, 2016),
The Pull towards the Coast and Other Essays: The Indian Ocean History
and the Subcontinent Before 1500 ce (Primus, 2020). He has also edited
important works such as Trade in Early India (Oxford University Press,
2001), Indo-Judaic Studies in the Twenty-First Century: A View from the
Margin (co-edited, Palgrave MacMillan, 2007) and the humongous two-
volume History of Bangladesh: Early Bengal in Regional Perspectives up
to c. 1200 ce (Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 2019). He was the president
of the Ancient India Section of the Indian History Congress’ Patiala
session (2011) and received the prestigious Professor Hem Chandra
Raychaudhuri Birth Centenary Gold Medal (2019) from the Asiatic
Society, Kolkata.
427

PUBLICATIONS OF RANABIR CHAKRAVARTI
Books
1. Warfare for Wealth: Early Indian Perspective, Calcutta: Firma KL

Mukhopadhyay, 1986.
2. Trade and Traders in Early Indian Society, New Delhi: Manohar,
2020 (third edition; first edition 2002)
3. Exploring Early India up to c. ad 1300, New Delhi: Primus Books,
2016 (third edition; original edition New Delhi: MacMillan, 2010).
4. Ranabir Chakravarti, Harbans Mukhia and Rajat Kanta Ray,
History, Historians, Historiography, Kolkata: Bangiya Itihas Samiti,
2018.
5. The Pull Towards the Coast and Other Essays: The Indian Ocean
History and the Subcontinent before 1500 ce, New Delhi: Primus
Books, 2020.
Edited Books
1. Ray, Niharranjan, B.D. Chattopadhyaya, V.R. Mani and Ranabir
Chakravarti, A Sourcebook of Indian Civilization, Hyderabad:
Orient Longman, 2000.
2. Ranabir Chakravarti (ed.), Trade in Early India, New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2001 (paperback edition, 2005).
3. Nathan Katz, Ranabir Chakravarti, Braj M. Sinha and Shalva Weil
(eds.), Indo-Judaic Studies in the Twenty-First Century: A View from
the Margin, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007.
4. Giles Constable (edited and translated) in collaboration with
Ranabir Chakravarti, Olivia Remie Constable, Tia Kolbaba and
Janet M. Martin, William of Adam: How to Defeat the Saracens
(Tactus Quomodo Sarraceni Sunt Expugnandi), Washington, DC:
Dumberton Oaks, 2012.
5. Abdul Momin Chowdhury and Ranabir Chakravarti (eds.), History
of Bangladesh: Early Bengal in Regional Perspectives (up to c. 1200
ce), in two vols., Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 2018.
Books in Bangla
1. Ranabir Chakravarti (one of the editors), Samaj, Sahitya, Itihas:

Adhyapak Ashin Das Gupta Smarak Grantha, Kolkata: Ananda
Publishers, 2001.
428

Publications of Ranabir Chakravarti 429
2. Ranabir Chakravarti, Prachin Bharater Arthanaitik Itihaser

Sandhane, Kolkata: Ananda Publishers, 2002 (first edition 1991).
3. Ranabir Chakravarti, Bharat Itihaser Adi Parva, Vol. 1, Kolkata:
Orient Blackswan, 2007. (Translated into Hindi: Bharat Itihas ka
Adikal, Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2012)
• Ranabir Chakravarti has about thirty published essays in
Bangla in addition to his many book reviews in Bengali
periodicals and newspapers.
• He has also contributed two long chapters in Bangla—‘State
Formation and Polity’ and ‘Economic Life of Early Bengal’—in
Abdul Momin Chowdhury (ed.), Bangladesher Itihas, Vol. I &
II, Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 2019.
Chapters/Essays in Edited Academic Volumes
1. ‘Bhoṭṭaviṣṭi: Its Nature and Its Collection’, in B.N. Mukherjee, D.R. Das,
S.S. Biswas and S.P. Singh (eds.), Dineśacandrika, Essays in Honour of
D.C. Sircar, New Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 1983, pp. 203-8.
2. ‘Economic Measures of Ramapala in Varendri’, in Dipak Chandra
Bhattacharyya and Jayanta Chakrabarti (eds.), Aspects of Indian
Art and Culture: S.K. Saraswati Commemoration Volume, Calcutta:
Rddhi-India, 1983, pp. 217–19.
3. ‘Rājaśreṣṭhī’, in B.M. Pande and B.D. Chattopadhyaya (eds.),
Archaeology and History: Essays in Memory of Shri A. Ghosh, Vol.
II, New Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, 1987, pp. 671–8.
4. ‘Overseas Trade in Horses in Early Medieval India: Shipping and
Piracy’, in R.C. Sharma, D.C. Bhattacharyya and Devendra Handa
eds., Prachi-prabha, Essays in Honour of Professor B.N. Mukherjee,
New Delhi: Harman Publishers, 1989: 343–60.
5. ‘Early Historical India: A Study in its Material Milieu’, in Debiprasad
Chattopadhyaya (ed.), History of Science and Technology in Ancient
India, vol. II, Calcutta: Firma KL Mukhopadhyay, 1991, pp. 305–50.
6. ‘Rulers and Ports: Visakhapattanam and Motuppalli in Early
Medieval Andhra’, in K.S. Mathew (ed.), Mariners, Merchants and
Oceans: Studies in Maritime History, New Delhi: Manohar, 1995,
pp. 57–78.
7. ‘Kutumbikas of Early India’, in Vijay Kumar Thakur and Ashok
Aounshuman (eds.) Peasants in Indian History I: Theoretical
Issues & Structural Enquiries (Essays in Memory of Professor
R.K.Chaudhary), Patna: Janaki Prakashan, 1996, pp. 179–198.
8. ‘Trade at Maṇḍapikās in Early Medieval North India’, in D.N. Jha
(ed.), Society and Ideology in India, Essays in Honour of Professor
R.S. Sharma, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1996, pp. 69–80.

430 Publications of Ranabir Chakravarti
9. ‘Vaṅgasāgara-saṁbhāṇḍāriyaka: A Riverine Trade Centre of Early

Medieval Bengal’, in Debala Mitra (ed.), Explorations in Art and
Archaeology of South Asia: Essays Dedicated to N.G.Majumdar,
Calcutta: Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Govt. of West
Bengal, 1996, pp. 557–72.
10. ‘The Creation and Expansion of Settlements and Management of
Hydraulic Resources in Ancient India’, in Richard H. Grove, Vinita
Damodaran and Satpal Sangwan (eds.), Nature and the Orient: The
Environmental History of South and Southeast Asia, New Delhi/
New York, 1997, pp. 87–105.
11. ‘Appendix’, in Niharranjan Ray, B.D. Chattopadhyaya, V.R. Mani
and Ranabir Chakravarti (eds.), A Sourcebook of Indian Civilization,
Calcutta: Orient Longman, 2000, pp. 546–650.
12. ‘Between Cities and Villages: Early Medieval Indian Scenario’, in
Georg Berkemer, Tilman Frasch, Hermann Kulke and Jurgen Lutt
(eds.), Explorations in the History of South Asia: Essays in Honour
of Dietmar Rothermund, New Delhi: Manohar, 2001, pp. 99–120.
13. ‘Introduction’, in Ranabir Chakravarti (ed.), Trade in Early India, New
Delhi: Oxford University, 2001 (paperback edition, 2005), pp. 1–100.
14. ‘Annotated Bibliography’, in Ranabir Chakravarti (ed.), Trade in
Early India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 435–62.
15. ‘Politics and Society in India (ad 300–1000)’, in K. Satchidananda
Murty and S. Sankaranarayanan (eds.), Life, Thought and Culture
in India (c. ad 300–1000), vol. II, pt. I, New Delhi: Centre for the
Study of Civilizations, 2002, pp. 58–171.
16. ‘Seafarings, Ships and Ship Owners: India and the Indian Ocean
(ad 700–1500)’, in David Parkin and Ruth Barnes (eds.), Ships
and the Development of Maritime Technology in the Indian Ocean,
London: Routledge and Curzon, 2002, pp. 28–61.
17. ‘Natural Resources and Human Settlements: Perceiving the
Environment in India’, in James Heitzman and Wolfgang
Schenkluhn eds., The World in the Year 1000, Lanham/New York/
Oxford: University Press of America, 2004, pp. 48–65.
18. ‘Trade and Later Indian Powers in the Indian Ocean (c. ad 400–
1300)’, in Alok Tripathy (ed.), Proceedings of the International
Conference on Maritime Archaeology, New Delhi: Organizing
Committee for the International Conference on Maritime
Archaeology, 2004, pp. 35–54.
19. ‘Information, Exchange and Administration: Case Studies from
Early India’, in Amiya Kumar Bagchi, Dipankar Sinha and Barnita
Bagchi (eds.), Webs of History, Information and Communication
Technology from Early to Post-Colonial India, New Delhi: Manohar,
2005, pp. 43–65.

20. ‘On Board the Hermapollon: Transporting Gangetic Nard from

Muziris’, in Martin Brandtner and Shishir Kumar Panda (eds.),
Interrogating History, Essays for Hermann Kulke, New Delhi:
Manohar, 2006, pp. 147–64.
21. ‘Reaching out to Distant Shores: Indo-Judaic Trade Contacts (up to ce
1300)’, in Nathan Katz, Ranabir Chakravarti, Braj M. Sinha and Shalva
Weil (eds.), Indo-Judaic Studies in the Twenty-First Century: A View
from the Margin, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007, pp. 19–43.
22. ‘Reading Early India through Epigraphic Lens’, in Bharati Ray
(ed.), Different Types of History, New Delhi: Centre for Studies in
Civilizations, 2008, pp. 17–42.
23. ‘Three Copper Plates of the Sixth Century ad: Glimpses of
Socioeconomic and Cultural Life in Western India’, in Ellen M.
Raven (ed.), South Asian Archaeology 1999, XV, Groningen: Egbert
Forsten, 2008, pp. 395–99.
24. ‘Visiting Faraway Ports: India’s Trade in the Western Indian Ocean
ca. 800–1500,’ in Rajat Dutta (ed.), Rethinking a Millennium:
Perspectives on the Indian History from the Eighth to the Eighteenth
Century Essays for Harbans Mukhia, New Delhi: Aakar Books,
2008, pp. 249–274.
25. ‘Hydraulic Resources and the State: Early Indian Experiences’, in
Peter Borschberg and Martin Krieger (eds.), Water and the State in
Europe and Asia, New Delhi: Manohar, 2008.
26. ‘Equestrian Demand and Dealers: The Early Indian Scenario (up to
c. 1300)’, in Bert G. Fragner, Ralph Kauz, Roderich Ptak and Angela
Schottenhammer (eds.), Horses in Asia: History, Trade and Culture,
Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2009, pp. 145–160.
27. ‘Interacting with Hydraulic Resources: Early Indian Experience’, in
Amiya Dev (ed.), Science, Literature and Aesthetics, XV (3), New
Delhi, Centre for Studies in Civiliations, 2009, pp. 343–69.
28. ‘Interactions in the Economic Sphere’, in Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya
(ed.), A Social History of Early India, New Delhi: Centre for Studies
in Civilizations and Pearson, 2009, pp. 129–56.
29. ‘The First Urbanization in South Asia’, in Lakshmi Subramanian
(ed.), Profiles of the Coastal Society, Mumbai: Marg Publications,
2009, pp. 20–37.
30. ‘Urbanization in the Early Historic Times’, in Lakshmi
Subramanian (ed.), Profiles of the Coastal Society, Mumbai: Marg
Publications, 2009, pp. 38–57.
31. ‘Merchants, Merchandise and Merchantmen in the Western Sea-
board of India: A Maritime Profile (c. 500 bce–1500 ce)’, in Om
Prakash (ed.), The Trading World of the Indian Ocean 1500–1800,
New Delhi: Pearson, 2012, pp. 53–116.

32. ‘A Tenth Century Brahmapura in Śrīhaṭṭa and Related Issues’,

in D.N. Jha (ed.), The Complex Heritage of Early India: Essays in
Memory of R.S. Sharma, New Delhi: Manohar, 2014, pp. 607–25.
33. ‘Coasts and Interiors of India: Early Modern Indo-Dutch Cross-
Cultural Exchanges’, in Thomas Dacosta Kaufmann and Michael
North (eds.), Mediating Netherlandish Art and Material Culture in
Asia, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014, pp. 95–112.
34. ‘The Mauryas’, in Dilip K. Chakrabarti and Makkhan Lal
(eds.), History of Ancient India: The Texts, Political History
and Administration Till c. 200 bc, New Delhi: Aryan Books
International, 2014, pp. 231–75.
35. ‘The Kushanas’, in D.K. Chakrabarti (ed.), History of Ancient India,
IV: Political History and Administration (c. 200 bc-ad 750), New
Delhi: Aryan International, 2014, pp. 36–68.
36. ‘Examining the Hinterland and Foreland of the Port of Muziris
in the Wider Perspective of the Subcontinent: Long-distance
Networks’, in K.S. Mathew (ed.), Imperial Rome, Indian Ocean
Region and Muziris: New Perspectives on Maritime Trade, New
Delhi: Manohar, 2015, pp. 307–38.
37. ‘Mauryan Empire’, in John M. MacKenzie (ed.), The Encyclopedia of
Empire, John Wiley & Sons, 2016, pp. 1–7.
38. ‘The Kushan Empire’, Encyclopadia of Empires, Wiley Online
Library, January 2016, https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118455074.
wbeoe147
39. ‘The Satavahana Empire’, Encyclopaedia of Empires Wiley Online
Library, January 2016, DOI.10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe052
(jointly with Susmita Basu Majumdar)
40. ‘Tagore’s Take on the “Self-Love of the Nation”’, in Rohit Azad,
Janaki Nair, Mohinder Singh, Mallarika Sinha Roy (eds.), What the
Nation Really Needs to Know, New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2016, pp.
120–34.
41. ‘Knowing the Sea: Thalassographies to Thalassology of the Indian
Ocean (up to c.1500 ce)’, in Sara Keller (ed.), Knowledge and the
Indian Ocean: Intangible Networks of Western India and Beyond,
London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, pp. 29–46.
42. Abdul Momin Chowdhury and Ranabir Chakravarti, ‘Introduction’,
in Abdul Momin Chowdhury and Ranabir Chakravarti (eds.),
History of Bangladesh: Early Bengal in Regional Perspectives (up to
c. 1200 ce), Vol. I, Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 2018, pp.
xxiii–xxxix.
43. ‘State Formation and Polity’, in Abdul Momin Chowdhury and
Ranabir Chakravarti (eds.), History of Bangladesh: Early Bengal

in Regional Perspectives (up to c. 1200 ce), Vol. I, Dhaka: Asiatic

Society of Bangladesh, 2018, pp. 857–98.
44. ‘Economic Life: Agrarian and Non-Agrarian Pursuits’, in Abdul
Momin Chowdhury and Ranabir Chakravarti (eds.), History of
Bangladesh: Early Bengal in Regional Perspectives (up to c. 1200 ce),
Vol. II, Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 2018, pp. 109–96.
45. ‘Two Men of Boats: Alī b. Manṣur al-Fawfalī and PDYR- Gleanings
from the Cairo Geniza’, in Nikolas Jaspert, Sebastian Kolditz
(eds.), Entre mers-Outre-mer: Spaces, Modes and Agents of Indo-
Mediterranean Connectivity, Heidelberg: Heidelberg University
Publishing, 2018, pp. 159–77.
46. ‘Looking for a Maritime City: Somanatha in the 13th Century ce’,
in Ranabir Chakravarti, Harbans Mukhia and Rajat Kanta Ray
(eds.), History, Historians and Historiography, Kolkata: Bangiya
Itihas Samiti, 2019.
47. ‘Aroma Across the Sea: Camphor To India, Beyond India c.1000–
1300 ce’, in Osmund Bopearachchi and Suchandra Ghosh (eds.),
Early Indian History and Beyond: Essays in Honour of B.D.
Chattopadhyaya, New Delhi: Primus Books, 2019, pp. 382–97.
48. ‘Gujarat’s Maritime Trade and Alternative Moneys (c. 550–1300
ce)’, in Susmita Basu Majumdar and S.K.Bose (eds.), Money and
Money Matters in Pre-Modern South Asia: Nicholas G.Rhodes
Commemoration Volume, New Delhi: Manohar, 2019, pp. 221–
38.
49. ‘Indic Mercantile Community and the Indian Ocean World: A
Millennial Overview (c. 500–1500 ce)’, in Angela Schottenhammer
(ed.), Early Global Communities across the Indian Ocean World,
Salzburg: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019, pp. 191–226.
50. ‘The Commercial Network off Gujarat in the Light of the Jewish
Documentary Geniza (Eleventh–Twelfth Centuries),’ in Edward
A. Alpers and Chhaya Goswami (eds.), Transregional Trade and
Traders: Situating Gujarat in the Indian Ocean from Early Times to
1900, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019, pp. 123–40.
51. ‘The Roman Empire, Berenike, Socotra and the Indian Seaboards:
Maritime Interlocking (c. Late First Century bce–300 ce)’, in
Kumkum Roy and Naina Dayal (eds.) Questioning Paradigms
Constructing Histories: A Festschrift for Romila Thapar, New Delhi:
Aleph, 2019, pp. 346–62.
52. ‘Interactions, Exchanges and Engagements in the Subcontinent and
Beyond (c. 800–1500)’, in Karen Pechilis (ed.), Cambridge History
of Hinduism of the Post-Classical Period, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press (forthcoming).

53. ‘Politics and Polity in the Age of the Mahajanapadas’, in K.M.

Shrimali (ed.), Comprehensive History of India, vol. 1, New Delhi:
Indian History Congress (forthcoming).
54. ‘The Northwest of the Subcontinent under the Achaeminid and
Macedonian Occupations’, in K.M. Shrimali (ed.), Comprehensive
History of India, vol. 1., New Delhi: Indian History Congress
(forthcoming).
55. ‘Trade and the Making of State Society in Early India (600-1300
ce)’, in Hermann Kulke and B.P. Sahu (eds.), The Routledge
Handbook of the State in Premodern India, London and New York:
Routledge, 2022, pp. 127–55.
Occasional Papers
1. Ranabir Chakravarti and Krishnendu Ray, ‘Healing and Healers

Inscribed: Epigraphic Bearing on Healing-Houses in Early India’,
Occasional Paper 30, Kolkata: Institute of Development Studies
Kolkata, 2011, pp. 1–31.
2. Tutul Chakravarti and Ranabir Chakravarti, ‘Painted Spectacles:
Evidence of the Mughal Paintings for the Correction of Vision’,
Occasional Paper 38, Kolkata: Institute of Development Studies
Kolkata, 2012, pp. 1–38.
Articles in the Banglapedia,
1. ‘Trade and Commerce’ (Ancient Period), Banglapedia, National

Encyclopedia of Bangladesh, http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/
Trade_and_Commerce, 2004
2. Coins of Bengal (Ancient Period)
3. D.C. Sircar
4. S.K. Saraswati
Research Papers in Journals
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS FOR JOURNALS
IESHR- Indian Economic and Social History Review

IHR- Indian Historical Review
JAIH- Journal of Ancient Indian History
JAS- Journal of the Asiatic Society
JESHO- Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
MHJ- The Medieval History Journal
PAHSIHC- Papers from the Aligarh Historians’ Society to Indian History
Congress

PIHC- Proceedings of the Indian History Congress

SAS- South Asian Studies
SIH- Studies in History
SIPH- Studies in People’s History
TBR- The Book Review
1. ‘Economic Policy of Kākatīya Gaṇapati’, JAIH, XI, 1977–78 (1980),

pp. 85–92.
2. ‘Kulottuṅga and the Port of Viśākhapaṭṭinam’, PIHC, XLI, 1981,
Bodhgaya session, pp. 142–45.
3. ‘The Economic Background of Darius I’s Invasion of India’, PIHC,
XLII, 1982, Kurukshetra session, 165–71.
4. ‘Aprada/Aprada: An Examination of the Connotations of the Term’,
(jointly with Adhir Chakravarti), Journal of Indian History, Golden
Jubilee Volume, 1984
5. ‘Merchants of Konkan (10th–12th centuries A.D.)’, IESHR, XXIII
(2), 1986, pp. 208–15.
6. ‘A Note on the Tumain Inscription of Kumaragupta I: Gupta Era
113’, (jointly with Gopal Chandra Sinha), Indian Museum Bulletin,
XXI, 1987.
7. ‘Monarchs, Merchants and a Matha in Northern Konkan (900–
1053 ad)’, IESHR, XXVII, 1990, pp. 189–208.
8. ‘Horse Trade and Piracy at Thana (Thana, Maharashtra, India):
Gleanings from Marco Polo’, JESHO, XXXIII, 1991, pp. 159–82.
9. ‘An Ancient Gymnasium at Bandhogarh’, (jointly with Suchandra
Dutta Majumder) Monthly Bulletin of the Asiatic Society, July 1992,
pp. 1–7.
10. ‘The Export of Sindani Indigo from India to the “West” in the
Eleventh Century’, IHR, 28, 1992/1996, pp. 18–30.
11. ‘Maritime Trade in Horses in Early Historical Bengal: A Seal from
Chandraketugarh’, Pratnasamiksha, I, 1992, pp. 155–60.
12. ‘A Note on Dipotsava (Diwali)’, JAS, XXXV, no, 1, 1993, pp. 107–
10.
13. ‘Maritime Trade between Malabar and Aden: Gleanings from
a Jewish Business Letter (1139)’, PIHC, 55th Session, Section I
(Ancient India), Aligarh, 1994, pp. 132–41.
14. ‘Merchants and Other Donors at Ancient Bandhogarh’, SAS, 11,
1995, pp. 33–42.
15. ‘The Putabhedana as a Centre of Trade in Early India’, SAS, 12,
1996, pp. 33–39.
16. ‘Coastal Trade and Voyages in Konkan: The Early Medieval
Scenario’, IESHR, XXXV, 1998, pp. 97–123.

17. ‘Chandrapura/Sindabur and Gopakapattana: Two Ports on the

West Coast of India (A. D. 1000–1300)’, PIHC, Diamond Jubilee
Session, Calicut, 1999, pp. 153–61.
18. ‘Early Medieval Bengal and the Trade in Horses: A Note’, JESHO,
XLII, 1999, pp. 194–211.
19. ‘Nakhudas and Nauvittakas: Ship-owning Merchants in the West
Coast of India (c. ad 1000–1500)’, JESHO, XLIII, 2000, pp. 34–64.
20. ‘Review Essay on Romila Thapar’s Early India from the Origins to
c. AD. 1300’, Biblio, VIII (1–2), November, 2003: 22–24.
21. ‘An Enchanting Seascape: Through an Epigraphic Lens’, SIH, XX,
2004, pp. 305–17.
22. ‘Befriending the Bay: The Bay of Bengal Maritime Network (up to
c. A.D. 1300)’, 52nd Foundation Day Lecture, Asiatic Society of
Bangladesh, 2004.
23. ‘Agricultural Technology in Early Medieval India (c. ad 500–
1300)’, MHJ, XI (2), 2009, pp. 229–58.
24. Review of Tansesn Sen’s Buddhism, Diplomacy and Trade: The
Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations 600–1400, MHJ, XI (2),
2009.
25. ‘Mineral Resources and Patterns of Communications in Early
Rajasthan’, JAIH, XXVII, 2010–11, pp. 1–15.
26. ‘The Pull towards the Coast: Politics and Polity in India (c.600–
1300 ce)’, Presidential Address, Section I (Ancient India): PIHC,
72nd Session, Patiala, 2011, pp. 22–42.
27. ‘From Sardulakarnavadanam to Tagore’s Chandalika: Literary
Journeys of a Buddhist Tale and Social Moorings’, in Irfan Habib
ed., PAHSIHC, 2012 (Mumbai Session).
28. ‘One Who is Present Can See What is Not Seen by One Who is
Absent: India and the Indian Ocean Maritime Trade in the Jewish
Geniza Letters (1000–1300 ce)’, in Irfan Habib (ed.), PAHSIHC,
2013 (Cuttack Session), pp. 155–71.
29. ‘Remembering an “Extra-Large” Scholar: B. N. Mukherjee’, IHR,
XL (1), 2014, pp. 151–54.
30. ‘Trade and Politics: India and the Indian Ocean up to c. 1500 ce’,
Foundation Day Lecture, Mumbai: Maritime History Society, 2014.
31. Situating the Chandala: From Aranyacharas to Antyaja’, in Irfan
Habib ed., PAHSIHC, 2014 (JNU session), pp. 180–85.
32. Review of Pierre-Yves Manguin, A. Mani and Geoof Wade eds.,
Early Interactions between South and Southeast Asia: Reflections on
Cross-Cultural Exchanges, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, XV,
2014, pp. 290–93.
33. ‘India Traders in the Jewish Geniza Documents (1000–1300)’,
SIPH, II, 2015, pp. 27–40.

34. ‘Vibrant Thalassographies of the Indian Ocean: Beyond Nation

States’, SIH, XXXI (2), 2015, pp. 235–48.
35. ‘The Making of a Coastal Polity: The Case of Early Medieval
Konkan’, in Irfan Habib ed. PAHSIHC, 2015 (Maldah Sesssion).
36. ‘The Indian Ocean Scenario in the 14th Century Latin Crusade
Tract: Possibilities of a World Historical Approach’, Asian Review
of World Histories 3, no. 1, 2015, pp. 37–58.
37. ‘An Emergent Coastal Polity: The Konkan Coast under the
Silaharas (Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries ad)’, SIPH, 3, 2, 2016, pp.
128–37.
38. ‘Coast vis-à-vis Subcontinent: Interlocking with Distinctiveness’, in
Irfan Habib (ed.), PAHSIHC, Tiruvanantapuram Session, 2016, pp.
219–31.
39. ‘Eloquent Inscriptions on Indic Experiences of State Society,
Material Milieu and Religious Complexes: Integration vis-à-vis
Appropriation (c. 700–1600 ce)’, MHJ, XXI (1), 2018, pp. 141–
60.
40. Review of Suchandra Ghosh’s From the Oxus to the Indus : A
Political and Cultural Study (c. 300 bce–100 bce), TBR, Vol. XLII,
July, 2018, pp. 4–5.
41. ‘Merchants and State Society: Some Case Studies from Early
Historic and the “Threshold Times” (c. 600 bc to ad 700)’, SIPH,
VI (2), 2019, pp. 119–33.
42. ‘A Subcontinent in Enduring Ties with an Enclosed Ocean (c.
1000–1500 C.E.): South Asia’s Maritime Profile “Before European
Hegemony”’, Journal of Medieval World, I (2), 2019, pp. 27–56.
43. Review of Elizabeth Lambourn’s Abraham’s Luggage: A Social
History of Things in the Medieval Indian Ocean World, Asian Review
of World Histories, VIII, 2020, pp. 47–51.
44. Review of Sebastian R. Prange’s Monsoon Islam: Trade and Faith
on the Medieval Malabar Coast, English Historical Review, vol.135,
issue 574, August 2020, pp. 657–59.
45. Tutul Chakravarti and Ranabir Chakravarti, ‘An Illustrated
Ophthalmic Register of an Arogyasala in SerfojiII’s (1798–1832)
Tanjavur: An Emblem of Plural Medical Practices’, JAS, LXII (4),
2020, pp. 49–66.
46. Review of Mekhola Gomes, Digvijay Kumar Singh and Meera
Visvanathan eds., Social World of Pre-Modern Transactions:
Perspectives from Indian Epigraphy and History, TBR, Vol. XLVI,
September, 2022, pp. 61–63.
47. Obituary note: ‘Ranabir Chakravarti, The Singularity of B.D.
Chattopadhayaya’, Monthly Bulletin of the Asiatic Society, September
2022.

48. Review of Kanad Sinha’s, From Dasarājṇa to Kurukshetra:Making

of a Historical Tradition, TBR, Vol. XLVII, March, 2023, pp. 4–6.
Interviews
1. ‘Indian History and the Indian Ocean: Interview with Professor

K.N. Chaudhuri’, Calcutta Historical Journal, XIV(1–2), July 1989–
June 1990, pp. 78–83.
2. ‘Linking the Past and the Present: Interview with the Historian
Romila Thapar’, Frontline, September, 18, 2015, pp. 4–27.
Anwesha Das and Devdutta Kakati

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
The Editors
R. Mahalakshmi is a professor at the Centre for Historical Studies,

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research interests include
the development of state, economy and religious and art traditions in
ancient and medieval India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Her book The Making
of the Goddess: Korravai-Durga in the Tamil Traditions (Penguin, 2011),
was awarded the prize for the best book by a woman historian by the
Indian History Congress in 2013. She has also authored The Book of
Lakshmi (Penguin, 2009), edited Art and History: Texts, Contexts and
Visual Representations in Ancient and Early Medieval India (Bloomsbury,
2020) and Colonization: A Comparative Study of India and Korea, co-
edited with Vyjayanti Raghavan (Academic Foundation Books, 2015),
in addition to contributing articles in peer-reviewed journals and
books. She has been a co-investigator in an international project on
‘India and Korea: A Comparative Study of Colonialism’ funded by the
Academy of Korean Studies, Korea. She was a visiting professor in 2018
at the Institut für Kunst-und Bildgeschichte, Humboldt University. She
has served as the secretary of the Indian History Congress (2018–22).
She has delivered presidential addresses of the Historiography Section
of the Andhra Pradesh History Congress for 2018–19 and the Ancient
Section of the Punjab History Conference (2019–20). She has served as
the editor of the journal Studies in History (Sage) and is on the editorial
board of the India International Centre Quarterly. Her edited volumes
on Indian Sculptures and Goddesses in South Asia will be published later
this year.
Suchandra Ghosh is a professor in the Department of History,

University of Hyderabad. She specializes in early Indian epigraphy.
Her areas of research are politico-cultural history of north-west
India, early India’s linkages with early Southeast Asia, Indian Ocean
Buddhist and trade network and the history of everyday life. She was
the sectional president of Ancient India for the 80th session of Indian
History Congress in 2019 and of the Ancient Section of the Punjab
and Bengal History Conference (2019–20). She was also invited to
the Associate Director of Studies (DEA) Programme, FMSH, Paris, in
2018. She is the author of From the Oxus to the Indus: A Political and
Cultural Study (Primus Books, 2017), for which she received the Savitri
439

440 About the Editors and Contributors
Chandra Shobha Memorial Prize of Indian History Congress. Her

recent co-edited volumes are Inscriptions and Agrarian Issues in Indian
History: Essays in Memory of D.C. Sircar (Asiatic Society of Bengal,
2017) with B.D. Chattopadhyaya and Bishnupriya Basak; Early Indian
History and Beyond: Essays in honour of B.D. Chattopadhyaya (Primus
Books, 2019) with Osmund Bopearachchi and Exploring South Asian
Urbanity (Routledge, 2021) with Urvi Mukhopadhyay, in addition to
articles in peer-reviewed journals and books. She is the area editor of
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History: Asia and Africa (Wiley Blackwell,
2021).
The Contributors
Angela Schottenhammer (蕭婷) is a professor of Chinese Middle

Period and Early Modern World History at KU Leuven, Belgium, a
selected senior researcher at the School of Economics at Shanghai
University (经济学院, 上海大学) and a research affiliate at the
Geography Department, U Gent. (2009–20). She has also been a
research director and adjunct professor at the Indian Ocean World
Centre (IOWC), McGill University, Canada. She obtained her PhD in
1993 from Würzburg University with a thesis on ‘Song Period Tomb
Inscriptions’ (MA 1989 on Liao Mosha and the Cultural Revolution)
and her Habilitation degree (2000) from LMU Munich University
with a thesis on the port city of Quanzhou during the Song period
(960–1279). She is the director of the Crossroads Research Centre
(https://crossroads-research.net), chief editor of the academic journal
Crossroads (https://brill.com/view/journals/cjai/cjai-overview.xml)
and of two book series (Crossroads—History of Interactions across
the Silk Routes; East Asian Maritime History). Her research focuses
on Chinese history, archaeology, science and technology and culture,
and on China’s and Asia’s increasing worldwide integration, through
both maritime and overland routes (with a main focus on the period
between 650 and 1800).
Anwesha Das (PhD candidate, Emory University) researches on the

history of the Indian Ocean in medieval times. Her doctoral dissertation
focuses on medieval Gujarat as a hub of transoceanic communication,
particularly through the textile trade, with a focus on interactions
between commerce, material culture and religion, and situates Gujarat
within the wider Indian Ocean world. She has previously studied at the
Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi)
and Presidency College (Kolkata).

About the Editors and Contributors 441
Ashish Kumar, assistant professor in the Department of History, Punjab

University, Chandigarh, has completed his PhD (2016) from the Centre
for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His area
of research interest is early medieval history of India with a focus on
political processes and connected economic and religious developments;
he is also interested in the history of history writing in postcolonial
India. He has published articles in several prestigious journals and
in edited books, and is one of the contributors in The Encyclopedia of
Ancient History: Asia and Africa, edited by D.T. Potts, Ethan Harkness,
Jasson Neelis and Roderick McIntosh (John Wiley, 2022). His recent
publications are ‘Two Rājyas and a Dēvī: State Formation and Religious
Processes in Central India (circa 5th–6th Century CE)’ in Indian
Historical Review (2020) and ‘The Huns (“Hūṇas”) in India: A Review’
in Studies in People’s History (2021).
Dev Kumar Jhanjh is an assistant professor in the Department of

History, Azim Premji University, Bhopal. Jhanjh obtained his PhD
degree from the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, in 2021. His area of specialisation is epigraphy and
numismatics, and areas of interest comprise state formation processes
and the economic history of early India. He was awarded the prestigious
DAAD Sandwich Fellowship for the academic year 2018–19. He has
curated a module for Sahapedia on Indian epigraphy in 2017. Jhanjh’s
recent publications include ‘Akṣaśālika, Akṣaśālin, and Suvarṇakāra
as the Engravers of Copper Plate Charters of Odisha (c. 7th–11th
Centuries ce)’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress (2018) and
‘State formation and Polity of Brahmapura-Kārttikeyapura in Central
Himalayas (c. 5th–10th centuries ce)’ in Kulke Hermann and B.P. Sahu
(eds), The Routledge Handbook of the State in Premodern India (2022).
Devdutta Kakati is an assistant professor in the Department of History,

Darrang College (affiliated to Gauhati University), Tezpur, Assam.
She completed her MPhil from the Centre for Historical Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi) on The Emergence of Vaṅga
and Samataṭa-Harikela: Two Ancient Sub-regions in The Bengal Delta
(c. 400–800 ce) in 2018. Her recent publications include ‘The Harṣacarita
and Two Contemporary Eulogies in Epigraphic Texts: Reflections on
the Polity of Kāmarūpa during the Reign of Bhāskaravarman’ in Vitus
Angermeier et al. (eds), Puṣpikā-Tracing Ancient India through Texts
and Traditions: Contributions to Current Research in Indology (Oxbow
Books, 2023) and ‘The Lauhitya Valley and the Eastern Sea in the
Kālikā Purāṇa: Historical Geography and Linkages (c. 10th century)’,
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress (2017).

Elizabeth Lambourn is a historian of the Indian Ocean world and is

committed to the interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study of medieval
history. Her work engages equally with texts and ‘things’ and with
texts as material ‘things’. Lambourn has held fellowships at Harvard
and Stanford universities and, during 2011–13, she was the recipient
of a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship. She is a founding board
member of the journal The Medieval Globe, sits on the advisory boards
of the journals Postmedieval and Medieval Worlds and advises for the
series Approaching Medieval Sources (Routledge) and Medieval Worlds
(Bloomsbury). Lambourn has published widely on varied aspects
of the circulation of artefacts, animals, people and ideas around the
Indian Ocean area. She is the author of the research monograph
Abraham’s Luggage: A Social Life of Things in the Medieval Indian Ocean
World (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and editor of the volumes
Legal Encounters on the Medieval Globe (ARC Humanities Press, 2017)
and A Cultural History of the Sea in the Medieval Age (Bloomsbury
Academic, 2021).
Federico De Romanis is an associate professor of Roman history

at the Università di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’. His publications include
Cassia, cinnamomo, ossidiana. Uomini e merci tra Oceano Indiano e
Mediterraneo (L’Erma Di Bretschneider, 1996, 2006) and The Indo–
Roman Pepper Trade and the Muziris Papyrus (Oxford University
Press, 2020).
Krishnendu Ray, associate professor, Department of Ancient Indian

History and Culture, University of Calcutta, is engaged in teaching
society, economy and polity of early India up to 1300 ce. His research
interests include religious studies, the social history of the people of
the east and west coasts of India, reading early Indian history through
material culture and attitudes towards the environment in early Indian
perspectives. His recent publications include ‘Yuddha and Vijaya:
Concepts of War and Conquest in Ancient and Early Medieval India
(up to ce 1300)’, in Chinese and Indian Warfare—From the Classical
Age to 1870, edited by Kaushik Roy and Peter Lorge (Routledge, 2015);
‘Writing the Material Life of the People of Early Bengal from Sculptures
as Texts (up to 4th–5th Centuries ce)’, Journal of Bengal Art (2021);
and ‘Understanding Society through Archaeological Artefacts from
Saluvankuppam in Coastal Tamil Nadu (c. 7th–13th Centuries ce)’,
Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology (2021–22).
Malini Adiga is an independent researcher specialising in the study

of early medieval Karnataka and specifically on gender and family.

After completing her PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University in

1997, she was the recipient of post-doctoral research grants from
ICHR and UGC with an affiliation to the Mangalore University
(1998–2000, 2004–09). Some of her publications are The Making
of Southern Karnataka: Society, Polity and Culture in the Early
Medieval Period (ad 400–1030) (Orient Longman, 2006); ‘Evolution
of Political Institutions and Culture in Karnataka, 400–1300 ce’ in
Researching Transitions in Indian History, edited by Radhika Seshan
and Sraddha Kumbhojkar (Routledge India, 2018); ‘Karnatakada
Arthikate mattu Samajika Vyavasthe’ (in Kannada) in Karnatakada
Sāmājika mattu Arthika Caritreya Kelavu Nelegaëu, Kuvempu Bhasha
Bharati Pradhikara edited by Surendra Rao and S. Chandrashekhar
(Bengaluru, 2016) and ‘Dravidian Kinship and Its Impact on the
Society and Polity of Early Medieval Karnataka’ in Emperors, Saints
and People: Revisiting Deccan History, edited by Mohammed Nazrul
Bari and R. Arjun (Primus Books, 2023). She was the president of the
Ancient India section of Indian History Congress in its 81st session
held in Chennai in December 2022.
Meera Visvanathan is an associate professor in the Department of

History and Archaeology, Shiv Nadar University. Her research focuses
on the Brahmi inscriptions of early historic India. She is also interested
in the social history of early India with a focus on themes of caste and
gender. She has edited The Social Worlds of Premodern Transactions
with Mekhola Gomes and Digvijay Kumar Singh (Primus Books, 2020).
Her recent essays include ‘The First Land Grants: The Emergence of
an Epigraphic Tradition in the Early Deccan’ in The Social Worlds
of Premodern Transactions: Perspectives from Indian Epigraphy and
History, edited by Mekhola Gomes, Digvijay Kumar Singh and Meera
Visvanathan (Primus Books, 2020) and ‘Uṣavadāta’s Akhayanivi: The
Eternal Endowment in the Early Historic Deccan’ in Journal of the
International Association of Buddhist Studies (2018).
Nupur Dasgupta is a professor in the Department of History, Jadavpur

University. Her research interests include ancient Indian history and
archaeology and history of science, technology and medicine (ancient to
modern). She was the recipient of the Charles Wallace Fellowship at School
of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She was a visiting
fellow at the Distant Worlds Graduate School, Ludwig-Maximilians-
Universität, Munich, Germany. She has authored The Dawn of Technology
in Indian Protohistory (Punthi Pustak, 1997) and The Suvarnatantra: A
Treatise on Alchemy (Kalpaz Publications, 2009). Recent volumes edited
by her include Methodologies of Interpreting the Ancient Past in South

Asia: Studies in Material Culture (2016) and Religion, Landscape and

Material Culture in Pre-modern South Asia (Routledge, 2023). She has
contributed several research articles in national and international journals
and series like the Wiley International Encyclopaedia of Revolution and
Protest and Wiley Encyclopaedia of Ancient History: Asia and Africa. She
has completed major research projects sponsored by the Indian National
Science Academy and the University Grants Commission, India.
Priyam Barooah is an assistant professor in the Department of History,

ARSD College, University of Delhi. She has done her MPhil and PhD
from the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New
Delhi. Her specialisation is on early socio-economic history, everyday
life in early Bengal, pre-industrial urbanisation, early state formation
and trade-related exchanges. She has published in various research
journals on the areas of her research interests, besides her monograph,
Urbanisation and State Formation in Radha: A Sub-region of Early Bengal
(Siyahi Blue Pubs, 2021). She has attended and presented her research
papers in various international conferences. She is a regular columnist
on political and national issues with various national dailies.
Sabarni Pramanik Nayak is an assistant professor in the Department

of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Visva-Bharati
University, Santiniketan. She specializes in early Indian epigraphy.
She is interested in the economic and social history of early India.
She has published several articles on the society and economy of
early medieval Andhra and Odisha. Her recent essays are ‘Peṇṭhā
in Epigraphy: Looking into the Śrīkākulām-Vizianagaram-
Vishakhapatnam Region, Eleventh-Fifteenth Centuries ce’ in Early
Indian History and Beyond: Essays in Honour of B.D. Chattopadhyaya,
edited by Osmund Bopearachchi and Suchandra Ghosh (Primus
Books, 2019) and ‘Temple, Trader and Peṇṭhā in the Inscriptions of
the Srikakulam-Vishakhapatnam Region, 1000–1500 ce’ in Social
Worlds of Premodern Transactions Perspectives from Indian Epigraphy
and History, edited by Mekhola Gomes, Digvijay Kumar Singh and
Meera Visvanathan (Primus Books, 2021).
Shyam Narayan Lal is a professor in the Department of History,

Jammu University, Jammu. His area of interest is economic history of
early medieval India with special focus on land-grants of the Deccan.
He has delivered the presidential address in the Ancient Section of
the Punjab History Conference (2018). He has published widely in
several peer-reviewed books and journals. His recently published
essay is ‘Nature of Land Control in Early Medieval Deccan’ in Early

Indian History and Beyond: Essays in Honour of B.D. Chattopadhyaya,

edited by Osmund Bopearachchi and Suchandra Ghosh (Primus
Books, 2019).
Susmita Basu Majumdar, professor and head, Department of Ancient

Indian History and Culture, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, specializes in
early Indian epigraphy and numismatics. Her research interests include
monetary history, history of medicine and surgery, and religious and
cultural history of early India. Some of her recent publications include
Kalighat Hoard: The First Gupta Coin Hoard from India (Library of
Numismatics Studies, 2014); Barabar and Nagarjuni Hills: A Biography
of Twin Sites (K.P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 2016); The Mauryas in
Karnataka (Mahabodhi Book Agency, 2016) and Mahasthan Record
Revisited: Querying the Empire from a Regional Perspective (Manohar,
2023). Some of her co-edited books are Select Early Historic Inscriptions:
Epigraphic Perspectives on the Ancient Past of Chhattisgarh (Shaktakshi
Prakashan, 2015) with Shivakant Bajpai; Money and Money Matters in
Pre-Modern South Asia (Manohar, 2019) with S.K. Bose; and From Hindu
Kush to Salt Range: Mauryan, Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythian Coin Hoards
(The Ink, 2020) with Osmund Bopearachchi.
V. Selvakumar is an associate professor in the Department of Maritime

History and Marine Archaeology and the coordinator for Centre for
Indian Ocean Studies, Tamil University. His research interests include
archaeology of India, prehistory, heritage management, maritime
history and archaeology, archaeological theory, history of science and
technology, Indian Ocean cultural interactions and eco-criticism. His
works have been published in several reputed journals and edited
volumes. His recent publications include ‘History of Glass Ornaments
in Tamil Nadu, South India: Cultural Perspectives’ in Ancient Glass of
South Asia: Archaeology, Ethnography and Global Connections, edited
by Alok Kumar Kanungo and Laure Dussubieux (IITGN and Springer,
2021); ‘Umanars and Salt Trade in Early Historic Tamizhagam,
South India’, Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology (2019–20); and
‘Archaeology of Marginalization in Indian History’, Studies in History
(2022).
Y. Subbarayalu retired as a professor in the Department of Epigraphy

and Archaeology, Tamil University, Thanjavur, where he taught for
more than eighteen years. He is presently an affiliated researcher in the
French Institute of Pondicherry, Puducherry. He has coordinated the
project on Digital Historical Atlas of South India (2005–08) at the French
Institute of Pondicherry. His publications include Political Geography

of the Chola Country (Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology,

1973); A Concordance of the Names in the Cōḻa Inscriptions, co-authored
with Noboru Karashima and Toru Matsui (Sarvodaya Illakiya Pannai,
1978); A Glossary of Tamil Inscriptions (Santi Sadhana Trust, 2002–03);
and South India under the Cholas (Oxford University Press, 2012).

INDEX
A C
Abraham Ben Yiju, 10, 112, 122, Cāḷukya, 11, 282, 295–296, 300–301,
125–127, 134–135, 140–141, 304, 307, 311–312, 318, 321
147–149, 151–156, 384–385 Caulukya, 383
agrahāra, 6, 24–25, 232, 282, Carakasaṁhitā, 74, 77, 80–81, 84,
289–297, 299–301, 303–304, 311, 90, 100
314, 317, 322 Cave Haq (Cave Hoc), 398–399
Aï–Khanoum, 114 Central Himalaya, 3, 259–261,
Aihoḷe/Ayyāvaḷe/Ayyāvoḷe, 9, 264–265, 269, 273– 274, 279
51–52, 58–60, 299, 304–305, 320, cirujano, 166–167, 189–190, 192,
322–323, 325 194–195
Ainūṟṟuvar, 9, 51–60 Chitramēḻi, 56
Alluru inscription, 215–220, 224–225 China, 12, 81, 85, 161–163, 167–168,
Anahilapura, 383–384 174, 176–183, 187, 190–191, 194,
Antonio Díaz de Cáceres, 177, 179, 341, 372–373, 376, 383, 405–406,
181, 186, 197–198 408, 413–415, 417–418
Arthaśāstra, 66, 83, 90–91, 93, 98, Christóbal Acosta, 174, 195
215, 261, 267, 270, 343, 352, 356, coins, 10, 40, 44, 110–121, 162, 178,
395, 413 204, 209, 216, 218, 263, 272, 285,
aṣṭabhoga–tejaḥsvāmya, 212–213 288, 293, 300, 304, 309, 317–318,
Astakapra (Hastakavapra), 12, 321, 323, 326, 327, 337–339, 341,
393–394, 400 343, 348, 350–351, 353, 359, 370,
āṭavikas, 100 377–379, 381, 384–385, 389,
aṭhabhāgiya (aṣṭabhāgya), 212–213, 215 408–413, 415
Aulikāra, 9, 16–17, 19–23 ~ aureus (pl. aurei), 10, 111–113,
116
B ~ denarius (pl. denarii), 10,
Barygaza/Bharukaccha/Bhṛgukaccha, 111–116
10, 12, 110–111, 113, 115–118, ~ diramam, 339
121, 370–386 ~ drachma (dramma), 10, 110,
basadi, 285, 289, 292, 297, 301, 308, 384
314, 325 ~ Caltis, 413
Berenike, 376–378 ~ gadyāṇa, 285
bhoga, 236, 238 ~ Gauḍika, 413
brahmadēya/brahmadeya, 52, ~ hon, 288, 317
283–284, 291–293, 295–296, 300, ~ imitation of Kuṣāṇa coins, 413
312 ~ kāne, 304
Brahmapura, 260–261, 263–264, ~ kārṣāpaṇa (kāhāpaṇa,
271–272, 275 kasapana), 10, 111–112, 114,
bittuvaṭa, 282, 285, 321 338
447

448 Index
~ nomismata, 413 I
~ paḻaṅkācu, 339 I-tsing (Yijing), 408, 413
~ paṇa, 323, 326
~ pon, 304 J
~ punch-marked, 113–115, 338, Jātakas, 83, 95, 270, 2, 372, 380–381
348, 410 Jīvaka Komārabhacca, 82
~ salage, 293 Jogalthembi, 113, 115
~ suvarṇa, 10, 111–112, 263 Juan Fragoso, 170–173, 191–193
D K
Dakṣiṇāpatha, 17, 19 Kadamba, 11, 281, 283, 318
Dantidurga, 233, 239, 245–246, 249, Kāmarūpa, 12, 405, 412–414,
257 416–418
daishō swords – p. 176 kāmpu, 40–41
Deva, 260, 265–266 Kānherī inscription, 114, 120
Doña Isabel Barreto de Castro (Doña Kārttikeyapura, 260–261, 265, 271,
Ysabel de Barreto), 182–183, 199 275
Dutch East India Company, 162, 186 Keezhadi, 343, 345, 350, 354
komaṭi, 41–44
F Krishna I, 233, 239, 246–247
foreland, 369, 372, 375–376 380 kṣāra, 67
Francisco Hernández, 172, 193, 195 kumbhakāra, 41–42
G L
Gaṅga, 11, 281, 291, 295–296, 300, land-grant, 3, 8, 11, 18, 24–25, 26,
306–307, 311, 318–319 36, 38–40, 45, 72, 83, 204–215,
Gautamīputra Śrī Sātakarṇi, 111, 113, 219–220, 222–225, 228, 231–233,
117, 208–210, 219–220, 224 235–239, 241–242, 245–250,
Geniza, 5, 10, 122, 125, 141–142, 260–262, 265–266, 268–269, 272,
145–146, 148, 156–158, 160 281–326, 382,400, 408–410
gilānasālā, 82, 88 lavaṇa, 67, 71–75, 77
H M
hadiyya, 148–150, 159 Madurai, 334, 342–361, 365–367
Hathab, 12, 393–400 Malabar, 122, 126–127, 134–135,
haṭṭa, 37–38, 41–42 140–141, 145–147, 152, 155–156,
hero–stones, 291, 295, 312–313, 315, 159
317–318 malabathrum, 96, 107, 415–416
hinterland, 12, 333, 338, 340–343, 350, Mandasor inscription, 20–22
352, 369, 372–376, 380, 382, 384 manzil, 126, 147
Hiuen-Tsang (Xuanzang), 260, 264, Māhiṣmatī, 18–19
275, 382, 408, 414, 416–417 mechoacán, 174
Hoysaḷa/Hoysala, 11, 283, 285–286, Moharājaparājaya, 383
288, 290–292, 294, 312–317, 323, Muciri (Muziris), 11, 333, 339–342,
325 349–350, 352–353, 356

Index 449
N Sangley cases, 167–168

Nagardhan plates, 237, 242, 254 Sanjeli inscription, 21, 28
Nahapāna, 10, 111–115, 117–119, Socotra, 7, 17, 378–379, 385, 399
209 śreṣṭhi (seṭṭhi/śeṭṭi), 9, 34–35, 38–47,
Nāṇeghāṭ inscription, 114, 120 271, 273, 305, 321–322, 324–325
Nannarāja, 237, 241, 253–254, 256 ṣuḥba, 123, 144–148, 150–151, 155,
naturales, 171 158
Nahrwara, 384 stūpa, 212, 399
Suśruta, 74–75, 77, 80–81, 84–85,
P 90–93, 100, 396
Paglatek hoard, 411 svastikā, 399
Pandav Lena, 111
Parāntaka I, 52 T
pārada, 94 tailika, 42
Paṭṭanapakuti, 55, 58, 57, 62 Tāmralipti, 408, 413–414, 417
Paurava, 11, 60–262, 265, 268, tikicchakas, 83
270–271, 275 tiṇai, 12, 69–70 , 353–354
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, 10, tīrmāh, 146
110–119, 121, 370–373, 375–380,
394, 397, 399, 415–416 U
Periyar valley, 11, 333–340, 342, umaṇar, 69–71
349–354, 356, 358
Pirānmalai, 55–59, 62 V
pūrṇaghaṭa, 399 Vaigai valley, 11, 348–355, 357–358
vaḷañjiyar, 52, 54, 62–63
R Valkhā, 9, 16–18, 29
Rāṣṭrakūṭa, 11, 231–232, 236–238, vaṇik, 9, 34–37, 44–46
241, 243, 245, 249–251, 253–254,
256–257 W
riḥla, 146 wākil al–tujjār, 149
romaka, 74–75, 77 wines, 85, 90–91, 98, 110, 133, 152,
Rummindei Pillar Inscription, 162, 167, 175, 178, 372, 376–377,
211–215 398
~ Arabian, 110, 372
S ~ Ariṣṭa, 90
sādhu, 40 ~ Jagala, 90
saindhava, 64–68, 74, 77 ~ Khārjurā, 90
Salt Range, 64–65, 67–68 ~ Laodicean, 90, 110, 372, 377
Sambhar Lake, 65, 68, 72 ~ Madirā, 90
Samataṭa–Harikela, 12, 405–412, ~ Mārdvīkā, 90
414–418 ~ Śārkara, 90
sandhivigraha, 206, 238, 241, 247, ~ Surā, 90
256
Sangam, 12, 69–72, 336, 340–342,
344, 346, 348–349, 351–352,
354–355, 358–359


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THE ECONOMIC HISTORY OF INDIA

The Economic History of India.indd 1 04/07/23 11:53 AM

Historiographical Issues and Perspectives:

The Economic History of India.indd 3 04/07/23 11:53 AM

BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC INDIA and the Diana logo

First published in India 2023

Copyright © R. Mahalakshmi, Suchandra Ghosh and contributors, 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in

ISBN: HB: 978-93-54351-40-2; eBook: 978-93-56401-88-4

The Economic History of India.indd 4 04/07/23 11:53 AM

List of Tables, Maps and Figures vii

I. Trade, Traders and Maritime Networks

II. Land-Grants, Agriculture and the State

III. Settlements, Landscapes and Regional Formations

The Economic History of India.indd 5 04/07/23 11:53 AM

14. Barygaza/Bharukaccha: A Long-Range History of the Port,

About Ranabir Chakravarti 427

The Economic History of India.indd 6 04/07/23 11:53 AM

The Economic History of India.indd 7 04/07/23 11:53 AM

8.5: Extract from the Will of Doña Ysabel de Barreto 184

The Economic History of India.indd 8 04/07/23 11:53 AM

This volume in honour of our dear colleague and friend Professor

The Economic History of India.indd 9 04/07/23 11:53 AM

Economic history is generally situated at the intersection between history

1 Lamoreaux, Naomi, ‘The Future of Economic History Must be

The Economic History of India.indd 1 04/07/23 11:53 AM

The Economic History of India.indd 2 04/07/23 11:53 AM

the decentralisation of state apparatuses, decay of cities and towns and

The Economic History of India.indd 3 04/07/23 11:53 AM

sources render his work invaluable to scholars of early Indian history.

The Economic History of India.indd 4 04/07/23 11:53 AM

stages influenced him. Within the broader theme of economic history,

The Economic History of India.indd 5 04/07/23 11:53 AM

always interested Chakravarti and this is reflected in this collection.

The Economic History of India.indd 6 04/07/23 11:53 AM

subcontinent. What strikes any discerning reader is the incorporation

The Economic History of India.indd 7 04/07/23 11:53 AM

The Economic History of India.indd 8 04/07/23 11:53 AM

Post retirement, Ranabir Chakravarti desires not to be encumbered

The Economic History of India.indd 9 04/07/23 11:53 AM

through the associations and nomenclature attached to it, and its

The Economic History of India.indd 10 04/07/23 11:53 AM

forged by Spanish and Portuguese merchants and traders between Asia

The Economic History of India.indd 11 04/07/23 11:53 AM

and influences from the Afro-Eurasian–Indian Ocean world. Landscape

The Economic History of India.indd 12 04/07/23 11:53 AM

TRADE, TRADERS AND MARITIME NETWORKS

The Economic History of India.indd 13 04/07/23 11:53 AM

MERCHANTS, ARTISANS AND THE POLITICAL

The early medieval period that is usually seen as a transition phase

The Economic History of India.indd 15 04/07/23 11:53 AM

The Valkhās and the Aulikaras

The Gupta monarch Samudragupta (c. 335/40–375/80 ce) devised a

The Economic History of India.indd 16 04/07/23 11:53 AM

The Economic History of India.indd 17 04/07/23 11:53 AM

The Valkhā kingdom,19 lying in a buffer zone between the two

The Economic History of India.indd 18 04/07/23 11:53 AM

and, therefore, control over Māhiṣmatī would have enabled Mahārāja

The Economic History of India.indd 19 04/07/23 11:53 AM

The Economic History of India.indd 20 04/07/23 11:53 AM

from the Mahārāja Naravarman)49 and he is suggested to have been a

The Economic History of India.indd 21 04/07/23 11:53 AM

Fig. 1.1: The Genealogy of the Nigama Lineage/Family

Abhayadatta had died sometime before 533/34 ce and in his memory

List of Tables, Maps and Figures vii

About Ranabir Chakravarti 427

8.5: Extract from the Will of Doña Ysabel de Barreto 184