Urban growth and agrarian expansion 200 bc-300 ad
The period between 200 b.c and 300 a.d showed a great development in both urban and agrarian field. But more is known about cities than about villages and agriculture. This time period was marked by extensive constructive activities with fortification walls, complex brick buildings with the adoption of new techniques that is tiles in flooring , roofing ,streets drains etc. at the root of urban efflorescence agricultural phase also started developing. North west part of the subcontinent saw the emergence of a city with a rectangular plan, parallel streets and blocks of houses with circular structure in shaikhan mound at charsada. Almost all sites saw the mud fortifications, brick walls, terracotta figurines, seals and sealings etc.
In western India there rose the cities of Rairh in Rajasthan, besnagar, ujjayain etc. Semi precious stones, terracotta figurines, ivory products etc were found. In Deccan textual evidence is unavailable so urban phase was reconstructed on the basis of archaeology alone. There are mentions about palaces, temples, large houses, markets etc. It was also a major center for craft activities. Korkai, Uraiyur, puhar, kachchi etc were some important towns and cities of south India.
Crafts and Guilds
Production and exchange were facilitated through the institution of shreni. This word has been translated as guild which is its nearest equivalent. These organizations enhanced production essential to commerce and became an important factor in urban life. Many artisans joined shrenis since it was difficult for individuals to compete with professional organisations. When demand increased some guilds began to employ hired labour and slaves. Such organisations were encouraged by the state. Artisans of any craft could constitute a guild. Important guilds were those of potters, metal workers, goldsmiths, weavers, carpenters etc. Private entrepreneurship also existed; one wealthy potter named saddalaputta owned 500 pottery workshops. The shrenis fixed rules of work as well as quality and price of finished goods. The guild also intervened in the private lives of its members. If a married woman wanted to join the Buddhist order as a nun, she had to get the permission of her husband and also the shreni to which he belonged. The threat to guilds came in periods of transition when the occupation followed by a jati underwent economic change or when the demand for a particular product declined.
The goods produced by artisans whether individually or through a guild, were bought by merchants-vanij. Although guilds were powerful, they did not seek direct political influence or office. A possible explanation is that in some cases the royal family seems to have had a financial interest in the guilds. So there was royal support in tangible form and also lack of opposition by the king against the guilds. Also, it would have been difficult for a given guild to ally itself with other guilds. Such cooperation would have been prevented by caste rules. Along with archaeological sources, literary sources also include very specific information on craft activity in various regions of subcontinent. Buddhist text tells about many professions, crafts and guilds of craft persons and traders. There were references about crafts in milindapana, jataka stories etc. There were references to professions like potters, carpenters, metal smiths, foresters, hunters, fowlers, fishermen and salt makers. Sangham texts tell about weaving, gem working, shell and metal working. Inscriptions form Mathura. Sanchi, bharut etc mentions potters, weavers, masons, carpenters, gold smiths etc. there was a significant number of guilds in the 200 bc-300 ad time period. Inscriptions of western Deccan mentions about guilds of weavers, potters, oil millers etc. junnar inscription records a guild of corn dealers. The high status enjoyed by members of merchant guild is indicated by the term kaviti. Importance of guilds is evident from coins, seals and sealings issued by them. Inscriptions refer to investments made in guilds of weavers, potters and suchlike. Clearly these were profitable and socially acceptable. At the same time there were also occupations listed in the lower social orders in the normative text, like the shudras. There is a lack of fit between the vision of the normative texts and social reality.
Trade, traders and trade routes
A mosaic of political identities existed with each mosaic varying in size and comprising of kingdoms oligarchies and chieftains. But one feature that threaded its way through all this variation was exchange in trade. Various kinds of trading centres evolved linked by far reaching routes. Earlier items had been manufactured close to the source of raw material. Now there was a greater dispersal of craftsmen, with many gathering in centres where there were markets. Numerous routes now traversed the subcontinent, some continuing further into central and west Asia. The political control of the shakas and Kushanas linked central Asia to India. The decline of the Kushanas was contemporary with the decrease in roman commercial interests in central Asia. Meanwhile trade with eastern Mediterranean flourished.
Routes tended to follow the highways and river valleys. Rivers were not bridged but ferries were common. Travellers restricted to the dry summers and winters. The rainy season was a period of rest. Often several caravans banded together for greater safety. Kautilya advised that in the south roads running through the mines should be taken as they would be more heavily populated and thus safer than the more isolated routes. Buddhist sources refer to the long distance trade. Water routes was many times cheaper than land routes. Arthashasthra mentions that although sea travel was cheaper the danger of pirates and the cost of losing ships remains. A costal route is safer than a mid ocean route but it also offers greater opportunities fro local trade but mid ocean routes were faster.
. Barbaricum on the Indus delta served as a port for the north-west but the silting up of the estuary led to a relocating of its ports and eventual decline. Bhrigukachchha, the modern Baruch, continued to be a major port for the western sea trade. Its hinterland reaching the Ganges plains.
The Gulf of Cambay remained the destination for much shipping from the Arabian Gulf. Ports further down the western coast such as sopara and kalyana serving the western Deccan and the muziris linked to the centres in the south. Ports along the east coast included tamralipti/tamluk. The Mauryas had built a royal highway from Taxilla to Patilaputra was continuously rebuilt. The British referred to it as the grand trunk road. Pataliputra was connected by both road and river to tamluk which was also linked by sea to Srilanka and Myanmar. Routes to the south developed rapidly in post Mauryan times due to intensified trade demands. Land routes followed river valleys where possible. The elevations in the Deccan plateau discouraging direct north-south communication, but allowing for some east-west routes along valleys such as Godavari and Krishna. The plateau was thickly wooded and therefore unsafe. Nevertheless, the Deccan was a hive of market centres production centres and Buddhist monasteries at places such as ter, bokarden, karad, kondapur, dharanikotta, and amaravati. Gaps and breaks in mountains were always utilised. Sites on the east coast had contacts with the settlements in Srilanka. Coastal routes developed faster and become the basis of north- south links along each coasts. In the north the most widely used highway westwards was from Taxilla to begram. The northern route was via Bactria, the Oxus, the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus to the black sea. A more southerly route went from Kandahar and Herat to Ecbatana after which it was linked to the ports on the eastern Mediterranean. Another important highway connected kandhahar with Persepolis and Susa. Margiana, adjoining Bactria, was a transit point for silk coming from the east that was intended for the Mediterranean. It had a no. of Buddhist monasteries. Gandhara also became a nodal point for overland trade tapping the silk route and the eastern Byzantine trading centres. The attraction of profits kept the traders going. The southern areas boasted of agricultural wealth due to careful irrigation, as well as gaining an income from trade. The Indian merchandise was copper, sandalwood, teak and ebony, and exports to India included pearls, dyes, wines, dates, gold and specially trained slaves. . There was also regular exchange of medical information.
Inland in the Deccan there were capitals of kingdoms and also centres of production such as ter, nevasa, kondapur. It was also the location for Buddhist monasteries. Eastern Deccan saw the growth of trade and towns along the east coast were further linked to places inland. Muchiri or Muziris was linked to the trade in pepper, spices and beryl. References to the rich Malabar pepper trade continue for centuries, up to the time of the Portuguese. Locations of coin hoards suggest a link from Muziris via the Palghat gap- tapping the beryl mines- and along the kaveri valley to the east coast. The distribution of small settlements around a large one had been interpreted as the existence of chiefdoms. This would have encouraged the initial exchange with visiting traders.
Trade with the west
The coast route from India to western Asia was tedious. Mid-ocean routes were facilitated by monsoon winds that blew from the south west across the Arabian Sea in summer. The winds made mid-ocean travelling speedier than coastal routes. Ships sailing from the southern end of the red sea would wait for the south west monsoon to pass its peak before they set sail, using the now less ferocious wind. The returning north-east monsoon from across India in the winter would bring the ships back. The using of winds for navigation would have made it necessary for the traders to stay on for a short amount of time before returning to their red sea ports, thus increasing contact between local Indians and visiting yavanas. . Traders from the west were not always romans from Rome, but were Egyptians, Jews and Greeks from Alexandria and the eastern Mediterranean as well as some from north Africa- all part of the Roman Empire.
Long distance trade
Jatakas mention long distance journeys over land, river and sea. Sangam poets talks of yavanas bringing goods by ship into the ports of south India. Excavations at kaveripattanam revealed roman pottery and coins as well as locally made imitations of roman pottery and local coins. Long distance transportation was organised by the satvahanas, with a number of caravans travelling together for safety
East and south-east Asia
The area around gandhara was of special interest to the Han emperors of china. The Kushanas were in a sense a link between India and china. Communications with china further improved. The initial military and political interest was however taken over by trade and religious exchange with Indian subcontinent. The commercial exchanged were dominated by silk. The trade relation with china was through the great Chinese silk route which also connects India with central, west Asia and Europe. The important items transported from India to china during this period were pearls, coral, glass and fragrances. Silk was the major Chinese export to India. The excavation at arikamedu gives evidence of contact with traders from the eastern Mediterranean. Yavana merchants from the eastern Mediterranean traded in the satvahana kingdom and further south, their presence being registered in the votive descriptions at Buddhist centres in the Deccan. The tapping of south-east Asia by Indian traders was in part spurred on by roman trade. The items like spices were not easily available in India. Although the easiest route was by sea, the risks were great. But the immense profits on the spices sold to Alexandrian merchants compensated for the hazards.
Indo-Roman trade
This period shows the flourish in trade between India and Rome. The periplus gives a list of goods exported to Roman Empire from the Indian ports on the Indus delta and the Gujarat coast. Indian traders were quick to see the advantage of being middlemen for roman traders. A large number of roman coins discovered in India comprised almost 170 from 130 sites. There are silver coins known as ‘denarii’ and gold coins known as ‘aurei’. The silver coins are more numerous both in India and Rome. Some roman coins found in India are with slash marks and small counter marks. The2 types of roman pottery found in India are amphorae jars and terra sigillatta. Valuable evidence for India’s maritime trade comes from the site of arikamedu of the coromondal coast. Apart from arikamedu, amphorae jars and terra sigillatta were found in urayur, kanchipuram and vasavasamudram. Roman artifacts in India indicate that while the trade was initially concentrated on the western coast, the coromondal coast soon became important. At the time when trade was first noticed it gave an impression of an overly major participation by the Roman Empire. This had now been changed by evidence of substantial Indian participation. The discovery of hoards of roman coins, the evidence of Indian products and their exchange and of yavana donors at Buddhist sites all underline a qualitative difference in Indian presence in this trade. A Greek maritime geography of the mid 1st century A.D. the periplus. There is indirect reference to political conditions as well. Textiles, pepper, semi-precious stones, ivory were all exchanged for roman coins as the main import together with coral and wine. Certain kind of textiles are thought to have been manufactured according to roman specifications.
Imitations were made of roman objects in bronze and clay. Attempts have been made to imitate the portraiture of roman coins with substandard portraits of local rulers. Products that were in demand in roman markets were exchanged for roman coins. Most of the coins are of earlier roman emperors such as Augustus and Tiberius. The roman historian Pliny complained of the trade with the east being a serious drain on the income of Rome. Imported from India were largely luxury items such as jewels, textiles, spices, ivory and it was therefore thought that the trade was in India’s favour. But it has recently been argued that customs dues and taxes on the imports from the east into the roman Egypt were high enough to compensate for the drain of money.
MERCANILE COMMUNITY
The dynasties of this period had a relatively quick turnover. The most stable factor was trade. Through all the political vicissitudes of the shungas, kanvas, indo-Greeks, shakas, Kushanas, satvahanas, ishvakus, cheras, cholas and pandyas, there was increasing visibility of the merchant and artisan. There were regional variations.
The Mauryan administration built roads and attempted to make contact with relatively remote areas. The later annexation of north western India by non- local rulers was advantageous to the merchants who ventured into such untapped places. The prosperity of the merchant community is evident from their donations to religious institutions mainly Buddhism and Jainism. Agriculture was extended to forest and wasteland areas which were brought into cultivation. Donations can be context to transactions involving land.
. Older forms of barter and direct exchange still persisted. Gift-exchanges involving status rather than profit was prevalent in societies where clan chiefs were still dominant. Something material could even be exchanged for something intangible, the latter ceremonial value.
A more complicated exchange involved systems of redistribution. Raids were used to acquire wealth and even when raids where discontinued, the obtaining of loot remained a motive to go to war. The evolving of state with treasury and public expenditure was a further form of redistribution. Excavations in many places suggest a rise in the standard of living.
Bankers
Another aspect is that of the banker. In some cases the guilds were themselves the bankers, but mostly it was carried out by a separate category- the setthis and the chettiars. The use of setthi-gahapati, families of rich landowners, with surplus wealth to invest in trade, initially provided members to the profession of merchant. Banking was not a full time occupation. The post Mauryan centuries saw great spurt in the minting of coins. The kings of the north-west imitated Greek, roman and Iranian coin types. However the increasing use of money did not drive out the barter systems particularly in rural areas. A large variety of coins were used in towns. These were of gold, copper and lead. . Coins of the roman republic have been found but the immensely large numbers are of early imperial issues that span the turn of Christian era. The latter were valued for the high quality of their metal content. The gold coins of the Kushanas followed the roman weight standards, partly to ensure that they would be used a legal tenders in areas familiar with roman trade.