India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c9.s3.5

c9.s3.5

The traders were also named after the articles in which they dealt and from the countries visited by them for business (*Gantavya-paṇyaṁ vāṇije*, VI.2.13), *e.g.*, *aśva-vāṇija*, a dealer in horses, and *Gāndhāri-vāṇija*, a trader who goes to Gandhāra on business (*gatvā vyavaharati*, *Kāśikā*), *Kāśmira-vāṇija*, *Madra-vāṇija*. These examples of merchants visiting distant provinces on business point to inter-provincial commercial intercourse and activity. The Jātakas often refer to merchants from eastern India going with their caravans to remote destinations in north-west India, *e.g.*, trade relations between Videha and Kashmīra and Gandhāra (III.365), Magadha and Sovīra (*Vimānavatthu Aṭṭhakathā*, p. 336), Rājagṛiha and Śrāvastī (*Sutta Nip.*, vv. 1012-3), Banāras and Śrāvastī (II.294), and Banāras and Ujjain (II.248) [B. C. Law, *India as Described in Buddhist and Jain Texts*, p. 185]. As a matter of fact the names of merchants envisaged in Pāṇini’s rule would better apply to merchants trading with distant countries.