The History of Bengal (Vol. I: Hindu Period; Vol. II: Muslim Period 1200–1757) v1.c19.s7.35

v1.c19.s7.35

Concerning the nature and organisation of industrial labour, we hardly know anything definite. There are certain statements, however, occurring here and there in the inscriptions, which suggest the inference that the workers in various trades and industries were organised in some kind of corporate groups. Reference has already been made (supra p. 266) to the trade and craft-guilds in Bengal in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D., and the important position occupied by the nagara-śreṣṭhī (guild-president), prathama-sārthavāha (chief merchant) and prathama-kulika (the chief artisan) in the local administration. Similarly, the Deopārā inscription of Vijayasena refers to Rāṇaka Śūlapāṇi, who engraved the stone, as Vārendra-śilpi-goṣṭhī-cūḍāmaṇi (“crest-jewel of the guild of Vārendra artists”). The exact meaning of goṣṭhī may be a matter of doubt,¹ but the possibility of its connoting a guild can never be altogether ruled out.