The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s9.186

v1.c19.s9.186

The remarkable localisation of industries revealed in Buddhist literature has already been noticed. This is observable especially in the case of craft-villages of woodwrights⁴, ironsmiths⁵, and potters⁶. These were either suburban to large cities, or rural, and constituting as such special markets for the whole countryside, as we see in the ironsmiths' *gāma* just cited, to which people came from the *gāmas* round about to have razors, axes, ploughshares, goads, and needles made. On the Ganges or further afield there were trapper *gāmas*, supplying game, skins, ivory, etc.⁷