The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s9.227

v1.c19.s9.227

The trade of the trader, dealer, or middleman (*vāṇija*) may well have been largely hereditary⁸. Traditional good-will handed on here would prove specially effective in commanding confidence, and thus be a stronger incentive than the force *a tergo* of caste-rule. There is, however, no instance as yet produced from early Buddhist documents pointing to any corporate organisation of the nature of a gild or Hansa league¹. The hundred or so of merchants who, in the *Chullaka-Seṭṭhi Jātaka*², come to buy up the cargo of a newly arrived ship, are apparently each trying to 'score off his own bat,' no less than the pushful youth who forestalled them. Nor is there any hint of syndicate or federation or other agreement existing between the 500 dealers who are fellow passengers on board the ill-fated ships in the *Valāhassa* and *Paṇḍara Jātakas*³; or the 700 who were lucky enough to secure Suppāraka as their pilot⁴, beyond the fact that there was concerted action in chartering one and the same vessel. Among merchants travelling by land, however, the rank of *satthavāha* or caravan-leader seems to imply some sort of federation. This position was apparently hereditary, and to be a *jeṭṭhaka* or elder, in this capacity, on an expedition, apparently implied that other merchants (*vāṇija*), with their carts and caravan-followers, were accompanying the *satthavāha*, and looking to him for directions as to halts, watering, precautions against brigands, and even as to routes, fording, etc.⁵ Subordination, however, was not always ensured⁶, and the institution does not warrant the inference of any fuller syndicalism among traders.