The Colas c30.13

c30.13

There were also local organisations of merchants called *nagaram* in big centres of trade like Kāñcīpuram and Māmallapuram.³² What the relation was between these local bodies of traders and the more general groups like the Maṇigrāmam and the Nānādēśis or Vaḷañjīyar cannot be determined with precision. That Brahmins also occasionally engaged in trade becomes clear from a direct mention of the Brahmins who engaged in trade along with the Vaḷañjīyar in the South bazaar of Eṇṇāyiram,³³ a large centre of Vaiṣṇavism and education in South Arcot. The *nagarams* used to raise voluntary contributions from their members for specific purposes. To give just one example: in a.d. 1037, the *nagaram* of the town of Vaḷaiyūr³⁴ resolved that the lamps to be maintained by them in the local temple and the interest due from them on moneys borrowed from the temple were to be met from the proceeds of a regular payment in future of certain dues laid on their commercial transactions in accordance with a schedule,—the buyer and seller each giving a *kāl-alavupāṭṭam* of one *nāḷi* per *kalam* (on grains), a *kōl-kūli* (weighment-cess) of one *palam* per *nirai*, ten betel-nuts for every thousand exchanged and so on. Many other instances can be traced in the inscriptions of a similar exercise of the privileges of autonomy in the regulation of the internal affairs of the groups.