The Colas c30.17

c30.17

That there must have been a great amount of borrowing and lending among traders and merchants in the normal course of their business we may take for granted; but of such transactions no record seems to have survived. Almost all the investments recorded in the inscriptions are of charitable funds generally ear-marked for specific purposes, and sometimes a certain stability is imparted to these purposes by the investments and the terms governing them being made irrevocable. Thus a merchant from Malai-nāḍu invested 16⅛ *kalañjus* of gold in a *vāḍākkaḍan*, permanent loan, from the interest whereof twelve Brahmins were to be fed for one month (Kumbha) every year in the temple of Varāhadēva at Tiruvadandai (Chingleput).⁵² Again the *ūr* of Kōnēri accepted a loan of five *kalañjus* from a temple in Kañcīpuram subject to the conditions that they should pay interest at 1⅜ *kalam* per *kalañju* per annum and that they should at no time offer to return the principal of the loan.⁵³ An inscription from Maḷūrpaṭna (Bangalore) of the reign of Rājēndra I provides another example which is of great interest for the sanctions it lays down to enforce conformity to the terms of the loan.⁵⁴ The grain-principal (*nellu-mudal*) of the perpetual loan was 320 *kalams* and the rate of interest 3¾ *kuruṇis* per *kalam* per annum yielding in all 100 *kalams* in a year, to be remitted in two instalments, 50 *kalams* at each of the two harvests. The borrowers were the members of the *sabhā* of Vaṇḍūr who agreed to give two meals a day to the persons delegated to collect this grain-interest; these persons might resort, if necessary, to processes of distraint such as stopping the supply of water and fire, surrounding the habitation, and impounding cattle. Nothing is stated in explanation of these rather drastic sanctions and we cannot say if they ever were actually enforced. The problem of modern finance is to fund public debts in order to secure stable interest charges; the problem that the temples of South India had to face once was that of securing a fixed income as interest on their investments, of funding their loans as it were.