The Colas c30.2

c30.2

In most of the common industries the rule was production for the local market. The existence of a brisk internal trade in several articles is indicated by the evidence of the movements of individual merchants and the highly organised state of the mercantile corporations in various parts of the country. A merchant from the *malai-nāḍu* (Malabar) is seen trading in Tiruvaḍandai in the Chingleput district,¹ and one from Mylapore is found in Tanjore;² and a man from Ceylon endows a lamp in the temple at Śucīndram (South Travancore).³ These are not isolated instances, but representative of a large class of similar facts recorded in the inscriptions which show that there was a free and active business intercourse between the different parts of the empire. The expansion of Cōḷa rule was followed by the organisation of a strong centralised administration under a single political power. Except for a few local risings leading to punitive expeditions from time to time, peace was maintained for successive generations over a wide area, which had been cut up till then into a number of independent warring states. In the more settled conditions of the new era, the industrial arts obtained greater encouragement and the opportunities for trade increased.