A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c18.31

c18.31

Merchants were generally organized in powerful guilds and corporations which often transcended political divisions and were therefore not much affected by the wars and revolutions going on about them. The most celebrated guilds from fairly early times were the Maṇigrāmam and the Nānādeśis or Aiññūṛṛuvar. The records of the Kākatīyas speak of merchants of the home country (svadeśabēhārulu), merchants of another country (paradeśabēhārulu), and merchants from different countries (nānādeśis). The first were the local merchants organized in local guilds—nagarams. The second were like the first except that they came from another country—perhaps combining pleasure with business while on a visit to their neighbours, or possibly acquiring religious merit by attending yātras and festivals in famous shrines. The last were the powerful guilds already mentioned which included merchants from all countries, with established branches in all of them, and perhaps playing a prominent part in the foreign trade of the country as a whole. The name Maṇigrāmam is generally explained as a corruption of Vaṇik-grāmam, ‘an association of merchants’, and this may well be correct. They are mentioned in many early South Indian inscriptions and in a Tamil inscription at Takua-pa (Siam) of the reign of Nandivarman III, Pallava. The fact that this merchant guild had established itself on the opposite coast of the Bay of Bengal with sufficient permanence for it to be put in charge of a Vishnu temple and a tank gives a clue to a yet little-known chapter in the annals of our ancient politics and commerce.