Hindu Administrative Institutions c12.s3.9

c12.s3.9

of military groups.¹ But the term has a political significance. In the *Mānava Dharma Śāstra*, Manu speaks of the functions of a *śreṇi*.² Medhādithi, the celebrated commentator, interprets it as an ‘association of traders, artisans, or money-lenders, or usurers, and of men proficient in the four sciences of learning.’³ The word again appears in the *Nārada saṃhita* and has been taken to mean guilds of merchants as well as artisans. From Yājñavalkya it would appear that every trade, art and craft, was well organized and was worked in common on co-operative principles.⁴ As many as eighteen guilds are mentioned in the *Jātaka* records.⁵ This was only a conventional number for tradition speaks of a large number of them. Pāṇini uses the term⁶ and this is explained by both Kaiyaṭa and the Tattvabodhini⁷ as an association of adults following a common trade or dealing in a common commodity.⁸ It differs from the corporation *pūga* where people of various castes were members of a common organization and worked at a common trade. The *Vyvahāramayūkha*⁹ defines it as several castes joined together for the purposes of pursuing a common trade. It was not exclusively based on caste but on profession. Thus the *śreṇi* rightly falls under the category of occupational groups.