The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c16.22

c16.22

In general, the details cited only prove indistinct traces of professional unions within the trading classes, only the first beginnings of a guildhood. With the gradual development of trade relations, the significance and inner compactness of the guilds deepened, and being similar to the castes on account of the traditional organisation and the hereditariness of membership, they gradually got, in course of time, as certain rules and customs with reference to marriage and interdining were developed, the appearance of real castes, especially, the Brāhmaṇa caste, till they finally became the modern trading classes.