The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c15.s1.16

c15.s1.16

That the sources nevertheless tend to ignore this class need not surprise us, since they stress the warrior-administrator's outlook and values. Generally speaking, the merchant is, from the point of view of agrarian society, a marginal figure, if he is not roundly deprecated as a dangerous interloper. Thus the ancient Indian book of statecraft, the *Arthaśāstra*, ranges the merchant with the "thieves known under other names" and describes him as a "thorn" in the body politic.²⁵ Possibly his pivotal importance made him even more suspect in the eyes of those who depended on him. On the other hand, the commercial class was far from being easily definable. The variety of its operations made it perfectly possible to classify the merchant and financier in other ways. His access to local or regional markets meant that his function was the marketing of the agrarian surplus. This enabled him to act as a source of credit and to "engage for the revenue." And this in turn was practically tantamount to land control. He could then quite naturally be labeled as a landholder, while conversely, the landholder had to have liquidity and credit at his disposal. Superior rights in land had by nature a commercial aspect, and we do indeed meet landholders of different denominations who at the same time had important commercial interests.²⁶ The fact, attested by sixteenth-century documents, that superior rights in land were a perfectly saleable commodity, also bears out the connection of landholding and commerce.²⁷