History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.352
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.352
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There was a great deal of decentralization or devolution of authority from the central government to the village committees and authorities. They were also entrusted with civil and criminal justice, as we shall see later on. For further details on the organization of a village as a political unit, Dr. R. C. Majmudar's 'Corporate life in Ancient India' chap. II. pp. 135 ff. and Fick (p. 161) may be consulted. Just as there was some organization in villages in general, so also guilds (śreṇīs) and groups (gaṇas) had their own regulations and conventions. In XI. 1 Kauṭilya refers to kṣatriya guilds in the countries of Kāmbhoja and Surāṣṭra that maintained themselves on husbandry and followed the profession of arms (vide above p. 88 n. 120). In III. 14 he refers to guilds of workmen or labourers (saṅghabhṛtāḥ). Manu (I. 118) declares that his work deals not only with the enduring dharmas of countries, castes and families, but also with the dharmas of heretical sects (pāṣaṇḍa) and of groups (gaṇa). Manu (VIII. 41) requires the righteous king to consider carefully the dharmas of castes, countries, guilds and families (to find out whether they are opposed to the Vedas) and uphold those dharmas (that are not opposed) as binding (on those respective persons). Yāj. II.
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192 prescribes that the king should respect the usages and conventions of occupational guilds, merchants, heretical sects, and groups (corporations &c.) and allow them to pursue the course of action they had followed from ancient times. Nārada (samayasyānapākarma, verses 2-6) and Bṛhaspati quoted in the Vīramitrodaya (vyavahāra) contain very important directions as to what conventions of guilds the king should respect and what he is not bound to respect. Nārada says that the king should enforce the conventions agreed upon by heretic sects, naigamas (merchants), śreṇīs and other groups residing in the country or the capital. The king may allow them to follow their special rules (e. g. speaking the truth), their special actions (begging in the morning without having taken a bath), their mode of meeting (on hearing a drum being beaten), the means of livelihood they have been used to (e. g. dressing as an ascetic). But the king should prohibit (out of their usages and conventions) such as are opposed to the king's interest, or are disapproved of by the people in general, would be ruinous to the purposes of the king. The king should not tolerate their creating factious groups among themselves, taking up arms for a purpose detrimental to the State, and causing injury to each other. The king should specially curb those who cause dissensions among the several groups;
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if they are connived at in these activities they might cause terrible danger.¹⁹⁸ A good deal has already been said about guilds and corporations in H. Dh. vol. II. pp. 66–69. Among inscriptions, the following may be studied: the Nasik Ins. No. 15 of the time of Ābhīra Īśvarasena (E. I. vol. VIII p. 88, where the śreṇis of potters, oil-pressers and water-drawers receive deposits), Junnar Buddhist cave Inscription (A. S. W. I. vol. 4 p. 97, where a deposit of money with śreṇis of bamboo-workers and braziers is made), Gupta Inscription No. 16 p. 70 (an endowment was entrusted to the guild of oil-men, whose head was Jīvanta), Gupta Inscriptions, No. 18 p. 79 (silk weavers from Lāṭa coming to Daśapura and building a Sun temple), E. I. vol. 15 p. 263, E. I. vol. 18 p. 326 and p. 30, E. I. 16 p. 332, E. I. vol. I. 155 (of 933 *samvat*, inscription at Gopagiri, modern Gwalior, where the guilds of oil-millers and of gardeners are mentioned), I. 184 (Pehoa inscription, where a guild of 34 horse-dealers from different countries, some being brāhmaṇas, agreed to impose upon themselves and their customers tithes to be distributed to certain temples). Rhys Davids in 'Buddhist India' (pp. 90–96) gives a list of the 18 guilds that probably existed in the times of the early Buddhist works (though two or three of them are of doubtful existence) and the number of which (18) is sometimes mentioned in the Jātakas (as in Mūgapakkhajātaka No. 538, vol. VI p. 14 in Cowell's tr.).
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For further details about the working and organization of guilds, vide chap. I of Dr. R. C. Majmudar's 'Corporate life in ancient India', and 'Indian Culture' vol. 6 (for 1940) pp. 421–28 (on the economic guilds of blacksmiths, barbers &c. in the Kuṣāṇa period).