History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.352.3

v4.c62.352.3

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.).