Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c11.86

c11.86

The guilds were known as *nagarattārs* or *śeṭṭis* in the inscriptions. These mercantile corporations had certain common features which strike a student of mediaeval institutions. It was only a community of interest that brought into existence these guilds, and it was their common endeavour to promote their interest. They were local associations and hence the constitution and working of a guild must have differed from place to place and from time to time. Every guild had a leader who exercised some control over the working of the organisation and acted as its accredited representative in its dealings with the government. He was known in the Kanarese and Telugu districts as the *Paṭṭaṇasvāmi* or *Śeṭṭi*. He was also probably the head of all the mercantile corporations in a given place. Finally another striking feature about the mediaeval guilds in India was that they belonged to a religious sect. It is this adherence to a particular religious faith that was a great unifying factor in the mediaeval guilds.