Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c5.t4.126

c5.t4.126

The act of exchange between producer and consumer, or between either and a middleman was done in different ways. Every village had its own resident traders. Here, for the most part buying and selling were done directly, *i.e.*, between the producer and the consumer, probably in individual shops, or open market-place. A portion of the village produce was sold in the village market for local consumption, and the surplus, if any, was handed over to the agents in the towns and thence despatched to trade-centres in other parts of the country, or exported out of it. Imported merchandise was distributed by the same machinery working in the opposite direction. In this process, trade passed through the hands of middlemen (vāṇijā), whose existence cannot be doubted.