Local Government in Ancient India c8.16

c8.16

What tends to lend additional force to the aforesaid suggestion is that these Vedic passages are not solitary in the particular significance read into them. The same tradition is repeated, and, that in no uncertain terms, by the two Epics and even by some of the Pāli works. In the procession of citizens who accompanied Bharata in his quest of Rāma figured the gem-cutters, potters, weavers, armourers, ivory-workers, ‘well-known goldsmiths’, the foremost merchants and citizens of all classes, so that the *Rāmāyaṇa* recognizes the importance of the position held by the trades and crafts in society.¹ The *Mahāvaṃsa* also in the same way represents the heads of the five trades as being the chosen messengers entrusted with the dignified duty of carrying a welcome from Kitti Sirimegha to his son Parā- krama, afterwards Parākrama Bāhu the Great. In Bāṇa's *Harṣacarita* we are told that in connexion with the preparations for the marriage of a princess were summoned from every country 'companies of skilled artists'. Similarly in the preparations described in the *Harivaṁśa* for the witnessing of the contest between Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma by the royal family and citizens of Mathurā, we are told of the pavilions of the different companies and corporations with banners representing the implements and emblems of the several crafts.¹ The *Mahābhārata* mentions a prince who, defeated in battle and ashamed to return home, exclaims: 'For what shall I have to say to my relatives, to the priests and to the heads of the guilds (गणमुख्या:)?' (III. 248, 16). But besides the social importance of the guilds and their chiefs the *Mahābhārata* sets forth their political importance to the state. Their power is to be appreciated by the king as much as that of his mercenary army (XV. 7, 7. 8). Their heads must be 'talked over' by spies when the king projects the conquest of another kingdom (XII. 59, 49; 141, 64). Their strength lies in union and their weakness in dissension (ibid. 107, 32). The king is especially charged not to tax them too heavily lest they become disaffected, and their disaffection is represented as a calamity (ibid. 13. 14). They may be controlled by the king by bribery and by fomenting discord. [See XII. 107 which deals with the *gaṇas* in detail.]