Local Government in Ancient India c8.39

c8.39

Merchant princes did not lose their position in later times. The following account of some Mysore merchant princes will be interesting: ‘Commerce on a large scale beyond the limits of the country was carried on by what may be styled merchant princes, who generally had the title *Mahā-Vadda-Byavahāri*. (Ml. 56, Sk. 247, Ak. 108). In the last is an account of a family of Maleyala merchants, experts in goods and conveyance. One of them was skilled in testing all manner of gems. “He was so liked both by the Hoysala emperor in the south and Ballaha himself in the north, that he was able to form an alliance between the two kings. The wants of the great Malava king, of the Kalinga, Chola and Pandya rulers, he at once supplied. No setti was equal to him throughout the Hoysala kingdom—just, honoured, of kind speech, full of common sense, delighting in truth”. But some great merchants were of brahmin descent, such as those in Ak. 22. One of these imported horses, elephants, and pearls in ships by sea and sold them to the kings. Another transported goods from the east to the west, and those that were suitable from the west to the east; also products from the north to the south and of the south to the north.’ (L. Rice, *Mysore and Coorg from inscriptions*, p. 182.)