[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [Local Government in Ancient India](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919) › c8 # Local Government in Ancient India c8: Chapter II. Indications in Early Literature Local Government in Ancient India c8 - **Language:** English ## Contents - [c8.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.2) — 4 parts - [c8.37](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.37) — 4 parts ### Chapter II. Indications in Early Literature ### [c8.2.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.2.1) According to orthodox Hindu tradition and opinion, the origins of Hindu culture and civilization in all respects and particulars, aspects and phases, strata and stages, are to be found foreshadowed and imbedded in the Vedas. To these eternal and original documents can be traced the roots of all our subsequent history and development. Whatever may be the intrinsic worth and merits of this theory, it seems to be true at least in respect of the history of Hindu guilds. Even foreign scholars such as Geldner, Roth, &c., for instance, find references to them in the Vedic literature. There is no doubt a difference of opinion among Vedic scholars as to the exact significance of these references, and, considered by themselves merely as literary passages, they may seem to be doubtful indications of a formal and well-defined institution. But if we combine with the \*literary\* evidence the evidence of \*history\*, the evidence furnished by the evolution of Aryan life, the spread of Aryan colonization, the propagation of Aryan culture and civilization in India from the Vedic period downwards, much of the uncertainty of the purely literary evidence will disappear. ### [c8.2.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.2.2) The fact of the matter is that Vedic society was sufficiently settled to admit of an elaborate differentiation of functions and occupations among the people, and already presented an economic environment favourable to the growth of industrial and commercial combinations in the community, leading to the formation of specialized institutions like the guilds. These were perhaps natural and necessary growths out of the conditions and requirements of the economic life of the age with its many-sided development. It is admitted on all hands that Vedic society at a comparatively early period divided itself into three fundamental orders, estates, or castes, viz.: (1) the ruling caste or the warrior-caste, comprising the king and his entourage, his great lords and vassals, the knights of the army; (2) the priestly caste, distinguished in learning and religion, which, though not directly wielding any political or martial power, was possessed of supreme influence in the state as regulating the king's will—an influence which rested solely on its high character and spirituality; (3) the people-caste with its Aryan blood and eligibility for all Aryan privileges in the matter of legal rights, religious rites, and educational opportunities. ### [c8.2.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.2.3) These three were the twice-born classes, but to them was added a fourth, the un-Aryan, merely ‘once-born’, deprived of good birth, devoid of spiritual or legal privileges, of the rights of property, comprising the remnant of a displaced native population, the degraded branches or illegitimate descendants of the pure castes, and also foreigners, so as to constitute a mixed class of outcastes, pursuing means of livelihood not sanctioned for the pure. All these castes or classes were, from the political point of view, well-organized units with defined status and occupations, except the people-caste where we have an internal classification in three well-organized bodies, socially and economically apart from one another. Historically, these three sub-castes were (1) the great body of ranchmen, the cattle-raising population, with their dependants, the herdsmen and cow-boys; (2) the agriculturists or farmers who raised grain, and their supplementary associates who raised fruit and vegetables; and (3) the entire trading population, whether by land or by sea, maintaining active intercourse with foreign merchants. As Kauṭilya¹ puts it, the three legitimate occupations which the Vaiśya should follow to earn a living are Kṛṣi, Pāśupālya, and Vaṇijyā, i. e. Agriculture, Cattle-raising, and Trade. Subsidiary occupations developed in connexion with these, such as money-lending which, despised at first, became afterwards a recognized occupation for the twice-born. ### [c8.2.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.2.4) There were also the mechanics, artisans, carpenters, pedlars and the like, and the line between legitimate and objectionable labour was very often crossed, as is proved by the frequent denunciations in our legal literature of those that did so, and also by the relaxation of the legal strictness in cases of distress due to failure of legitimate living.¹ There were thus in course of development three specialized sub-castes dividing the unity of the people-caste, each pursuing its particular interests to the exclusion of other interests, so that ultimately the traders as a class made themselves into a distinct body, apart from the classes to whom belonged the care of agriculture and cattle. Thus the due development of the commercial interests of the country was secured, leading to the establishment of guilds. The same thing happened also in the case of the artisan class or the Śūdras, who came to be regarded as legitimate members of the Aryan body-politic with their occupations defined. These were, in the words of Kauṭilya (a very early authority), ‘Vārttā, Kārukuśīlavakarma ca’, i. e. agriculture, cattle-rearing, and trade, together with manufactures and practice of such arts as acting and the like, thus showing that the line of demarcation separating the occupations of the Vaiśya from those of the lower caste was not very rigid.¹ ### [c8.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.3) ¹ वैश्यस्याध्ययनं यजनं दानं कृषिपशुपाल्ये वणिज्या च । \[I. iii.\] ### [c8.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.4) ¹ \*Gautama\*, VII. 6 and VII. 25; \*Vasiṣṭha\*, II. 22 and III. 24; \*Manu\*, VIII. 348 and X. 81; \*Baudhāyana\*, II. 2, 4, 16 and 18; \*Viṣṇu\*, II. 15. ### [c8.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.5) ¹ The above account is on the lines of the lucid exposition of Hopkins in the \*J. A. O. S.\*, vol. XIII, pp. 72–81. I have not entered here into the vexed question, which is irrelevant to my present purpose, of the origin and development of these social classes and industrial groups, or how far they were rigidly differentiated from one another in functions and their spheres of interests. It is to be understood that the Vedic period comprises not merely that of the Saṃhitās, but also that of the Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads. The early Sūtra literature is not included. ### [c8.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.6) We thus see that guilds were but natural and necessary growths at a very early period of our history, due to the considerable progress which the country had achieved in arts, manufactures, and trade. They presuppose and imply in fact a development to which history testifies. And so when we consider the story of that development, the facts in the commercial and industrial life of Vedic India which can be gathered from the numerous references to trade and manufactures with which Vedic literature is replete—references which it is not the purpose of this monograph to bring together—we should not be surprised by the references to the guilds which some scholars find in the Vedas. The fact of the matter is that guilds or commercial associations must always wait on a certain degree of development to be attained by the particular commercial or industrial interests concerned ; guild-life in fact belongs to a considerably advanced stage of economic progress in which the individual mechanics, artisans, or traders have sufficient business instincts developed in them, and have achieved sufficient success in their several businesses to appreciate the necessity of organizing themselves into a community for the purpose of promoting their individual and collective interests. The growth of guilds thus means that the industrial units are sufficiently efficient to partake of a public life and regulate themselves by common rules as parts of a whole or a common organism. The extent to which the differentiation of economic functions or occupations was carried even in the Vedic period of our history will seem to point to the conclusion that those scholars who choose to find in certain passages from Vedic literature proofs of the existence of guilds cannot very well be considered as being guilty of making an extravagant claim and taking up an untenable position. The existence of such institutions is not quite out of relation to the economic progress of the period with its evolution and differentiation of numerous arts and crafts and of occupational castes jealously safeguarding their several interests as explained above. ### [c8.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.7) Let us now proceed to the Vedic passages themselves. All of these contain the use of the words \*śreṣṭhin\* and \*śraiṣṭhya\*, which from their contexts would appear to have respectively the sense of the 'headman of a guild' and 'the foremost place that belongs to such a headman, the presidency of a guild'.¹ ### [c8.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.8) ¹ '\*Śreṣṭhin\* occurs in several passages of the Brāhmaṇas where the St. Petersburg Dictionary assigns to the word the sense of "a man of consequence". It is, however, possible that the word may already have had the sense of the headman of a guild, the modern Seth. There is a similar doubt in the use of \*śraiṣṭhya\*, which is perhaps not merely "the foremost place" as usually assumed, but definitely "the presidency of a guild"'.—Macdonell and Keith, \*Vedic Index\*, vol. II, pp. 403-4. ### [c8.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.9) Thus the \*Aitareya Brāhmaṇa\* has three passages bearing on the subject. In III. 30, 3² there is a reference to the position of the chief of the guild (\*śreṣṭhī\*) who favours with a draught from his goblet whom he likes. In IV. 25, 8–9 and again in VII. 18, 8¹ the position of leadership is indicated by the use of the words \*śraiṣṭhya\* and \*śreṣṭhatā\*. In the \*Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa\*, XIII. 7, 1, 1² the word \*śraiṣṭhya\* is similarly used to indicate lordship. In the \*Atharva-veda\*, I. 9, 3³ there is the expression ‘bestow on him lordship (\*śraiṣṭhya\*) over his fellows’ and in X. 6, 31⁴ the word \*śraiṣṭhya\* is again used in that sense. The terms \*śreṣṭhin\* and \*śraiṣṭhya\* are similarly used to denote the chief of the guild or the high position that belongs to him among his fellows in the \*Chāndogya Upaniṣad\*, V. 2, 6⁵; \*Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad\*, IV. 20, II. 6, and IV. 15. 20. In \*Bṛhad. Up.\* I. 4, 12, Śaṅkara reads a reference even to co-operative trading or industry. In all these references from the Vedic literature the manner of the allusion to the head of the guild, and his high social position and pre-eminent influence, seems to support the conclusion expressed by some Vedic scholars that the guild was then already a known and familiar institution, a commonplace phenomenon, an ordinary object of daily observation, to which, as to matters of every day experience, references are made in order to explain abstruse and abstract philosophical subjects, topics, or problems. Metaphorical and indirect allusions to guilds show that they are already well-known existences within the range of common observation, and the allusions are warranted on the logical principle of arguing from the known to the unknown, of explaining the unknown, the unfamiliar and the abstract in the terms of the known, the familiar, and the concrete. ### [c8.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.10) ² \*\*श्रेष्ठी पात्रे रोचयत्येव यं कामयते तम्।\*\* Sāyaṇa explains the passage thus: 'For that very reason (in this world) also a merchant prince, desirous of rendering acceptable a dependant of his to others refusing to own him, has nevertheless the power to enforce the grant to him of a worthy position by them, in spite of his disqualification due to violation of social rules.' (\*\*श्रेष्ठी कश्चित् धनपतिः यं स्वकीयं भृत्यमितरैरनङ्गीकृतमपि सर्वेभ्यो रोचयितुं कामयते तं भृत्यमाचारहीनं पात्रे प्रतिग्रहयोग्यस्थाने बलात् सर्वेभ्यो रोचयत्येव\*\*) Martin Haug translates the passages thus: 'Thus it comes that a chief favours with a draught from his goblet whom he likes.' Both these interpretations agree in ascribing to the chief much social power and influence, and the chief is considered by noted Vedic scholars to be the chief of a guild. ### [c8.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.11) ¹ धृत्यै श्रैष्ठ्याय गाथिनः। ### [c8.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.12) ² सर्वेषां भूतानां श्रैष्ठ्यं । ### [c8.13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.13) ³ सजातानां श्रैष्ठ्य आ धेह्येनम। ### [c8.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.14) ⁴ मणिः श्रैष्ठ्याय मूर्धतः। ### [c8.15](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.15) ⁵ श्रैष्ठ्यॅ राज्यमाधिपत्यं। ### [c8.16](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.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. \[See XII. 107 which deals with the \*gaṇas\* in detail.\] ### [c8.17](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.17) ¹ II. 83, 12. 13: \*\*ये च तत्रापरे सर्वे सम्मता ये च नैगमाः ।\*\* &c. ### [c8.18](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.18) ¹ स्वकर्मद्रव्ययुक्ताभिः पताकाभिर्निरन्तरम् । श्रेणीनां च गणानां च मञ्चा भान्त्यचलोपमाः ॥ ### [c8.19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.19) The high social position of the \*śreṣṭhin\* as hinted at in the Vedic passages is very well brought out in some of the Pāli works. While Sanskrit literature mentions guilds of various characters, the Buddhist literature seems to bring into prominence one class of guilds in particular, viz. the merchant guilds. In the story of the Buddha’s life an important period of the life is intimately associated with the great Śeṭh families of Benares and some neighbouring towns whose recognized social position and influence, when enlisted on behalf of the new faith contributed materially to its popularity and propagation in the early and critical stage of its career. Thus the \*Cullavagga\* (V. 8 and VI. 1, 4) mentions the \*seṭṭhi\* of Rājagaha; the \*Mahāvagga\* (I. 7, 1) mentions Yasa, the son of a \*seṭṭhi\* of Benares and (VIII. 1, 16, &c.) the \*seṭṭhi\* of Rājagaha. The \*Mahāvaṃsa\* mentions an office called \*seṭṭhitā\* to which the king was to appoint. \*Jātaka\*, I. 120–122, mentions an office of \*seṭṭhi\* (\*seṭṭhi-ṭṭhāna\*) in a city, which was conferred only on such as possessed the requisite wealth and talent. Anāthapiṇḍika, the merchant prince famous for his gift to the Buddha of the Jetavana park, is mentioned as the \*seṭṭhi\* standing alone or as the \*mahā-seṭṭhi\* in \*Jāt\*. I. 95. 231–232. ### [c8.20](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.20) The position of the foreman of the guild is also indicated in \*Jāt.\* II. 12. 52¹ and III. 281² where he is an important minister in attendance upon the king. In \*Jāt.\* IV. 43³ there is a reference to an office of judgeship of all the merchant guilds—an office which did not exist before, and to that office was appointed the king's treasurer. The heads of guilds (\*seṇiyo\*) are called \*pamukha\* (president) and also \*jeṭṭhaka\* (elder, alderman), the distinction between the two terms not being apparent. \*Jāt.\* II. 18 mentions the division in one of the large centres of wood-craft of the population of 1,000 families into two equal groups each under one \*jeṭṭhaka\*. Similarly the groups of mariners (\*Jāt.\* IV. 137),⁴ garland-makers (\*Jāt.\* III. 405),⁵ caravan-traders (\*Jāt.\* I. 368⁶; II. 295),⁷ the moss-troopers numbering 500 of a ‘little robber village’ in the hills, e.g. near Uttarapañcāla (\*Jāt.\* I. 296. ### [c8.21](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.21) ¹ \*Seṇipamukhā.\* ### [c8.22](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.22) ² ‘The principal smith of the thousand (\*jeṭṭhaka\*).’ ### [c8.23](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.23) ³ ‘Then the king gave him the post of Treasurer, and with it went the judgeship of all the merchant guilds. Before that no such office existed.’ \[\*Sabbaseṇīnaṃ vicāraṇāraham bhaṇḍāgāri-kaṭṭhānaṃ.\*\] ### [c8.24](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.24) ⁴ \*Niyyāmakajeṭṭhako.\* ### [c8.25](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.25) ⁵ \*Mālākārajeṭṭhakassa.\* ### [c8.26](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.26) ⁶ ‘Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares the Bodhisatta came to life as the leader of a caravan.’ ### [c8.27](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.27) ⁷ \*Satthavāhajeṭṭhako\* (merchant-leader, caravan-chief). ### [c8.28](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.28) 297¹; II. 388²; IV. 430.³ 433 Com.) and the forest police who escorted travellers (\*Jāt.\* II. 335⁴) were all organized under a \*jeṭṭhaka\*. Then there were the trade-guilds (\*Jāt.\* IV. 411), eighteen in number, whom the king summons to witness his progress or to accompany him (\*Jāt.\* VI. 22).⁵ They included ‘masons, blacksmiths, carpenters, painters, men skilled in all arts and crafts’ (\*Jāt.\* VI. 427⁶; \*Mil. Pañh.\* I. 2).⁷ Similarly the ‘elder’ of a village of 1,000 smiths in whom were combined the functions of the head man of the village, the village syndic, and president of the local guild, is described as ‘a favourite of the king (of Benares) rich and of great substance’ (\*Jāt.\* III. no. 387).¹ The Seṭṭhi or Jeṭṭhaka is thus associated with the king or the administration as the representative of the mercantile interests \[he being always called Gahapati, householder (cf. \*Mahāvagga\*, VIII. 1, for instance)\], while the office of the royal treasurer seems to have been specially reserved for him. ### [c8.29](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.29) ¹ ‘Now the border was harried by robbers from the mountains; and they made a raid one day on the village where the pair lived ... the girl was taken to wife by the robber chieftain.’ ### [c8.30](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.30) ² ‘He gathered 500 robbers and became their chief, and lived by highway robbery.’ ### [c8.31](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.31) ³ ‘Up wind from this hill was a robber village where 500 robbers dwelt.’ ### [c8.32](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.32) ⁴ ‘... the Bodhisatta born ... a forester took the lead of a band of 500 foresters.... He used to hire himself out to guide men through it ... a merchant’s son arrived with a caravan of 500 wagons ... offered him 1,000 pieces to be his guide through the forest ... in the midst of the forest up rose 500 robbers ... the head forester alone put to flight all the 500 robbers.’ ### [c8.33](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.33) ⁵ ‘The king ... assembled the four castes, the eighteen guilds’ ... ### [c8.34](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.34) ⁶ ‘The Great Being ... took with him eighteen companies of men, masons, blacksmiths, carpenters, painters, men skilled in all arts and crafts.’ ### [c8.35](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.35) ⁷ ‘Guilds of traders in all sorts of finery display their goods in the bazaars that face all quarters of the sky’, in the city of Sāgala, ‘a great centre of trade’, ‘in the country of the Yonakas.’ There is an interesting enumeration of various crafts and trades in \*Mil. Pañh.\* V. 4. ### [c8.36](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.36) ¹ Most of these references have been noticed by Mrs. Rhys Davids in her learned article in the \*J. R. A. S.\* for 1901. ### [c8.37.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.37.1) It is thus clear from the above references that the merchant (\*seṭṭhi\*) attained at a very early time to a position of much social importance. This was chiefly due to his possession of great wealth derived from trade. Many of these merchants were like millionaires of modern times; we read of a merchant’s son as leading a caravan of 500 wagons. They seem to have been the principal representatives of the householder (\*gahapati\*) class, the typical burghers of the great towns. Besides being private traders they are also mentioned as representatives of commerce holding an official position in the court. In the \*Mahāvagga\* (VIII. 1, 16. 17) ‘the Seṭṭhi at Rājagaha, this householder’ is recognized to be doing so much ‘good service both to the king and to the merchants’ guild’ that, when after his suffering from a protracted illness for seven years, his case is pronounced as hopeless by the ‘many very great and world-renowned physicians’ who attended on him, the Magadha king, Bimbisāra, was prevailed upon by a merchant to depute his own physician-in-ordinary, Jīvaka, for his treatment which thus became a matter of communal concern. This particular Seṭṭhi was so rich that he paid 200,000 \*kāhāpaṇas\* as medical fees. ### [c8.37.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.37.2) It may perhaps be very reasonably assumed that the association of these merchant-princes with the Buddha acted as an effective adventitious aid in advertising the solitary and self-absorbed ascetic, until even the attentions of crowned heads and emperors, like Bimbisāra and Ajātaśatru of the Magadha throne, were drawn to that divine beggar. It was again their munificent financial support and endowment of Buddhism in its very early stages that probably paved the way for its popularity and propagation among the masses. The Buddha’s conversion of the upper classes of society easily established his influence and made it felt among the lower classes or the masses.¹ sermon at Benares he speaks of the supreme religious enlightenment for the sake of which 'the sons of noble families (\*kulaputtā\*) leave their homes and go into homelessness', for here were '\*young Brahmans\* like Sāriputta, Moggallāna, Kaccāna, \*nobles\* like Ānanda, Rāhula, Anuruddha, sons of the greatest \*merchants\* and highest municipal dignitaries, like Yasa, invariably men and youths of the most respectable classes of society, and with an education in keeping with their social status'. 'Prominent among the "adherents" stand also the two \*royal friends\* of Buddha, Bimbisāra, the ruler of Magadha, and Pasenadi, the ruler of Kosala, both approximately of the same age as Buddha, and throughout their lives true protectors of his church. ### [c8.37.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.37.3) Then comes Jīvaka, the renowned physician-in-ordinary to Bimbisāra, who was appointed by the king to undertake medical attendance, not on him and his women only, but also on Buddha and Buddha's order; next, the merchant Anāthapindika, who had presented to the order the garden of Jetavana, Buddha's favourite place of resort. In all important places which Buddha touched in the course of his wanderings he found bands of such lay-believers, who went out to meet him, arranged for assemblies in which Buddha spoke, who gave him and his companions their meals, who placed their residences and gardens at their disposal, or made them over to the order as church property. If he went wandering about with hundreds of his disciples, pious votaries were sure to accompany him on his journey with carts and waggons, and they brought necessaries of life, salt, and oil with them, for each in his turn to prepare the wanderer a meal, and crowds of needy folk followed in their train to snatch the remains of these provisions.' And not alone were \*male\* adherents in the circle of Buddha's followers. For we find the \*women\* of India zealously engaged as fellow-labourers through charity, assistance, and service, in those practical spheres which the young church opened up for religious usefulness. ### [c8.37.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.37.4) \*The stupendous munificence which met the Buddhist order at every step proceeded in great measure, perhaps in the greatest measure, from women\* of whom the typical representative was the honourable matron \*Viśākhā\*, a rich citizen commoner at Sāvatthi, who made the first liberal preparations on a large scale to provide for Buddha's disciples who came to Sāvatthi the chief necessaries of life. For this she thus spoke to Buddha to obtain his permission: ‘I desire as long as I live, sire, to give the brotherhood clothes for the rainy season, to give food to stranger monks who arrive here, to give food to monks who are passing through, to give food to sick brethren, to give food to the attendants on the sick, to give medicine to the sick, to distribute a daily dole of cooked rice, to give bathing-dresses to the sisterhood of nuns.’ Pictures like this of Viśākhā, benefactresses of the church, with their inexhaustible religious zeal, and their not less inexhaustible resources of money, are certainly, if anything ever was, drawn from the life of India in those days: they cannot be left out of sight, if we desire to get an idea of the actors who made the oldest Buddhist community what it was. (Oldenberg, \*Buddha\*, pp. 155–69.) ### [c8.38](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8.38) ¹ It is this ‘marked leaning to aristocracy in ancient Buddhism’ which has led Hermann Oldenberg to remark that ‘it seems as if the actual composition of the band which surrounded Buddha’s person, and the composition of the early church especially was by no means in due keeping with the theory of equality’ professed by Buddhism, which did not reserve to Brahmans only the right of entry into a spiritual life, but acknowledged the equal right of all persons without distinction to be received into the order. The Buddha himself describes the actual situation when in his first ### [c8.39](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.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.) ## Linked texts (21) - [Jātaka](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.theravada.sp.khuddaka.jataka.4) — Pāli - [Cullavagga](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.theravada.vp.khandhaka.cullavagga.5.8) — Pāli - [Mahāvagga](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.theravada.vp.khandhaka.mahavagga.1.7.1) — Pāli - [Milindapañha](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.theravada.sp.khuddaka.milindapanha.1.2) — Pāli - [Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.niti.artha.kautilya.1.3) — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit - [Vaiṣṇava Dharmaśāstra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.niti.dharma.visnu.2.15) — Viṣṇu, Sanskrit - [Mānava Dharmaśāstra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.niti.dharma.manu.8.348) — Manu & Bhṛgu, Sanskrit - [Baudhāyanadharmasūtra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.vedanga.kalpa.dharma.baudhayana.2.2.4) — Baudhāyana, Sanskrit - [Vasiṣṭhadharmasūtra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.vedanga.kalpa.dharma.vasistha.2.22) — Vasiṣṭha, Sanskrit - [Gautamadharmasūtra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.vedanga.kalpa.dharma.gautama.7.6) — Gautama (dharmasūtrakāra), Sanskrit - [Kauṣītakibrāhmaṇopaniṣad](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda.upanisad.mukhya.kausitaki.4.20) — Sanskrit - [Chāndogyopaniṣad](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda.upanisad.mukhya.chandogya.5.2.6) — Sanskrit - [Aitareyabrāhmaṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda.brahmana.aitreya.3.30) — Mahidāsa Aitareya, Sanskrit - [Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda.upanisad.mukhya.brhadaranyaka.1.4.12) — Sanskrit - [Mahābhārata](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.mahabharata.vyasa.3.248.16) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit - [Atharvavedasaṃhitā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda.samhita.atharva.1.9.3) — Atharvan & Aṅgiras, Sanskrit - [Śatapathabrāhmaṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda.brahmana.satapatha.13.7.1.1) — Yājñavalkya & Śāṇḍilya (Vedic teacher), Sanskrit - [Harṣacarita](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.historical.harsacarita) — Bāṇabhaṭṭa, Sanskrit - [Harivaṃśa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.mahabharata.harivamsa) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit - [Mahāvaṃsa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.theravada_postcanon.vamsa.mahavamsa) — Pāli - [Vālmīkirāmāyaṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.ramayana.valmiki) — Vālmīki, Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.mookerji-1919.c8) · Pramāṇa