Local Government in Ancient India c9.128

c9.128

Like the guilds in the North Indian inscriptions we have also guilds in the South making religious and secular gifts. No. 261 of the Madras Epigraphy Report for 1909 refers to the guilds of the oil-mongers of Kānchi and its suburbs and those of 24 *nagaras* who assembled in a meeting and decided to give away to the temple as *jātidharma* (i. e. as a communal duty) the usual taxes on oil-mills in the temple premises together with some quantity of oil and a fee of one *kāśu* per oil-mill. This decision does not, of course, absolve them from their liability to Government to pay those taxes, but only implied an additional burden voluntarily imposed upon their resources. No. 442 of 1906 refers to the gift of another body of oil-mongers of a percentage on certain articles, such as female cloths, pepper, arecanuts, thread, salt, grain, and horses in which the community probably dealt. We have also instances of gifts by merchant guilds. No. 40 of 1915 refers to a gift of voluntary fees for conducting the Śivarātri-festival of a temple by a guild of merchants. Nos. 377 and 378 of 1911 record gift of tolls by the merchant guild of Ayyavole. No. 439 of 1906 records a similar gift of what appears to be something like a Hanseatic League of merchants. ‘The merchants of the Nāḍus, towns, hills, and five maṇḍalams and foreigners’ make a gift of ¼ per cent. on the cost of all bags exported and imported at the port of Kistnapatam (Nellore District). No. 3 of 1910 (about 1200 A. D.) records gifts of another such league of merchants of eighteen towns both north and south of the Kāverī.