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The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c9.s4: Section 5. Śreṇîs (Gilds) of Peasants, Artisans and Merchants

The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c9.s4

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Section 5. Śreṇîs (Gilds) of Peasants, Artisans and Merchants

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It is well known that the "chartered liberties" enjoyed by the mediæval towns, e. g., those of the Hanseatic League, have been great formative forces in the evolution of modern states in Europe. An analysis of the municipal privileges, the *liber burgus* as they were called, brings us invariably down to the basic economic factors, viz. the gild merchant and the craft organization. Probably these units were not identical with the boroughs. Nor do they seem to have exclusively represented the vital principle of borough life. But there are no grounds for doubting that these industrial and commercial nuclei were some of the chief "characteristic elements of the municipal constitution".² It was these economic fraternities that had the lion's share in the government of the greatest cities like London, Paris, Cologne, Ghent and Florence.³

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² Gross' *Gild Merchant*, Vol. I, pp. 92, 105; Article on "Gilds" in Palgrave's *Dictionary of Political Economy*, Sidgwick's *Development of European Polity*, 238, 251.

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³ Unwin's *Gilds and Companies of London*, p. 61.

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The Orient was not poor in such economic centres of civic vitality in ancient and mediæval times. Students of commercial history are generally familiar with Chinese gilds.⁴ But it is not so well known that in India as in China almost every economic function from agriculture to money-lending and banking was organized into a gild.

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⁴ Macgowan's article on "Chinese Guilds, or Chambers of Commerce and Trades Unions" in the *Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society*, 1886, New Series, Vol. XXI, pp. 133—192.

1. Archaeological Data

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Epigraphic evidences in regard to the gild of peasants are practically *nil* for the time being. Cultivators' unions have only to be inferred from the general laws on the subject of "companies". Gautama⁵ (c 550 B. C.), Manu¹ (*c* 150 A. C.), Brihaspati² (*c* 650), Śukra,³ all writers mention the association of agriculturists in their schedule of *śreṇîs*. The association of shepherds, however, is not unknown in the inscriptions. In the eleventh century, under Râjendra Chola, the shepherds of a village in Southern India agreed to become security for one Eran Sattan, a fellow-shepherd “who had received 90 ewes of this temple in order to supply *ghî* (clarified butter) for burning one perpetual lamp”. If he died, absconded, or got into prison, fetters, or chains, the fraternity bound themselves to discharge his duties.⁴ The responsibility was thus considered to be a joint one by the members.

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⁵ XI, 21.

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¹ VIII, 40.

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² I, Constitution of a Court of Justice, 26.

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³ IV, v, lines 35—36.

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⁴ Hultzsch’s *South Indian Inscriptions*, Vol. II, Pt. III, cited in Coomaraswamy’s *Indian Craftsman*, p. 17.

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In regard to the gild merchant more inscriptions may be drawn upon. In Madras of the twelfth century under Vikrama Chola (1118), the hero of an historical Tamil poem, there was a traders’ gild⁵ with a membership of 500. Its activities and interests were coextensive with the South Indian Empire. In Gupta India during the fourth and fifth centuries bankers (*śreṣṭhins*), traders (*sârtthavâhas*) and merchants (*kulikas*) used to close their business correspondence with clay seals. The *nigama* or corporation of these commercial interests, with headquarters probably at Pâtali-putra, was “something like a modern chamber of commerce”.⁶ Such bodies working, as they did, in concert (*sambhûya*) were notorious in the fourth century B. C. owing to their attempts to “corner” the market. The problem of “profiteering” had to be tackled by the Maurya Empire especially because the union of merchants tried to raise prices so high as to yield a cent per cent profit.⁷

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⁵ *Government Epigraphist’s Report*, 1916, p. 121, cited in Majumdar p. 35.

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⁶ *Ann. Rep. of the Arch. Sur.*, 1903—04, p. 104.

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⁷ *Artha*, p. 403.

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The gild merchant must have been in existence in the sixth century B. C. as Gautama’s *Dharma-Sûtra* mentions it as one of the law-“making” or law-“declaring” bodies.⁸ Still earlier, as the *Valahassa*, *Chullaka setthi*, *Supparaka* and other *Jâtakas*⁹ or Buddhist “Birth Stories” narrate, maritime and land commerce used to be undertaken on the joint stock principle by companies of “five hundred trading folk”, “seven hundred merchants", etc. India's experience in commercial unions is therefore at least as old as China's.¹

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⁸ *loc. cit.*

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⁹ Majumdar, pp. 32—33; Mookerji’s *Local*, pp. 45—47, 76, 77.

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¹ Werner's *Chinese Sociology*, Table II; see the Vedic references to gilds in Mookerji's *Local*, p. 41—43.

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The story of Hindu craft gilds may be told with more details and greater confidence. Unions of industrial experts or workingmen's gilds were conspicuous institutions of the Gupta Empire. In 465, under Skandagupta, a gild of oil-men² at the city of Indra-pura presided over by Jîvanta was entrusted with an endowment out of the interest of which a temple lamp was to be maintained. The terms of the deed stipulated that the removal of the corporation from its present headquarters would not invalidate its jurisdiction over the property. Nullification of the trust might ensue only from the dissolution of the gild (or secession of some of its members). In Kumâra-gupta's time (413—455) a gild of silk weavers³ was formed at the city of Daśa-pura. They had migrated from Central Gujarat, but part of their comrades took up other pursuits, e. g. archery and fighting, astronomical studies, and asceticism, at their new place of domicile. Incidentally it appears that the change of hereditary or caste occupations was not rare in Gupta India.

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² *Gup. Insc.*, p. 71; for the Gwalior gilds of the tenth Century *vide* p. 63.

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³ *Ibid*, p. 80.

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Among Gujaratis of the early Christian era under Ândhra Emperors, there were gilds of weavers, druggists (*gândhikas*), corn-dealers (*dhânyaka-śreṇîs*), and oil-manufacturers.⁴ Like the gilds of the Gupta Empire the Ândhra gilds also discharged the functions of banks. Moneys and real estates were received by them in perpetuity as a deposit or trust fund.⁵ For the use of this property they paid to the beneficiary named in the grants interest varying from 9 to 12 per cent. In 120 A. C. two gilds of weavers⁶ at Govardhana (Nasik) were entrusted by General Uṣavadâta with 2,000 and 1,000 kârṣâpaṇas. In the third century several other gilds of the same city,⁷ viz. those of potters, *odayântrikas* (workers fabricating hydraulic engines or water-clocks), and oil-millers, became trustees of a permanent endowment to provide medicines for the monks of a *Samgha*. The planting of wayside trees was one of the objects for which a gild was similarly endowed with the income of two fields.¹

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⁴ R. G. Bhandarkar's *Early Hist.*, secs. IV and VII.

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⁵ "Nasik Inscriptions" in the *Arch. Sur.*, Vol. IV, p. 102 (cited in Hopkins' *India Old and New*, p. 175).

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⁶ *Ep. Ind.*, 1905—06, pp. 82, 83.

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⁷ *Ibid*, p. 88.

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¹ See details of the five inscriptions in Majumdar, pp. 8—10. *Vide* the south Indian inscriptions in Mookerji's *Local*, pp. 89—99.

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Like the gild merchant the craft gild also must have been prominent in Maurya times. Kautilya's scheme of fleecing the "gold-lords" for the public treasury has reference most probably to the gild of goldsmiths.² His *Artha-śâstra* suggests, besides, that certain wards of the city should be set apart for the corporations of artisans.³ And one of the functions of the Imperial superintendent of accounts was to record all about the customs, professions and transactions of the associations, whether of traders or workmen, rural or urban.⁴

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² p. 305. A "house of the gild" belonging to the Maurya period is described by Marshall in his article on "Excavations at Bhita" in the *Arch. Sur. Ann. Rep.* 1911—12, pp. 30, 31.

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³ p. 61.

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⁴ p. 69.

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Kautilya's idea about the establishment of gilds in the different wards of a city was but a reflex of the actual civic life of his own and previous times. For in the *Sîlavanaga* and other *Jâtakas*⁵ streets (*vîthis*) are sometimes named from a particular class of artisans living in them. Even an entire village of 1,000 families was often monopolized by a single industry, e. g. smithery or timber-work.

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⁵ Fick's *Soziale Gliederung*, 179—181; Mookerji's *Local*, 74.

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Gilds were then prominent institutions among Hindus as early as the sixth and seventh centuries B. C.; and epigraphy traces them down to the Chola Empire. The Buddhist story books open up to us an economic India in which the various orders of manual and skilled workers were organized on the corporate basis. There were gilds of sailors, muslin-weavers, leather-workers, painters, goldsmiths, workers in war-implements, stone-carvers, and so forth.⁶ In addition to the conventional "eighteen gilds" there must be mentioned also the unions or companies of traders and commercial men. For all subsequent periods since then, therefore, the law books could not but devote special attention to the gilds as economic institutions of the land. Gautama's *Dharma-sûtra*⁷ was composed or compiled in the *milieu* of gilds of peasants, herdsmen, traders, moneylenders, and artisans. Gilds held a high place in the Kautilyan theory of finance as important sources of public income.⁸ Authors of the third century A. C. e. g. those responsible for the compilation of Viṣṇu's law-book¹ were living in an age when the gilds of metal workers, especially goldsmiths and silversmiths, were well in evidence in social life. Not only Manu² (*c* 150) and Yâjnavalkya³ (*c* 350) but all jurists down to Nârada⁴ (*c* 500) and Brihaspati⁵ (*c* 650) had consequently to reckon gilds among the subjects of "private law". These public bodies were expressly mentioned in connection with crimes and punishments to which all individuals were liable according to the laws of the state. The violation (*vyatikrama*) of *sambids* (gild compacts or agreements) was accordingly important enough to demand special treatment along with the general law of contract.

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⁶ Majumdar, 4; cf. also *Râmâyaṇa Ayodhyâ-kâṇda*, Ch. XIX.

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⁷ *Loc. cit.*

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⁸ p. 66.

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¹ Hopkins' *India*, p. 170.

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² VIII, 5, 219.

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³ II, 15, 187, 192.

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⁴ X, 5; *Vide* Gibelin's *Etudes sur le droit civil des Hindous*, Vol. I, pp. 299—310 (*Des Sociétés*).

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⁵ XVII, 19. Some of the gilds of Ceylon in later times are described in Coomaraswamy's *Mediaeval*, pp. 55—56.

2. Samûhas as "Group-Persons"

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But not all unions, companies or associations are "corporations". How far, therefore, it may be asked, were these *śreṇîs* (often identified with *gaṇas* and *pûgas*) of the Indian socio-economic system real gilds? To what extent did these *samûha* organizations come to be conceived and recognized by Hindus themselves as "artificial civic bodies", i. e. "aggregate individuals" with "natural corporate existence"? The book of Brihaspati (Ch. XVII) furnishes an answer to these queries. The juridical concept of a corporate person or one-in-the-many as pertaining to *śreṇîs* is quite manifest in the particulars he lays down regarding the constitution and rights and duties of *samûhas*. The older Yâjna-valkya and his mediæval commentators also leave no doubt on the point.

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Gilds were governed by boards of two, three, or five persons.⁶ They conducted their business in a *sabhâ*, i. e. soviet or public assembly. As corporate bodies they could make *samaya*⁷ or compact with private individuals as well as among themselves, and the state had to see to it that gild compacts were enforced like all other compacts in the land.

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⁶ Brihaspati, XVII, 10.

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⁷ Nârada, X, 1—2; Brihaspati, VIII, 9; XVII, 5.

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The "power of attorney" could be conferred by them on some of their members, and these agents represented the associations in law courts or other public offices. Accordingly the funds donated by the government to a single member had to be deposited with the joint stock of the *samûha*.¹ In Yâjnavalkya's code anything acquired by a member of the gild while on gild business was to become common property. Eleven times the value of the acquisition was the penalty for wilful violation of this ruling.² According to Brihaspati any member who injured the joint stock might be punished with deportation.³

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¹ Brihaspati, XVII, 22, 24.

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² II, 180.

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³ XVII, 15.

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The agreement entered into by a gild was binding on each and all of the members. Anybody failing to perform the duties implied thereby was liable to be banished and have his property confiscated.⁴ All expenditures were treated as common charges.⁵ Responsibility for loans contracted by a member on behalf of the association was also common. Lastly, *śreṇîs* had the "right of joint action" in relation to the state, as we have noticed in the agreement of the south Indian shepherds,⁶ one of the privileges for which the European craft used to fight.

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⁴ *Ibid*, XVII, 13.

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⁵ *Ibid*, XVII, 24.

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⁶ Supra, p. 41.

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According to Kâtyâyana, an authority later than Brihaspati, cited in Mitra Miśra's *Vîra-mitrodaya*⁷ and Chaṇḍeśvara's *Vivâda-ratnâkara*,⁸ two commentaries on Yâjnavalkya and on other jurists new members were entitled to share equally with the old the properties of the established gild. Debts of the *samûha* were likewise to be shared by them as a matter of course. Nay, the spiritual merit, as says Mitra Miśra, accruing from charities and religious services that the gild may have undertaken in the past was believed to be beneficial to persons who were elected to membership long after the deeds had been performed. The usual mode of cooption was *sarva-sammati* i. e. unanimous approval.

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⁷ p. 432. For schools of Hindu Law see G. C. Sarkar, pp. 28—29, Jolly's *Recht*, 31—41, and Mitra, 61—69.

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⁸ p. 188 (chapter on *Sambid-vyatikrama*).

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Nothing illustrates better the "legal fiction" of corporations as "immortal persons" than these latter-day ideas in regard to *gaṇa*, *śreṇî*, and *varga*. It is clear, therefore, that Hindu *samûhas*, whether of capitalists, working men or peasants, and trade unions or commercial fraternities had the distinctive characteristics of a homogeneous "community" with common rights and common obligations, — the "real group-persons" of Gierke and Figgis.⁹

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⁹ cf. Barker's article on the "Discredited State" in the *Political Quarterly*, Feb. 1915, p. 111. The importance of this question has not been grasped by previous authors although some of them have cited the relevant passages in other contexts.

3. The Politics of Economic Associations

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We shall now analyze the constitutional, political or civic immunities and liberties enjoyed by the gilds of ancient and mediæval India. This will throw light on the amount of decentralization achieved in Hindu polity. No governmental documents are available however. The only authorities are literary.

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In the first place, *śreṇîs* were monopolistic organizations anxious to maintain in tact their economic autonomy. We learn from Nârada that the gilds were indeed open to more than one socio-religious group or caste.¹ But generally speaking, their regulations were as exclusive in spirit as the ordinances, say, of the English hatters’ craft in the fourteenth century.² They sought to regulate the number of apprentices and also the hours of labor.³ On festive occasions, in street processions, and at social gatherings each *śreṇî* was represented by its own banners and buntings bearing on them the implements and emblems of the respective crafts.

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¹ Hopkins’ *India*, p. 174; Mookerji's *Local*, pp. 58, 61, 62.

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² Unwin, p. 89; Palgrave’s *Dictionary* (“Craft gilds”).

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³ Birdwood’s *Industrial Arts of India*, pp. 137—140; Hopkins’ *India*, pp. 171—174, 193—196. See Nârada’s rules of apprenticeship in Mookerji’s *Local*, 51, 52.

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In the second place, the *jetthaka* (alderman) and *setthi*, i. e., the heads of corporations were treated by kings as representatives of the people functionally divided as artisans, merchants and peasants. In pre-Maurya times, i. e. previous to the third quarter of the fourth century B. C., it was through their gilds that the people were summoned by the king on important occasions.⁴ *Śreṇîs* appear thus to have played an important part in the public finance. The taxes to be paid by traders and other inhabitants of the town were agreed upon by the ruler “in consultation with the heads of the gilds”.⁵

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⁴ Rhys Davids’ *Buddhist India*, p. 97.

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⁵ Hopkins’ *India*, p. 176.

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Necessarily, therefore, in the third place, *mukhyas* i. e. heads, presidents or representatives of the corporations constituted, like councillors of the king, an important “estate” of the realm. At the coronation of kings, e. g. in the *Râmâyaṇa*, gilds had the right to the sprinkling or anointing ritual. Sometimes gild members occupied high state offices, as we know from the *Jâtakas*.⁶ Socially, on the whole, they were “peers” of the king. As poets of the *Mahâbhârata*⁷ have declared the royal ideal of manliness, kings were ashamed to return to their homeland if they were defeated in battles. For, “what would the elders of the gilds say to me”, argued the kings, “and what should I speak to them in reply?” The moral control exercised by gilds on state policies may be presumed to have been of a high order. Undisputed, therefore, was their influence on public opinion.

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⁶ Fick, p. 177.

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⁷ *Vana-parva*, Ch. 248, 16.

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In the fourth place, leaving aside the fact that men following the soldier’s profession were often organized on the gild principle (*śreṇî-vala* or gild corps¹ e. g. the Kṣatriya gilds of Gujarat described by Kautilya) the ordinary industrial and commercial *śreṇîs* had great military importance as well. The chief reason of course was their power over the purse or the sinews of war.

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¹ *Artha*, pp. 415, 455.

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Political theorists, therefore, considered it a part of the statecraft to pacify the gilds of one’s own state and try to win over the elders of the enemy’s gilds. The methods suggested in the *Mahâbhârata*² are the well known ways and means of *Realpolitik*, such as were appreciated by Philip of Macedon, Machiavelli the Italian, Walpole the Englishman, and Guizot the Frenchman. These are the corrupt practices of bribery and the sowing of dissensions among the members of corporations. Or perhaps in the language of Bolshevik economics these should partially be described as the traditional tactics of capitalism which is said to be “international” enough to seek allies even among enemy bankers.

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² *Śânti-parva*, Ch. CXLI, 64.

4. Functional Sovereignty

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Now, *śreṇîs* had their own judicial tribunals. The craftsmen had thus the privilege of being tried by the jury of their own peers. In the matter of legal decisions, if we may take Brihaspati³ as a narrator of actual facts, even court practice had to yield to the opinion of gilds. Corporations were “invested with the power to decide law suits”,⁴ and their meetings were declared to be “resorts for the passing of a sentence”.⁵ As such, gild courts may have had jurisdiction over cases affecting the community at large and not solely over their own disputes. But it is to be observed that the judicial system of the Maurya Empire for which alone we have some reliable evidence does not have a place for gilds as public tribunals.

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³ II, 26.

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⁴ Nârada, I, Legal Procedure.

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⁵ Brihaspati, I, Constitution of a Court of Justice, 26—30.

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Of equal importance was the legislative or law-making power of *śreṇîs*. The gilds “made” or “declared” their own laws and had their own usages binding upon them.¹ As a rule, the state could not institute any regulations over-riding these gild customs. We learn from Manu, Brihaspati and other codifiers of laws or customs that "rules of their own profession" were recognized by the state for cultivators or peasants and farmers, artisans such as carpenters or others, artists, money-lenders, companies of tradesmen, dancers, persons wearing the token of a religious order such as the Pâśupatas, and even robbers.² Gautama also, the earliest of the writers, observes that peasants, traders, herdsmen, moneylenders, and artisans have authority to lay down rules for their respective classes. And in the suits brought before the state judiciary in appeal from gild tribunals, the royal judges were expected to learn the facts and rules "from those who in each class had authority to speak". The king's officers were to give legal decisions "in accordance with what were declared to be the rules in the *śreṇî*".³

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¹ ^1 *Mahâ*, *Śânti*, Ch. 54, 20.

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² ^2 Brihaspati, I, Constitution of a Court of Justice, 26; *Śukra* IV, v, lines 35—36; Manu, VIII, 40, 41; Nârada X, 2, 3.

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³ ^3 Gautama, XI, 21, 22.

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Last but not least, the administrative *sva-râj* or "self-determination" of *śreṇîs* was practically unconditioned. They could exercise their governmental power as almost sovereign units, as *imperia in imperio*, i. e., without depending on the sanction of the state. The right of the *samûha* to punish even the *mukhya* or president is stated by Kâtyâyana as well as by Mîtra Miśra⁴ who cites him while interpreting Yâjnavalkya's opinion on the question. In Brihaspati's law also the gild-*sabhâ* could normally punish one of the guilty members, ostracize or even banish him, as has been pointed out above. Only, if in boycotting him the gild were "actuated by hatred" might the state "restrain" the corporation.⁵ The ultra-democratic constitution of Chinese gilds was all but outdone by the *samûhas* of India.⁶

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⁴ ^4 *Vîra-mitrodaya*, p. 448; Yâjnavalkya, II, 187; Majumdar, pp. 12, 21, 22.

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⁵ ^5 Brihaspati, XVII, 18—19.

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⁶ ^6 Morse's *Gilds of China*, pp. 9, 12.

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The executive, judicial and legislative autonomies⁷ of *śreṇîs*, or the *laissez faire* enjoyed by these "local" bodies, must have been considerably restricted and circumscribed by the "centralizing" exploits of successful empire-builders or "nation"-makers.⁸ But archaeological researches have not as yet unearthed any evidence as to the adverse effects, inevitable as they must have been, of the *śâsanas* (i. e. legislative enactments or statutes and ordinances) of *sârva-bhaumas* on the immunities of gild-soviets. It is apparent, however, that, on the whole, the *sva-râj* of Hindu *śreṇîs* i. e. the "functional" sovereignty of India's old economic associations was essentially an analogue if not a replica of the *liber burgus* of mediæval Europe in so far as this latter was achieved by and dependent on gilds and crafts.¹

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⁷ ^7 In regard to coins issued by gilds see Banerji's *Prâchîn*, p. 18, Cunningham's *Coins*, p. 59, Mookerji's *Local*, p. 214 and Marshall's article in the *Arch. Sur. loc. cit.*

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⁸ ^8 All economic and political interpretation of Hindu gilds must be regarded as hypothetical until light is thrown on this important constitutional question. This aspect of the problem has escaped the notice of antiquarians.

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¹ Goodnow's *Municipal Government*, pp. 55—61, 137; Brissaud's *History of French Public Law*, 253; Gross, Vol. I, pp. 105, 159—162; Sidgwick, p. 253; Sarkar's *Pos. Back*, Vol. II, p. 98.

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