Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c13.227

c13.227

³ This is evident from detailed rules about partnership which appear for the first time in the *Yāj.* It is significant that, unlike Kauṭilya and *Manu*, (VII. 206-10), *Yāj.* (II. 265) states the law of partnership for merchants and foreign traders first, and adds that the same principles shall apply to priestly partnerships and to that of agriculturists and artisans. Similarly the foreign trade of the period made it necessary for Nārada to say that contracts of loans entered into in foreign countries were to be governed by the laws of the place of contract (*Nār.*, I. 105-06). Cf. Jayaswal, *Manu and Yājñavalkya*, pp. 198 and 211. The *Bṛhatkathā* of Guṇāḍhya, a work of about A.D. 500 (*Keith, Hist. of Sansk. Lit.*, p. 268), deals not so much with kings as with merchants, traders, seafarers and handicraftsmen (*Ibid.*).