A History of Agriculture in India v1.c28.s5: Merchants and Trade
A History of Agriculture in India v1.c28.s5
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Merchants and Trade
v1.c28.s5.1
‘Besides, the peasantry and the handicraftsman there were merchants who conveyed their goods either up and down the great rivers, or along the coasts in boats; or right across the country in carts travelling in caravans. These caravans, long lines of small two-wheeled carts, each drawn by two bullocks, were a distinctive feature of the times. The carts struggled along, slowly, through the forests, along the tracks from village to village kept open by the peasants. A typical bullock-cart and a pair of bullocks are seen in a Bharhut relief (Fig. 168). Smaller streams were crossed by gullies leading down to fords, the larger ones, in cart ferries. There were taxes and octroi at the border of each Mahajanapada and a heavy item in the cost was the hire of volunteer police who let themselves out in bands to protect caravans against robbers on the way. The cost of such carriage must have been great; so great that only the more costly goods could bear it.
v1.c28.s5.2
‘Silks, muslins, finer cloth and cutlery and armour, brocades, embroideries and rugs, perfumes and drugs, ivory and ivory work, jewellery and gold (seldom silver) were the main articles in which the merchants dealt.
v1.c28.s5.3
‘The activity of trade is indicated by the traffic on high roads (rajapatha, ‘routes royales’) and by-roads (banikpatha, ‘merchant roads’) the bustle at frontiers, ferries, tolls, and city-gates.’⁴
v1.c28.s5.4
⁴ Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, pp. 90-96