Towns, Traders And Craftspersons

Here is the class notes from Class NCERT History- Chapter 6 : “Towns, Traders and Craftspersons”

Towns, Traders and Craftspersons

Types of Towns

Temple Towns: Developed around temples (e.g., Kanchipuram, Madurai).
Administrative Centres: Capitals or centers of power (e.g., Thanjavur).
Commercial Towns: Places with active trade (e.g., Surat, Hampi).
Port Towns: Important for overseas trade (e.g., Masulipatnam, Surat).

Administrative Centres

Thanjavur:
- Capital of the Cholas.
- Famous for the Rajarajeshvara temple built by King Rajaraja Chola.
- Hub for agriculture, craft production, and trade.
Craftspeople like weavers, sculptors, and metalworkers lived here.
The Saliya weavers of Thanjavur produced cloth for flags to be used in the temple festival, fine cottons for the king and nobility and coarse cotton for the masses.
Svamimalai, the sthapatis or sculptors are making exquisite bronze idols and tall, ornamental bell metal lamps.

Temple Towns and Pilgrimage Centres

Temples were often central to the economy and society.
Rulers built temples to demonstrate their devotion to various deities.
They also endowed temples with grants of land and money to carry out elaborate rituals, feed pilgrims and priests and celebrate festivals.
Pilgrims who flocked to the temples also made donations.
Gradually a large number of priests, workers, artisans, traders, etc. settled near the temple.
Towns emerged around temples such as those of Bhillasvamin (Bhilsa or Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh), and Somnath in Gujarat. Other important temple towns included Kanchipuram and Madurai in Tamil Nadu, and Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh.
Pilgrimage centres also slowly developed into townships.
- Vrindavan (Uttar Pradesh) and Tiruvannamalai (Tamil Nadu) are examples of two such towns.
Ajmer (Rajasthan) was the capital of the Chauhan kings in the twelfth century and later became the suba headquarters under the Mughals. It provides an excellent example of religious coexistence.
Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti, the celebrated Sufi saint who settled there in the twelfth century, attracted devotees from all creeds.
Pushkar lake, near Ajmer which has attracted pilgrims from ancient times.

A Network of Small Towns

From the eighth century onwards the subcontinent was dotted with several small towns.
They usually had a mandapika (or mandi of later times) to which nearby villagers brought their produce to sell.
They also had market streets called hatta (haat of later times) lined with shops.
There were streets for different kinds of artisans such as potters, oil pressers, sugar makers, toddy makers, smiths, stonemasons, etc.
Many came from far and near to these towns to buy local articles and sell products of distant places like horses, salt, camphor, saffron, betel nut and spices like pepper.
Usually a samanta or, in later times, a zamindar built a fortified palace in or near these towns.
They levied taxes on traders, artisans and articles of trade.

Traders Big and Small

Traders, especially horse traders, formed associations, with headmen who negotiated on their behalf with warriors who bought horses.
Guilds, Manigramam and Nanadesi traded extensively both within the peninsula and with Southeast Asia and China.
Gujarati traders, including the communities of Hindu Baniyas and Muslim Bohras, traded extensively with the ports of the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, East Africa, Southeast Asia and China.
They sold textiles and spices in these ports and, in exchange, brought gold and ivory from Africa; and spices, tin, Chinese blue pottery and silver from Southeast Asia and China.
Indian spices and cloth sold in the Red Sea ports were purchased by Italian traders and eventually reached European markets, fetching very high profits.

Crafts in Towns

The craftspersons of Bidar were so famed for their inlay work in copper and silver that it came to be called Bidri.
The Panchalas or Vishwakarma community, consisting of goldsmiths, bronzesmiths, blacksmiths, masons and carpenters, were essential to the building of temples.
The Saliyar or Kaikkolars emerged as prosperous communities, making donations to temples.

A Closer Look: Hampi, Masulipatnam and Surat

The Architectural Splendour of Hampi

Hampi is located in the Krishna-Tungabhadra basin, which formed the nucleus of the Vijayanagara Empire, founded in 1336.
The magnificent ruins at Hampi reveal a well-fortified city.
No mortar or cementing agent was used in the construction of these walls and the technique followed was to wedge them together by interlocking.
The buildings in the royal complex had splendid arches, domes and pillared halls with niches for holding sculptures.
They also had well-planned orchards and pleasure gardens with sculptural motifs such as the lotus and corbels.
In its heyday in the fifteenth sixteenth centuries, Hampi bustled with commercial and cultural activities.
Muslim merchants, Chettis and agents of European traders such as the Portuguese, thronged the markets of Hampi.
Temples were the hub of cultural activities and devadasis (temple dancers) performed before the deity, royalty and masses in the many-pillared halls in the Virupaksha (a form of Shiva) temple.
The Mahanavami festival, known today as Navaratri in the south, was one of the most important festivals celebrated at Hampi.
Archaeologists have found the Mahanavami platform where the king received guests and accept tribute from subordinate chiefs.
Hampi fell into ruin following the defeat of Vijayanagara in 1565 by the Deccani Sultans – the rulers of Golconda, Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Berar and Bidar.

A Gateway to the West: Surat

Surat in Gujarat was the emporium of western trade during the Mughal period along with Cambay (present day Khambat).
Surat has also been called the gate to Mecca because many pilgrim ships set sail from here.
The city was cosmopolitan and people of all castes and creeds lived there.
In the seventeenth century the Portuguese, Dutch and English had their factories and warehouses at Surat.
The textiles of Surat were famous for their gold lace borders (zari) and had a market in West Asia, Africa and Europe.
The state built numerous rest-houses to take care of the needs of people from all over the world who came to the city.
There were magnificent buildings and innumerable pleasure parks.
The Kathiawad seths or mahajans (moneychangers) had huge banking houses at Surat.
It is noteworthy that the Surat hundis were honoured in the far-off markets of Cairo in Egypt, Basra in Iraq and Antwerp in Belgium.
Decline of Surat
- decline of the Mughal Empire
- control of the sea routes by the Portuguese
- competition from Bombay (present-day Mumbai) where the English East India Company shifted its headquarters in 1668
Today, Surat is a bustling commercial centre.

Fishing in Troubled Waters: Masulipatnam

The town of Masulipatnam or Machlipatnam (literally, fish port town) lay on the delta of the Krishna river.
Both the Dutch and English East India Companies attempted to control Masulipatnam as it became the most important port on the Andhra coast.
The fort at Masulipatnam was built by the Dutch
Fierce competition among various trading groups – the Golconda nobles, Persian merchants, Telugu Komati Chettis, and European traders – made the city populous and prosperous.
As the Mughals began to extend their power to Golconda their representative, the governor Mir Jumla who was also a merchant, began to play off the Dutch and the English against each other. In 1686-1687 Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb annexed Golconda.
This caused the European Companies to look for alternatives.
The new Company trade centres, it was felt, should combine political, administrative and commercial roles.
As the Company traders moved to Bombay, Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) and Madras (present-day Chennai), Masulipatnam lost both its merchants and prosperity

New Towns and Traders

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, European countries were searching for spices and textiles, which had become popular both in Europe and West Asia.
The English, Dutch and French formed East India Companies in order to expand their commercial activities in the east.
European Companies used their naval power to gain control of the sea trade and forced Indian traders to work as their agents.
Ultimately, the English emerged as the most successful commercial and political power in the subcontinent.
The eighteenth century saw the rise of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, which are nodal cities today.
Crafts and commerce underwent major changes as merchants and artisans (such as weavers) were moved into the Black Towns established by the European companies within these new cities.
The “blacks” or native traders and craftspersons were confined here while the “white” rulers occupied the superior residencies of Fort St. George in Madras or Fort St. William in Calcutta.

Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese sailor, sailed down the African Coast, went round the Cape of Good Hope and crossed over to the Indian Ocean.
His first journey took more than a year; he reached Calicut in 1498, and returned to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, the following year.
He lost two of his four ships, and of the 170 men at the start of the journey, only 54 survived.
In spite of the obvious hazards, the routes that were opened up proved to be extremely profitable – and he was followed by English, Dutch and French sailors.

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus, an Italian, decided to sail westwards across the Atlantic Ocean to find a route to India.
He landed in the West Indies (which got their name because of this confusion) in 1492.
He was followed by sailors and conquerors from Spain and Portugal, who occupied large parts of Central and South America, often destroying earlier settlements in the area