NCERT CLASS 7 HISTORY CHAPTER 6: TOWNS, TRADERS AND CRAFTPERSONS- Revision notes.
What would a traveller visiting a medieval
town expect to find? This would depend on what kind
of a town it was - a
temple town, an administrative centre, a commercial town or a port town to
name just some
possibilities.
In fact, many towns combined several
functions - they were administrative centres, temple towns, as well as centers of
commercial activities and craft production.
Administrative Centres
Thanjavur,
The capital of the Cholas, as it was a
thousand years ago.
The perennial river
Kaveri flows near this beautiful town.
One hears the bells of
the Rajarajeshvara temple built by King Rajaraja Chola.
The townspeople are all praise for its
architect Kunjaramallan Rajaraja Perunthachchan who
has proudly carved
his name on the temple wall.
Inside is a massive Shiva linga. Besides the
temple, there are palaces with mandapas or
pavilions.
Kings hold court in these mandapas, issuing orders to
their subordinates.
There are also barracks for the army.
There are also barracks for the army.
The town is bustling with markets selling
grain, spices, cloth and jewellery.
Water supply for the town comes from wells and tanks.
Water supply for the town comes from wells and tanks.
The Saliya weavers of
Thanjavur and the nearby town of Uraiyur are busy producing cloth
for flags to be used
in the temple festival, fine cottons for the king and nobility and coarse
cotton for the
masses.
Some distance away at Svamimalai, the sthapatis or sculptors are
making exquisite bronze
idols and tall,
ornamental bell metal lamps.
Temple Towns and Pilgrimage Centres
Thanjavur is also an example of a temple town. Temple towns represent a
very important pattern
of urbanisation, the process by which cities
develop.
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.
Temple authorities used their wealth to
finance trade and banking. Gradually a large number of
priests, workers,
artisans, traders, etc. settled near the temple to cater to its needs and those
of the
pilgrims. Thus grew
temple towns.
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 (see also Chapter 8) who settled there in the
twelfth century,
attracted devotees from all creeds. Near Ajmer is a lake, Pushkar, 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. These
probably emerged from large villages.
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. Besides,
there
were streets for
different kinds of artisans such as potters, oil pressers, sugar makers, toddy
makers, smiths,
stonemasons, etc.
While some traders
lived in the town, others travelled from town to town. 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 and
sometimes “donated” the “right” to collect these taxes to local temples, which
had been built by themselves or by rich merchants. These “rights” were recorded
in inscriptions that have survived to this day.
Traders Big and Small
There were many kinds of traders. These
included the Banjaras. Several traders, especially horse
traders, formed
associations, with headmen who negotiated on their behalf with warriors who
bought horses.
Since traders had to pass through many kingdoms and forests, they
usually travelled in caravans
and formed guilds to protect their interests.
There were several such guilds in south
India from the eighth century onwards - the most famous
being the Manigramam
and Nanadesi.
These guilds traded extensively both within
the peninsula and with Southeast Asia and China.
There were also communities like the Chettiars and the Marwari Oswal who
went on to become
the principal trading groups of the country.
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.
The towns on the west coast were home to Arab, Persian, Chinese, Jewish
and Syrian Christian
traders.
Indian spices and cloth sold in the Red Sea ports were purchased by
Italian traders and eventually
reached European markets, fetching very high
profits.
Spices grown in tropical climates (pepper,
cinnamon, nutmeg, dried ginger, etc.) became an important
part of European cooking, and cotton cloth was very attractive. This eventually
drew European traders to India.
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. They also played an
important
role in the
construction of palaces, big buildings, tanks and reservoirs.
Similarly, weavers such as the Saliyar or Kaikkolars emerged as
prosperous communities, making
donations to temples.
Some aspects of cloth making like cotton cleaning, spinning and dyeing
became specialized and
independent crafts.
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 architecture of Hampi was distinctive. 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.
Moors (a name used collectively for 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 accepted tribute from subordinate chiefs. From here he also watched
dance and music
performances as well as wrestling bouts.
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) and somewhat later,
Ahmedabad.
Surat was the gateway for trade with West
Asia via the Gulf of Ormuz.
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.
According to the English chronicler Ovington
who wrote an account of the port in 1689, on
average
a hundred ships of different countries could be found anchored at the port at
any given
time.
There were also several retail and wholesale
shops selling cotton textiles. 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.
However, Surat began to decline towards the end of the seventeenth
century. This was because of
many factors:
1. The loss of markets
and productivity because of the decline of the Mughal Empire,
2. Control of the sea
routes by the Portuguese and
3. 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. In the seventeenth century it was
a centre of intense activity.
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.
The Qutb Shahi rulers of Golconda imposed
royal monopolies on the sale of textiles, spices and
other items to
prevent the trade passing completely into the hands of the various East India
Companies.
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.
It was a part of the
new policy of the English East India Company that it was not enough if a port
had connections with
the production centres of the hinterland. 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 and declined in the course
of
the eighteenth
century, being today nothing more than a dilapidated little town.
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. Initially great Indian traders like Mulla Abdul Ghafur
and Virji Vora who owned a large number of ships competed with them.
However, the European Companies used their naval power to gain control
of the sea trade and
forced Indian traders to work as their agents.
subcontinent.
The spurt in demand for goods like textiles led to a great expansion of
the crafts of spinning,
weaving, bleaching, dyeing, etc. with more and
more people taking them up.
Indian textile designs became increasingly refined. However, this period
also saw the decline of
the independence of craftspersons.
They now began to work on a system of advances which meant that they had
to weave cloth
which was already promised to European agents.
Weavers no longer had the liberty of selling their own cloth or weaving
their own patterns. They
had to reproduce the designs supplied to them by
the Company agents.
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.
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