The Extraordinary Universe of Artisan Guilds in Ancient India - Sandeep Balakrishna

 At a high level, there was a clear difference between trading and merchant guilds on the one hand and guilds of artisans on the other.

To understand this in a clearer fashion, in that era, typically, hereditary families following certain branches of trade formed themselves into exclusive corporations with a Jyeshtaka or Jyeshta as their head.

The Brilliant World of Artisan Guilds

However, the artisans were rather strict in this regard. The son of an artisan had to compulsorily undergo an apprenticeship under his father for several years starting from childhood. Quite obviously, skill, talent and expertise in a particular craft or profession was honed generationally. It rarely passed out of the family.

In fact, artisan guilds or corporations were also a powerful force to reckon with in both politics and society. An eminent proof of this fact emerges when we observe town planning methods in ancient and medieval India. Entire townships, villages, streets, and quarters were named after specific artisans. Even until recently, it was common to find streets with such names. In Karnataka, every city and town had a Ganigara-Keri (quarters of oil millers), Kumbarara-beedi (carpenters’ street) and so on. We once again notice how this even facet indicates the Hindu civilizational continuity viewed from the perspective of our commercial history. For example, in ancient India, the word Kammara-Gaamo meant a village of ironsmiths. The Kannada word Kammara even today means an ironsmith.

An intriguing fact is that these guilds were also highly mobile and could move or migrate to long distances at astonishing speeds. We have an example of a guild comprising one thousand families of carpenters near Varanasi who left the town during a troubled period and settled in a faraway island.

Next, we’ll look at some major aspects of how these artisan guilds were organized, broadly around three factors:

1. Heredity of profession

2. Localisation of different branches or specialisations within the profession

3. The office of the Jyeshta, the supreme head of the guild

The Jyeshta was akin to an Alderman in the western parlance (who typically served on the city council or county board, etc). In ancient India, the Jyestha sometimes performed the role of a Governor or local magistrate or head of a city council and generally held a powerful position in the state’s administrative apparatus. Some Jyeshtas were the favourites of the King as well.

Thus, owing to this kind of power and prestige, quarrels and fights erupted among various Jyeshtas on several occasions. It is said that Buddha himself had to step in to settle their disputes in his own lifetime. Over time, when the frequency of such disputes increased, it led to the establishment of a Special Tribunal. The first recorded such Tribunal was the Office of the Supreme Head of Guilds in the ancient Kingdom of Kashi. The Bhāṇḍāgārika or royal treasurer (akin to the RBI Governor in contemporary parlance) himself was appointed to this post. He had full judicial powers over all the Jyeshtas in the kingdom.

Laws and Regulations

In fact, the more we dig into these primary sources, the more gold we get. But all these sources clearly prove the same historical point: the centrality and inseparability of corporations in ancient India’s political, social and cultural life.

Within each corporation, rules and regulations and laws were uniformly and strictly binding on all members from the chief to the office-bearer occupying the lowest rung.

Guilds were also entitled to arbitrate and adjudicate even in certain personal matters concerning its members and their wives. Not infrequently, the wives were formally ordained to manage several key areas of the corporation’s activities. In a highly interesting episode in the Vinayapitaka, we learn of how some wives of the guild members were even permitted to become Sanyasinis.

Corporations in the Kautilyan Period

And now, we can consider some aspects of ancient India’s commercial and corporate activity in the epoch-making and epoch-altering period of Kautilya.

In this period, we notice a gradual but systematic crystallization in the realms of economics, commerce, trade and corporate activity, broadly speaking. These areas were also arranged in a profound manner, in the sense of Na Bhuto na bhavishyati.

I’ll touch upon just some of the major features in this connection.

In the Kautilyan and broadly speaking, the Mauryan Empire, taxes remitted by guilds and corporations were one of the most important sources of revenue. The Superintendent of Accounts had to enter the following information in registers and account ledgers prescribed by the Government:

1. A detailed history of the customs of each guild or corporation

2. Specific details of the customs themselves

3. A list of each profession, trade, craft, industry, etc., in the Empire

4. Details of the transactions of each guild or corporation

A well-defined process was established whereby guilds or corporations could elect three ministers who enjoyed their confidence. These ministers would be their quasi representatives within the Government machinery looking after their interests and pleading their case. As a mark of their confidence in the ministers, guild or corporate heads voluntarily made refundable deposits to the royal treasury. A measure of the mutual trust that existed between these corporate bodies and the government was the fact that they rarely asked for a refund, except in extreme conditions such as famine, etc.

This system turned out to be phenomenally enduring and was pan-Indian in scope. It was maintained almost intact even during the reign of the Nayakas in southern India, after the fall of the Vijayanagara Empire.

Courtesy: https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/the-extraordinary-universe-of-artisan-guilds-in-ancient-india

The Training, Qualifications, Character and Powers of Ministers in Ancient India: A Study in Harmony - Sandeep Balakrishna

A KEY LINK TO UNDERSTAND both the theoretical and practical functioning of politics and statecraft in ancient India up to the destruction of the Classical Era is not to view it from the prism of what is known as democracy. While we can find contemporary terminological equivalents to adequately describe and analyze various aspects of Hindu polity, we must have a vivid picture of its practice. The chief sources that enable us to get this picture include epigraphs, language, literature, writers on Rajyasastra and Dharmasastra, numismatics and what are derisively dismissed as “oral legends.”

It is also incorrect to somehow “prove” that democracy existed in ancient India—i.e., the sort of democracy that has been in vogue for roughly the last three hundred years. At best, it can be said that some practices and elements familiar to us today did exist back then. But in this case, the parts do not make the whole. It is akin to saying that all creatures that have wings are eagles.

A reasonable definition of ancient Indian polity and statecraft is that it was a Circumscribed Monarchy where the power of the king was constrained by a Council of Ministers. Every writer on Indian polity from Manu onwards held that a good administration was one where the King and the Council of Ministers were mutually afraid of each other, and in turn, all of them were afraid of public opinion. For more details on public opinion in ancient India, see the essay series linked below.

Unlike contemporary democracies, the ruler had to compulsorily be a warrior first and an administrator next. Among other things, good administration was defined as a powerful method of preventing war and winning it if it occurred despite solid administration. Almost every royal fiat had to be whetted by the Council of Ministers before execution. In turn, these top echelons kept a hawk-like vigil on the daily life of the people, generously rewarding their good conduct, service, fidelity to tradition, and punishing faults and crimes in a timely fashion. Although this system eventually thawed and was vandalized to the point of extinction, its foundational features remained intact in the DNA of our people even after India attained a questionable independence. To quote the memorable words of the stalwart of epigraphy R. Narasimhacharya, these features contained in our historical records “bear testimony to the prowess, piety, generosity, patriotism and toleration of our princes and the people.”

P.K. Telang also describes this system beautifully:

The word Rajan (or King) means one who can keep the people contented. Power and authority were implicitly admitted to rest on the sanction and the good-will and consent of the people. The ultimate right of the people to be the sole arbiters as to the kind of government they would have and the persons they would have to govern them, was recognized. This recognition was given concrete form in two restraints on the power of the King…He could not transcend Dharma. What is Dharma? The custom of the people, admitted and sanctified as binding law and imprimatur of those who were the knowers and guardians of the people’s culture. He could not break the word of the Brahmanas. Who were the Brahmanas? Those who having acquired culture and knowledge, gave everything to the service of the country and the service of the people without expecting anything in return. Their watch-words were self-renunciation and self-sacrifice in the service of the nation. You will note how both these checks would lead to the substantiation of the ultimate power of the people.

But this does not mean that the system was perfect in all respects. There are numerous instances that show conflicts between the King and the Council of Ministers.

An early instance of this conflict occurs during the rule of the daring and indomitable Śaka ruler, Rudradamana I of the Western Kshatrapa dynasty. He placed an ambitious proposal to repair the dam of the Sudarshana Lake at Junagadh. After much deliberation, his Council of Ministers shot it down because it was cost-intensive. But Rudradamana had given his word to the people. And so, he rebuilt the dam using his personal money or privy purse.

Ministers were able to wield such extraordinary clout owing to their selection process, detailed for example, in Kautilya’s Arthasastra. Before being appointed, they were subject to rigorous tests which were above and beyond their scholarship, talent, skill or experience. These tests had everything to do with their personal character, foremost of which was absolute integrity and absolute loyalty to their land. This is the fabled fourfold Kautilyan test:

1. Religious allurement

2. Financial enticement

3. Sexual temptation

4. Inducing physical threat

Depending on which tests the aspirant passed or failed in, portfolios would be allocated. For example, if a candidate failed in all tests but passed the test of sexual temptation, he would be placed in charge of “pleasure grounds” or brothels. The candidate who passed all the tests would be appointed as the Prime Minister.

It is precisely this element that is missing in our IAS, IPS, IFS and other high-level recruitment processes. Thus, it is unsurprising that a barely-disguised, one-man breaking-India force like Harsh Mander still roams around scot-free.

These tests apart, appointments to ministerial offices entailed these qualifications:

• A solid training in the arts including music, drama, poetry, etc.

• A thorough mastery over grammar

• Impeccable and exquisite handwriting

• A cultivation of vision and foresight

• Strong memory

• Eloquence

• Health, vigour and enthusiasm

• Basic or advanced military training

• A demeanor that exuded dignity, poise, composure, charm, and wit

• Round-the-clock availability to everyone including the lowest classes of people

• A genuine attitude of affection and warmth towards all classes of the society

• Ruthlessness sans personal hatred when dealing with criminals

• Purity of life by not missing the key elements of Achara and Vyavahara such as performing the prescribed Dharmic rituals, festivals, Vratas and doing regular Daana.

• The Mahabharata has a beautiful set of verses that gives perhaps the profoundest list of qualifications and qualities a minister must be endowed with.

  Oh Rajan! Take care that your ministers should be men well-versed in the Sastra of politics and the application of the six gunas: noble birth, devout, bereft of faults, good politicians, clever lawyers, and learned in history. They must be skilled to read the unwritten signs and intentions (Ingitajnana) like an open book. They must fully know what should be done and when. They must be heroic and strong. They must well-born and well-bred, keen witted, and must succeed in all works that they undertake. They must be experts in the art of warfare and in the strengthening of forts in order to make them impregnable. They must be deeply learned in the Dharmasastras, they must be broadminded and show mercy in situations that elicit it. They must be wise, endowed with foresight and must command the wisdom to circumvent all future dangers and must have the inner strength to face and subdue the present threats. They must keenly anticipate the motives of their foes and friends alike. More vitally, they must learn how to deal with indifferent and lazy kings who act purposelessly and must guard their secrets, standing firm like rocks.

• O King! These ministers must be strictly Dharmic, generous and immune to all temptations. In a word, such ministers are strong and fit, like patient cows, to bear the burden of the state upon their backs.

  The history and culture of the Indian people and their civilization is an inspiring, sublime, and exalted kaleidoscope pieced with lovely patterns of the lives and legacies of such ministers. From the immortal Kautilya to the true, contemporary Ratna of Bharatavarsha, Sir M. Visvesvarayya. If one Kautilya, one Darbhapani, one Vidyaranya Swami, one Thimmarasu and one Visvesvarayya could sculpt the fortunes of and bring light, prosperity, and joy to an entire Rajya, imagine what an entire cabinet of such light-givers can do.

• Small wonder that Kautilya and other Hindu writers and lawgivers recommended that the King should follow the Prime Minister as “a student follows his preceptor, and a son his father.” In a superb feat of creativity, the Kannada blockbuster movie, Sri Krishnadevaraya brings this feature vividly alive in the scene where Prime Minister Thimmarasu slaps the newly-coronated emperor Sri Krishnadevaraya several times in a row. The Raya’s response: “I understand that there is an intrinsic message of virtue and warning in your slaps. It only shows the depth of your affection towards me.”

  We believe further commentary on this point is superfluous.

• Courtesy: https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/the-training-qualifications-character-and-powers-of-ministers-in-ancient-india-a-study-in-harmony