Position of Merchants

• The expansion of agriculture and availability of surplus from the 8th/9th century onwards led to an increase in commercial exchanges in South India.

• This resulted in the emergence of a full-time trading community managing local exchanges.

• The trading community also participated in wider inter-regional and inter-oceanic trade.

• South Indian merchants specialized in specific commodities such as textiles, oil or ghee, betel leaves, and hones.

• Local and regional markets called nagaram served as centres of exchange, situated in clusters of agrarian settlements.

• These markets integrated collection from hinterlands and commercial traffic from other areas.

• The number of nagarams increased considerably during the Cola period in the 11th and 12th centuries.

• The term nagarattar, meaning a member of the nagaram assembly, became a generic term for all Tamil merchants.

Organisation of Traders

• Merchants derived their power and prestige not only from wealth but also from the guilds or associations formed to protect their interests.

• In the first phase, the decline of trade weakened the corporate activity of merchants, and many guilds were reduced to mere regional or occupational sub-castes.

• As trade revived in the second phase, merchant guilds reappeared as an important feature of contemporary economic life.