Trade
and Traders in Early Indian Society
By-
Ranabir Chakravarti
Situating
trade and traders in the overall agrarian milieu of early India, this book
highlights the diversities of merchants and market places, which are not viewed
as an undifferentiated category. Chakravarti strongly argues against the
perception of declining trade in India during the period AD 500-1000, and
demonstrates the linkages of trade at the locality level during this period.
The author questions the stereotyped account of early Indian commerce merely in
terms of trade in luxuries and draws our attention to transactions in daily
necessities. In-depth analysis of maritime commerce in the Bengal coast (c.
200 BC to AD 1300) is a major feature of the book.
The
author also explores different, if not sometimes conflicting, attitudes of
early Indian society to merchants, who were lauded as patrons to cultural
activities and also branded as ‘open thieves’; yet the presence of
non-indigenous merchants was always favoured. The settlements of foreign
merchants especially in coastal tracts witnessed in different ages remarkable
cultural synthesis and coexistence among diverse trading communities. Most
significantly, the social and cultural accommodation of several non-indigenous
minority groups is inseparably associated with the history of early Indian
commerce. The author also examines the role of trading communities in the
making of a plural and complex society like India.
Ranabir
Chakravarti,
Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New
Delhi specializes in the social and economic history of early India, with a
thrust particularly on the maritime trade of India in the Indian Ocean (c.
AD 700-1500).
ISBN 81-7304-695-6
2007 300p. Rs.295/ pounds 19.99
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