BharatNotes Why this chapter matters for UPSC: Kingdoms rested on productive villages and busy towns. This chapter covers iron tools and irrigation, who lived in villages, how historians find out about cities, coins, crafts and guilds (shrenis), and the Indo-Roman port of Arikamedu. Prelims 2026 asked about the second urbanisation; trade with Rome, guilds and coins are standard GS1 economic-history material. In the rationalised 2023-24 edition this is Chapter 8, "Villages, Towns and Trade", which drops the ring wells and the Jataka story and adds the trade, coastal kingdoms and Silk Route sections of the old Chapter 10.
Contemporary hook: The excavations at Pattanam in Kerala, run by the Kerala Council for Historical Research for nine seasons between 2007 and 2015, have revived the search for Muziris, the pepper port that Roman writers knew. Its excavator says there is "every possibility" that Pattanam was, or was part of, Muziris; that is a proposal, not a proven identification. How we test such claims, with pottery, coins, texts and maps, is the method of this chapter.
🧠 First Principles — Read This First
Iron and irrigation made villages more productive. The use of iron began in the subcontinent about 3,000 years ago; some of the largest collections of iron tools and weapons come from megalithic burials. About 2,500 years ago the use of iron tools grew: axes to clear forests, and the iron ploughshare. Kings and kingdoms also built irrigation works: canals, wells, tanks and artificial lakes. NCERT's chart shows the logic: kings need money, so they demand taxes; farmers must produce more; kings plan and pay for irrigation, people provide the labour, production rises, and so does revenue.
Villages had different kinds of people. In the Tamil region: large landowners (vellalar), ordinary ploughmen (uzhavar), and landless labourers including slaves (kadaisiyar and adimai). In the north: the village headman (grama bhojaka), other independent farmers (grihapatis, mostly smaller landowners), and landless workers (dasa karmakara). Most villages also had blacksmiths, potters, carpenters and weavers.
Towns are known from many kinds of evidence: stories (the Jatakas), sculpture, archaeology (ring wells), travellers' accounts (the Periplus on Barygaza), coins, and inscriptions (Mathura).
Why UPSC cares: Mains questions on the ancient economy, guilds and trade expect exactly these categories of people and evidence.
PART 1 — Quick Reference
Village Society (NCERT)
| Region | Group | Who they were |
|---|---|---|
| Tamil region | Vellalar | Large landowners |
| Uzhavar | Ordinary ploughmen | |
| Kadaisiyar, adimai | Landless labourers, including slaves | |
| North | Grama bhojaka | Village headman; post usually hereditary; often the largest landowner, with slaves and hired workers; collected taxes for the king; also judge and sometimes policeman |
| Grihapati | Other independent farmers, most of them smaller landowners | |
| Dasa karmakara | Men and women without land who worked on others' fields |
The Tamil terms come from Sangam literature, composed about 2,300 years ago in assemblies (sangams) of poets held in Madurai.
Evidence for Early Towns
| Evidence | What it tells us |
|---|---|
| Jataka stories | Composed by ordinary people, written down and preserved by Buddhist monks; NCERT's tale of the clever poor man shows a town economy of coins, traders and a horse dealer |
| Sculpture | Scenes of town, village and forest life on railings, pillars and gateways (e.g. Sanchi) |
| Ring wells | Rows of pots or ceramic rings, usually in individual houses; used as toilets in some cases, and as drains and garbage dumps |
| Travellers | An unknown Greek sailor described the ports he visited, including Barygaza (Bharuch) |
| Coins | Punch-marked coins, the earliest, in use for about 500 years |
| Inscriptions | At Mathura, gifts by kings, queens, officers, merchants and crafts persons (goldsmiths, blacksmiths, weavers, basket makers, garland makers, perfumers) |
Barygaza (Bharuch), from the Greek Sailor's Account
| Imports | Exports |
|---|---|
| Wine, copper, tin, lead, coral, topaz, cloth, gold and silver coins | Himalayan plants, ivory, agate, carnelian, cotton, silk, perfumes |
Ships had to be steered into the narrow gulf by local fishermen employed by the king; merchants brought special gifts for the king.
PART 2 — Concepts & Narrative
Coins
Punch-marked coins: generally rectangular, sometimes square or round, cut from metal sheets or made from flattened metal globules. They carried no inscription but were stamped with symbols using dies or punches. They are found over most of the subcontinent and stayed in circulation till the early centuries CE (NCERT VI). NCERT XII: made of silver and copper, from c. sixth century BCE; their symbols may point to kings, but merchants, bankers and townspeople may also have issued some.
Other means of exchange: a Sangam poem describes salt merchants carrying white paddy in carts to exchange for salt, taking whole families along: barter continued beside coins.
Cities With Many Functions: Mathura
Mathura has been important for more than 2,500 years. It stood at the crossroads of two major routes, from the north-west to the east and from north to south. It had fortifications and shrines, was fed by farmers and herders nearby, and produced very fine sculpture. About 2,000 years ago it became the second capital of the Kushanas. It was also a religious centre with Buddhist monasteries, Jaina shrines and the worship of Krishna.
Crafts and Crafts Persons
Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW): a hard, wheel-made, metallic-looking ware with a shiny black surface, generally found in the northern part of the subcontinent. The potter fired it at very high temperature, which blackened the outer surface, and added a fine black slip for a mirror-like shine.
Cloth: famous centres at Varanasi in the north and Madurai in the south, where men and women both worked.
Shrenis: associations of crafts persons and merchants. Shrenis of crafts persons provided training, procured raw material and distributed the finished product; shrenis of merchants organised trade. Shrenis also served as banks: rich men and women deposited money, which was invested, and part of the interest was returned or used to support religious institutions such as monasteries.
Rules for spinning and weaving (Arthashastra, quoted by NCERT): widows, young women who are differently abled, nuns, mothers of courtesans, retired royal servants and temple servants could be employed to process wool, bark, cotton, hemp and flax; they were to be paid by quality and quantity; women who could not leave home could send maidservants for raw material; a superintendent who looked at a woman or talked of anything but work was to be punished; a woman who did not finish her work could be fined, and her thumbs cut off. Ask what this tells us about women's work, wages and the state.
A Closer Look: Arikamedu
Between 2,200 and 1,900 years ago, Arikamedu (in Puducherry) was a coastal settlement where ships unloaded goods from distant lands. NCERT lists:
- a massive brick structure that may have been a warehouse;
- pottery from the Mediterranean: amphorae (tall double-handled jars for wine or oil) and Arretine Ware (stamped red-glazed pottery named after a city in Italy, made by pressing wet clay into a stamped mould);
- locally made pottery with Roman designs;
- Roman lamps, glassware and gems;
- small tanks that were probably dyeing vats;
- plenty of evidence for making beads from semi-precious stones and glass;
- pottery with Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions.
Coins at Arikamedu: the excavator, R.E.M. Wheeler, reported that "no coins have been found in the ancient levels of the site" (Ancient India 2, 1946). Many Roman gold coins have been found elsewhere in south India (NCERT), but not in Arikamedu's Roman-period levels.
PART 3 — UPSC Integration
Indo-Roman Trade: What the Sources Actually Say
| Source | What it says |
|---|---|
| Pliny the Elder, Natural History 6.101 | India drains the Roman empire of "no less than" 50 million sesterces a year, selling goods at a hundred times their cost (the Latin numeral; the old Bostock–Riley translation prints "five hundred and fifty millions", a mistranslation) |
| Pliny, Natural History 12.84 | India, the Seres (Chinese) and the Arabian peninsula together take 100 million sesterces a year from the empire |
| Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (§57) | "Hippalus was the pilot who ... first discovered how to lay his course straight across the ocean"; the south-west wind was named after him. The text gives no date for Hippalus |
| Muziris papyrus (Vienna, 2nd century CE) | A loan contract and cargo valuation for the ship Hermapollon: the surviving list records nard, ivory and textiles, worth nearly 7 million drachmas in all; pepper is inferred by scholars, not listed in the surviving text |
| Tabula Peutingeriana (a medieval copy of a late-Roman map) | Marks a "Templum Augusti" (temple of Augustus) near Muziris. Who built it, and whether it implies a resident Roman community, is interpretation |
The Arthashastra on Interest Rates (Book III, ch. 11)
| Kind of loan | Monthly rate per 100 | Yearly |
|---|---|---|
| "Just" interest | 1¼ panas | 15% |
| Commercial (vyavahariki) | 5 panas | 60% |
| In forests | 10 panas | 120% |
| Among sea-traders (samudranam) | 20 panas | 240% |
The riskier the venture, the higher the permitted rate (Shamasastry's translation). Charging more was punishable.
A Guild Bank in Stone: The Nasik Cave Endowment
Nasik Cave inscription No. 12 (E. Senart, Epigraphia Indica vol. VIII): in the year 42, Ushavadata, son of Dinika and son-in-law of the Kshaharata Kshatrapa Nahapana, gave a cave to the Sangha and invested 3,000 kahapanas with guilds at Govardhana: 2,000 with one weavers' guild at 1 pratika a month per hundred (12% a year) and 1,000 with another at ¾ pratika. The capital was not to be repaid; from the interest, each of the twenty monks keeping the rainy season in the cave received cloth money of twelve kahapanas.
This is the clearest proof of NCERT's point that shrenis served as banks whose interest supported monasteries. The donor was a Shaka (Kshaharata), not the Satavahana king Gautamiputra Satakarni.
[Additional] 9a. Pattanam and the Search for Muziris
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Where | Pattanam, a hamlet in Paravur taluk, Ernakulam district, Kerala, about 4 km from the coast |
| Excavated by | The Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR), directed by P.J. Cherian |
| Seasons | Nine, between 2007 and 2015 (Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology 9, 2021-22) |
| Scale | Cherian reports some 4.5 million body potsherds kept (Sahapedia interview) |
| Identification | Proposed, not proven: Cherian: "There is every possibility that Pattanam could have been or was part of the port site that we know as the fabled Muziris" |
Prelims traps: Arikamedu = Puducherry (east coast, Tamil-Brahmi, Arretine Ware); Muziris = Kerala (west coast, pepper). Wheeler found no coins in Arikamedu's ancient levels. Pliny's figure for India alone is 50 million sesterces; 100 million is India, China and Arabia together. The Periplus is by an anonymous Greek sailor.
Exam Strategy
Prelims traps:
- Vellalar = large landowners; uzhavar = ploughmen; kadaisiyar, adimai = landless labourers.
- Grama bhojaka = headman, often the largest landowner; grihapatis = mostly smaller landowners.
- Iron use began about 3,000 years ago; growing use (ploughshare, axes) about 2,500 years ago.
- Ring wells: toilets, drains, garbage dumps, usually in houses.
- NBPW: northern; shiny black surface from high firing and a black slip.
- Shrenis: training, raw material, distribution, trade, and banking.
- Arikamedu: 2,200–1,900 years ago; amphorae, Arretine Ware, beads, Tamil-Brahmi.
Mains frameworks:
- Ancient economy: production (iron, irrigation, labour) → exchange (coins, shrenis, routes) → evidence.
- Indo-Roman trade: use Pliny, the Periplus, the papyrus and Arikamedu together, and note what each can and cannot prove.
- Women's work: the Arthashastra rules, read critically.
Practice Questions
Practice (UPSC-pattern, not past papers). The real UPSC question on this chapter is listed in the PYQ box above.
Prelims:
In the Tamil region described in Sangam literature, the vellalar were:
(a) large landowners
(b) ordinary ploughmen
(c) landless labourers
(d) village headmenThe ancient trading settlement of Arikamedu, where Roman amphorae and Arretine Ware have been found, is in:
(a) Kerala
(b) Puducherry
(c) Andhra Pradesh
(d) GoaThe Nasik cave inscription that records money invested with weavers' guilds at Govardhana was set up by:
(a) Gautamiputra Satakarni
(b) Ushavadata, son-in-law of Nahapana
(c) Kanishka
(d) KharavelaConsider the following about shrenis described by NCERT:
- Shrenis of crafts persons provided training and procured raw material.
- Shrenis served as banks where money was deposited.
- Part of the interest earned was used to support monasteries.
Which of the statements given above are correct?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
- Shrenis of crafts persons provided training and procured raw material.
Mains:
- What do archaeological finds and Greek and Roman texts tell us about India's trade with the Roman world? What are the limits of each kind of evidence? (GS1, 10 marks)
📦 Revision Capsule
Hard Facts
- Iron from about 3,000 years ago; growing use about 2,500 years ago; irrigation: canals, wells, tanks, lakes
- Tamil: vellalar, uzhavar, kadaisiyar, adimai; north: grama bhojaka, grihapati, dasa karmakara
- Sangam literature about 2,300 years ago, Madurai
- Punch-marked coins (silver, copper; c. 6th century BCE; about 500 years in use)
- Mathura: crossroads, Kushana second capital, many faiths; Barygaza imports and exports
- NBPW; shrenis as guilds and banks; Arikamedu (2,200–1,900 years ago)
Core Concepts
- Taxes → irrigation → production → revenue
- Many kinds of evidence for towns
- Guilds as producers, traders and bankers
Confused Pairs
- Grama bhojaka (headman, big landowner) vs grihapati (smaller landowner)
- Arikamedu (Puducherry) vs Muziris (Kerala)
- Ushavadata (Shaka donor at Nasik) vs Gautamiputra Satakarni (Satavahana king)
PYQ Pattern
- Prelims 2026 asked about the second urbanisation and the mahajanapadas (see the PYQ box). Indo-Roman trade and guilds are standard Mains themes.
Sources
Sources
- NCERT, Our Pasts – I (Class VI), ch. 9, 2018-19 reprint: 2019 copy; Rationalised 2023-24 edition, ch. 8: 2023-24 copy.
- NCERT, Themes in Indian History, Part I (Class XII), ch. 2, Reprint 2026-27: book archive.
- R.E.M. Wheeler, "Arikamedu: an Indo-Roman Trading-station on the East Coast of India", Ancient India 2 (1946): archive.org.
- Pliny the Elder, Natural History 6.101 and 12.84: Latin text, la.wikisource.org; tr. J. Bostock and H.T. Riley, Perseus.
- The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, tr. W.H. Schoff (1912), §57: Wikisource.
- L. Casson, "New Light on Maritime Loans: P. Vindob G 40822", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 84 (1990) (the Muziris papyrus).
- Pleiades place 50300, "Templum Augusti" (Barrington Atlas): pleiades.stoa.org.
- Kautilya, Arthashastra, tr. R. Shamasastry (1915), Book III ch. 11: Wikisource.
- E. Senart, "The Inscriptions in the Caves at Nasik", Epigraphia Indica VIII (1905–06), No. 12: archive.org.
- Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology 9 (2021-22), 109–122 (Pattanam): PDF; Sahapedia interview with P.J. Cherian: sahapedia.org.
