Towns, Traders and Craftspersons

The temple town model:

Medieval South India's most distinctive urban form was the temple town — a settlement that grew around a large temple complex.

Growth process:

1. A king built a large temple to legitimise his rule and demonstrate piety
2. The temple became a religious centre → attracted pilgrims from across the region
3. Pilgrims needed food, lodging, goods → traders and artisans settled permanently near the temple
4. The temple itself became an economic institution — managing large landholdings, employing thousands of priests, musicians, craftspersons, cooks, guards
5. A permanent town formed around this economic and religious nucleus

Economic role of the temple:

• Received land grants → employed staff to manage agriculture
• Received donations from pilgrims and kings → redistributed as wages
• Required specialist artisans: bronze casters (for deity statues), stone carvers, weavers (for cloth offerings), goldsmiths (for jewellery)
• Created demand for food, flowers, oil, incense → farmers and traders settled near

Examples:

• Thanjavur (Tanjore): Built around Brihadeeshwara Temple; capital of Chola empire; became major craft centre
• Kanchipuram: Major Pallava and Chola temple town; famous for silk weaving (Kanjivaram sarees) — still India's "silk city"
• Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh): Medieval temple town that became one of India's wealthiest religious institutions

Medieval craft organisation:

Guilds (Srenis): Associations of merchants or craftspersons who:

• Fixed prices and quality standards
• Trained apprentices (guru-shishya relationship in craft)
• Provided credit and insurance to members
• Managed trade routes and warehouses

Important craft communities:

Weavers:

• Saliyars/Kaikkolars (South India): Weaving castes; supplied temple cloth and commercial export textiles
• Julahas (North India): Muslim weavers producing silk brocade (Varanasi) and cotton
• Weavers worked on commission from merchants who provided raw material and bought finished cloth

Metal craftspersons:

• Vishwakarma community: Blacksmiths, goldsmiths, bronze casters — hereditary craft castes
• Bronze casting (Chola): Lost-wax (cire perdue) technique; Nataraja statues are the finest examples
• Ironwork: Mewar (Rajasthan), South India — Indian steel was exported to Europe and Arabia

Textile finishing:

• Printing and dyeing: Ahmedabad (Gujarat) famous for block-printed textiles
• Chintz production (Coromandel): Painted cotton exported to Europe and Southeast Asia — Indian textiles dominated global markets before the Industrial Revolution

Cotton to cloth: Raw cotton → ginning → spinning → weaving → dyeing/printing → trader → port → ship → foreign market. Each stage was a different caste/community specialist.

Hampi (Vijayanagara Empire capital):

Medieval travellers described Hampi as one of the world's great cities — comparable to Rome or Constantinople in size and wealth.

Commercial geography:

• Bazaar street (Hampi Bazaar): Grand avenue leading to Virupaksha Temple; lined with merchants
• Krishnapura market: Near Vittala Temple; described by Paes (Portuguese traveller, ~1520 CE) as selling pearls, rubies, emeralds, cloth, horses

What was traded:

• Horses (imported from Arabia/Central Asia — essential for cavalry; 13,000+ horses per year)
• Elephants (captured from forests; used in war and ceremony)
• Spices, textiles, precious stones
• Cotton textiles from the Deccan

Merchants:

• Kudirai Chettis: Horse traders
• Banjara merchants: Long-distance traders transporting grain and goods
• Arab merchants: Brought horses and took spices; had permanent quarters in the city

Decline: Battle of Talikota (1565) — city sacked and looted by Deccan Sultanate coalition; most of the bazaars and markets were destroyed; the commercial network collapsed along with the empire.