Merchant guilds

Who he is

Name

no single head

Title

The corporations themselves, governed by their own headmen (nagaram elders, guild masters)

Since

from the ninth century

Born

n/a

Family

Corporations of itinerant merchants with their own armed guards (the Ainnurruvar, 'the Five Hundred of Ayyavole' of Aihole in Karnataka), local Tamil merchant bodies (Manigramam, Valanjiyar), and the foreign merchants of the ports (Arab, Persian, Jewish and Syrian Christian).

Confidence

medium

The Ayyavole Five Hundred, Manigramam, Nanadesi and Anjuvannam are known from many inscriptions across the Tamil country, Karnataka, Kerala and Southeast Asia; the English Wikipedia page for the Five Hundred did not load, so this record rests on our background knowledge of the inscriptions, which we did not re-read in this session, and the 1200 detail is marked fair.

Overlord

the Chola crown, which grants them privileges and a share of its trade; at Madurai the Pandya crown

What it holds

• Warehouses, escorts and market rights at Nagapattinam, Kanchipuram, Mylapore, Kumbakonam, Madurai and Kayal
• Charters of exemption from tolls recorded on temple walls
• The foreign quarters of the ports (Kayal, Kilakarai, Nagapattinam, Periyapattinam)

How it was acquired

Customary and chartered; gifts to temples secure their standing.

Allies and rivals

Allied to both crowns by loans and gifts; rivals of the Maravar and Kallar who rob the roads.

How things stand that morning

Active; the winter of 1199-1200 is the horse season on the Pandya coast and the Bay sailing season at Nagapattinam.

Wealth

Horses, pepper, cloth, elephants, metals; the Bay and Gulf trade; loans.

Military

Armed escorts of their own; no number.

Threats

• Raiding on the Chola-Pandya march
• Surf and cyclones on the Coromandel coast from October to December

Places of note

• Nagapattinam: Warehouses and the Bay crossing.
• Kayal: Foreign quarter; horses and pearls.
• Kilakarai: Mosque of a settled Muslim merchant community.
• Mylapore: Port of the northern Coromandel; the Syrian Christian shrine of St Thomas is a later tradition for this date.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry kayal-kayalpattinam says the Marakkayar merchant houses hold a royal charter over the pearl fisheries by the twelfth century. We found nothing to confirm a charter or the Marakkayar name for 1200, and mark it unproven. The assignment's 'Muslim maraikkayar' are the Tamil Muslim merchants of the ports; mosque foundations at Kilakarai and Kayal make a settled community plausible.

Evidence: Inscriptions are thick but mostly earlier or later; the guild names are firm, the detail for 1200 is not.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: Corporations have no territory; the port quarters are shown.

Primary sources for Chola empire

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Lesser Chronicle (the continuation of the Mahavamsa), Dhammakitti and later monks of the Mahavihara tradition (the first continuation about the 13th century (chapters 37 to 79), carried on in stages to the 18th century). The only narrative source for Lanka in 1200. Read online
• History of Song, chapters 488 and 489: Jiaozhi, Dali, Champa, Zhenla, Pagan, Srivijaya, Java, Brunei, Chola and Tambralinga, Toqto'a (Tuotuo) and the Yuan history office, from the Song court records (1343 to 1345, from Song veritable records and court diaries). The Chinese court's record of its southern neighbours, compiled from Song archives. Read online
• The Leiden grants of Rajaraja I and Kulottunga I concerning the Srivijaya vihara at Nagapattinam, The Chola chancery (Rajaraja I, Rajendra I, Kulottunga I) (the Larger plates about 1005 to 1014 (completed under Rajendra I); the Smaller plates 1090). Background documents for the relations between the Cholas and the Malay world. Read online
• Corpus of Inscriptions in the Telingana Districts, Various (Kakatiya chancery and temple scribes), edited by P. Sreenivasachar (inscriptions of the 10th to 15th centuries; edited 1940 to 1942). The Kakatiyas of Orugallu (Warangal) are known for 1200 almost entirely from inscriptions, and this Hyderabad Archaeological Series corpus is the main printed collection. Read online
• Epigraphia Carnatica: inscriptions of the Mysore country, Various (Hoysala chancery and temple scribes), edited by B. Lewis Rice and R. Narasimhachar (inscriptions of the 4th to 19th centuries; the series ran from 1886 to 1905, revised from 1972). The Hoysala kingdom of Veera Ballala II (reigning 1173 to 1220) is documented almost wholly by the inscriptions in this series, arranged by district and taluk with full English translations. Read online
• Epigraphia Zeylanica: lithic and other inscriptions of Ceylon, Various (the Polonnaruwa kings' chanceries), edited by D. M. de Zilva Wickremasinghe, H. W. Codrington and S. Paranavitana (inscriptions of the 3rd century BC to the 18th century; the series ran from 1904). Prints with translation the stone records of the Polonnaruwa kings who held or lost the throne around 1200. Read online
• South Indian Inscriptions (Archaeological Survey of India), Various (Chola, Pandya and other chanceries and temple scribes), edited by E. Hultzsch, V. Venkayya, H. Krishna Sastri and successors (inscriptions of the 7th to 17th centuries; the series ran from 1890). The temple inscriptions printed here are the primary record of the Tamil country in 1200. Read online
• Travancore Archaeological Series, Various (Kerala chiefs, temples and merchant guilds), edited by T. A. Gopinatha Rao, K. V. Subrahmanya Aiyer and A. S. Ramanatha Ayyar (inscriptions of the 9th to 18th centuries; the series ran from 1910 to 1938). The main corpus for the Kerala coast. Read online

4 more in the sources library for Southern India and Sri Lanka.