Trade and Traders: an Exploration Into Trading Communities and Their Activities in Early Medieval Odisha

Trade and traders: An exploration into trading communities and their activities in early medieval Odisha Bhairabi Prasad Sahu The article makes an effort to locate the emergence of merchant groups in the context of agrarian growth, availability of a marketable surplus, the rise of different types of exchange centres and political enterprises, which must have created their own requirements and facilitated the movement of goods and commodities. It also tries to factor in the transport and communication routes because coastal Odisha had a large hinterland moving up to the Chhattisgarh plains, as also access to southern Bengal and Jharkhand and beyond through the eastern littoral, especially Dandabhukti, among other routes. The rise of transregional states under the Somavaṁśīs and Later Eastern Gangas must have widened the orbit of activity for the regional mercantile groups. Practices and customs followed by the trading communities and their social competence are also investigated. The idea is to situate the developments in the region in the larger context of the issues and debates in the field of ancient and early medieval India. This essay is largely based on inscriptional sources and charts developments up to the fifteenth century. Keywords: Andhra, Bengal, Kling, markets, merchants, maritime commerce, Odisha, trade The Early Historical Setting A large number of ports such as Pithunda, Kalingapatnam, Dantapura/ Dantavarapukota, Palur and Manikapatna are said to have contributed to the prosperity of Kalinga, and by extension early Odisha. The first three sites are in modern Andhra Pradesh situated north of the river Godavari and the remaining two are in Odisha. With the exception of Palur, the others have produced early historical material. However, in the present state of our knowledge, any attempt at precise dating of the port sites would be hazardous. The connotation of the term Kalinga varied through time and usually extended from the Cuttack–Puri area up to Srikakulam and adjoining parts of Visakhapatnam district in Andhra Pradesh. The remains of Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW), rouletted ware, knobbed ware, stamped ware, amphorae, glass and semi-precious beads, and seals and sealings at different sites in coastal Odisha such as Radhanagara, Manikapatna, Sisupalgarh and Jaugada, in central Odisha such as Asurgarh, Budhigarh, Nehena and Manmunda, and some sites (Malhar and Tarighat) in Chhattisgarh, which was a part of Daksina Kosala, has led archaeologists and historians to envisage flourishing trade and exchange networks in early Odisha. The find of clay bullae and caltrop from settlements such as Sisupalgarh and punch-marked and Studies in People’s History, 6, 2 (2019): 134–145 SAGE Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DC/Melbourne DOI: 10.1177/2348448919875282 Trade and traders: An exploration into trading communities / 135 Puri–Kushana (Kushana imitation) coins collected from several locations in the region have reinforced the perceived image of brisk commerce.1 Most of these artifacts have a wide distribution zone ranging from northern India and the Deccan to all over the east coast. It is possible that semi-precious stone beads reported from the coastal sites may have been sourced from hinterland Odisha because the coast is bereft of gem deposits, and the settlements in and around central Odisha have yielded evidence for the manufacture of beads in the early historical contexts. Transport over the river Mahanadi may be supposed to have largely sustained the inferred linkages between the hinterland and the coast. In Odisha, we do not come across terms such as vaṇik, śreṣṭhi, goṣṭhi, nigama or sreṇi, denoting traders and guilds. The few inscriptions of the period contain no allusions to the presence of these commercial groups. Any comparison with Bengal too makes the paucity of evidence in the region obvious. Motifs of ships/ boats on coins, seals or potsherds, as are found on the Andhra or Bengal coast, are missing in Odisha. The only portrayal of a boat is found on a punch-marked coin, which is now preserved in the British Museum, London.2 The art of neighbouring Bengal for the same early historical period presents an entirely different picture.3 Compared to coastal Odisha, the Godavari–Krishna deltaic zone and adjacent areas have yielded richer material for trading activities, including the ship type of coins in the lower Krishna valley and epigraphic references to nāvika (sailors) and mahānāvika (master/great mariner) from Guntupalli and Ghantasala among others.4 What emerges therefore is that though there must then have been trade in ancient Odisha, goods and commodities we know very little about are the organisational aspects of such trade, namely craft organisation, ports, boats/ships, networks of trade and, more importantly, the traders themselves. On the provenance of archaeological finds, including coins, broadly, two early transport and communication routes have been envisaged. One was from the Singhbhum area of Jharkhand to coastal Odisha and Andhra through the northern 1 For more studies contributions, see Balaram Tripathy, ‘Coastal Archaeology of Odisha: Problems and Prospects’, in Karunasmriti: Recent Researches in History, Culture and Archaeology of Odisha, ed. B. Tripathy and A.C. Sahoo (Delhi, 2015), 65–73; Baba Misra and Ranvir Singh, ‘Trade in Early Historical Tel River Valley, Odisha: A Preliminary Study’, in Karunasmriti: Recent Researches in History, Culture and Archaeology of Odisha, ed. B. Tripathy and A.C. Sahoo (Delhi, 2015), 132–46 and Benudhar Patra, ‘Ports, Port Towns and Hinterlands: A Study in Ancient Orissan Perspective’, in Karunasmriti: Recent Researches in History, Culture and Archaeology of Odisha, ed. B. Tripathy and A.C. Sahoo (Delhi, 2015), 243–67. 2 See J.K. Patnaik and B.K. Tripathy, ‘Ships and Shipping in Orissan Art’, Puratattva no. 23 (1993): 61–63. 3 See R.K. Chattopadhyay, The Archaeology of Coastal Bengal (New Delhi, 2018), especially 219–70. For a comparative perspective of the material on the eastern coast, see Sila Tripati, ‘Seafaring Archaeology of the East Coast of India and Southeast Asia during the Early Historical Period’, Ancient Asia 8 no. 7 (2017): 1–22, accessed 5 September 2019, doi:htps://doi.org/10.5334/aa.118. 4 B. Rajendra Prasad, ‘Early Historic Andhra Desa—A Perspective’, Proceedings of the Andhra Pradesh History Congress 18 (1994): 10. Studies in People’s History, 6, 2 (2019): 134–145 136 / BHAIRABI PRASAD SAHU districts of Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj, while the other connected western Odisha with areas of Raipur and Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh. While the former route was linked to the middle and lower Gangetic plains, the latter extended to the Bastar and coastal region along the Mahanadi valley. The Mahanadi was used for inland navigation, which though difficult could have functional during a good part (three quarters) of the year. From the Chhattisgarh plains to coastal Odisha, this was impor- tant for means of passage and transport in precolonial times.5 While the northern uplands in the region are an extension of the Chota Nagpur plateau, Dandabhukti acted as a bridge between Odisha and Bengal (Radha/Rarh). The eastern coast stretching from Bengal to Odisha, Andhra and beyond fostered the movement of people, goods and ideas all through that region, while northern coastal Odisha, largely owing to its geographical proximity, would have had access to Tamralipti or Tamluk in its heyday. The presence of objects such as rouletted ware and knobbed ware, and semi- precious stone beads at different sites in the region usually would be seen as mark- ers of long-distance trade. However, it needs to be recognised that perceptions on articles of trade such as rouletted ware, wine amphorae, bullae and even glassware, which were earlier perceived to be unmistakable evidence for Roman contacts, are now changing, and their local manufacture through imitation is being increasingly seen as a greater possibility.6 The available evidence reinforces the impression that the Odishan littoral attained a discernible sociopolitical profile mostly during the opening centu- ries AD, though admittedly, the earlier Mauryan presence and the rise of the Chedis might have stimulated a process of internal transformation across locali- ties.7 The post-Mauryan period was characterised by a major expansion in the Indian maritime commerce, backed by symmetrical developments in the related domains. The fact that the Chedi Mahāmeghavāhanas were the first dynasty to rule Kalinga as a large territorial unit in the latter half of the first century BC is instruc- tive; in that, it points to growing economic and cultural relations between Odisha and the surrounding region. But specific evidence of the extent of commercial development attained is entirely lacking. The Mahāmeghavāhanas do not seem even to have left any coins behind. 5 J. Deloche, Transport and Communications in India Prior to Steam Locomotion, vol. II: Water Transport (New Delhi, 1994), 32–33. 6 H. Kulke and B.P. Sahu, History of Precolonial India: Issues and Debates (New Delhi, 2018), 258–78. 7 See Romila Thapar, The Mauryas Revisited (Calcutta, 1987), 1–30; B.D. Chattopadhyaya, ‘Transition to the Early Historical Phase in the Deccan—A Note’, in Archaeology and History, vol. II, ed. B.M. Pande and B.D. Chattopadhyaya (Delhi, 1988), 727–32; and B.P. Sahu, ‘Towards Complex Society: Trajectory of Socio-political Transformations in Early Odisha’, in The Making of Regions in Indian History: Society, State and Identity in Pre-modern Odisha ed. B.M. Pande and B.D. Chattopadhyaya (forthcoming). Studies in People’s History, 6, 2 (2019): 134–145 Trade and traders: An exploration into trading communities / 137 The curious phenomenon of Odisha lagging behind some other parts of the country in the level of sophistication of its commercial origination is also borne upon us when we read the account of Yuan Chwang (Xuan Zhuang), the famous Chinese pilgrim who journeyed through Odisha in c.

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