18. Economy and Settlements in Post Mauryan Age

Crafts

• The age of Sakas, Kushans, Satavahanas and the first Tamil states from 200 B.C.-200 A.D., was the most flourishing period in the history of crafts and commerce in ancient India.
• The Digha Nikaya which belongs to pre-Mauryan times only mentions of two dozen occupations but the Mahavastu which belonged to this period catalogues 36 kinds of workers living in the town of Rajgir.
• Craftsmen were mainly associated with towns but they also inhabited villages as found in the settlement in Karimnagar in Telangana where carpenters, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, potters etc. lived in separate quarters and agricultural and other labourers lived at one end.
• There was a great advance and specialization in mining and metallurgy. Technical knowledge about the work of Iron had made great progress.
• Indian iron and steel including cutlery were exported to the Abyssinian ports and enjoyed great prestige in Western Asia.
• Mathura was a great centre for the manufacture of a special type of cloth called sataka.
• Dyeing was a thriving art in many South Indian towns such as Uraiyur, near Tiruchirappalli and Arikamedu where dyeing vats have been unearthed belonging to 1st-3rd century A.D.
• The inscriptions of this period mention weavers, goldsmiths, dyers, workers in metal and ivory, jewellers, sculptors, fishermen, smiths and perfumers as constructors of caves and donors of pillars, cisterns etc. to Buddhist monks.
• Many ivories found in Afghanistan and Rome can be linked to excavations at Satavahana sites in Deccan.
• Roman glass objects appear in Taxila and Afghanistan but it was in the beginning of Christian era that the knowledge of glass-blowing reached India and attained its peak.
• Coin-minting was an important craft as numerous types of coins made of gold, silver, copper, bronze, lead and potin are found.
• The terracotta figures have been found in Kushan and Satavahana sites especially in Yelleshwaram in Nalgonda district and Kondapur in Hyderabad but after Gupta period these terracotta went out of fashion.
• Artisans were organized into guilds and in the 2nd century A.D., in Maharashtra devotees of Buddhism deposited money with the guild of potters, oil millers and weavers for providing robes and other necessities to the monks.
• Most artisans known from the inscriptions were from Mathura region and some from the western Deccan, which lay on the trade routes leading to the ports on the western coast.
• In the beginning a good deal of the trade was carried on by land but the movement of the Sakas, Parthians and Kushans from 1st century B.C. Disrupted trade by land route.
• But with the discovery of monsoon winds, from the 1st century A.D. Trade was carried on mainly by sea.
• There were several ports such as Broach and Sopara on the western coast in India and Arikamedu and Tamralipti situated on the eastern coast.
• The goods were brought to Broach not only from Satavahanas kingdom but also from Saka and Kushan kingdoms.
• The Saka and Kushan used 2 routed both converging at Taxila and were connected to the Silk Road passing through Central Asia.
• The first route ran directly from the north to the south connecting Taxila with the lower Indus basin from where it passed on to Broach.
• The second route called the uttarapatha was in more frequent use and passed from Taxila through modern Punjab to the western coast of the Yamuna to Mathura and then to Ujjain in Malwa from where it reach Broach on the western coast.
• Ujjain was the meeting point of another route which started from Kausambi near Allahabad.

 

Foreign Trade

• The volume of trade between India and Rome was large mainly in luxury goods not in the articles of day-to-day use.

• The Romans first traded with the Tamil kingdoms south of Satavahanas and mainly imported spices, muslin, pearls, jewels and other precious stones.
• In addition of the articles exported from India, certain articles were brought from China and Central Asia to India for export to Roman empire after the establishment of Parthian rule in Iran.
• Sometimes Silk also found its way from China to India via the east coast of India.
• In return Romans exported to India wine-amphorae and other types of pottery found in Tamluk in West Bengal, Arikamedu near Pondicherry and in other parts of south India.
• But after the Roman conquest of Mesopotamia in 115 A.D., Roman objects reached Afghanistan and north-western India too.
• Bowls, bronze statues, steel yards, weights, Graeco-Roman small statues, jugs and other vessels made of alabaster are found in Taxila.
• But Arretine pottery which is commonly found in south India is not found in central or western India or in Afghanistan as these places didn't receive popular Roman articles.
• The most significant Roman export to India was large number of coins made of gold and silver, with most of them coming from the south of Vindhyas.
• The balance of trade was so much in favour of India that eventually steps had to be taken in Rome to ban trade with India in pepper and steel goods.
• On account of contact with Rome the Kushans issued dinar type of gold coins which became abundant during Gupta rule.
• But these gold coins were not used frequently as daily transactions were carried out in coins of lead, potin and cooper and Kushans issued the largest number of copper coins in northern and north-western India.
• Perhaps in no other period had money economy penetrated so deeply into the life of the common people of the towns and their suburbs as during this period.

 

Urban Settlements

• Most towns flourished in the Kushan period in the first and second century A.D. These towns were Chirand, Sonpur and Buxar in Bihar, Sohgaura, Bhita, Kausambi, Merrut and Muzaffarnagar in UP.
• In many cases the Gupta period has poorly built structures made of used Kushan bricks. On the whole the material remains ascribable to the Kushan phase display urbanisation at its peak.
• The most important town was Ujjain, because of its being the nodal point of two routes and also of its export of agate, jasper and carnelian stones for the manufacture of beads after 200 B.C.
• This was possible because of availability of raw material in plenty from the trap bedrock in the bed of the Sipra river.
• Towns thrived in the Satavahana kingdom during the same period as they did under the Sakas and Kushans.
• They prospered because they carried on thriving trade with the Roman empire. Towns in Punjab and western UP thrived because the centre of Kushan power lay in north-western India.
• With the ban on trade with India imposed by the Roman empire from the 3rd century A.D. Towns could not support the artisans and merchants who lived there.
• Archaeological excavations in the Deccan also suggest decline in the urban settlements after the Satavahana phase.