Shreni

Also called: Shrenis · Topic: Economy of Early India: Agriculture, Trade, Guilds, Coinage · NCERT: Class 7, Ch 5 "The Rise of Empires"; Class 7, Ch 3 "Empires and Kingdoms: 6th to 10th Centuries"; Class 8, Ch 2 "Reshaping India's Political Map"; Class 9, Ch 5 "State and Society up to 1000 CE"; Class 12, Ch 2 "Kings, Farmers and Towns"; Class 12, Ch 3 "Kinship, Caste and Class - Early Societies"; Class 12, Ch 4 "Thinkers, Beliefs and Buildings"

Meaning

A shreni was a guild: an association of people who followed the same trade, such as weavers, potters, merchants or moneylenders. Together they bought raw materials, controlled how goods were made, fixed prices and sold the products. Some jatis (birth-based caste groups) that shared an occupation also organised themselves as shrenis.

Shrenis matter for three reasons:

• They show that early Indian society could run its own affairs.
• They acted as early banks.
• Rich guilds paid for famous religious monuments, such as carving on a gateway at Sanchi.

Explanation

Background: why guilds arose

• Trade grew, so towns grew.
• More trade brought more artisans and merchants into towns.

• Some of them joined together as shrenis to protect their common interests [2].

• Each guild usually lived in one part of a town. A city might have a weavers' quarter, a smiths' quarter and so on [2].

• The Jatakas (Buddhist stories about the Buddha's earlier lives) mention eighteen types of guilds.
• Members were not only craft workers. A shreni could include:
• craft producers, such as potters, weavers, smiths and ivory carvers
• merchants and moneylenders
• even cultivators and herdsmen

What a guild did

• Procured raw materials. It bought cotton, metal or ivory in bulk for all its members.
• Regulated production and quality. It decided how goods had to be made, so buyers trusted the guild's name.
• Fixed prices. Members did not undercut one another.
• Marketed the product. It sold the goods, often to faraway places.
• It had its own seals and insignia (a stamp or badge marking goods and papers as the guild's own) [2].

How a guild was run

• It usually had an elected head. Executive officers worked with the head and were chosen for their good character and honesty.
• Guild courts judged members. They enforced quality and punished bad work or cheating.
• Guilds were registered with the town authority [2].
• Members had to obey strict rules called shreni-dharma (the guild's own law) [2].
• Richer guilds used slaves and hired labourers as well as their own artisans. The number of such slaves, however, seems to have been small [2].
• Autonomy (self-rule):
• One rule said: "Cultivators, traders, herdsmen, moneylenders, and artisans have authority to lay down rules for their respective classes."
• This meant each group wrote its own working rules, and kings were not to interfere.
• Registration did not cancel this freedom. The state kept a record of the guild, but it did not write the guild's internal rules.

Results: guilds as banks, patrons and communities

• Banks. Guilds accepted deposits and paid interest. The Nashik cave inscription records one such deposit (see the next section).
• Patrons of art and religion:
• The ivory workers of Vidisha carved and paid for sculpture on a torana (gateway) of a stupa at Sanchi.
• Their ivory-carving skill may have been carried over into stone at Sanchi: the same hands working a harder material [3].

• Guilds often gave large donations to Buddhist and Jain monasteries. Some of the finest Buddhist monuments of the period came from this patronage [2].

• Communities, not just workshops:

• The silk-weavers of Mandasor moved as a group from Lata (south Gujarat) to Dashapura (Mandasor) and paid for a Sun temple there.
• Some members later took up other work, such as archery and astrology, but stayed in the guild.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: c. 600 BCE – 1000 CE. Guilds grew with the towns and trade of this age.
• Textile centres: Mathura, Kashi and Kamarupa.
• Texts: The Jatakas speak of eighteen types of guilds.
• Nashik cave inscription (2nd century CE):
• The donor was Ushavadata, son-in-law of the Shaka king Nahapana.
• He made a permanent endowment (money kept forever, with only the interest spent) of 3,000 kahapanas (a coin of the time). He placed it with the weavers' guilds at Govardhana.
• 2,000 kahapanas earned 1 pratika per 100 per month.
• 1,000 kahapanas earned ¾ padika.

• The interest paid for the monks' cloth and expenses.

• Sanchi southern-gateway inscription:

• It records the gift of the ivory workers of Vidisha.
• Sanchi is about 8 km (5 miles) south-west of Vidisha, just west of the Betwa river [3].
• The four toranas of the Great Stupa were added around the 1st century BCE. Each gateway has two square posts. These are topped by capitals carved with animals or dwarfs and carry three architraves (cross-beams). The whole gateway is covered with carvings of the Buddha's life and Jataka scenes [3].

• The Buddhist monuments at Sanchi are a UNESCO World Heritage site [4].

• Mandasor: The silk-weavers' guild moved from Lata to Dashapura and built a Sun temple.

Don't confuse with

• Jati: a group you were born into. A shreni was a group based on occupation. Some jatis that shared a trade did organise as shrenis, but the two words do not mean the same thing.
• Varna: the fourfold social order described in texts. Shrenis were practical trade bodies, with their own heads, courts and rules.
• Sangha: the Buddhist order of monks, and in politics a ruling assembly (gana-sangha). Guilds gave money to the sangha. Ushavadata's deposit with the Govardhana weavers paid for monks' cloth. A guild itself was a trade body, not a religious one.
• Autonomous village unit: the self-run village. Class 7 pairs it with the guild as an example of self-organisation, but the guild was an urban, trade-based body.

Prelims Hooks

• The Jatakas mention eighteen types of guilds.
• Shreni-dharma was the guild's own code of rules. Guilds were registered with the town authority and had their own seals and insignia [2].
• Nashik cave inscription (2nd century CE): Ushavadata, son-in-law of the Shaka king Nahapana, deposited 3,000 kahapanas with the weavers' guilds of Govardhana. Of this, 2,000 earned 1 pratika per 100 per month and 1,000 earned ¾ padika. The interest paid for monks' cloth.
• Trap: The guild that paid for carving at Sanchi was the ivory workers of Vidisha, not weavers. The inscription is on the southern gateway. The toranas date to about the 1st century BCE [3].
• Mandasor silk-weavers: they moved from Lata to Dashapura and built a Sun temple.
• Ancient textile centres: Mathura, Kashi, Kamarupa.

Mains Points

• Indian society could organise itself.
• Guilds had an elected head, their own courts and their own law (shreni-dharma).
• There was a clear rule that kings must not interfere.

• Together with the self-run village, this challenges the idea that all order in early India came down from the state.

• Guilds were early financial institutions.

• The Nashik endowment shows three banking features in the 2nd century CE: deposits, a fixed monthly interest rate and a perpetual trust.

• Such a system needed a trusted coin that could be counted, like the kahapana.

• Craft wealth paid for religion and art.

• Examples include the ivory workers at Sanchi [3], the silk-weavers at Mandasor, and guild gifts to Buddhist and Jain monasteries [2].
• Kings were not the only patrons of great monuments.
• Chain for a GS-I answer: trade routes grew → towns grew → guilds formed in town quarters [2] → their surplus wealth went into monuments.

Related concepts

• Shreshthi
• Sarthavaha

Read more

• Guilds (shrenis)