Abstract
Rajan Gurukkal, an eminent historian of ancient South India, has written a book that presents a direct challenge to scholars who study what has been customarily called ‘Indo-Roman trade’. Gurukkal argues—and this may be considered the leitmotif of the book—that the expression ‘Indo-Roman trade’ is a misnomer. The complex historical phenomenon to which it refers, he states, would not be pure ‘trade’, if one accepts the comprehensive ‘Indo-Roman’ extension, nor would it be ‘Indo-Roman’ if the word ‘trade’ is retained, rather than the broader concept of ‘exchange’. According to Gurukkal, the contribution in terms of trade was so negligible from the Indian side that even renaming it ‘Roman–Indian’ would be a misrepresentation. It could not have been proper trade because the social formations of ancient India—especially in the Tamil South, which is the focus of Gurukkal’s interest and inspires, not entirely justifiably, his more general evaluations—would not have been capable of actual trade, but only of exchange, at most. This is of course an oversimplification of a book that is theoretically aware, nuanced, wide in scope, rich in information and extremely stimulating. What follows will be a discussion of only a few of the many points of interest raised by this distinguished scholar.
The book is divided into six chapters and an afterword: an introduction on theoretical preliminaries and methodology (first chapter); a consideration of the source material and historiography (second chapter); an analysis of the Eastern Mediterranean overseas exchange (third chapter); a review of the ports, marts and ship technology in early South India (fourth chapter); a scrutiny of the exchange relations of early peninsular India (fifth chapter); and an evaluation of polity, statecraft and overseas exchange (sixth chapter). It is impossible to discuss in detail all the thought-provoking insights proposed and pointless to draw up a petty list of factual inaccuracies, which are inconsequential, when evaluating the force of the argument. I think it more worthwhile to highlight and discuss the core of Gurukkal’s book: his method of ‘rethinking’ existing theoretical categories and his main conclusions.
Although the book contains sections related to the Ganges Valley and the Deccan, its main focus is Tamil South India, whose intercourse with Roman Egypt was of a different nature than Roman interaction with the emporia of the Indus Valley or the Deccan. Gurukkal’s strategy can be summed up as follows: since ‘the study of trade or any form of exchange […] has to be made against its socio-economic aggregate’; since ‘analysis of historical socio-economic production is best done within the Marxist theoretical framework of social production’; since ‘it is quite intelligible to conceive forms of economic production as construed by Karl Marx and modes of exchange as conceptualized by Bronislaw Malinowski, Marcel Mauss, and Karl Polanyi’, then ‘a discussion of the salient features of the social formation of the contemporary Indian subcontinent’ as revealed by the corpus of ancient Tamil poetry, ‘is a necessary precondition to understanding the nature of local and long-distance overland as well as overseas exchange’. 1 For Gurukkal, the main benefit of this methodology is to expose the widespread anachronism of using the term ‘trade’ to denote all kinds of transactions, precluding the possibility of differentiating trade from other forms of exchange. 2
In sum, Gurukkal argues that scholars have underestimated the wide gap that separates the sociopolitical formations of ancient South India, as mirrored by the Caṅkam Ilakkiyam, and the political economy that produced the business model reflected in the Muziris papyrus. The distance was so great that the interaction between the two cannot be defined as ‘trade’. Rather, it was an ‘ensemble of different forms of exchange in which trade was just one and confined to Rome’. 3 Gurukkal repeatedly insists that no South Indian ruler would have adopted measures to support or profit from the transoceanic trade, let alone patronize commercial enterprises to Alexandria. 4
Although one may wonder whether the Caṅkam Ilakkiyam, on which Gurukkal’s interpretations ultimately rest, offers an always straightforward and overall unbiased representation of the South Indian social formation, many of Gurukkal’s views are undoubtedly correct. Gurukkal is right in pointing out that neither Puranānūru 126, 14–6, nor the pottery fragments with Tamil graffiti found at Myos Hormos and Berenice justify the theory that Indian traders with Indian ships sailed from India to the Red Sea coasts of Egypt and travelled on from there to trade in Alexandria. 5 On the contrary, both the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (hereafter PME) 54 and Akanānūru 149, 7–16, serve as unequivocal evidence that Muziris’ prosperity was due to visits by Western (and North Indian) ships. Gurukkal is also right in pointing out that such an effort would have been unnecessary, as long as Western merchants kept on visiting South Indian emporia, as well as uneconomical, because even if South Indian dealers aimed to maximize their profits, it is dubious that such a goal would have been achieved by organizing a commercial enterprise as complex as the one described in the Muziris papyrus. 6 One may also acknowledge that all the stages in the long chain of exchanges that brought Western Ghats and eastern Himalayan products to the political heart of the Roman Empire may not be characterized as profit-driven and money-enabled ‘trade’. It is not coincidental that the Greek literary texts have stories about pepper (Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, III 4) and malabathron (PME 65)—the two major commodities imported from the emporia of South India—which show that the gatherers did not sell them, but just left them to be taken away for free. Although fictional, such tales clearly reflect an awareness that pepper and malabathron were first exchanged with behaviours that were different from those followed in the markets inside the Roman Empire.
Yet we may ask whether the correct emphasis on the variety in forms of exchange must necessarily lead to the idea of restricting the term ‘trade’—that is, profit-oriented exchange using the medium of money—only when discussing Roman activities. Did the boundaries between trade and reciprocal exchange coincide with those between Roman and Indian actors?
The list of commodities available in the Limyrike emporia drawn by the PME (56) includes items from the Eastern Himalayan regions (Gangetic nard and malabathron) and China (silk). The most obvious explanation for their availability in South Indian emporia is that they arrived through the large Indian vessels that sailed across to Chryse and the Ganges region from Kamara, Poduke and Sopatma. Gurukkal minimizes the phenomenon: ‘Merchants of the Indian littoral were probably collaborating with Graeco-Roman merchants […] by supplying them with cargoes from different parts for shipping […] it is quite possible that Graeco-Roman overseas exchanges had involved formally negotiated relationships with the merchant-mariners of the Indian coasts.’ 7
However, it was that cooperation that made available considerable quantities of malabathron—the second most important commodity (after black pepper) in terms of weight and volume (PME 56)—for the Western merchants in the South India emporia. Moreover, it was Indian merchants who managed the redistribution of the goods traded in Muziris and Nelkynda along the coasts of South India and even forwarded to the Coromandel coast ‘the coins exported overtime from Egypt’ (PME 60). In this context, a thorough discussion of the pertinent though challenging lines at Paṭṭinappālai 209–11 would have been appropriate. Unless I am mistaken, it is regretfully missing. 8
Gurukkal argues that South Indian emporia were little more than camps for foreign traders. 9 Foreign residents are particularly notable in Pukār (Paṭṭinappālai 213–8; Cilappatikaram V, 9–10) and the Peutinger Table places a temple of Augustus at Muziris. However, that does not make these sites mere encampments of foreign traders, much less of solely Roman traders. The excavations at Pattanam—a site very close to, if not inside, the Muziris area—have recovered overwhelming quantities of local pottery, 10 which suggest a strong presence of local people. Gurukkal thinks it reasonable to presume that the Indians resident at Muziris were just ‘providers of local provisions and services like manual labour’. 11 It seems more likely that they were pepper merchants ‘who piled up sacks of pepper in their houses’ (Puranānūru 343) waiting for the arrival of Western (and North Indian) ships. Gurukkal’s claim that the PME (56) says that ‘overseas vessels had to supply the staple grains for the overseas merchants at the ports’ is an oversight. The text actually says that the ships bound for Limyrike had to load enough grain for (the round trip of) the men on board, because resident merchants (emporoi in Greek) did not use it: such merchants—who dwelt in the Limyrike emporia and neither ate nor craved for grain—were most likely local people.
Moreover, Gurukkal follows Casson in presuming that ‘the Muziris loan contracts’ mentioned in the Muziris papyrus 12 were signed in Muziris by a Greco-Roman financier who resided there. 13 However, the contract clearly shows that the lender was expected to be either in Coptos or in Alexandria at the time the borrower returned to Egypt from South India. Therefore, Thür was correct when he interpreted the formula as ‘the loan contracts for (commercial enterprises to) Muziris’. 14 The loan contract was most probably signed in Alexandria, where the lender very often dwelled.
Gurukkal distinguishes the circulation of essential goods like salt, which would have had a mercantile form, from other forms of exchange that were based on reciprocity or redistribution. 15 He then suggests that caravans of salt traders (umanaccāttu, cfr. Akanānūru 119; Puranānūru 102) may have facilitated the transfer of pepper, ivory, gems and so on, from inland regions to the coast. As far as pepper is concerned, the hypothesis cannot be right for the Limyrike emporia, where pepper was transported on river boats (Pliny, Natural History VI 105). As for pearls and precious stones, the merchants (pakarnar) who dealt with them (Maturaikkāñci 505–6) appear to be distinct from the salt merchants (uppu pakarnar, Maturaikkāñci 117). 16
Gurukkal takes the title of ‘kāviti (< gṛhapati?) of the nikamam of Veḷḷarai’, borne by a donor recorded in a Tamil Brahmī inscription from Māṅkuḷam, 17 as referring to an accountant of an organized body, not necessarily of merchants. 18 True, the functions of a kāviti are not clarified by the praise for the kāviti mākkaḷ in Maturaikkāñci 493–9. However, it should be noted that the ‘kāviti of the nikamam’ is also ‘superintendent of pearls’ (kālitika) and, in the Caṅkam Ilakkiyam, the word niyamam (=nikamam) denotes a commercial area, sometimes characterized by abundance of gold (pon uṭai niyamattu) or toddy (kaḷ uṭai niyamattu). 19
When Gurukkal argues that the Limyrike emporia had little local base 20 or that ‘forest products and spices too, particularly pepper […] do not seem to have given rise to a prominent and influential group of cargo suppliers’, 21 he is underestimating what it takes to convey thousands of tonnes of pepper each year. It is not coincidental that Ptolemy located in his map both the bends and their sources of the rivers on which Muziris and Nelkynda lay (Geography VII 1, 33–4), because it was via these waterways that pepper was conveyed to the coastal emporia. A comparison with Cochin’s trade in the early modern era clarifies that without strong connections with the pepper-gathering communities of the Western Ghats, ensured by an adequate group of pepper merchants and a political power overseeing their activity, it would have been impossible to put together thousands of tonnes of pepper each year. 22
Another point to be briefly discussed concerns the role of political power. Gurukkal is too dismissive when he claims that ‘there is no evidence to show that the chieftains had governed the ports’ or that ‘systematic governance was not within the capability of chiefdom-level political formations precluding bureaucracy’. 23 Customs duties officials of the Cōla king are attested in Pukār (Paṭṭinappālai 126–41) and although encrypted in the poetic codes of the Caṅkam Ilakkiyam, the pivotal role of the Cēra king emerges in Puranānūru 343: the ‘Kuṭṭuvan with the golden garland […] offers toddy as if it were water to those who come [sc. to Muziris] to pour there the goods from the mountains and those from the sea’. As mentioned, toddy characterizes the commercial areas and also is referred to as the commodity for which elephant tusks or other goods were exchanged. 24 Likewise, it is significant that in the same poem, the Roman gold coins are alluded to as the ‘the golden gifts (por paricam) brought by the ship’. The expression hints at the redistributive exchanges made by the ruler in favour of his ‘gift-seekers’ (paricilar) and would be hardly comprehensible if the political power did not take for himself, one way or another, a good portion of those coins. 25
Gurukkal’s characterization of the vēntar as merely major chieftains also sounds like an understatement—or, at the very least, as not in keeping with the lexicon of the Western sources, who knew how to define weaker political formations. The author of the PME refers to the Cēralar and Pāṇṭiyar as kings (basileis) (55). The same status is denied, for example, to the rulers of the Somaliland ports of trade, who are labelled just as chiefs (tyrannoi) (14). The distinction has its reasons. As the trimmings of ivory tusks mentioned in the Muziris papyrus strongly suggest, 26 the Cēra king had an army with hundreds of war elephants. The familiarity with the inland located residencies of both the Cēra and Pāṇṭiya kings (PME 55; Pliny, Natural History VI 105; Ptolemy, Geography VII 1, 86; 89) suggests that the Western merchants were able to gauge the solidity of those dominions. It is true that the Caṅkam Ilakkiyam very often repeats a heroic rhetoric and reflects an unstable political landscape, where the supremacy of the vēntar was frequently challenged and required constant reaffirmation. However, despite Gurukkal’s alternate suggestion, 27 the impression one gets from the texts is that the rank of the vēntar was justified by their role as protectors of their subjects (kāvalar), and sustained more by the tributes they extracted than by the booty they plundered.
These quick notes consider only a few of the many interesting questions raised by a book that makes an important contribution by reminding scholars of the need to refine and clarify their theoretical concepts. Such interrogations are necessary to improve our understanding of a complex phenomenon like inter-regional exchange and will remain, even for those who do not agree with all of Gurukkal’s views, a landmark for future research on the subject.