Nagaram during the Chola and Pandyan Period: Commerce and Towns in the Tamil Country A.D. 850–1350

In medieval Tamil country, starting from the eighth-ninth centuries, nagaram was the town, where merchants conducted commercial activities, through a corporate body called either as nagaram or nagarattār. if has been studied to some extent by some scholars in the context of the elucidation of medieval state structure and social formation. In the past studies, however, the relations between the state and nagarattār and those between nagarattār and itinerant merchant guilds like ainnūrruvar were not made clear. This study, using a larger corpus of inscriptions, seeks to clarify the changing character of nagaram through a period of five centuries.

In the earlier phase of our study period there was not much difference between nagaram (town) and other agriculture-based villages, and the former was utilized by the state for its local administration, but in the later phase, namely in and after the twelfth century, it transformed its character to the promoter of commerce by associating itself with itinerant merchant guilds. Jāti formation by merchants of various sorts also accelerated the process of network formation by nagarams in the later phase.

We find also a subtle difference in the activities of merchants between the central and northern regions of the Tamil country. As against the more independent attitude of merchants of the central region, who were organized in guilds, merchants and artisans in the northern region, appearing as kāsāyakudi (‘those who pay money taxes’), seem to have been placed under the control of the political powers such as local chiefs.