Merchants, Rulers and Trade in Orissa in the seventeenth century

1961

The object of this thesis is two-fold: first to make an economic study of the East India Company's many-sided activities in the first four decades of the seventeenth century, and secondly, through such a study to cast light upon the business-technique of a great merchant company of the period. In many ways, the East India Company was a unique organization. From a limited and modest beginning it quickly developed into a trading organization with wide commercial ramifications both in Asia and Europe. The Company's port to port trade in the Indies and the role it assumed as local traders in Asiatic Continent was ultimately responsible for the rise of the multilateral trade-triangles which characterised the English commerce overseas in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Such a development brought with it the twin problems of a chronic shortage of finance capital and the political rivalry with the Dutch in the Indies. At home, the Company's existence depended on the succe...

2015

In the maritime history of India, Orissa (ancient Kalinga) played a significant role in spreading Indian culture to other parts of the world, including Africa, Rome and Southeast Asia. Archaeologi-cal findings, explorations and excavations at various sites, epigraphical and numismatic evidences of different periods, and literary records, enabled the reconstruction of the maritime history of Orissa. In this paper an attempt has been made to trace the nature of trade and cultural contacts between Orissa and other countries of the world from various sources. Besides attacks by neighbouring king-doms, and unsound economic condition, the geological processes like tectonic activities, sea level changes and sedimentation were also equally responsible for the decline of ports of Orissa. However, the maritime traditions are preserved in the cultural festivals of Orissa, which are celebrated as com-memorative traditions.

2002

Abstract: In the maritime history of India, Orissa (ancient Kalinga) played a significant role in spreading Indian culture to other parts of the world, including Africa, Rome and Southwest Asia. Archaeological findings, explorations and excavations at various sites, epigraphical and numismatic evidences of different periods, and literary records, enabled the reconstruction of the maritime history of Orissa.

2016

A region as geographical units is a historical construction whose boundary is defined and redefined by the contemporary political and culture condition. Our delineation of region depends on our perspective on the history. It is to be noted that, during the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century, we know that the geographical limits of subha was often the exceeded area now presently covered by East Bengal or Bengladesh and the Indian state West Bengal. And also we noted that, during the contemporary time period, a flourishing textile industry, urbanization and trade with the western Gangetic plains, and also IndaEuropean maritime trade. We see that seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century, Company established trade relations with Bengal only after it had been operating elsewhere in the subcontinent for a period of nearly three decades. But once a beginning had been made, the growth of the Company 's trade in the region was remarkable rapid. During the la...

This article is based on maritime trade in early and medieval Odisha and it takes into account various literary traditional texts and archaeological sources for its make-up.

Business History, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00076791.2013.847427#.UrJdsdIW0eg, 2013

Many nineteenth-century historians claimed that the English East India Company's trade and commercial activities, right from inception, were never really a financially profitable enterprise. This argument is incorporated within an altered structure–conduct–performance (SCP) paradigm to rearticulate the Company's history between 1600 and 1765. Rather than characterising the Company as simply a chartered monopoly, the article instead argues that the market structure in which it operated was competitive or contestable but, at the same time, wrought with high sunk costs and free-riders. This framework allows us to understand why the Company desperately pursued market conduct strategies to gain monopoly and monopsony power in England and India respectively, which simultaneously contributed to its transformation from merchant to merchant-ruler. In this process the Company redefined not merely industry boundaries but also those between industry and state.

Merchants in the rural setup in 18 th century Eastern Rajasthan is a worthwhile topic of this paper because mercantile class are the most famous and influential in India. They appear to be integral to the Amber State due to the multidimensional role they played at various levels. In fact one cannot conjure a complete picture of Amber without handling the role of this particular class.The rural market was a vital feature of the local economy in Eastern Rajasthan. Even in the small villages' rice, gram, flour (wheat and barley), ghee, maka, sugar, vegetables and other commodities could be obtained and transported to the towns. An exploration of documents like amal-dastur rahdari and amal-dastur chabutra kotwali documents, however, gives the impression that a very large number of peasants were not able to reach the open market at all. They, therefore, had to sell their goods to the village merchants. These local merchants bought commodities from the villages and sold them either in the same village where they had purchased them or in the neighbouring villages. The purchasers might be urban merchants or their agents, or even the village moneylender.In view of the nature of market/ a unified market of Eastern Rajasthan, one can comprehend the importance of the role of these local traders, notably the mahajans or panch mahajan who purchased the jinsi directly from the peasant and then sold it in the market. The mahajan and bania played an important role in transporting the revenue-grain to the nearest market or to the state granary (awar).The 18 th century Rajput states gave enough encouragement to the traders and merchants. The latter were granted free trade facilities and reduction in the taxes levied under the name of sairjihat, mapa, and rahdari. The rise of the trader-merchant class was due to large scale use of money capital in the commercial transactions-a practice in which the money accumulation of this class was favourable employed. No picture of Jaipur would be complete unless we keep in view its trading and banking class.

Trade and commerce were, which since time, immemorial have been an essential element of human existence. Countries with a large market have always had outstanding powers. Trade carried out in modern ages with the return of cash products, which is primarily paper money, receipts, etc. Trade emerged between regions expertise and division of labour, as well as the comparative manufacturing advantage of one country over another. For all societies, however, it cannot be regarded as uniform. This paper is an attempt to examine trade and commerce during the medieval economy of Manipur, which will form the basis for an understanding of the evolving trend of the state economy. In this context, it is essential to see how trade and commerce carried out during the centuries across different times and spaces.

Itinerario, 1989