Jain Journal 1968 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 38

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JAIN JOURNAL
ports were Broach and Cambay, but there were many other subsidiary ports, important among which were Veraval and Somnath The kings of Gujarat received a good revenue from the international trade carried on in these parts and in return provided the foreign merchants all possible facilities, including absolute freedom to practise their religion Muhammad Awfi in his celebrated Jami'ul Hikayat has recorded with high appreciation Siddharaja's prompt and personal intervention in a quarrel between the Muslims and the Hindus at Cambay
The chief articles of export from Gujarat were buckram, tanned leather and leather goods, textiles Probably pepper, ginger and indigo were also exported Marco Polo adds that, the people of Cambay, "have many other commodities that I will not mention in this book, for it will make too long a tale "
A part, if not the bulk of the foreign trade, was in Indian hands Abu Zaid Hasan of Sıraf, who completed the Travels of Sulaiman in A D 916, states that there were hundreds of Indian merchants at Siraf Mahammad Awfi, mentioned above, speaks of a Gujarati merchant named Wasa Abhir, who had a flourishing trade at Ghazni, where at one time the value of his property amounted to ten lacs of rupees Another wellknown Gujarati merchant was Jagadu, the hero of the Jagaducarita, who regularly traded with Persia and transported goods in his own ship, his agent at Hormuz was an Indian The chronicles speak of the wealth of some famous merchants, and there is no doubt that some of them were fabulously rich, for example the famous brothers Vastupala and Tejahpala, who built one of the Jaina temples at Mt Abu
We know very little about the life of the common people But one may reasonably conclude from the existing evidence that the general social structure of the Hindus remained more or less the same from the days of Hemachandra down to the beginning of this century The Jainas also were adopting some of the characteristics of the Hindu social practices Thus Haribhadra Suri in his famous Dharmabindu insists on the girl's marriage in a family not belonging to her gotra and in the commentary it is stated that the right age of marriage for the boys was sixteen and for the girls twelve, and admits the validity of the well-known eight types of marriage In other respects also, such as the position of women, the Jaina Acaryas followed the Brahmanical smrtis The Acaryas, however, sympathised with the lot of women and Mahesvara Suri expresses the woes of a polygamist's wife in a joint family, in his Jñanapañcamikatha a polygamist's wife says.