Jain Presence In Nepal

Author(s): Ernest Bender
Publisher: Ernest Bender

Page 2

sārt havāhana, the entrepreneur, who was responsible for the management
and success of the venture. He made arrangements for the operation of
the caravan, its route, its schedule, the types of vehicle and, the assignment to them of the participants in each onterprise -- old and young, male and female, merchant, casual commuter, and so on. He dealt with the official representatives of the countries along the route,
negotiating with them and paying the required surcharges.
(A sārtha
has been described as a consortium of merchants who invested equal
amounts of capital and, travelling in a caravan, carried on trade with outside markets. One might view the sārthavana as a forerunner of the
present-day multinational organizations.
Furthermore, the caravan
leader had many opportunities to observe and store in mind for future
reference social scenes and political events set against the background
of the geographical phenomena of the areas he traversed. This leads me
to the conclusion that the court officials, identified as Breathing (3)
(cf., for example, Hindi seth "merchant")[3] were not only financial
advisers and tax assessors and as well as collectors to rājās and their
officers, but could also function as heads of intelligence networks.
equipped with first-hand information obtained from their widely ranging
merchant-colleagues. (I need only refer to the Arthasāstra's comments on the recruitment for espionage of wayward merchants and monks - Jain and Buddhist.)
Por other clues to the Jain presence in Nepal we turn to Jain
writings. Moti Chandra in his Trade and Trade Routes in Ancient India
which first appeared in Hindi under the title
- 2 -