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No. IV]
SRAVANA BELGOLA-ITS SEQULAR (MPJRTANCE.
119
destroyers of this charity and not the Acārya and the wicked. If without the consent of the merchants one or two leaders enter into the Ācārya's house or the palace, they shall be traitors to the creed, With regard to privileges, former usage shall be followed. Those who destroy this usage shall incur the sin of having slaughtered tawny cows and Brahmans on the banks of the Ganges, "*
From the above charter the following conclusions may be drawn ;-Firstly, Sravaņa Belgola was a sort of a Free City, the house and mill taxes of which were collected not under orders from the Palace (i.e., the king, or the State) but from the Acārya of the place (i.e., the Pontiff). Secondly, it was the Ācārya who was responsible to the State for the imposts of Government, and who leased the right of collecting taxes to the merchants-guilds. Thirdly, this was done in the presence of the highest official of the State - the minister in order to make the agreement legal. Fourthly, the Ācārya, like his disciples, was intensely patriotic, as is evident from the clause relating to the treason to the king. Fifthly, there seems to have been evil persons in Sravana Belgoļa who, then as now, posing themselves as leaders looked to their own profit at the expense of both the holy place and the State. And, finally, the Jainas considered the Brahmans and Benares with the same reverence as they considered their gurus and Sravana Belgoļa.
How famous the merchants of this holy place were is evident from an inscription dated A. D. 1195 which informs us that they were “born in the eminent line of Khandali and Malabhadra, devoted to truth and purity, possessed of the lion's valour, skilled in conducting various kinds of trade with many sea-ports, adorned with the famous three jewels, the merchants residing at the holy place Beļuguļa acquired celebrity on earth."
From the same inscription date A. D. 1195 we learn about another special feature of the commercial life of the merchants of Sravana Belgola. This is related to the very high place they occupied in the civic life of the people. The merchants of Sravana Belgoļa
7. Ibid, 333, pp. 140—141.
