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Sec. 4. HISTORICAL POSITION OF THE T. S.
The lay Jaipas generally belong today and also belonged in the past to the business class which consisted of śreşthis (bankers), sārthavābas (traders) and kulikas (merchants). They organized guilds (sreņis or nigamas) which functions as banks, courts and as the administrative centres of the social and communal activitics such as constructing temples, aiding the poor, and so forth. Beside śrenis which were the guilds of craftsmen and merchants, there existed the other corporate bodies such as pūgas which consisted of different castes and occupations in the same area and giņas which functioned as the local political governmental bodies of a popular type. The representatives of guilds were co-active in the higher bierarchy of bese administrative bodies in the towns and cities, therefore they must have exerted an influential power over the municipal affairs. The Gupta kings administered, in order to maintain the stabilized peace of this huge empire, a strong central government control over the economic, political and social matters after the policies advised in the Arthasāstra and Dhurmusastra. It is reported however that in the Smrtis of the Gupta age, there is no trace of the strict official control or political exploitation of śrenis and sarighas as such evinced in the Arthasāstra, but on the contrary, there is a remerkable tendency to safeguard the property and strengthen the constitution of these bodies.67 Taxes paid by the guilds were counted as one of the most important sources of kings' revenue. And during this age of economic prosperity and peace, the guild and corporations seem to be gradually growing into a larger system like a trust organisation pacing with the rooting in of the caste system which giew in!o complexity in the course of time. This is the general picture of the corporate bodies in the Gupta age, that of which in the Kusban period seems to be not clearly known yet, however it must have been advancing towards the same stage described above. Then the position of the huge and prosperous Jaina communities at Mathurā was likely most powerful over the other castes during the reigns of Kanishka, Huvishka and Vasudeva.
The Gupta rulers who were the Vaisaivas and supported the Hindu act vities in all respects are known to have taken a tolerant policy to the Saivas and non-Hindus as well. However Mathurā where a majority of the Jainas had likely settled down by this time is the birth place of Lord Kršņa. Hence in the florescence of Hindu revival movement, the city was probably soon handed over to the Vaisnavas wherein the Buddhists seem to have survived better than the Jainas. The Jaina inscriptions at Mathură are still available in number during the reign of the Hindu King Väsudeva (202-226 A. D.: he was likely a śaiva despite of his name) in the Kushan dynasty. And as we have aforenoted, here appears a class of the late Kushan and post-Kushan image of Nominatha aitended by Balarama and Krsna. Krşņa theme creeps in the canonical texts such as Uttaradhyayana 22, Antakyddasa, Natadharmakatha
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