________________ VAISALI CORPORATIONS (AN ASPECT OF CORPORATE LIFE IN ANCIENT VAISALI DR. JAGADISH NARAYAN SARKAR, M. A., Ph. D. Asstt. Professor of History, Patna College A detailed, critical study of the antiquities uneartbed at Basalh is a desideratum. It will throw new valuable light on administrative, social and cultural history of Northern India, and specially of N. Bihar during an approximate period of 800 years, from the Mauryan to the Gupta ages. An attempt has been made in this article to study a few references to corporations or guilds contained in inscribed seals found at Basaph, which represents the site of Vaisali. Dr. T. Bloch considered the inscribed clay scals (numbering 720, with over 1,100 seal inscriptions, 120 varieties) to be "the most interesting find" among the antiquities, found during his excavations in 1903-4, and going back to the Gupta period. In 1912 Dr. D. B. Spooner also found in all 235 seals with 283 impressions, and some of his seals throw light on those of Dr. Bloch. There is absolutely no doubt, judging from the facts about economic life of India in pre-Gupta and post-Gupta periods, that huge organisations (sreni) for commercial purposes were made by traders, bankers, manufacturers, and producers and that there was a continuous history of the corporations and guilds during this period. It is interesting to note that while Dr. Spooner's seals, generally representing pre-Gupta periods, mostly refer to sresthinigamasya (i. e., seals of the Guild of Bankers)', Dr. Bloch's seals, generally representing 1. Nos. 808, 270A, 69B. A.S.I.R. 1913-14. Dr. Spooner observed: "In all, sixteen specimens of this seal were recovered. a very unusual number for any one type in this collection. Banking was evidently as prominent in Vaisali as we should have expected it to be, judging from the notice in Manu to the effect that the people in Magadha were bards and traders." (Ibid., 122).
