Old NCERT Gist (RS Sharma): Crafts Trade and Towns in the Post Mauryan Period | Additional Study Material for UPSC PDF Download

Crafts Trade and Towns in the Post Mauryan Period

• 200 BC to 200 AD was a period when arts and crafts flourished in ancient India.
• Literature points to great advances in metallurgy and specialization of crafts. Mention of as many as 75 occupations is done.
• Cloth-making, silk-weaving and making luxury articles also made progress.
• Mathura was famous for a special cloth called Sataka. Dyeing was thriving in south Indian towns. Oil manufacturing increased due to oil-wheel.
• Glass-manufacturing, bead making, coin-minting etc.
• Yelleshwaram in Nalgonda contains largest number of terracotta figurines and their moulds. Artisans were divided into at least two dozen guilds and patrons deposited money with a specific guild to provide goods and materials to Buddhist monks.
• Development of Indo-Roman trade flourished.
• Land trade was disrupted by Parthians and trade shifted to sea after discovery of monsoons. Broach and Sopara ports on western coast and Tamralipti and Arikamedu on the east coast.
• Trade in luxury goods and not day-to-day goods. Initial trade was with Tamil kingdoms for spices and precious stones. Then with northern kingdoms, especially for iron. Chinese silk also came via India due to disruption of land route.
• Sakas and Kushans used two land routes to connect NW to western coast.
  Both converged at Taxila:
• Rome exported wine amphorae and lead mostly. Glass jars to NW frontier, along with Greek statues and alabaster vessels. Most significant export was of gold and silver coins due to India’s surplus trade balance.
• Arretine pottery, found commonly in south India is not visible in North and NW India.
• Satavahanas and Tamils profited from Roman trade but majority of benefits accrued to the former.