________________
IIO
LIFE IN ANCIENT INDIA
Like craft-guilds there were merchant leagues also which included river and sea-going merchants and the caravan traders. We come across frequently caravans of carts laden with goods travelling across the country. There was a caravan leader (satthavāha) who used to lead his caravan slowly by the road flanked with stalls and villages, encamping at the proper places. A satthaváha was considered as an important state officer who was expert in archery and administration, and who with the permission of the king used to lead a caravan with various merchandise. 28 We frequently meet caravan leaders proclaiming publicly that those who accompanied them on the trip would be provided with food, drinks, clothes, utensils and medicines free of charge. The insecure condition of the roads and the attack by organised band of robbers in those days necessitated a sort of co-operation among the travelling merchants and so they appointed one man as their leader,
A setthi was the foreman of the eighteen craftsmen. Setthi is mentioned as an official whose forehead was invested with a golden plate inscribed with the image of a god.
11 G. Brh. Bha. 1.3078. 13 Niss cd. 9. p. 622. - Ann cũ. p. li. 14 Ava. Ți. (Hari.), p. 114 a ff.
16 Brh. Bha. 3-3767. Cf. Rhys Davida, Cambridge History of India, 207; the famous setthe Anithapiņdika of Savatthi, the millionaire lay-supporter of the Sangha, had some authority over his fellow traders.
Roya. sd. 148; also cf. Rhys Davids, op. att., p. 208.
