Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T03:19:59.172Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Religious Gifting and Inland Commerce in Seventeenth-Century South India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

David West Rudner
Get access

Abstracts

Most accounts of South Indian commerce in the seventeenth century depend on European documents and focus on Indo-European trade along the Malabar and Coromandel coasts. This article makes use of indigenous documents to analyze the way a caste of itinerant salt traders, the Nakarattars, combined worship and commerce in the interior of Tamil-speaking South India. It focuses on Nakarattar activities in the seventeenth century before they had achieved power under their better-known name, Nattukottai Chettiars, and at a time when their commercial expansion wasjust getting under way and when the close association of this expansion with rituals of religious gifting was already apparent. The two main purposes of the article are to illuminate the ritual dimension of commercial activity in precolonial South India and to enrich current transactional models of the relationship between temples and small groups in South India by incorporating a mercantile perspective.

Type
Giving in Asia–A Symposium
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , May 1987 , pp. 361 - 379
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Appadorai, A. 1936. Economic Conditions in South India, 1350–1750 A.D. Madras: University of Madras.Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun. 1977. “Kings, Sects, and Temples in South India, 1350–1700, A.D.” The Indian Economic and Social History Review 14, no. 1:47–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun. 1981. Worship and Conflict Under Colonial Rule: A South Indian Case. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun 1983. “The Puzzling Status of Brahman Temple Priests in Hindu India.” South Asian Anthropologist 4, no. 1:43–52.Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun, and Breckenridge, Carol Appadurai. 1976. “The South Indian Temple: Authority, Honor, and Redistribution.” Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 10, no. 2:187–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Babb, Lawrence. 1975. The Divine Hierarchy: Popular Hinduism in Central India. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Beck, Brenda. 1976. “Centers and Boundaries of Regional Caste Systems: Towards a General Model.” In Smith, Carol, ed., Regional Analysis, vol. 2. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Board of Revenue. 1783. Consultations. Madras.Google Scholar
Breckenridge, Carol Appadurai. 1976. “The Sri Minaksi Sundareshvarar Temple: Worship and Endowments in South India, 1833–1925.” Ph.D. dissertation. University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Breckenridge, Carol Appadurai. 1977. “From Protector to Litigant—Changing Relations Between Hindu Temples and the Raja of Ramnad.” The Indian Economic and Social History Review 14, no. 1:75–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Claus, Peter. 1978. “Oral Traditions, Royal Cults, and Materials for a Consideration of the Caste System in South India.” Journal of Indian Folkloristics 1, no. 1.Google Scholar
Daniel, E. Valentine. 1984. Fluid Signs: Being a Person the Tamil Way. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Das, Veena. 1976. “The Uses of Liminality: Society and Cosmos in Hinduism.” Contributions to Indian Sociology 10, no. 2:245–63.Google Scholar
Dirks, Nicholas B.. 1987. The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dumont, Louis. 1970. Homo hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Fuller, C. J. 1979. “Gods, Priests, and Purity: On the Relations Between Hinduism and the Caste System.” Man, n.s. 14:459–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuller, C. J. 1984. Servants of the Goddess: The Priests of a South Indian Temple. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Habib, Irfan, and Raychauduri, Tapan. 1982. Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hall, Kenneth R.. 1980. Trade and Statecraft in the Age of Colas. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications.Google Scholar
Hall, Kenneth R.. n.d. “Merchants, Rulers, and Priests in an Early South Indian Sacred Center: Cidambaram in the Age of Colas.” MS.Google Scholar
Hardgrave, Robert L. Jr.. 1969. The Nadars of Tamilnad: The Political Culture of a Community in Change. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Harper, Edward B. 1964. “Ritual Pollution as an Integrator of Caste and Religion.” In Harper, E., ed., Religion in South India. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Hocart, A. M. 1950. Caste: A Comparative Study. London: Methuen and Co.Google Scholar
Hubert, Henri, and Mauss, Marcel. 1964. Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function. Trans. Halls, W. D.. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ludden, David. 1985. Peasant History in South India. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mahalingam, T. V. 1967. South Indian Polity. 2d ed., rev. Madras: Madras University.Google Scholar
Manickam, V. Sp. 1963. Nakarattar Arappattayankal. Devakottai.Google Scholar
Mayer, Adrian C. 1958. “The Dominant Caste in a Region of Central India.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 14:407–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moreno, Manuel. 1982. “The God of Healing Poisons: Thermic Complementarity and Exchanges in Two South Indian Pilgrimages.” MS.Google Scholar
Neale, Walter. 1969. “Land Is To Rule.” In Frykenberg, R. E., ed., Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History. Madison: University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Parry, Jonathan. 1982. “Sacrificial Death and the Necrophageous Ascetic.” In Block, M. and Parry, J., eds., Death and Regeneration of Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Price, Pamela G. 1979. “Resource and Rule in Zamindari South India, 1802–1903.” Ph.D. dissertation. University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Rajayan, K. 1964–1965. “Revenue and Judicial Administration of the Nawabs of the Carnatic.” Journal of the Andhra Historical Research Society 30, nos. 1–4:143–54.Google Scholar
Rajayyan, K. 1974. History of Madurai, 1736–1801. Madurai.Google Scholar
Raju, A. Sarada. 1941. Economic Conditions in Madras Presidency, 1800–1850. Madras University Economic Series, no. 5. Madras: University of Madras.Google Scholar
Rao, M. V. G. Krishna. 1964. “Salt Industry in the Circars from 1776 to 1805.” Journal of the Andhra Historical Research Society 29, nos. 3–4: 71–82.Google Scholar
Rudner, David. 1985. “Caste and Commerce in Indian Society: A Case Study of Nattukottai Chettiars, 1600–1930.” Ph.D. dissertation. University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Shulman, David. 1980. Tamil Temple Myths: Sacrifice and Divine Marriage in South Indian Saiva Tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Somalay, S. M. L. 1954. Chettinadum Tamilum. Madras.Google Scholar
Sontheimer, G. D. 1964. “Religious Endowments in India: The Juristic Personality of Hindu Deities.” Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft 67:45–100, part. 1Google Scholar
Spencer, George W. 1968. “Temple Money-Lending and Live-Stock Redistribution.” Indian Economic and Social History Review 5, no. 3:277–93Google Scholar
Srinivas, M. N. 1959. “The Dominant Caste in Rampura.” American Anthropologist 61:1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein, Burton. 1960. “Economic Functions of a Medieval Temple. “Journal of Asian Studies 9, no. 2:163–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein, Burton. 1969 “Integration of the Agrarian System of South India.” In Frykenberg, R. E., ed., Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Stein, Burton. 1977. “Temples and Tamil Country.” Indian Economic and Social History Review 14, no. 1:11–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein, Burton.1980. Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sundaram, L. 1944–1945. “Revenue Administration of the Northern Sirkars.” Journal of the Andhra Historical Research Society 14:22–58, 15:1–18.Google Scholar