Social Innovation in Ancient India

Introduction

Ancient Indian guilds were a unique and multi-faceted form of organization. These guilds combined the functions of a democratic government, a trade union, a court of justice and a technological institution. The trained workers of the guilds provided a friendly atmosphere for work. They procured raw materials for manufacturing, controlled the quality of manufactured goods and their price, and located markets for their sale. Though seen through the Eurocentric blinkers they have been misunderstood. It was believed that the Indian Guild system also followed the European feudal or the manorial system of the high Middle Ages, due mainly to sudden increase in trade. These European guilds identified as Merchant Guilds and Craft Guilds lasted in some places until the nineteenth and the twentieth century, though probably their golden age was in the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. The Craft Guilds being the direct producers were more important than the Merchant Guilds. But the Indian guilds were complex institutions than the European examples.

Organizational Structure

The Guilds had the following key elements in the organizational structure:

·         The General Assembly: All the members of the Guild constituted the General Assembly.
·         The Guild Head: The head of a guild is often referred to as the jetthaka or pamukkha in early Buddhist literature.
·         Executive Officers: assisted the guild head in the day to day activities.

Functions of the Guild
The Guilds undertook many useful roles such as administrative, economic, charitable and banking functions. A Mathura Inscription (2nd century AD) refers to the two permanent endowments of 550 silver coins each with two guilds to feed Brahmins and the poor from out of the interest money. Of the two Nasik Inscriptions (2nd century AD) one records the endowment of 2000 karshapanas at the rate of one percent (per month) with a weavers' guild for providing cloth to bhikshus and 1000 karshapanas at the rate of 0.75 percent (per month) with another weavers' guild for serving light meals to them.

Conclusion

The guild was a unique social innovations, in Ancient India, which served a variety of useful functions: specialisation of crafts, quality control of products, defence against state's oppression, composing differences among different sections of society, providing justice to the needy, charity to the poor etc. Guilds were perhaps the earliest democratic institutions of the world.