ムガル帝國下のバニヤ商人 : スーラト市の場合

Abstract

In this paper the author examines the role and position of Hindu and Jain merchants under the Mughal Empire, taking as an example bania merchants (which included both Hindus and Jains) of Surat City, the biggest port of the Empire, in the 17th century. Though considerable studies have been done on merchants of Surat, the commercial careers and political roles of the merchants are to be examined further. In the 1st Chapter I therefore, follow the careers of Hari Vaisya and Virji Vora --the two biggest bania merchant-bankers of the city--, the former since the year 1617 and the latter since 1616. Especially Virji Vora improved and maintained his position as one of the leading bania merchants of the Empire during more than fifty years up to around 1670. This career of his is remarkable one, when we consider that this period witnessed three successive reigns of the emperors, more than thirty changes of the city-governors, and the attacks on the city at least twice. In the 2nd Chapter the author examines the commercial careers of the members of the Thakur family and the so-called Parakh family (--though I do not consider that whoever had the surname Parakh belonged to one and same family or lineage--), who played important roles as brokers or money changers (sarrafs) of the English East India Company, and l emphasize the importance of brokers and money changers (both of which occupations were mostly monopolized by banias) in the commercial world of the Empire. The 3rd Chapter treats the banias' mass leaving from Surat City in 1669 against the qazi's religious tyranny over them and its successful results as an example to show the above mentioned importance and indispensability of bania merchants in the economic world of the city and the Empire. This mass leaving was organized by the mahajan which governed all the bania merchants of the city. The nature of this mahajan is not clear, but it might have been composed of the representatives of all the merchant guilds (which were organized according to occupations and were also called mahajans) of banias. We hear no names of big bania merchants of the city comparable with Virjl Vora since 1670s. It may, therefore, be said that the prosperity of the big bania merchants like him up to 1670 largely depended on the stability and prosperity of the Empire and the relatively tolerant religious policy of the emperors up to that time.