Manigramam

A manigramam is a large, influential guild of South Indian merchants. Tamil inscriptions record a tank construction by an important person and the tank is placed under the guard of the local Manigramam members.[1]

Manigramam guild was a localized merchant body which first appeared along the Kerala coast in the ninth century A.D. According to Herman Gundert, Manigramam people were descendants of Syrian Christian merchants who were converted to Saivism by Tamil Saivite poet Manikkavasagar.[2] They gradually flourished in Tamil Nadu in the Pallava and Chola periods and then became supra-regional in character by being active in South-east Asia.

On a Sivapuri temple wall, Tiruppattur Taluk, Ramanathapuram District, an inscription records the gift of some land by a merchant of the Manigramam guild for providing an offering to the temple deity.[3][4]

During the rule of the Western Chalukyas dynasty reigning over most of the western deccan, South India, between the 10th and 12th centuries merchants formed influential guilds, of which manigramam was a prominent one.[5]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ "Early Tamil Cultural Influencesin South East Asia". Retrieved 2007-02-03.
  2. ↑ Skar̲iyā Sakkar̲iya (1993). Dr. Hermann Gundert and Malayalam Language. Centre for Kerala Studies, St. Berchmans' College. p. 82. ISBN 978-81-240-0075-5.
  3. ↑ "South Indian Inscriptions, Volume XIV". Retrieved 2007-02-03.
  4. ↑ Hultzach, E. (1913). "Note on a Tamil Inscription in Siam". Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland Journal. 3rd Series. s. 1 & 2.
  5. ↑ Sastri (1955), p 299-300

References

  • Nilakanta Sastri, K.A. (1955). A History of South India, OUP, New Delhi (Reprinted 2002) ISBN 0-19-560686-8.
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