Cultural Diffusion and Tamil Merchants

Commodity Exchange is one of the ancient trade mechanisms through which Cultural Diffusion blossomed up amongst various civilizations. Tamil Merchants played a very important role in the diffusion of cultures across many countries of the World. From local trade to global trade, from land faring to sea faring, from simple tolls to excise, the journey of Tamil Trade is very vast and deep.

Activities of the Merchant Guilds have taken the Tamil Culture to distant lands and brought in new discoveries to the Tamil land. Philanthropy of the Tamil merchants are recorded in various inscriptions. History of the merchant guilds can be traced from Literature. Roman coins and foreign currency form a treasure trove in several parts of the Tamil country. Day markets (nāḷaṅgāḍi) and night markets (allaṅgāḍi) were a common sight in the Tamil land. Volumes of historical information on Maritime trade, Global and Local Ports, Geographies, Goods exchanged, Voyages and Royal restriction of vessel movements are found in the above-mentioned sources. This paper traces that historical path of trade and cultural exchange, from various sources in Tamil Literature & Tamil Archaeology.

Prof. P. Shanmugam, University of Madras

Prof. P. Shanmugam is a Retd. Professor from the Dept. of Ancient History and Archaeology, University of Madras.

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