The Development and Movement of Financial Tools through Indian Trade Routes and their Integration into Global Commerce

Abstract:

          This work is a historical track of the process of financial innovations in ancient India and their medieval spread across the world with a special focus on the effect they had on the formation of international trade. Based on archaeological, numismatic, epigraphic and textual evidence, it has explored the evolution and distribution of standardized weights and measures in Harappan and standardized coinages into India and into the land and maritime India trade routes of the Indies, as well as the evolution of the guild-based corporate system (Shrenis) and the medieval credit instrument hundi. The results show that the Harappan metrology allowed the successful exchange, the coinages of the Mauryan and Gupta eras institutionalized monetary economies, and the Shreni guilds mixed the functions of regulating trade with banking. The hundi system offered sophisticated credit and remittance system several centuries prior to European bills of exchange, and served to support long-range trade networks based on centres like Taxila, Ujjain, Cambay, and Muziris. Finds of Indian and foreign coins reveal the presence of monetary flows two ways and cultural adaptability. The paper concludes that India played a key role in the world of premodern finance in developing the foundations of economic integration in the world.