How a wealthy merchant corporation powered the Chola empire and the precocious globalism of the medieval Indian Ocean
the Five Hundred.
Budget with ET
Before Budget, Raghuram Rajan is worried about the big Indian middle class
How cities can drive India's sustainable urban development goal forward
Budget 2025 needs to help global electronic makers plan life outside China
In my new book on the Cholas, Lords of Earth and Sea, I have described the Five Hundred as a merchant corporation or assembly, for convenience. But there really is no modern parallel to this remarkable organisation. Like the Chola state, the Five Hundred had a formidable ability to incorporate diverse groups. Its members included Brahmins, wealthy peasants, goldsmiths and, by the early 11th century, professional warriors.
In fact, ‘Five Hundred’ was a misnomer; by this point its members numbered in the thousands. The Five Hundred was a collection of franchises cooperating and using the same name, with no single leader, no head office. In short, it was a collective of the most moneyed, mobile elements of southern India, working together to profit amid geopolitical churn.
They profited directly from war, as it created wealthy new clients for them. In addition, Chola loot drew tides of armed men into the south Indian military labour market. Like the Cholas, the Five Hundred were able to recruit and feed troops yearround. They used them to guard entrepots, protect convoys and even mount paramilitary operations.
On the northern frontier of the Chola empire, we know of a case in the 11th century when the Five Hundred sent a mercenary after a group that had murdered one
