
Originally Posted by
maddhan1979
To understand the above context one has to see a market in ancient times. There would have been at least two type of markets, one inside the fort another one outside the fort.
People from surrounding areas and inside the fort people would have shops inside the fort. People coming from outside the fortified area would have had shops or selling places outside the fort as identity of these new people would not have been easy to assertain.
People selling stuff outside the fort would have come from different places, these would include people who are travelling from one place to another, people bringing stuff from far off places, people from near by areas such as local forest or natives tribes living in forest, people from nearby kingdoms, etc. In such a diverse market "Totem" would have been easiest way to identify themselves. "Totems" could have been in form of name of a place where a person is coming from, product a person sells, name of another kingdom, etc. In local times lot of food was obtained from forest and the easiest way to identify a products and persons selling the products could have been place a person has obtained his product from.
As in any ancient society, native tribes living in the forest would have been the biggest procurer of products from the forest. This might explain the paradox of "Banjara or Vanjara", while literally translated this means, "friend of the forest",but the language spoken by these people could have been "Indo European" language. If this is true, the "Forest" of "Ban/Van" could be a symbolic/totemic representation of another tribe and the travellers/Banjara are the friends of these tribal people. As "Banjara or Vanjara" were travelling people so it was easy for them to take/carry their stuff and sell their good to far of places, but they would have needed people who procured the goods from local "Ban or Van", so the word "Banjara" could be a connection to totamic tribes living in the forest and procuring goods to "Banjaras". The so called "Ban" people would also have brought their goods to be sold inside the fort as their identification was certified by the fort, therefore they would have been the first people to open shops inside the fort. While people who were outsiders "coming out of forest" could have been anyone like travelling people, people from another kingdom, etc.