exports and imports, customs duties on articles of merchandise and excise
duties. These taxes or tolls were farmed out to merchant-guilds or
associations on payment of a fixed sum to the government. These tax-farmers
had their own branches in different localities along with their own officials
and establishments. The toll-farmers could exempt any dealer from paying
the stipulated duty as a privilege for some important service which he might
have done for the guild organisation. The merchant-guilds wielded unlimited
powers and enjoyed full autonomy in the internal management of their own
affairs. This was probably due to the help which they had rendered to the
Kakatiya monarch by furnishing forces (srenihala) at the time of Muslim
Invasions.
                               LITERATURE
  The Kakatiya rulers extended liberal patronage to Sanskrit. Several
  eminent Sanskrit writers and poets authored inscriptions which must be
  regarded as kavyas in miniature. Of these writers Achintendra was
  commissioned by Rudradeva to compose the prasasti embodied in the
  Anumakonda inscription. The most famous of the prasasti writers of the
  time was, however, Isvarasuri, the author of the Bothpur inscriptions.
  Besides, the contribution of the Kakatiya poets to Sanskrit literature is
  considerable. A well-known scholar and poet, Sakalya Malla or
  Mullubhatta, lived at the court of Prataparudra, and composed the
  Udattaraghavakavya and the Niroshthya-Ramayana. In the field of
  alankarasutra, the Prataparudra-Yasobhushanam of Vidyanatha, is by far
  the best.
  Telugu literature also flourished in the Kakatiya kingdom. Several
  inscriptions were composed partly or wholly in Telugu verse like the
  inscriptions at Gudur (of Beta II), Karimnagar (Gangadhara), Upparapalle
  (Kata) and Konidena (Opilisiddhi). The new religious movements like
  Vaishnavism and Virasaivism gave a great impetus to Telugu literature.
  Several works on the two great national epics—the Ramayana and the
  Mahabharata—were produced during this period. The earliest and the
  most popular Telugu work on the Ramayana is Tikkana’s
  Nirvachanoltara-Ramayanam.      Next in point of time come the Bhaskara-