Origins and Purpose
They grew out of protective cooperation between merchants and temples and shrines; merchants would travel and transport goods in groups, for protection from bandits and the vacillating whims of samurai and daimyo (feudal lords). They would also enter into arrangements with temples and shrines to sell their goods on a pitch or platform in the temple's (or shrine's) grounds, placing themselves under the auspices and protection of the temple or shrine. The word za, meaning seat, pitch, or platform, was thus applied to the guilds. The name may have also come, more simply, from the idea of merchants within a guild or association sharing a seat or platform in the marketplace.
Read more about this topic: Za (guilds)
Famous quotes containing the words origins and, origins and/or purpose:
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“With the breakdown of the traditional institutions which convey values, more of the burdens and responsibility for transmitting values fall upon parental shoulders, and it is getting harder all the time both to embody the virtues we hope to teach our children and to find for ourselves the ideals and values that will give our own lives purpose and direction.”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)