Meenakshi Tyagarajan Two Medieval Merchant Guilds of South India by Meera Abraham; Manohar Publications, New Delhi, 1989; pp xii + 273. THIS is a remarkable book. It is a work of deep scholarship in a specialised area by a non-professional. Meera Abraham is not a practising academic The blurb identifies her as the wife of a former Indian ambassador. The author's preface states that the project was almost completely self-financed, even though it required some trips abroad. The study has obviously taken many years of patient laborious work. Only total commitment to the subject could have sustained the effort a work of this nature requires.