ECONOMY IN MEDIEVAL INDIA

Early Medieval Economy 8th 13th Century

Agrarian Economy:

The early medieval period in Indian history marks the growth of cultivation and organisation
of land relations through land grants.

These grants began around the beginning of Christian era and covered practically the entire
subcontinent by the end of the 12th century
In the early medieval period agricultural expansion meant a greater and more regular use of
advanced agricultural techniques, plough cultivation and irrigation technology
Institutional management of agricultural processes, control of means of production and new
relations of production also played an important role in this expansion

With this expansion, new type of social tensions also emerged. Commercial activities in
agricultural and non-agricultural commodities increased.

Agrarian Expansion:

Began with the establishment of Brahmadeya and Agrahara settlements through land
grants to Brahmanas @ 4th century

The early Pali texts of the pre-Maurya period refer to the villages granted to the Brahmanas
by the rulers of Kosala and Magadha. A term used for such grants was Brahamdeya.

The centuries between the 8th and 12th witnessed the processes of this expansion and the
culmination of an agrarian organisation based on land grants to religious and secular
beneficiaries, i.e. Brahmanas, temples and officers of the King's government
The practice of making land grants to the Brahmanas was a custom, sanctified by the
injunctions laid down in the Dharmashashtras, Epics and Puranas.
The Anusasana Parva of the Mahabharata devotes a whole chapter to the praise of making
gifts of land (Bhumidanaprasamsa).

Geographical and Chronological Patterns :

Cultivation was extended not only to the virgin lands but even by clearing forest areas. This
was a continuous process and a major feature of early medieval agricultural economy.

Land grants started in outlying, backward and tribal areas first and later gradually extended
to the Ganga valley, which was the hub of the brahmanical culture.
In the backward and aboriginal tracts , Brahmanas could spread new methods of cultivation
by regulating agricultural processes through specialised knowledge of the seasons
(astronomy), plough, irrigation, etc., as well as by protecting the cattle wealth
Land grants were also made in areas of settled agriculture as well as in other ecological
zones, especially for purposes of integrating them into a new economic order.

Chronological appearance of the land grant system shows the following pattern:
4th 5th centuries : spread over a good part of central India (MP,Chattisgarh), northern
Deccan (Western Maharashtra) and Andhra,
5th 7th centuries : eastern India (Bengal and Orissa), beginnings in Western India (Gujarat
and Rajasthan)
7th and 8th centuries: Tamil Nadu and Karnataka
9th century : Kerala
End of 12th century : almost the entire sub-continent with the possible exception of Punjab

Ideological Background

Ideas relating to the gift of land emphasise the importance of dana or gift.
The idea of dana or gift to Brahmanas was developed by Brahmanical texts as the surest
means of acquiring merit (punya) and destroying sin (pataka).
o It appears to be a conscious and systematic attempt to provide means of subsistence
to the Brahmana.
o Grants of cultivable land to them and registration of gifts of land on copper plates are
recommended by all the Smritis and Puranas of the post-Gupta centuries
o There were different items of gifts : food, grains, paddy - movable assets like gold,
money, etc. and immovable assets like cultivable land
o Among the gifts are also included the plough, cows, oxen and plouhshare.
o The gift of land was considered to be the best of all types of gifts made to the learned
Brahmana.
o Imprecations against the destruction of such gifts and the resumption of Land
donated to a Brahmana ensured their perpetuity (without maturity date).
Thus land grants began to follow a set of legal formula systematised through Law
books (Dharmasastras)
While the early land grants were made mainly to Vedic priests (Shrotriya fire priests), from
5th to 13th centuries, grants were also made to temple priests
The temple, as an institution, assumed a more central role in agrarian expansion and
organisation from 8th century A.D.

Grants to the temple, either plots of Land or Whole village, were known as DEVADANA in the
south Indian context
The non-brahmanical religious establishments such as the Buddhist and Jain monasteries
(samghas and basadis) too, specially in Karnataka, Andhra, Gujarat and eastern India (Bihar
and Orissa), vied with one another to become landed magnates

Agrarian Organisation:

The agrarian organisation and economy were highly complex.

This can be understood on the foundation of rigorous studies of the local patterns of land
grants and the character and role of the brahmadeya and non-brahmadeya and temple
settlements.
The growth and nature of land rights, interdependence in the middle of the dissimilar
groups related to land and the production and distribution processes also help in a better
understanding of the situation

Character and Role of Several Kinds of Agrarian Settlements

Brahmadeya:

Symbolizes a grant of land either in individual plots or whole villages given away to
Brahmanas making them landowners or land controllers

It was meant either to bring virgin land under farming or to integrate existing
agricultural (or peasant) settlements into the new economic order dominated through a
Brahmana proprietor
These Brahmana donees played a major role in integrating several socio -economic groups
into the new order, through service tenures and caste under the Varna system
For example, the rising peasantisation of shudras was sought to be rationalized in the
existing brahmanical social order
The practice of land grants as brahmadeyas was initiated through the ruling dynasties
and subsequently followed through chiefs, feudatories, etc
Boundaries of the donated land or village were very often cautiously demarcated
The several kinds of land, wet, arid, and garden land within the village were specified.
Sometimes even specific crops and trees are mentioned.
The land donations implied more than the transfer of land rights. For instance, in
several cases, beside with the revenues and economic possessions of the village,
human possessions such as peasants (cultivators), artisans and others were also
transferred to donees
There is also rising proof of the encroachment of the rights of villagers in excess of
society lands such as lakes and ponds
Therefore, the Brahmanas became managers of agricultural and artisanal manufacture
in these settlements for which they organized themselves into assemblies

Brahmadeyas facilitated agrarian expansion because they were:

Exempted from several taxes or dues either entirely or at least in the initial stages of
resolution (e.g. For 12 years)

 Also endowed with ever rising privileges (pariharas). The ruling families derived
economic advantage in the form of the extension of the resource base and
through creating brahmadeyas they also gained ideological support for their political
power

Lands were given as brahmadeya either to a single Brahmana or to many Brahmana families
which ranged from a few to many hundreds or even more than a thousand
Brahmadeyas were invariably situated close to major irrigation works such as tanks or
lakes.
New irrigation sources were constructed when brahmadeyas were created, especially in
regions dependent on rains and in arid and semi-arid regions
When situated in regions of rigorous agriculture in the river valleys, they served to
integrate other settlements of a survival stage manufacture. Sometimes, two or more
settlements were clubbed jointly to form a brahmadeya or an agrahara.
The taxes from such villages were assigned to the Brahmana donees who were also given the
right to get the donated land cultivated.

Secular Grants

From 7th century onwards, officers of the state were also being remunerated through
land grants
This is of special significance because it created another class of landlords who were not
Brahmanas

The gift of land on officials in charge of administrative divisions is mentioned as early

as A.D. 200 (the time of Manu) but the practice picks up momentum in the post-Gupta era
Literary works dealing with central India, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bihar and Bengal between
10th and 12th centuries create frequent references to several types of grants to
ministers, kinsmen, and those who rendered military services
The rajas, rajaputras, ranakas, mahasamantas, etc. mentioned in Pala land charters
were mostly vassals linked with land.
The incidence of grants to state officials varies from one region to another. To illustrate,
while we hear of in relation to the half a dozen Paramar official ranks, only a few of
them are recognized to have received land grants
But very big territories were granted to vassals and high officers under the Chalukyas of
Gujarat
Evidences suggest that Orissa had more service grants than Assam, Bengal, and Bihar taken
jointly
Further, the right of several officials to enjoy specific and exclusive leviesirrespective of the
tenure of these levieswas bound to make intermediaries with interests in the lands of the
tenants

Devadanas

Big level gifts to the religious establishments, both brahmanical and nonbrahmanical,
discover distinctive spaces in inscriptional proofs
These centers worked as nuclei of agricultural settlements and helped in integrating several
peasant and tribal settlements through a procedure of acculturation

They also integrated several socio -economic groups through service tenures or
remuneration through temple lands
Temple lands were leased out to tenants, who paid a higher share of the produce to the
temple. Such lands were also supervised either through the sabha of the brahmadeya
or mahajanas of the agrahara settlements
In non-Brahmana settlements also temples became the central institution
Here temple lands came to be administered through the temple executive committees
composed of land owning non- Brahmanas. e.g. the Velalas of Tamil Nadu the Okkalu
Kampulu etc of Karnataka dissimilar groups were assigned a caste and ritual status
It is in this procedure that people following impure and low occupations were
assigned the status of untouchables, kept out of the temple and given quarters at the
fringes of the settlement
The supervision of temple lands was in the hands of Brahmana and nonBrahmana landed
elites
The control of irrigation sources was also a major function of the local bodies dominated
through landed elite groups
Therefore the Brahmana, the temple and higher strata of non-Brahmanas as landlords,
employers, and holders of superior rights in land became the central characteristic of
early medieval agrarian organisation
The new landed elite also consisted of local peasant clan chiefs or heads of kinship groups
and heads of families, who had kani rights i.e. rights of possession and supervision. In

other words, many strata of intermediaries appeared between the King and the actual
producer

Akshaya Nividharma refer to the permanent nature of the endowment of land

Tamrapatta Dharma or Bhumichchdranyaya indicates its tax-free nature

 Grant of a plot of land acc. to the tenure of Bhumichchdranyaya, indicates the transfer of
its proprietary right
The grant of whole village refers to the transfer of the right to collect revenue only
Land grants resulted in the stratification of the society
Those who received royal grants became wealthy and superior to their fellowmen
Grant of more than one village to a beneficiary had the potential of creating small pockets
of decentralised power
Land grants also resulted in new caste formation
Kayasthas emerged as a caste due to the growing requirement of official writers of royal
documents

Rights in Land

A significant aspect relating to land grants is the nature of rights granted to the assignees
Rights conferred upon the grantees included fiscal and administrative rights
The taxes, of which land tax was the major source of revenue, theoretically payable to
the King or government, came to be assigned to the donees
The reference to pariharas or exemptions in the copper plate and stone inscriptions
registering such grants indicate that, what was theoretically payable to the King was not
being totally exempted from payment but the rights were now transferred to the
grantees

This was apparently based on the sanction of the dharmashastras, which sought to establish
the royal ownership of land and hence justify such grants, creating intermediary rights in
land
Although there is some proof of a communal foundation of land rights in early settlements,
the development of private ownership or rights is indicated through the information that the
grantees often enjoyed rights of alienation of land.
They also enjoyed other hereditary benefits in the settlements.
Land gifts were often made after purchase from private individuals.
Hereditary ownership appears to have urbanized out of such grants, both religious and
secular.

Technological Improvements

Throughout the early medieval era there was an increase in irrigation sources such as canals,
lakes, tanks (tataka, eri) and wells (kupa and kinaru).

That the accessibility to water possessions was a significant consideration in the spread of
rural settlements is shown through local studies.

Keres or tanks in south Karnataka, nadi (river), pushkarini (tank), srota (water channel) etc. in
Bengal and araghatta-wells in western Rajasthan used to be natural points of reference
whenever sharing and transfer of village lands had to be undertaken.

Naturally, the concern for water possessions contributed to the extension of farming and
intensification of agricultural behaviors.

Water-lifts of dissimilar types operated through man and animal power were also recognized.

Epigraphic sources record the construction and maintenance of such irrigation works between

8th and 13th centuries.

The step wells (vapis) in Rajasthan and Gujarat became very popular in the 11th 13th
centuries. They were meant for irrigating the meadows as well as for supplying drinking
water.

The increase in the number of irrigation works was due to an advance in irrigation technology.
There is proof of the use of more scientific and permanent methods of flood manage,
damming of river waters etc.

Lakes or reservoirs were more commonly used in semi arid and rain fed regions, as well as
river basins where the rivers dried in summer.

Construction of water reservoirs was initiated through ruling families and maintained through
local organizations such as the sabha (Brahmana assembly) and ur (non-Brahmana village
assembly) in Tamil Nadu.

Maintenance of lakes/tanks etc. i.e. desilting, bund and sluice repair was looked after through
a special committee of local assemblies and cesses were levied for the purpose.

Royal permission was accorded for digging tanks or wells, when gifts were made to
Brahmanas and temples.

Land was demarcated for construction and maintenance of canals and tanks, etc.

No less important were the improvements in agricultural implements. For example,

a 10th century inscription from Ajmer refers to big plough. Likewise, separate
implements are mentioned for weeding parasitic plants.

Vrikshayarveda mentions steps to cure diseases of trees.

Water lifting devices such as araghatta and ghatiyantra

are mentioned in inscriptions and literary works.

The former was specially used in the wells of Rajasthan in the 9th 10th centuries.

The Krishisukti of Kashypa prescribed that the ghatiyantra operated through

oxen is the best that through men was the worst while the one driven through
elephants was of the middling excellence.

Advanced knowledge in relation to the weather circumstances and then- use in

agricultural operations is noticeable in such texts as the Gurusamhita and
Krishinarashwara.

More than one hundred kinds of cereals including wheat, barley, lentils, etc. are
mentioned in modern writings on agriculture.

According to the Shunyapurana more than fifty types of paddy were cultivated in
Bengal.

The knowledge of fertilizers improved immensely and the use of the compost was
known.

Rajasekhara tells us about the excellent sugarcane of North Bengal which yielded
juice without pressing of the instrument

Commodity production of coconut and oranges assumed special importance in

peninsular India

Marco-Polo hints at increased manufacture of spices when he says that the

municipality of Kinsay in China alone consumed ten thousand pounds of pepper
everyday which came from India.

He also mentions the great demand for Indian ginger in European markets.

Harvesting of three crops and rotation of crops were recognized widely.

Therefore, advanced agricultural technology was being systematized and diffused

in several parts of the country causing substantial boom in agricultural

manufacture.
Rural Tensions:

Notwithstanding agrarian expansion, the rural landscape was distant from being a
homogeneous scene.

There is, to begin with, heterogeneous and stratified peasantry. Unlike the age old and
pre-Gupta gahapatis (land holders) we now have graded personnel associated with
land: Kshetrik, karshaka, halin and ardhik.

There is hardly any indication of landownership in these conditions, which appear to be

referring to several categories of cultivators.

The conversion of the brahmadeyas into non- brahmadeyas and that of the latter into
agraharas were potential sources of tension in rural regions.

The damara revolts in Kashmir, rebellion of the Kaivarthas in the reign of Ramapal in
Bengal, acts of self immolation in situations of encroachments on land in Tamil Nadu,
appropriation of donated land through shudras in the Pandya territory, are indices of
distrust against the new landed intermediaries.

The information that donors often looked for land where farming was not disputed also
shows the seeds of turmoil.

The possibility of the hero-stones in and approximately agraharas also has the potential
of throwing light on rumblings beneath the surface in agrarian settlements.

Why does the concept of brahmahatya (killing of a Brahmana) become very

pronounced in early medieval times?

Agriculture and the Exchange Network

It is sometimes maintained that in the early medieval economic organisation, which was a
predominantly agrarian and self-sufficient village economy, production was mainly
survival oriented and was not in response to the laws of the market.

Hence there was little scope for economic growth.

Craftsmen and artisans were attached either to villages or estates or religious

establishments. Hence there was no important role for traders and middlemen, who only
procured and supplied iron apparatus, oil, spices, cloth, etc. to rural folk.

In other words the functioning of the market organization was very limited.

The aforesaid picture is certainly true for the era 300-800 A.D. ,the subsequent 500 years witnessed a rapid increase
in the number of agrarian settlements and the growth of local markets initially for local exchange.

Subsequently, the need for regular exchange within a region and with other regions led to organized commerce.

This in turn led to the emergence of merchant organisations, itinerant trade, and partial monetization from the 9th
century.

Though the relative importance of these characteristics varied from one region to another the rising role of
agriculture in this new economy is easily seen.

Agricultural products came to be exchanged with items of long distance trade carried on through itinerant traders.

This development also led to a change in the pattern of land ownership towards the secure of the early medieval era.

Merchants and economically influential craftsmen, like weavers, invested in land i.e. purchased land described the
Jagati-kottali (society of weavers) and the society of Telligas (oil pressers) was active participants in agriculture.

The former are repeatedly mentioned as excavating tanks and laying out gardens.

Characterization of Early Medieval Agrarian Economy

The salient features of Indian Feudalism are:

1) Emergence of hierarchical landed intermediaries. Vassals and officers of state and other
secular assignee had military obligations and feudal titles. Sub-infeudation (varying in dissimilar
regions) through these donees to get their land cultivated led to the growth of dissimilar strata of
intermediaries. It was a hierarchy of landed aristocrats, tenants, share croppers, and cultivators.
This hierarchy was also reflected in the power/administrative structure, where a sort of lordvassal connection appeared. In other words, Indian feudalism consisted in the gross unequal
sharing of land and its produce
2) Another important feature was the prevalence of forced labour. The right of extracting forced
labour (vishti) is believed to have been exercised by the Brahmana and other grantees of land.
Forced labour was originally a prerogative of the King or the state. It was transferred to the
grantees, petty officials, village authorities and others. In the Chola inscriptions alone, there are
more than one hundred references to forced labour. Even the peasants and artisans come within
the jurisdiction of vishti. As a result, a type of serfdom appeared, in which agricultural laborers
were reduced to the location of semi-serfs.
3) Due to the rising claims of greater rights in excess of land through rulers and intermediaries,
peasants also suffered a curtailment of then- land rights. Several were reduced to the location of
tenants facing ever rising threat of eviction. A number of peasants were only ardhikas (share
croppers). The strain on the peasantry was also caused through the burden of taxation, coercion,
and augment in their indebtedness.
4) Surplus was extracted through several methods. Extra economic coercion was a conspicuous
method. With the rise of new property dealings, new mechanisms of economic subordination also
evolved. The rising burden is evident in the mentioning of more than fifty levies in the inscription
of Rajaraja Chola.
5) It was relatively a closed village economy. The transfer of human resources beside with land to
the beneficiaries shows that in such villages the peasants, craftsmen and artisans were attached to
the villages and hence were mutually dependent. Their attachment to land and to service grants
ensured control over them by the beneficiaries.

According to theory the subsistence of autonomous peasant communities , autonomous peasant

regions described the nadus evolved in South India through early medieval times. They were
organized on the foundation of clan and kinship ties. Agricultural manufacture in the nadus was
organized and controlled by nattar i.e., people of the nadu, organizing themselves into
assemblies, i.e., nadu. Members of this assembly were velalas or non-Brahmana peasants.

Their autonomy is indicated through the information that when land grants were made through
the kings and lesser chiefs, orders were issued with the consent of the nattar. Orders were first
addressed to them. They demarcated the gift land and supervised the execution of the grant
because they were the organizers of production.

The Brahmanas and dominant peasants became allies in the production process. Apparently, the
exponents of this hypothesis share the notion of rural self sufficiency, which is a significant
component of Indian feudalism

Terms:
Agrahara : Primarily a rent free village in the possession of Brahmanas.
Ardhika : A cultivator who tills land of others and gets half the crop as his share.
Basadi : Jaina monastic establishment.
Brahmadeya : Generally tax free land or village given as gift to Brahmanas.
Damar : Powerful officials in Kashmir who developed landed interests and were

opposed to Brahmanas.
Devodana : Rent free land gifted to brahmanical temples deities. Its Jain and
Buddhist counterpart is pallichanda.
Dharmashastra : Brahmanical scriptures, law books.
Halin : Ploughman
Karshaka : Tiller of soil.
Mahajana : A sort of assembly of Brahmanas.
Mahasamanta : The 'great chieftainn, feudatory of a higher rank than samanta.
Parihara : Exemptions from taxes and obligations (privileges granted to the donees
of rent-free land).
Peasant State and Society : A set-up where peasants are "freen to own means of
production and cultivate land according to their interests.
Peasantisation : Process through which people unconnected with land were
encouraged to undertake cultivation as a profession.
Ranaka : Title of feudatory ruler.
Shrotriya : Brahman, learned in the Vedas

Urban Settlements
FORM AND SUBSTANCES OF URBAN CENTRES
Phase and Definition

How do we define an urban centre and what are its essential traints; are some of the questions
that we take up here.
Prior to the coming of the Turks, the Indian sub-continent experienced at least three phases of
urban growth:
1) During the bronze age Harappan civilization (fourth-second millennium B.C.),
2) Early historic urban centres of the iron age (c. sixth century B.C. to the end of the third
century A.D.)
3) Early medieval towns and cities (c. eighth/ninth to twelfth centuries A.D.)
Amongst the earliest attempts to define an urban centre one can easily
mention Gord-on Childes notion of Urban Revolution.
He listed monumental buildings, large settlements with dense
population, existence of such people who were not engaged in food
production (rulers, artisans and merchants) and cultivation or art,
science and writing as prominent features to identify an urban centre.

The General Pattern

The post-Gupta centuries witnessed a new socio-economic formation based on the system of
land grants.
The gradual expansion of cultivation and agrarian economy through land grants had an impact
on the growth of towns and cities between eight and twelfth centuries.
Though the overall picture of the Indian sub-continent is that of revival of urban centres, there
are some regional variations as well.

REGIONAL VARIATIONS AND TYPES

Rural Centres Transformed into Urban Centres

The brahmadeyas and devadanas which are seen as important sources of agrarian expansion of
the early medieval period, also provided the nuclei of urban growth.
The Brahmana and temple settlements clustered together in certain key areas of agricultural
production.
The Chola city of Kumbakonam (Kudamukku-Palaiyarai) developed out of agrarian clusters and
become a multi-temple urban centre between the ninth and twelfth centuries.
Kanchipuram is a second example of such an urban complex.

Market Centres, Trade-Network and Itinerant Trade

Early medieval centuries also witnessed the emergence of urban centres of relatively modest
dimensions, as market centres, trade centres (fairs, etc.) which were primarily points of the
exchange network.
This is best illustrated by the nagaram of South India, substantial evidence of which comes from
Tamil Nadu and also to a limited extent by the existence of nakhara and nagaramu in Karanataka
and Andhra Pradesh respectively.
The nagaram served as the market for the nadu or kurram, an agrarian of peasant region.
Nagarams located on important trade routes and at the points of intersection developed into
more important trade and commercial centre of the region.
Such a development occurred uniformally throughout peninsular India between the tenth and
twelfth centuries.
In Karnataka nagaram emerged more as points of exchange in trading network than as regular
markets for agrarian region.
However, the uniform features in all such nagarams is that they acquired a basic agricultural
hinterland for the non-producting urban groups living in such centres.
Markets in these centres were controlled by the nagaram assembly headed by a chief merchant
called pattanasvami.
In the trade with West i.e. Arabia, Persian Gulf and beyond, the West Coast of Peninsular India
played a consistently dominated role from the early historic period.
Several ports such as Thana, Goa, Bhatkal, Karwar, Honavar and Mangalore developed during
the revival of long distance trade, between the tenth and twelfth centuries, with evidence of
coastal shipping and ocean navigation.

Sacred / Pilgrimage Centres

The idea of pilgrimage to religious centres developed in the early medieval period due to the
spread of the cult of Bhakti.
Its expansion in different regions through a process of acculturation and interaction between
the Brahmanical or Sanskritic form of worship and folk or popular cults cut across narrow
sectarian interests.
As a result, some local cult centres of great antiquity as well as those with early associations
with brahmanical and non-brahmanical religions, became pilgrimage centres.
However, those cult centres, which became sacred tirthas attracted worshippers from various
regions.
Pushkara near Ajmer in Rajasthan was a sacred tirtha of regional importance with a dominant
Vaishnava association.
Kasha (Banaras) acquired a pan-Indian character due to its greater antiquity and importance as
a brahmanical sacred centre.
In south India the elaboration of temple structures in sacred centres show two types of urban
growth:
First, it was organized around a single large temple as in Srirangam, Madurai, Tiruvannamali
(Tamil Nadi), Melkote (Karanataka), Draksharama and Simhachalam (Andhra Pradesh).

The second type involves the growth around several temples of different religions such as
Shivaism, Vishnu-is-m and Saktism.
The early medieval urbanization is sometimes characterized as temple urbanization
particularly in the context of south India.
Sacred centres also provided important links in the commerce of a region as temples and the
mathas attached to them were the biggest consumers of luxury articles and value goods.

Royal Centres or Capitals

Royal centres of the seats of power of the ruling families were a major category of urban
centres in early medieval India.
Thus, the commercial needs of royal centres created new trade and commimication links and
built up much closer relationships between the royal centre and their agricultural hinterlands or
resources bases.
In all the regions south of the Vindhyas, were brahmanical kingdoms came to be established by
the eighth century A.D. there is substantial evidence of the growth of such royal centres.
Some representative examples are;
Vatapi and Vengi of the Chalukyas in the northern Karnataka and Andhra,
Kanchipuram of the Pallavas with their royal port at Mamallapuram
Tanjavur of the Chola with Nagappattinam as their port.
Kalyana of the Western Ghalukyas, Dvarasamudra of the Hoysalas, and
Warangal of the Kakatiyas with Motupalli at their port.
Warangal was a rare example of a fortifies royal city in South India,
Examples of royal centres in North India are:
The Gurjara Partihara capital at Kanyakubja (Kanauj).
Khajuraho of the Chandellas.
Dhara of the Paramaras, and
Valabhi of the Solankis.
A fairly large number of cities emerged under the powerful Gujara-Pratiharas, Chahamanas and
Paramaras in Rajasthan.
Most of them were fortified centres, hill forts (garhikila and durga).
Examples of fort-cities in Rajasthan are:
Nagara and Nagda under the Guhilas,
Bayana, Hanumangarh abd Chitor under the Gurjara-Praitharas, and
Mandor, Ranathambhor, Sakambhari and Ajmer under the Chauhans and so on.

Trade and Commerce

TRADE:DEFINITION AND PHASES

The collection, distribution and exchange of goods is called trade.

It is a process which depends on a number of factors such as the nature and quantity of
production, facilities of transport, safety and security of traders, the pattern of exchange; etc.
The historical features of trade during the early medieval times can be best understood if we
divide this period into two broad phases:
i) c.700-900 A.D., and
ii) c 900-1300 A.D.

THE FIRST PHASE (C. A.D.700-900)

The period from A.D. 730-1000. Withnessed wide-spread practice of granting land, not only to
priests arid temples but also to warrior chiefs and state officials.
Even graded state officials such as Mahamandaleshvara, Mandalika, Samanta, Mahasamanta,
Thakura, etc. developed, interests in land.
However, they were different from the actual tillers of the soil and lived on the surplus
extracted from the peasants who were hardly left with anything to trade.
It resulted in the growth of rural economy where local needs were being satisfied locally
through the imposition of numerous restrictions on the mobility of actual producers.
The relative dearth of medium of exchange, viz., metal coins only strengthend this trend.

Medium of Exchange

Since money plays an important role in the sale and purchase of goods, the paucity of actual
coins and the absence of coin-moulds in archaeological finds lead us to believe in the Shrinkage
of trade during the period under survey.
Through first suggested by D.D. Kosambi, it was the publication of Professor R.S. Sharmas
Indian Feudalism in 1965 that brought to focus the paucity of coinage in the post-Gupta times,
its link with trade and commerce and consequent emergence of feudal social formation.

Relative Decline of Trade

Internationally, the fragmentation of political authority and the dispersal of power to local
chiefs, religious grantees, etc. seem to have has an adverse effect, at least in the initial centuries
of the land grant economy.
Many of the intermediary landlords, particularly of less productive areas, resorted to loot and
plunder or excessive taxes on goods passing through their territories.
This must have dampened the enthusiasm of traders and merchants.

The decline of foreign trade was also caused by the expansion of Arabs on the North-west
frontiers of India in the seventh and eighth centuries.
Their presence in the region made overland routes unsafe for Indian merchants.

Urban Settlements: Decay

The first phase was also marked by the decay and desertion of many towns.
It is an important symptom of commercial decline because the towns are primarily the
settlements of people engaged in crafts and commerce.
As trade declined and the demand for craft-goods slumped, the traders and craftsmen living in
towns had to disperse to rural areas for alternative means of livelihood.
Thus towns decayed and townsfolk became a part of village economy.
The commercial activity during the first phase of early medieval period had declined but did not
disappear completely.
In fact, trade in costly and luxury goods meant for the use of kings, feudal chiefs and heads of
temples and monasteries continued to exist.

The Second Phase (c.A.D.900-1300)

This phase is marked by the revival of trade and commerce.

It was also period of agrarian expansion, increased use of money and the re-emergence of
market economy in which goods were produced for exchange rather than for local consumption.
These centuries also witnessed a substantial growth of urban settlements in different parts of
the sub-continent.

Crafts and Industry

The growth of agricultural production was supplemented by increased craft production.

In the first phase of early medieval period the decline of internal and external trade meant the
narrowing down of markets for industrial products.
The production remained largely confined to local and regional needs.
In the second phase, however, we notice a trend towards increased craft production stimulated
the process of both regional and inter regional exchange.
The availability of madder in Bengal and indigo in Gujarat might have acted as important aides
to the growth of textile industry in these, regions.
Manasollasa, a text of the twelfth century, also mentions Paithan, Negapatinam, Kalinga and
Multan as important centres of textile industry.
The oil industry acquired great importance during this period.
From the tenth century onwards, we get more references to the cultivation of oilseeds as well as
to ghanaka or oil mills.
Similarly, references to sugarcane cultivation and cane crushers in this period also indicate large
scale production of jiggery and other forms of sugar.

Besides the agro-based industry, the craftsmanship in mental and leather goods too reached a
high level of excellence.
The literary sources refer to craftsman connected with different types of metals such as copper,
brass, iron, gold, silver, etc.
In the field of leather industry Gujarat occupied an enviable position.
Marco Polo mentions that the people of Gujarat made beautiful leather mats in red and blue
which were skillfully embroiders with figures of birds and animals.
These were in great demand in the Arab World.

Coins and Other Medium of Exchange

The revival of trade received considerable help from the re-emergence of metal money during
the centuries under discussion.
There is, however, substantial discussion about the degree and level of monetization.
Thus texts such as Prabandhachintamani, Lalavati Dravyaparoksha, Lekhapaddhati, etc.
Mention bhagaka, rupaka, vimshatika, karshapana, dinar, drama, nishka, gadhaiya-mudra,
gadyanka, tanka, and many other coins with their multiples.
As far as the actual specimens of coins are connected, one can say that the practice of minting
gold coins was revived by Gangeyadera (A.D. 1019-1040) after gap of more than four centuries.
Govndachandra, the Gahadavala King near Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, the Chandella rulers
Kirttivarman and Madanavarman in Central India, King Harsha of Kashmir and some Chola Kings
in Tamil Nadu also issued gold coins.
Despite the plethora of references to coins, the evidence of overall volume of money in
circulation is almost negligible.
Nor can one overlook the poor purchasing power of early medivel coins, irrespective of the
metal used.
All coins of the period were highly debased and reduced in weight.
In the texts of the period we find references to a device called hundika or the bill of exchange
which might have been used by merchants for commercial transactions.
Through this device credit could be extended by one merchant to another and, thus the obstacle
to commerce due to shortage of coined money could be overcome.
The Lekhapaddhati, a text which throws light on the life of Gujarat in the twelfth-thirteenth
centuries, refer to various means or raising loan for consumption as well as commercial ventures
through the mortgage of land, house and cattle.

ASPECTS OF TRADE

The increased agricultural production and the moment picked by industrial and craft production
were responsible for giving rise to a hierarchy or exchange centres.
These centres functioned beyond the confines of the concerned region.
Thus, both inter-regional and intra-regional exchange networks were creating cracks in the
relatively closed village economy of the first phase (c. A.D. 750-900).

Inland Trade
a) Commodities of Trade and their Consumers
There are numerous inscription which refer to merchants carrying foodgrains, oil,
butter, salt, coconut, arecanuts, betel leaves, madder, indigo, candid sugar, jiggery,
thread cotton fabrics, blankets, metals, spices, etc.
From one place to another, and paying taxes and tools on them.
The chief customers of Indian goods were of course the rich inhabitants of China,
Arabia and Egypt.
Many of the Indian goods might have found their way to Europe as well as via
Mediterranean.
The brahmanical and non-brahmanical religious establishments, which commanded vast
resources in th form of landed estates and local levies, developed as important
consumers of almost all marketable goods.
b) Trade Routes and Means of Communication
A vast network of roads connected different ports, markets and towns with one another
and served as the channel of trade and commerce.
The overland connections amongst different regions is indicated by the itinerary of the
Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang who came to India in the seventh century from across the
Hindukush and visited various towns and capitals from Kashmir in North to Kanchi in
South and from Assam in East to Sindh in West.
Arabic and Persian accounts provide us a more detailed information on the
contempororary trade-routes.
Alberuni (A.D. 1030) mentions fifteen routes which started from Kannauj, Mathura,
bayana, etc.
A significant development in the post-tenth centuries was the keen interest shown by
rulers to keep the highways in their kingdoms safe.
They took measures to punish thiefs and robbers and provided military as well as
monetary help to villagers to protect the traders and travelers passing through their
region.
The Chalukya kings of Gujarat had a separate department called the Jiala-patha-karana
to look after highways.
They also built new roads to connect important ports and markets in their state and
excavated tanks and wells for the benefit or travelers.
Trade being an important source or revenue, political authorities had to be concerned
about the safety and well being of traders and merchants.
Maritime trade

During this period large scale trading activities were carried through sea.

(a) The Chief Participants

The period under survey was marked by great expansion of sea trade between the two
extremities of Asia, viz., the Persian Gulf and South China.
India which lay midway between the two extremities greatly benefited from this trade.
The hazards of long sea voyages were sought to be curtailed by anchoring on the Indian
coasts.
(b) Commodities Exchanged
As regards the articles involved in the Asian trade, the Chinese texts indicate that the
Malabar coast received silk, porcelain-were, camphor, cloves, wax sandalwood,
cardamom, etc. from China and South-east Asia.
Most of these may have been the items of re-export to the Arabian world, but some
were meant for India, particulary the silk which was always in great demand in local
markets.
Marco Polo informs us that the ships coming from the east to the ports of Cambay in
Gujarat brought, among other things, gold, silver and copper.
Tin was another metal which came to India from South-east Asia.
In return for eastern products India sent its aromatics and spices particulary pepper.
It is pointed out by Ibn Battuta (A.D. 1333) that fine cotton fabrics were rarer and more
highly priced than silk in the cities of China.
India also exported ivory, rhinoceros horns and some precious and semiprecious stones
to China.
As far as imports from the West are concerned, the most significant item was the horse.
As the number of feudal lords and chiefs increased in the early medieval period, the
demand for horses also increased manifold.
Horses were brought both by land and sea.
Ports

There were, a number, of ports on the Indian coast; which not only served the inland trade
network but also acted as a link between the eastern and western trade, In fact, almost every
creek that could provide facility for a safe anchorage of ships, developed into a port of some
national or international significance.
On the mouth of the Indis, Debal was an important port which according to Al Idrisi (twelfth
century), was visited by vessels from Arbia as well as from China and other Indian ports.
Chief ports on the Gujarat coast were Somanatha, Broach and Cambay.
Somanatha had links with China in the East and Zanzibar (in Africa) in the West.
Broach or ancient Bhrigukachha has had a very long history.
Cambay is known as Khambayat in Arbic sources, and Stambhatirtha in Sanskrit sources.
Its earliest reference goes back to the ninth century A.D. Sopara and Thana were other
important ports on the Western coast of India.
On the Malabar coast, Quilon had emerged as the most important port.

The Arab Writers tell us that ships coming from the West called at the port of Quilon for
collection fresh water before sailing for Kedah in South-east Asia.
Similarly, the Chinese traders going to the country of the Arabs had to change their ships at
Quilon.
During the three centuries between the tenth and thirteenth, the Coromandal coast developed
into a virtual clearing house for the ships coming from the East and West.
The Arab author; Wassaf, tells us that the wealth of the isles of the Persian Gulf and the beauty
of other countries as far as Europe is derived from the Coromandel coast.
The most important port in this region was Nagapattinam, Puri and Kalingapattam were
important ports on the Orissa coast.
In Bengal the fortunes of Tamralipti were reviving though according to some scholors, it was
being superceded by another port of Saptagrama.

Trading Communities and Organisation

TRADERS AS A LINK

The traders form an important link between producers and consumers.

They collect agricultural surplus and products of artisans and craftsmen from different regions
and distribute them over a wide area.
They trade not only in finished goods but also in raw material and, thus, play a significant role in
the development of economy.

Position of Merchants During the First Phase (c. A.D. 700-900)

In view of the relative decline of trade during these centuries, the role of merchants in the
society was considerably eroded.
As trade slumped and markets disappeared, the merchants had to seek patronage and shelter
with the temples and other emerging landed magnates.
It robbed them of their independent commercial activity, and forced them to cater to the needs
and requirements of their patrons.

Position of Merchants During the Second Phase (c. A.D. 900-1300)

The second phase or early medieval India brought the mercantile community back into
prominence, and we notice large number of merchants carrying luxury and essential goods from
one place to another.
They accumulated fabulous wealth through commercial exchanges and acquired fame in society
by making gifts to temples and proests.
Many of them took active part at various levels of administration, and even occupied the
ministerial positions in royal courts.
Money lending also became one of the major activities of merchants.
Though people deposited money in temple treasury for the religious purpose of endowing
flower, oil, lamps, there are very few references to guilds accepting deposits and paying interest
thereon.
There emerged a separate group of merchants, called nikshepa-vanika in western India, who
specialized in banking or moneylending.
This period also witness the emergence of many regional merchant groups, i.e. the merchants
who were known after the region they belonged to.
Thus, the merchants groups called Oswal derive their name from a place called Osia, Palivalas
from Patlli, Shrimali from Shrimala, Modha from Modhera and so on.
Most of them are now a days collectively known as Marwris, i.e. the merchants from Marwar.
Apart from their functional and regional names, merchants were also known by various general
terms, the two most, common being-shreshthi and sarthavaha.

Sresthi was a rich wholesale dealer who lived in a town and carried on his business with the help
of retailers and agents.
At times he lent out goods or money to small merchants, and thus acted as abanker too, though,
as we have already pointed out, moneylinding was becoming a separate an specialized activity.
The sarthavaha was the caravan leader under whose guidance the merchants went to distant
place to sell and purchase their goods.
He was supposed to be a highly capable person knowing not only the routes but also the
languages, as well as the rules of exchange in different regions.

SOCIAL ROLE OF TRADERS

As growth of trade brought economic prosperity to merchants, they sought to gain social
prestige by participating in the maintenance of temples, priests and religious functions.
Numerous inscription refer to the grant of cash or goods by merchants for these purpose.
Some merchants became very influential and joined the ranks of the state officials and
ministers.
A tenth century inscription refers to a merchant of Modha caste who was the chief of Sanjan
(near Thane) in Maharastra.
In Gujarat, the merchant family of Vimala played an important role in the political and cultural
life of the region.
He and his descendants Vastupala and Tajapala occupied important ministerial positions at the
court and are known for building the famous marble temples dedicated to Jaina gods ar Maunt
Abu.

Character and Conduct of Traders

The foreign authors and travelers such as Al-Idrisi (twelfth century) and Marco Polo (thirteenth
centuary) praise Indian traders for their truthfulness and honesty in business dealings.

ORGANISATION OF TRADERS
Guilds: Definition and Functions

The guilds were voluntary associations of merchants dealing in the same type of commodity
such as grains, textiles, betl leaves, horses, perfumes, etc.
They were formed by both local as well as itinerant merchants.
The association of local merchants having permanent. Residence in town was more permanent
in nature than the association of itinerant merchants which was formed only for a specific
journey and was terminated at the end of each venture.
The guilds framed their own rules and regulation regarding the membership and the code of
conduct.
They fixed the price of their goods and could even decide that specific commodity was not be
sold on a particular day by its members.

The guild normally worked under the leadership of a chief who was elected by its members.
He performed the functions of a magistrate in deciding the economic affairs of the guild.
He could punish, condemn or even expel those members who violated the guid rules.
One of his main duties was to deal directly with the King, and settle the market tolls and taxes
on behalf of his fellow merchants.
The digests and commentaries of the period refer to the corporate body of merchants, various
term, such as naigama, shreni, samuha, sartha, samgha, etc.
The naigama is described as an association of caravan merchants of different castes who travel
together for the purpose of carrying on trade with other countries.
Shreni, according to Medhatithi, was a group of people following the same profession such as
that of traders, moneylenders, artisans, etc.
Though some authors considered it to be a group of artisans alone.
The Lekhapaddhati indicates that a special department called the Shreni-karana was constituted
by the kings of western India to took after the activities of the guilds of merchants and artisans
in their region.
Another text Manasollasa reveals that many merchant guilds maintained their own troops
(shernibala) for personal safety.
Inscriptions too refer to the corporate activity of merchants.
An inscription from western India refers to venika-mandala which was probably a guild of local
merchants.

Organization of Trading Guilds in South India

The expansion of agriculture and the growth of trade from the tenth century led to the
emergence of merchant guilds or organization in South India too.
The inscription refer to these organization often as samaya, i.e. an organization born out of an
agreement or contract among its members to follow a set of rules and regulations.
The two most important merchant guilds of South India were known as the Ayyavole and the
Manigraman.
Geographically, the area of their operation corresponded to the present day state of
Maharastra, Karnataka. Tamil Nadu and South Andhra Pradesh.
The Chola kings from the tenth centuary onwards made a concerted effort to trade and
commerce through trade missions, maritime expeditions, abolition of tolls, etc.
It greatly increased the activities of these guilds which were involved in not only inter-regional
but also inter-oceanic trade across the Bay of Bengal.
The merchant guild called Ayyavole was also known as the guild of the 500 Swami of Aihole
nanadeshi.
While some have argued that such organization were primarily traders in various types or
merchandise and not a single unified corporation of merchants, a detailed study of Kannada
Ayyavole shows that the association formed small and workable federations extending over a
district or two.
The organization might have had an initial membership of 500.

But there is no denying the fact that with the growth of trade and commerce, the Vira Bananjas
(representing the trading guild of Ayyavole) operated on a trans-regional plane and had
developed deep socio-economic interests between the ninth and fifteenth centuries.

Relationship between Merchants and Craftsmen

The exact nature of relationship between the merchants and craftmen, the two interdependent
sections of commercial world, is not recorded in the contemporary sources.
It is, thereforce, not know whether craftsmen such as wavers, metal-workers, etc. acted
independently or worked under the command of merchants who supplied them money or raw
material or both.
There is however, some evidence to suggest that as merchants came to exert greater control on
the mobilization of raw material and finished products, their influence on the activities of
artisans increased considerably.
Albiruni, who came to India in the eleventh century as well as Lakshmidhara, a jurist of the
twelfth century, tell us that artisans lived in the midst of merchants.
It may suggest that merchants supplied capital and raw material to artisans who were to
produce goods as per the demand and specifications provided by merchants.
An inscription of the 11th centuary from Erode in Tamil Nadu refers to an asylum given by
merchants to the craftmen, and thus indicates the dependence of the latter on the merchant
organizations.
As trade and commerce developed, merchants tended to monopolose the commercial network
of sale and purchase.
It greatly restricted the ability of artisans of artisans to market their good personally.
There are references to some oilmen and weavers who sold their goods themselves and
became rich enough to make endowments to temples and priests.
In general, the artisans and craftsmen during the early medieval period were economically
dependent on big merchants.

Urban Settlements
FORM AND SUBSTANCES OF URBAN CENTRES
Phase and Definition

How do we define an urban centre and what are its essential traints; are some of the questions
that we take up here.
Prior to the coming of the Turks, the Indian sub-continent experienced at least three phases of
urban growth:
4) During the bronze age Harappan civilization (fourth-second millennium B.C.),
5) Early historic urban centres of the iron age (c. sixth century B.C. to the end of the third
century A.D.)
6) Early medieval towns and cities (c. eighth/ninth to twelfth centuries A.D.)
Amongst the earliest attempts to define an urban centre one can easily
mention Gord-on Childes notion of Urban Revolution.
He listed monumental buildings, large settlements with dense
population, existence of such people who were not engaged in food
production (rulers, artisans and merchants) and cultivation or art,
science and writing as prominent features to identify an urban centre.

The General Pattern

The post-Gupta centuries witnessed a new socio-economic formation based on the system of
land grants.
The gradual expansion of cultivation and agrarian economy through land grants had an impact
on the growth of towns and cities between eight and twelfth centuries.
Though the overall picture of the Indian sub-continent is that of revival of urban centres, there
are some regional variations as well.

REGIONAL VARIATIONS AND TYPES

Rural Centres Transformed into Urban Centres

The brahmadeyas and devadanas which are seen as important sources of agrarian expansion of
the early medieval period, also provided the nuclei of urban growth.
The Brahmana and temple settlements clustered together in certain key areas of agricultural
production.
The Chola city of Kumbakonam (Kudamukku-Palaiyarai) developed out of agrarian clusters and
become a multi-temple urban centre between the ninth and twelfth centuries.

Kanchipuram is a second example of such an urban complex.

Market Centres, Trade-Network and Itinerant Trade

Early medieval centuries also witnessed the emergence of urban centres of relatively modest
dimensions, as market centres, trade centres (fairs, etc.) which were primarily points of the
exchange network.
This is best illustrated by the nagaram of South India, substantial evidence of which comes from
Tamil Nadu and also to a limited extent by the existence of nakhara and nagaramu in Karanataka
and Andhra Pradesh respectively.
The nagaram served as the market for the nadu or kurram, an agrarian of peasant region.
Nagarams located on important trade routes and at the points of intersection developed into
more important trade and commercial centre of the region.
Such a development occurred uniformally throughout peninsular India between the tenth and
twelfth centuries.
In Karnataka nagaram emerged more as points of exchange in trading network than as regular
markets for agrarian region.
However, the uniform features in all such nagarams is that they acquired a basic agricultural
hinterland for the non-producting urban groups living in such centres.
Markets in these centres were controlled by the nagaram assembly headed by a chief merchant
called pattanasvami.
In the trade with West i.e. Arabia, Persian Gulf and beyond, the West Coast of Peninsular India
played a consistently dominated role from the early historic period.
Several ports such as Thana, Goa, Bhatkal, Karwar, Honavar and Mangalore developed during
the revival of long distance trade, between the tenth and twelfth centuries, with evidence of
coastal shipping and ocean navigation.

Sacred / Pilgrimage Centres

The idea of pilgrimage to religious centres developed in the early medieval period due to the
spread of the cult of Bhakti.
Its expansion in different regions through a process of acculturation and interaction between
the Brahmanical or Sanskritic form of worship and folk or popular cults cut across narrow
sectarian interests.
As a result, some local cult centres of great antiquity as well as those with early associations
with brahmanical and non-brahmanical religions, became pilgrimage centres.
However, those cult centres, which became sacred tirthas attracted worshippers from various
regions.
Pushkara near Ajmer in Rajasthan was a sacred tirtha of regional importance with a dominant
Vaishnava association.
Kasha (Banaras) acquired a pan-Indian character due to its greater antiquity and importance as
a brahmanical sacred centre.

In south India the elaboration of temple structures in sacred centres show two types of urban
growth:
First, it was organized around a single large temple as in Srirangam, Madurai, Tiruvannamali
(Tamil Nadi), Melkote (Karanataka), Draksharama and Simhachalam (Andhra Pradesh).
The second type involves the growth around several temples of different religions such as
Shivaism, Vishnu-is-m and Saktism.
The early medieval urbanization is sometimes characterized as temple urbanization
particularly in the context of south India.
Sacred centres also provided important links in the commerce of a region as temples and the
mathas attached to them were the biggest consumers of luxury articles and value goods.

Royal Centres or Capitals

Royal centres of the seats of power of the ruling families were a major category of urban
centres in early medieval India.
Thus, the commercial needs of royal centres created new trade and commimication links and
built up much closer relationships between the royal centre and their agricultural hinterlands or
resources bases.
In all the regions south of the Vindhyas, were brahmanical kingdoms came to be established by
the eighth century A.D. there is substantial evidence of the growth of such royal centres.
Some representative examples are;
Vatapi and Vengi of the Chalukyas in the northern Karnataka and Andhra,
Kanchipuram of the Pallavas with their royal port at Mamallapuram
Tanjavur of the Chola with Nagappattinam as their port.
Kalyana of the Western Ghalukyas, Dvarasamudra of the Hoysalas, and
Warangal of the Kakatiyas with Motupalli at their port.
Warangal was a rare example of a fortifies royal city in South India,
Examples of royal centres in North India are:
The Gurjara Partihara capital at Kanyakubja (Kanauj).
Khajuraho of the Chandellas.
Dhara of the Paramaras, and
Valabhi of the Solankis.
A fairly large number of cities emerged under the powerful Gujara-Pratiharas, Chahamanas and
Paramaras in Rajasthan.
Most of them were fortified centres, hill forts (garhikila and durga).
Examples of fort-cities in Rajasthan are:
Nagara and Nagda under the Guhilas,
Bayana, Hanumangarh abd Chitor under the Gurjara-Praitharas, and
Mandor, Ranathambhor, Sakambhari and Ajmer under the Chauhans and so on.

Trade and Commerce

TRADE:DEFINITION AND PHASES

The collection, distribution and exchange of goods is called trade.

It is a process which depends on a number of factors such as the nature and quantity of
production, facilities of transport, safety and security of traders, the pattern of exchange; etc.
The historical features of trade during the early medieval times can be best understood if we
divide this period into two broad phases:
iii) c.700-900 A.D., and
iv) c 900-1300 A.D.

THE FIRST PHASE (C. A.D.700-900)

The period from A.D. 730-1000. Withnessed wide-spread practice of granting land, not only to
priests arid temples but also to warrior chiefs and state officials.
Even graded state officials such as Mahamandaleshvara, Mandalika, Samanta, Mahasamanta,
Thakura, etc. developed, interests in land.
However, they were different from the actual tillers of the soil and lived on the surplus
extracted from the peasants who were hardly left with anything to trade.
It resulted in the growth of rural economy where local needs were being satisfied locally
through the imposition of numerous restrictions on the mobility of actual producers.
The relative dearth of medium of exchange, viz., metal coins only strengthend this trend.

Medium of Exchange

Since money plays an important role in the sale and purchase of goods, the paucity of actual
coins and the absence of coin-moulds in archaeological finds lead us to believe in the Shrinkage
of trade during the period under survey.
Through first suggested by D.D. Kosambi, it was the publication of Professor R.S. Sharmas
Indian Feudalism in 1965 that brought to focus the paucity of coinage in the post-Gupta times,
its link with trade and commerce and consequent emergence of feudal social formation.

Relative Decline of Trade

Internationally, the fragmentation of political authority and the dispersal of power to local
chiefs, religious grantees, etc. seem to have has an adverse effect, at least in the initial centuries
of the land grant economy.
Many of the intermediary landlords, particularly of less productive areas, resorted to loot and
plunder or excessive taxes on goods passing through their territories.
This must have dampened the enthusiasm of traders and merchants.

The decline of foreign trade was also caused by the expansion of Arabs on the North-west
frontiers of India in the seventh and eighth centuries.
Their presence in the region made overland routes unsafe for Indian merchants.

Urban Settlements: Decay

The first phase was also marked by the decay and desertion of many towns.
It is an important symptom of commercial decline because the towns are primarily the
settlements of people engaged in crafts and commerce.
As trade declined and the demand for craft-goods slumped, the traders and craftsmen living in
towns had to disperse to rural areas for alternative means of livelihood.
Thus towns decayed and townsfolk became a part of village economy.
The commercial activity during the first phase of early medieval period had declined but did not
disappear completely.
In fact, trade in costly and luxury goods meant for the use of kings, feudal chiefs and heads of
temples and monasteries continued to exist.

The Second Phase (c.A.D.900-1300)

This phase is marked by the revival of trade and commerce.

It was also period of agrarian expansion, increased use of money and the re-emergence of
market economy in which goods were produced for exchange rather than for local consumption.
These centuries also witnessed a substantial growth of urban settlements in different parts of
the sub-continent.

Crafts and Industry

The growth of agricultural production was supplemented by increased craft production.

In the first phase of early medieval period the decline of internal and external trade meant the
narrowing down of markets for industrial products.
The production remained largely confined to local and regional needs.
In the second phase, however, we notice a trend towards increased craft production stimulated
the process of both regional and inter regional exchange.
The availability of madder in Bengal and indigo in Gujarat might have acted as important aides
to the growth of textile industry in these, regions.
Manasollasa, a text of the twelfth century, also mentions Paithan, Negapatinam, Kalinga and
Multan as important centres of textile industry.
The oil industry acquired great importance during this period.
From the tenth century onwards, we get more references to the cultivation of oilseeds as well as
to ghanaka or oil mills.
Similarly, references to sugarcane cultivation and cane crushers in this period also indicate large
scale production of jiggery and other forms of sugar.

Besides the agro-based industry, the craftsmanship in mental and leather goods too reached a
high level of excellence.
The literary sources refer to craftsman connected with different types of metals such as copper,
brass, iron, gold, silver, etc.
In the field of leather industry Gujarat occupied an enviable position.
Marco Polo mentions that the people of Gujarat made beautiful leather mats in red and blue
which were skillfully embroiders with figures of birds and animals.
These were in great demand in the Arab World.

Coins and Other Medium of Exchange

The revival of trade received considerable help from the re-emergence of metal money during
the centuries under discussion.
There is, however, substantial discussion about the degree and level of monetization.
Thus texts such as Prabandhachintamani, Lalavati Dravyaparoksha, Lekhapaddhati, etc.
Mention bhagaka, rupaka, vimshatika, karshapana, dinar, drama, nishka, gadhaiya-mudra,
gadyanka, tanka, and many other coins with their multiples.
As far as the actual specimens of coins are connected, one can say that the practice of minting
gold coins was revived by Gangeyadera (A.D. 1019-1040) after gap of more than four centuries.
Govndachandra, the Gahadavala King near Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, the Chandella rulers
Kirttivarman and Madanavarman in Central India, King Harsha of Kashmir and some Chola Kings
in Tamil Nadu also issued gold coins.
Despite the plethora of references to coins, the evidence of overall volume of money in
circulation is almost negligible.
Nor can one overlook the poor purchasing power of early medivel coins, irrespective of the
metal used.
All coins of the period were highly debased and reduced in weight.
In the texts of the period we find references to a device called hundika or the bill of exchange
which might have been used by merchants for commercial transactions.
Through this device credit could be extended by one merchant to another and, thus the obstacle
to commerce due to shortage of coined money could be overcome.
The Lekhapaddhati, a text which throws light on the life of Gujarat in the twelfth-thirteenth
centuries, refer to various means or raising loan for consumption as well as commercial ventures
through the mortgage of land, house and cattle.

ASPECTS OF TRADE

The increased agricultural production and the moment picked by industrial and craft production
were responsible for giving rise to a hierarchy or exchange centres.
These centres functioned beyond the confines of the concerned region.
Thus, both inter-regional and intra-regional exchange networks were creating cracks in the
relatively closed village economy of the first phase (c. A.D. 750-900).

Inland Trade
c) Commodities of Trade and their Consumers
There are numerous inscription which refer to merchants carrying foodgrains, oil,
butter, salt, coconut, arecanuts, betel leaves, madder, indigo, candid sugar, jiggery,
thread cotton fabrics, blankets, metals, spices, etc.
From one place to another, and paying taxes and tools on them.
The chief customers of Indian goods were of course the rich inhabitants of China,
Arabia and Egypt.
Many of the Indian goods might have found their way to Europe as well as via
Mediterranean.
The brahmanical and non-brahmanical religious establishments, which commanded vast
resources in th form of landed estates and local levies, developed as important
consumers of almost all marketable goods.
d) Trade Routes and Means of Communication
A vast network of roads connected different ports, markets and towns with one another
and served as the channel of trade and commerce.
The overland connections amongst different regions is indicated by the itinerary of the
Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang who came to India in the seventh century from across the
Hindukush and visited various towns and capitals from Kashmir in North to Kanchi in
South and from Assam in East to Sindh in West.
Arabic and Persian accounts provide us a more detailed information on the
contempororary trade-routes.
Alberuni (A.D. 1030) mentions fifteen routes which started from Kannauj, Mathura,
bayana, etc.
A significant development in the post-tenth centuries was the keen interest shown by
rulers to keep the highways in their kingdoms safe.
They took measures to punish thiefs and robbers and provided military as well as
monetary help to villagers to protect the traders and travelers passing through their
region.
The Chalukya kings of Gujarat had a separate department called the Jiala-patha-karana
to look after highways.
They also built new roads to connect important ports and markets in their state and
excavated tanks and wells for the benefit or travelers.
Trade being an important source or revenue, political authorities had to be concerned
about the safety and well being of traders and merchants.
Maritime trade

During this period large scale trading activities were carried through sea.

(c) The Chief Participants

The period under survey was marked by great expansion of sea trade between the two
extremities of Asia, viz., the Persian Gulf and South China.
India which lay midway between the two extremities greatly benefited from this trade.
The hazards of long sea voyages were sought to be curtailed by anchoring on the Indian
coasts.
(d) Commodities Exchanged
As regards the articles involved in the Asian trade, the Chinese texts indicate that the
Malabar coast received silk, porcelain-were, camphor, cloves, wax sandalwood,
cardamom, etc. from China and South-east Asia.
Most of these may have been the items of re-export to the Arabian world, but some
were meant for India, particulary the silk which was always in great demand in local
markets.
Marco Polo informs us that the ships coming from the east to the ports of Cambay in
Gujarat brought, among other things, gold, silver and copper.
Tin was another metal which came to India from South-east Asia.
In return for eastern products India sent its aromatics and spices particulary pepper.
It is pointed out by Ibn Battuta (A.D. 1333) that fine cotton fabrics were rarer and more
highly priced than silk in the cities of China.
India also exported ivory, rhinoceros horns and some precious and semiprecious stones
to China.
As far as imports from the West are concerned, the most significant item was the horse.
As the number of feudal lords and chiefs increased in the early medieval period, the
demand for horses also increased manifold.
Horses were brought both by land and sea.
Ports

There were, a number, of ports on the Indian coast; which not only served the inland trade
network but also acted as a link between the eastern and western trade, In fact, almost every
creek that could provide facility for a safe anchorage of ships, developed into a port of some
national or international significance.
On the mouth of the Indis, Debal was an important port which according to Al Idrisi (twelfth
century), was visited by vessels from Arbia as well as from China and other Indian ports.
Chief ports on the Gujarat coast were Somanatha, Broach and Cambay.
Somanatha had links with China in the East and Zanzibar (in Africa) in the West.
Broach or ancient Bhrigukachha has had a very long history.
Cambay is known as Khambayat in Arbic sources, and Stambhatirtha in Sanskrit sources.
Its earliest reference goes back to the ninth century A.D. Sopara and Thana were other
important ports on the Western coast of India.
On the Malabar coast, Quilon had emerged as the most important port.

The Arab Writers tell us that ships coming from the West called at the port of Quilon for
collection fresh water before sailing for Kedah in South-east Asia.
Similarly, the Chinese traders going to the country of the Arabs had to change their ships at
Quilon.
During the three centuries between the tenth and thirteenth, the Coromandal coast developed
into a virtual clearing house for the ships coming from the East and West.
The Arab author; Wassaf, tells us that the wealth of the isles of the Persian Gulf and the beauty
of other countries as far as Europe is derived from the Coromandel coast.
The most important port in this region was Nagapattinam, Puri and Kalingapattam were
important ports on the Orissa coast.
In Bengal the fortunes of Tamralipti were reviving though according to some scholors, it was
being superceded by another port of Saptagrama.

Trading Communities and Organisation

TRADERS AS A LINK

The traders form an important link between producers and consumers.

They collect agricultural surplus and products of artisans and craftsmen from different regions
and distribute them over a wide area.
They trade not only in finished goods but also in raw material and, thus, play a significant role in
the development of economy.

Position of Merchants During the First Phase (c. A.D. 700-900)

In view of the relative decline of trade during these centuries, the role of merchants in the
society was considerably eroded.
As trade slumped and markets disappeared, the merchants had to seek patronage and shelter
with the temples and other emerging landed magnates.
It robbed them of their independent commercial activity, and forced them to cater to the needs
and requirements of their patrons.

Position of Merchants During the Second Phase (c. A.D. 900-1300)

The second phase or early medieval India brought the mercantile community back into
prominence, and we notice large number of merchants carrying luxury and essential goods from
one place to another.
They accumulated fabulous wealth through commercial exchanges and acquired fame in society
by making gifts to temples and proests.
Many of them took active part at various levels of administration, and even occupied the
ministerial positions in royal courts.
Money lending also became one of the major activities of merchants.
Though people deposited money in temple treasury for the religious purpose of endowing
flower, oil, lamps, there are very few references to guilds accepting deposits and paying interest
thereon.
There emerged a separate group of merchants, called nikshepa-vanika in western India, who
specialized in banking or moneylending.
This period also witness the emergence of many regional merchant groups, i.e. the merchants
who were known after the region they belonged to.
Thus, the merchants groups called Oswal derive their name from a place called Osia, Palivalas
from Patlli, Shrimali from Shrimala, Modha from Modhera and so on.
Most of them are now a days collectively known as Marwris, i.e. the merchants from Marwar.
Apart from their functional and regional names, merchants were also known by various general
terms, the two most, common being-shreshthi and sarthavaha.

Sresthi was a rich wholesale dealer who lived in a town and carried on his business with the help
of retailers and agents.
At times he lent out goods or money to small merchants, and thus acted as abanker too, though,
as we have already pointed out, moneylinding was becoming a separate an specialized activity.
The sarthavaha was the caravan leader under whose guidance the merchants went to distant
place to sell and purchase their goods.
He was supposed to be a highly capable person knowing not only the routes but also the
languages, as well as the rules of exchange in different regions.

SOCIAL ROLE OF TRADERS

As growth of trade brought economic prosperity to merchants, they sought to gain social
prestige by participating in the maintenance of temples, priests and religious functions.
Numerous inscription refer to the grant of cash or goods by merchants for these purpose.
Some merchants became very influential and joined the ranks of the state officials and
ministers.
A tenth century inscription refers to a merchant of Modha caste who was the chief of Sanjan
(near Thane) in Maharastra.
In Gujarat, the merchant family of Vimala played an important role in the political and cultural
life of the region.
He and his descendants Vastupala and Tajapala occupied important ministerial positions at the
court and are known for building the famous marble temples dedicated to Jaina gods ar Maunt
Abu.

Character and Conduct of Traders

The foreign authors and travelers such as Al-Idrisi (twelfth century) and Marco Polo (thirteenth
centuary) praise Indian traders for their truthfulness and honesty in business dealings.

ORGANISATION OF TRADERS
Guilds: Definition and Functions

The guilds were voluntary associations of merchants dealing in the same type of commodity
such as grains, textiles, betl leaves, horses, perfumes, etc.
They were formed by both local as well as itinerant merchants.
The association of local merchants having permanent. Residence in town was more permanent
in nature than the association of itinerant merchants which was formed only for a specific
journey and was terminated at the end of each venture.
The guilds framed their own rules and regulation regarding the membership and the code of
conduct.
They fixed the price of their goods and could even decide that specific commodity was not be
sold on a particular day by its members.

The guild normally worked under the leadership of a chief who was elected by its members.
He performed the functions of a magistrate in deciding the economic affairs of the guild.
He could punish, condemn or even expel those members who violated the guid rules.
One of his main duties was to deal directly with the King, and settle the market tolls and taxes
on behalf of his fellow merchants.
The digests and commentaries of the period refer to the corporate body of merchants, various
term, such as naigama, shreni, samuha, sartha, samgha, etc.
The naigama is described as an association of caravan merchants of different castes who travel
together for the purpose of carrying on trade with other countries.
Shreni, according to Medhatithi, was a group of people following the same profession such as
that of traders, moneylenders, artisans, etc.
Though some authors considered it to be a group of artisans alone.
The Lekhapaddhati indicates that a special department called the Shreni-karana was constituted
by the kings of western India to took after the activities of the guilds of merchants and artisans
in their region.
Another text Manasollasa reveals that many merchant guilds maintained their own troops
(shernibala) for personal safety.
Inscriptions too refer to the corporate activity of merchants.
An inscription from western India refers to venika-mandala which was probably a guild of local
merchants.

Organization of Trading Guilds in South India

The expansion of agriculture and the growth of trade from the tenth century led to the
emergence of merchant guilds or organization in South India too.
The inscription refer to these organization often as samaya, i.e. an organization born out of an
agreement or contract among its members to follow a set of rules and regulations.
The two most important merchant guilds of South India were known as the Ayyavole and the
Manigraman.
Geographically, the area of their operation corresponded to the present day state of
Maharastra, Karnataka. Tamil Nadu and South Andhra Pradesh.
The Chola kings from the tenth centuary onwards made a concerted effort to trade and
commerce through trade missions, maritime expeditions, abolition of tolls, etc.
It greatly increased the activities of these guilds which were involved in not only inter-regional
but also inter-oceanic trade across the Bay of Bengal.
The merchant guild called Ayyavole was also known as the guild of the 500 Swami of Aihole
nanadeshi.
While some have argued that such organization were primarily traders in various types or
merchandise and not a single unified corporation of merchants, a detailed study of Kannada
Ayyavole shows that the association formed small and workable federations extending over a
district or two.
The organization might have had an initial membership of 500.

But there is no denying the fact that with the growth of trade and commerce, the Vira Bananjas
(representing the trading guild of Ayyavole) operated on a trans-regional plane and had
developed deep socio-economic interests between the ninth and fifteenth centuries.

Relationship between Merchants and Craftsmen

The exact nature of relationship between the merchants and craftmen, the two interdependent
sections of commercial world, is not recorded in the contemporary sources.
It is, thereforce, not know whether craftsmen such as wavers, metal-workers, etc. acted
independently or worked under the command of merchants who supplied them money or raw
material or both.
There is however, some evidence to suggest that as merchants came to exert greater control on
the mobilization of raw material and finished products, their influence on the activities of
artisans increased considerably.
Albiruni, who came to India in the eleventh century as well as Lakshmidhara, a jurist of the
twelfth century, tell us that artisans lived in the midst of merchants.
It may suggest that merchants supplied capital and raw material to artisans who were to
produce goods as per the demand and specifications provided by merchants.
An inscription of the 11th centuary from Erode in Tamil Nadu refers to an asylum given by
merchants to the craftmen, and thus indicates the dependence of the latter on the merchant
organizations.
As trade and commerce developed, merchants tended to monopolose the commercial network
of sale and purchase.
It greatly restricted the ability of artisans of artisans to market their good personally.
There are references to some oilmen and weavers who sold their goods themselves and
became rich enough to make endowments to temples and priests.
In general, the artisans and craftsmen during the early medieval period were economically
dependent on big merchants.

Economy of Delhi Sultanate

State and Economy
INTRODUCTION

In the opinion of Muhammad Habib, the economic changes that occurred as a consequence of
the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate created an organization considerably superior to the
one that had existed before.
He felt that the changes were drastic enough to deserve the designation of Urban Revolution
and Rural Revolution.
D.D. Kosambi recognized that hidebound customs in the adaption and transmission of new
techniques were broken down by the Islamic raiders, but he regarded the changes no more
than intensifying elements already present in India feudalism.

DISTRIBUTION OF REVENUE RESOURCES

During the 13 th century, large territories rapidly passed into the hands of the Sultans.
The newly conqured areas were initially divided up among the commanders who managed
themselves and their troops by plundering of by extracting tribute from the defeated and
subjected rural, the soldiers were paid their salaries in cash.
The regions that refused to pay land-tax or kharaj were known as mawas and were plundered
or forced to pay through military raids.
Gradually a mechanism of simultaneous revenue collection and sistribution had to be
introduced.

Iqta and Khalisa

The classical definition of the iqta system has been given by Nizam-ulMulk Tusi, a Seljuq
statesman of the 11 th century.
According to Tusis definition, the Iqta was a revenue assignment that the muqti was entitled to
collect in proper manner the land tax and other taxes due to the Sultan, he had no further
claims on the person, women and children, land or other possessions of the cultivators.
The muqti had certain obligations to the Sultan the chief being the maintenance of troops and
furnishing them at call to the Sultan.
The iqta was a transferable charge and the transfers of iqtas were frequent.
Khalisa: The territory whose revenues were directly collected for the Sultans own treasury was
designated khalisa.
Its size seems to have expanded quite considerably under Alauddin Khalji.
But the khalisa did not appear to consist of shifting territories scattered throughout the country.

In all probability, Delhi along with its surrounding district, including parts of Doab remained in
khalisa.
In IItutmishs time Tabarhinda (Bhatinda) too was in khalisa.
Under Alauddin Khalji, the khalisa covered the whole of middle Doab and parts of Rohilkhand.
But during the days of Feroz, the khalisa perhaps had reduced considerably in size.

Land Grants

The religious persons and institutions such as dargahs, mosques, madrasas and other
dependents of the ruling class were maintained by making grants of revenue income.
These revenue grants were called milk, idrar, and inam.
These grants were not generally resumed to transferred.
But the sultan had the right to cancel them.
Alauddin Khalji is reputed to have cancelled almost all grants.
Ghiyasuddin Tughluq too cancelled large number of grants.
However, Feroz Tughluq made a departure and not only returned all the previously resumed
grants but also made new grants as well.
In spite of this generosity of the Sultan, according to the figures recorded by Afif, the total
grants by the Sultan accounted only for about one-twentieth of the total jama (estimated
revenue income).
Nobels, too, made revenue grants out their own iqtas.
Noticeably, the Sultans made grants not only in the khalisa but also in the Iqtas.
These grants covered cultivated as well as cultivable areas not yet brought under plough.

Land Revenue and its Extraction

The Islamic land tax with which the new rulers of India were familiar was kharaj.
The kharaj was essentially a share in the produce of the land and not a rent on the land.
During the 13th century, the kharaj took by and large the form of tribute.
As mentioned earlier, this tribute was paid, in lump sum, either by the potentates surviving from
the previous regime with whom the Sultanate ruling class entered into some arrangement.
Alternatively, from the recalcitrant areas (mawas) where such arrangements were not possible,
the tribute eas extorted through plundering raids.
It was thus probably mostly in the form of cattle and slaves.
The sources of Delhi Sultanate do not suggest that before the rign of Alauddin Khalji (1296-1316)
any serious attempt was made to systematize the assessment and realisation of kharaj.

Agrarian Measures of Alauddin Khalji

Barani informs us that the revenue collectors were ordered to demand the revenue with such
rigour that the peasants should be forced to sell their produce immediately at the side of the
fields.

At another place, Barani says that Alauddin Khalji brought the Doab into khalsa and the tax
(mahsul) from there was spent on paying the cash salaries to the soldiers.
Yet there is a rather contradictory statement by the same author that the Sultan ordered that
the peasant should pay tax in kind and not in cash.
According to Irfan Habib, it seems to have reference to only some parts of the khalisa in the
Doab.
From there the Sultan want to obtain supplies for his granaries.
Otherwise the realization was normally in cash.
The system of taxation introduced by Alauddin seems to have, lasted for long through
Ghiyasuddin Tughluq (1320-25) modifies it to some extent and exempted the khots and
muqaddams from paying tax on their cultivation and cattle.
But he didi not permit them to impose any cesses on the peasant.

Agrarian Measures of Muhammad Tughluq

Faced with these problems, Muhammad Tughluq became the first Sultan to attempt to
formulate an agricultural loans named sondhar for increasing the area under plough and for
digging wells for irrigation.
Barani says that 70 lakhs tankas (according to Afif 2 krors tankas) were given till 1346-7 in
sandbar but perhaps hardly any amount reached the peasantry.
A new ministry designated diwan-I amir-I kohi was established to promote agriculture.
Its two main functions were to extend the area under cultivation and to reclaim the land that
went out of cultivation and improving the cropping pattern.
It was recommended that wheat should be replaced by sugarcane and sugarcane by grapes and
dates.
Feroz Tugluq (1351-88) abandoned these projects but abolished agrarian cesses, forbade levying
of ghari and charai.
But he is reported to have imposed a separate tax-Jiziya-distinct from kharaj (land-tax) on the
peasants.
He also introduced an irrigation tax in Harayana where he dug canals.
There is little information forthcoming for the intervening period but in all probability the land
tax continued to be collected in cash by whomsoever be the rulers, till the time of Ibrahim Lodi
(1517-26).
Owing to the scarcity of currency and cheapening of the grains, he is reported to have ordered
collection of land revenue in kind or in grain.

ALLAUDDIN KHALJIS MARKET CONTROL

Alauddin Khaijis measures did not remain confined to rural economy but extended to urban
market as well.
He is credited for issuing a set of seven regulations which came to be known as market-control
measures.

Barani, who is our main source on this aspect, is the only authority who gives these regulations
in detail.
The Sultan fixed the prices of all commodities from grain to cloth, slaves, cattle, etc. (Regulation
1).
These prices were really to be enforced since the Sultan carefully made all arrangements for
making the measure a success.
A controller of market (shahna-I mandi), barids (intelligence officers) and munhivan (secret
spices) were appointed (Reg. 2).
The grain merchants were placed under the Shahna-I mandi and sureties were taken from them
(Reg. 4).
The Sultan himself was to receive daily reports separately from these three sources (Reg. 7).
Regrating (ihtikar) was prohibited (Reg. 5).
While ensuring strict control in the market, the Sultan did not overlook the more essential
requirement, namely the regular supply of grains and other things at lowest prices.
Obviously, the gram merchants could bring supplies to the market only if they could get the
grains and that, too, at sufficiently low prices; It was apparently for the reason that the Sultan
decreed such as rigour in realization of land revenue in the Doab that the peasants should be
forced to sell the grain to the Karvanian (the grain merchants) at the side of the field (reg. 6).
The Sultan established granaries in Delhi and in Chhain in Rajasthan.
The land tax from the khalisa in the Doab was realized in kind.
The grain went to the state granaries (Reg:3).
The Multanis who were cloth merchants were given 20 lakhs of tankas as advancel loan to
purchase and bring cloth to the market.
The Sultan succeeded in maintaining low prices and ample supplies in the market as reported by
all our authorities.
But there are carrying reason mentioned for why the Sultan introduced the market control and
in what region it was enforced.
The poet courtier Amri Khusrau considers the measure to be of immense generosity taken for
the welfare and the comfort of all, the elite as well as the public at large.
The Chishti divine Nasiruddin Mahmud (Chiragh Delhi) attributes it to the Sultans effort to do
good to all people.
But the historian Baranis view was totally different.
He did not credit it to Sultans benevolent intentions but gives a hard financial reason.
The Sultan anxious to have a large army and to take other precautions such as building of forests
at strategic places, fortification wall around Delhi, etc. Against the Mongol invasions.
Id numerous additional cavalrymen and troops were to be employed at the prevailing salaries,
the drain from the state treasury was to exhaust it totally.
The salaries could be reduced only if the prices were kept at a sufficiently low level.
Baranis reasoning appears of course more valid.
Since the main laskargah (army encampment) was in Delhi and most of the royal troops were to
be stantioned in or around Delhi, the main area of price control was Delhi itself.

However, since the supplies of cheap grain were to be made available to the grain merchants in
the surrounding district of the Doab, the lowest price ought to be prevalent there as well.
The market control did not survive its enforcer and we do not hear about it after Alauddin
Khaljis time.
A very efficient and alert administration was imperative for the success of price control.
Thereforce, one possible reason for its not surviving could be the lack of sufficiently competent
administration.
Irfan Habib, however, offers a different reason for the abandonment of price control by the
successors of Alauddin Khalji.
Since the prevalence of low prices implies lower revenues from the low-price zone, the price
control was viable as long as the zone of low price was restricted and most of the expenditure
was concentrated there.
With the Mongols no more remaining a threat, the army and the expenditure was to be
dispersed more widely and not to be concentrated at and around Delhi along.
The interest of the state was now in dismantling the price control.

CURRENCY SYSTEM

The establishment of the Delhi Sultanate was marked by a considerable growth of money
economy which accelerated particularly in the first half of the 14th century.
A large scale minting of gold, silver and copper coins that followed the foundation of the Delhi
Sultanate was an attendant process of the monetization of Indian economy.
The early Ghorid conquerors found mints uttering coins of copper with very small silver
contents.
The coins continued to bear the image of goddess Lakshmi or bull-and horseman, etc.
Only the name of the new ruler in a corrupt form got inscrible over it in Nagri script.
These coins were called Dehliwal.
IItumish (1210-36) is credited to standardizing the coinage of the Delhi Sultanate.
The currency system established by him in its essentials survived the Delhi Sultanate.
He introduced gold and silver tanka and a copper jital that was reckoned at 1/48th of a tanks in
North India and 1/50th in the Deccan after the conquest of Devagiri.
A firm ratio of 1:10 between gold and silver appears to have been established.
The Sultanate mints generally uttered coins in three metals: gold, silver and billon (copper
mixed with very small quantity of silver).
The main coins were tanka and jital but some smaller currencies were also in circulation.
Berani mentions dangs and dirams in use at the capital Delhi.
The equation between these currencies in the north has been worked out as:
1 silver tanks = 48 jital = 192 dangs = 480 dirams
The gold and silver remitted from Bengal was the main source of coinage during the 13th
century.
The silver currency remained dominant till the reign of Alauddin Khalji.

From Ghiyasuddin Tughluqs reign, a decline in silver coinage in relation to gold and billion set
in Under Muhammad Tughluq gold coinage overshadowed the silver, and silver coinage
practically disappeared under Feroz Tughluq.
In the 15th century, billon coinage dominated (the Lodis (1451-1526) uttered no other coins)

Token Currency of Muhammad Tughluq

The only major innovation in the currency system established by Iltutmish was made by
Muhammad Tughluq.
The Sultan introduced a coin of copper and brass alloy and reckoned it at the value of silver
tanka.
This coin for the first time carried an inscription in Persian.
This new currency whose face value was much higher than its intrinsic value (that is, value of the
metal it was made of) is termed as token currency.
The introduction of token currency was already attempted in sister Asian empires.
In China, Qublai Khan (1260-94) had introduced a token currency of paper and the experiment
was successful.
In Persia, Kaikhatu Khan (1293), too, tried to introduce a token currency but the attempt failed.
Muhanimad Tughluqs experiment too, met total failure perhaps owing to the fact that the new
currency could easily be forged.
Barani says thetorically that every Hindu household became a mint.
However, the Sultan accepted the failure with grace and exchanged all the token currency
brought to the treasury with pure currency.

Agrarian Structure
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION

During the 13th -14th centuries, the land-man ratio was very favourable.
This clearly suggests that, during the Delhi Sultanate, there was abundance of cultivable land
that was yet to be brought under plough.
The control over bits of lands was, therefore, not as important as on persons cultivating them.
A favourable ratio of land to man naturally implies agriculture to be extensive in simple terms,
extensive agriculture is that where the increase in production is attempted by bringing more
area under crop.
On the other hand, agriculture is called intensive if the production is sought to be increased on
the same tract by using higher agricultural inputs: for example, more labour, better ploughing
and irrigation.
Owing to abundance of cultivable land in the Delhi Sultanate, agriculture was extensive in
nature.
The large area of cultivable waste had fallows naturally provided good pasturage facility for
cattle.
The author of the Masalik al Absar records that in India cattle were innumerable and their prices
were low.
Afif reports that no village in Doab was without a cattle pen which were called kharaks.
Bullocks were so plentiful that the pack-animals and not the bullock-carts were the main means
of carrying grains and other goods.

Crops and other Agricultural Produce

Ibn Battuta was struck by the multiplicity of crops-grown and described in sufficient detail the
various crops grown in the two cropping seasons.
He also suggests that in the region around Delhi double cropping was also practiced, that is, on
the same soil both the khalji, writing in c. 1290 lists some twenty-five crops grown under the
two harvesta and gives also their yields.
With the Islamic raisers making of wine from sugarcane became widespread and a new rural
industry emerged at least around Delhi and in the Doab by the 14 th Century as is evident from
Baranis account.
It is recorded that the II Khanids tried to encourage indigo plantation in Persia to avoid
dependence upon India for its supply.
The probable use of limemortar in the indigo-vasts by providing all improved surface should
have helped the manufacture of dye.
From Ibn Battutas account, we get information on fruit growing in the Delhi Sultanate.
It appears that technique of grafting was not know by peasants.

Earlier grapes were grown only in the few places besides Delhi but Muhammad Tughluqs urging
to peasants to improve cropping by shifting from wheat to sugarcane to grapes and Feroz
Tughluq laying down of 1200 orchards in the vicinity of Delhi to grow seven variets of grapes
seems to have made them so abundant that according bto Afif, the prices of grapes fell.
However, the Indian peasants did not practice sericulture (rearing of silk-worm) at that time
and no true silk, namely, tasar, eri and muga were known Ma Huan, the Chinese navigator in
1432, makes the first reference to sericulture in Bengal.

Canal Irrigation and its Impact

Agriculture was generally dependent upon natural irrigation, that is, rains and floods.
Since cultivation was largely based on natural irrigation, the tendency was to grow mostly
single, rain-watered kharif (autumn) crop and coarse grains more.
Ghiyasuddin Tughluq (1320-25) is reported to the first Sultan to dig canals.
But the cutting of canals in a much bigger way was undertaken by Feroz Tughluq (1351-88).
Feroz Tughluq cut two canals from the river Yamuna carrying them to Hissar, one from the Lali
river in the Doab joining the Yamuna near Delhi; one each fom the Sutlej and the Ghaggar.
Certainly, it was the biggest canal network in India till the 19th century.
Afif says that a long stretch of land of about 80 krohs (200 miles) vast irrigated by the canal
Rajabwah and Ulughkhani.

AGRARIAN RELATIONS

Minhaj Siraj designates the chiefs opposing the Ghorians and the early Delhi Sultans as rai and
rana and their cavalry commanders as rawat.
From the epigraphic evidence from different parts of Northern India, the earlier, feudal
hierarchy of raja (rai), ranaka (rana) and rauta (rawat) is fairly well established.
In the early phase, the Sultans tended to enter into settlement with this defeated and
subjugated rural aristocaracy.
It seems that even after the replacement of this tribute by vigorously assessed tax imposed on
the peasants under Alauddin Khalji the older rural aristocracy had some role to play in revenue
collection.

Peasants

Cultivation was based on individual peasant farming.

But this peasant economy was not at all egalitarian.
The size of land cultivated by them greatly varied in size.
From Baranis account it appears that at one extreme were the khots and muquddams having
large holding and enjoying superior rights on ordinary peasants: and at the other was the
balahar, the village menial holding a petty plot of land.
In spite of the abundance of cultivable land, there was no proprietary right of the peasant over
the land he tilled.

On the contrary even on his produce there were claims of the superior classes.
It seems that the village was collectively a tax paying unit otherwise why a clerk to keep village
accounts was needed.
The presence of patwari and the nature of his duties thus indicate existence of village
community.
It seems that in spite of Alauddin Khaljis efforts to assess the tax on individual peasant, in
practice the village continued to remain the unit of land revenue payment.

Rural Intermediaries

From Baranis account it appears that before Alauddin Khaljis agrarian measures, they held
revenue free lands.
As a class, the village headmen were prosperous.
Barani with malicious pleasure records that Alauddin Khalji imposed full land revenue upon
them and withdrew the exemption from house and grazing tax.
He prohibited them from levying any cesses of their own and thus he leveled them to the
ordinary peasants.
From the time of Feroz Tugluq, all these intermediaries were given a blanket designation the
zamindar a term coming much in vogue during the Mughal period.

Rise of Urban Economy Trade & Commerce

INTRODUCTION

The available evidence suggest that the urban economy on the eve of the Ghorid conquest was
on a low ebb.
The towns were fewer in number and smaller in size in the centuries preceding the
establishment of the Delhi Sultanate.
D.D.osambi shows that even the capital was a camp city on the move.
The higher ruling class warned from place to place along with the army while the lower rulling
class was almost completely ruralized.

Growth of Towns

There are two simple definitions of a town : (a) the usual modern definition of a settlement of
5000 or above, and (b) a settlement where an overwhelming majority of population (say above
70%) is engaged in occupations other than agriculture.
Some major towns mentioned in the contemporary sources are Delhi (the capital), Multan,
Anhilwara (Patan), Cambay, Kara, Lakhnauti and Daulatabad (Deogiri).
Lahore was a big town but decayed after the Mongol

Factors for Urban Expansion

These iqta headquarters having the concentration of cavalry, its hangers on the retinue and
household of the muqti thus emerged in the early phase as camp cities.
Most of the 13th century towns are infact defined as iqta headquarters in our source; for
example, Hansi, Kara, Anhilwara, etc.
These towns were to be fed and provided for. In beginning, the troops had to go for realizing
kharaj/mal by plundering the surrounding villages.

Urban Manufactures

It seems that the urban craft production received a twofold impetus with the establishment of
the Delhi Sultanate.
First, the Sulthanate ruling class remained town centred and spent the enormous resources it
appropriated in the form of land revenue minaly in towns, either on buying services or procuring
manufacturers.
Even the money spent on the service sector partly went to help the urban craft sector through
multiplier effect.
While the nobility created demand for high-priced skill-intensive luxuary items, its hangers-on in
all likelihood created a mass marked for ordinary artisanal product.
The second factor that contributes to urban manufactures was the introduction of a number of
technological devices that reached India with the invaders.

In the luxury sector, silk weaving expanded and carpet-weaving came from Persia.
The other notable urban manufacture was papermaking.
Perhaps a major sector of urban employment was building industry.
Barani says that Alauddin Khalji employed 70,000 craftsmen for his buildings.
One may well be justified in saying that there was considerably more masonary per acre of
occupied space in the towns of 1400 than in those of 1200 A.D.

Trade and Commerce

These towns naturally heeded to be fed and supplied raw material for craft production.
At the same time, there was growing practice of land revenue realization in cash.
By the time of Alauddin Khalji the cash-nexus xcame to be well developed and the ruling class
tended to claim almost the entire peasant surplus by attempting to reduce the share of rural
intermediaries, as we have seen in the previous Unit.
Both these factors were conductive to the development of inland trade.
To pay the land revenue in cash, the peasantry was forced to sell its-surplus produce while
merchants had a market in newly emerged towns for agricultural products.
This trade resulting from the compulsion of land revenue system is termed as induced trade.

Inland Trade

The inland trade developed at two levels: (a) the short distance village-town trade in
commodities of bulk, and (b) long distance inter-town trade in high value goods.
The urban centres was depended for supply of food grains and raw materials for manufactures
from the surrounding villages whereas the villages had to sell the agricultural products to
receive cash for meeting the land revenue demand.
The peculiar nature of this trade was the one-way flow of commodities.
While the towns received grains and raw material from the villages in the vicinity, they had no
need to send their products in exchange to the villages which were by and large self-sufficient.
This one-way trade was owing to the land revenue demand imposed upon villages which
naturally led to a continuous drain on rural sector and made the towns dependent on villages.
The turnover of this trade was high in terms of volume but was low in terms of value.
The commodities were food grains, that is wheat, rice, gram, sugarcane, etc. and raw material
like cotton for urban manufactures.
The inter-town trade was mainly in luxury articles and was thus a high value trade.
The manufactures of one town were taken to another: for example Barani reports, that Delhi,
the capital itself, received distilled wines from Kol (Aligarh) and Meerut, muslin (fine cloth) from
Devagiri and striped cloth from Lakhnauti (Bengal) while, according to Ibn Battuta, ordinary
cloth came from Awadh and betel-leaf from Malwa (twenty-four days journey from Delhi).
Candy sugar was supplied to Multan from Delhi and Lahore and ghi from Siasa (in Harayana).

Foreign Trade:

Seaborne and Overland

During the Sultanate period, overland and overseas trade were in a flourishing state.

Seaborne Trade

Khalji annexation of Gujarat must have enlarged trade relations between the Delhi Sultanate
and the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.
Gujarat was connected with the Persian Gulf as well as the Red Sea.
Hormuz and Basra were the chief ports for the ships passing through the Persian Gulf, while the
ports of Aden, Mocha and Jedda along the Red Sea were important for Gujarat.
Through these ports, commodities moved on to Damascus and Aleppo, on the one hand, and
Alexandria on the other.
Aleppo and Alexandria opened upto the Mediterranean Sea with linkages to Europe.
Merchandise of Gujarat were also carried towards the East- the port of Malacca situated at the
Malacca straits and Bantam and Achin in the Indonesian archipelago.
The main export from Gujarat to Malacca was the coloured cloths manufactured in Cambay and
other Gujarat towns.
These cloths were in demand in these places.
In exchange, the Gujarati merchants came back spices with grown there.
This pattern of spices for coloured cloths continued even after the Portuguese advent in the
Asian waters.
The ports of Bengal had trading relations with China, Malacca and far East.
Textiles, sugar and silk fabrics were the most important commodities annually to many places,
including Persia.
Bengal imported salt from Hormuz and sea-shells from the Maldive islands.
The latter were used as coins in Bengal, Orissa and Bihar.
Sindh was yet another region from where seaborne trade was carried on.
Its most well-known port was Daibul.
This region had developed close commercial relations with the Persion Gulf ports more than the
Red Sea zone.
Sindh exported special cloths and sairy products.
Smoked-fish, too, was its specialty.

Coastal Trade

It was natural for the coastal trade to flourish right from Sindh to Bengal, touching Gujarat,
Malabar and Coromandel coasts in between.
This provided an opportunity for exchange of regional products along the coastal line distinct
from inland inter-regional trade.

Overland Trade

Multan was the major trading centre for overland trade.

India was connected to the Central Asia, Afghanistan and Persia through the Multan-Quetta
route.
But, on account of repeated Mongol turmoil in Central Asia and Persia, this route was less
preferred by the merchants.

Imports and Exports

The two principle items of import were: (a) horses-that were always in demand for cavalry
since superior hors were not bred in India and Indian climate was not well-suited to Arabian and
Central Asian horses.They were primarily imported from Zofar (Yemen), Kis Hormuz, Aden and
Persia; (b) precious metals viz. gold and silver, especially silver that was not at all mined in India
but for which there was a high demand not only for metallic currency but also for fashioning
luxury items.
Brocade and silk stuffs were imported from Alexandria, Iraq and China.
Gujarat was the major centre from where the luxury articles from Europe used to enter.
The Sultanate of India mainly exported grain and textiles.
Some of the Persian Gulf regions totally depended on India for their food supply.
Besides, slaves were exported to Central Asia and indigo to Persia along with numerous other
commodities.
Precious stones like agates were exported from Cambay.

THE PORTUGUESE ADVENT

In spite of brisk trading activities, Indian merchants share in the overseas trade was neglible.
Only a small section of Gujarati Banias, Chettis of the South and domicile Indian Muslims used to
take part in the large trading activity.
Trade was mainly in the hands of the Arab Merchants.
With the landing of the Portuguese at Calicut in A.D. 1498 after the rounding of the Cape of
Good Hope, a new dimeinsion was added to the Indian seaborne trade, that is, the element of
force.
On account Portuguese soon imposed their commercial hegemony over the trading world of
Asia, including the Indian seas, especially in Western part.
This curtailed the Arabs share of the Indian trade, though they survived in the Eastern part,
especially at Malacca along with the Indian merchants.
The Portuguese took Goa in 1510 which became their headquarter, Malacca fell in their hands
in 1511.
Hormuz in 1515; and Bassein and Diu in 1534 and 1537 respectively.
Goa, under their patronage, soon developed as a major centre for import and export.
The Portuguese well understood the strategic importance of Goa, which in their position in
India.

But the Portuguese possession of Goa was unfavourable to other Western India ports.
Tome Pires had rightly observed that the Muslim rulers of the Deccan and Gujarat had a bad
neighbor in Goa.
Many ports on the west coast fell into decay during the hundred years of the Portuguese
domination, in the Indian waters.
This happened as a result of the aggressive policies of the Portuguese:
i) They controlled the sea-routes,
ii) Controlled the type and volume of cargo carried by other merchants, and
iii) They introduced the system of issuing cartaz (from Persian qirta = paper sheet) which
was a kind of permit to ply ships were liable to be confiscated and the cargo plundered.
iv) A fee was charged for issuing a cartaz.
v) No wonder, then, all these policies adversely affected the seaborne carrying trade of the
Indians as well as of the Arabs.

Transport

It appears that the goods were transported both by pack animals and on bullock-carts.
The pack-oxen were to course a cheap mode of transport travelling slowly, grazing as they went
and moving in large herds, thus reducing the cost of transport specially along the desert routes.
Inns were built at each stage (manzil).
In Bengal, Lwaz Khalji built long embankment to safeguard from floods.
Boats were employed for riverine routes to carry bulk goods, while large Ships used for
seaborne trade.

Technology and Crafts

AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY

Plough

The use of hoe or hoeing was replaced by plough centuries back.

The iron age, identified with the Aryan settlement in then Gangetic plain, contribution to the
development of the plough in the sense that while the entire frame earlier was of timber, the
ploughshare/courter now was of iron.
This metallic piece immensely helped in the till-age of comparstively harder soil.
An illustration in the Miftah-ul Fuzala- a Persian lexicon complied in about A.D. 1460 in Malwa
clearly shows the plough with an iron share drawn by two yoked oxen.
Unlike Europe, India could not develop horse-drawn wheeled-plough for the reason that our
plough was light in weight suited for the soft soil.

Sowing

For sowing, the method of broadcasting was known.

The practice was to scatter seeds manually by taking them out from a cloth-bag slung over
shoulders.
The time-scale of seed-drill in India is controversial: some would trace it back to the Vedic age.
At any rate, the only positive evidence, for its use along the western coast of India comes from
one Portuguese- Barbosa (c. 1510) in connection with the wet-cultivation or rice.

Harvesting, Threshing and Winnowing

Harvesting was performed with a sickle, and threshing by using oxen who walked round and
round over the ears put on the threshing floor.
Wind power was exploited in winnowing in order to separate the chaff from the grain.

Irrigational Devices

There were many sources of water for the purpose of irrigating fields.
Rain water was the natural source; Ponds and tanks received this water which was used for
irrigation.
Water channels formed by inundation, too, served the same purpose.
But the most important controlled source was the water of the wells, especially in North India.
Broadly, there were five devices of techniques to raise water from wells:
i) The most simple technique was to draw water with rope and bucket by using hands
without any mechanical aid.

ii) The second method was the employment, of pulleys (charkha) combined to the ropebucket contraption which, was, once again, activated manually. Undoubtedly, the
pulleys needed lesser amount of human energy and, thereforce, comparatively larger
bags or buckets could have been attached to the rope.
iii) An improved method of the rope-bucket-pulley contraption was the employment of a
pair of oxen to replace human-power. At this stage, it had become a specialized device
for irrigation. In some areas of North India it is still in operation known as charasa.
The latter is a huge bag that gives an idea of the immense quantity of water raised from
the well in one single haul-up. Moreover, the bullock track was like a ramp or sloping
path-the length of the path corresponding to the depth of the well.
iv) The fourth technique was what is considered to be semi-mechanical as it worked on the
First Class Lever principle. A long rope is lashed to the fork of an upright beam or trunk
of a tree (especially meant for this purpose) to put it in a swinging position. The bucket
is fastened to a rope whose other end is tied to the one of the swinging pole hovering
over the well. The poles other end carries a counterweight, a little heavier than the
bucket when filled with water. Thus, the fulcrum form at the centre of the pole, with
weight and counterweight (Effort) at its two ends. This contraption requires only a little
effort on the part of the person operating is. It is called tula (balance) in Sanskrit, but in
Bihar and Bengal its known as dhenkli or lat/latha.
v) The fifth water-lifting method is called saqiya or Persian Wheel. None of the four
mechanism describes above required wheels as their basic component. This waterwheel could well claim to be called a water machine because of the employment of the
gear system. With gears we enter upon a very advanced stage in the technological
sense: it has been surpassed only now by electric tube-wells.

TEXTILE TECHNOLOGY

During the sultanate period various new techniques were introduced by the turks in the field of
textile.

Ginning, Carding and Spinning

Cotton cultivation belongs to agricultural technology.

After picking up cotton balls, there were three basic stages before cotton could be used for
weaving:
i) Ginning or seed extraction:
ii) Carding or fibre loosening: and
iii) spinning or making yarn

The first was done in two ways:

(a) roller and board method, and
(b) worm press or work-roller (charkha).
Cotton thus separated from seeds was beaten with sticks or carded with bow-string in order
to separate and lossen the fibers (naddafi in Persian; dhunna in Hindi). Spinning was traditionally
done with the spindle (duk in Persian: takla in Hindi ) to which a whorl (phirki in Hindi) was
attached to stabilize it.
The most important technological revolution in the textile sector was the introduction of the
spinning-wheel (charkha) through the agency of the Muslims during the 13th-14th centuries.
Charkha did not exist in Ancient India.
The first literary reference to charkha comes from Isamis Fituh-us Salatin (A.D. 1350).
This new contribution, however, did not displace the spindle: it only accelerated the latters
rotation.

Weaving

Horizontal loom of throw-shuttle type was used for simple or tabby weave.
It is difficult to determine whether the pit-loom (treadle loom) was in use in Ancient India, but
we get the first evidence of this loom in the Miftah-ul Fuzala (c. A.D. 1469) illustrated in c. 1530.

Dyeing and Printing

Various colours derived from vegetable and mineral sources were used for dyeing.
Indigo, madder and lakh, etc. were widely employed.
Indigo was used for both bleaching and dyeing.
For fast colours, many articles like alum were added.
The Indian dyer (rangrez) employed many techniques like immersion, tie-and-dye (bandhana),
etc.
But block-printing (chhappa) was perhaps unknown in Ancient India.
Some scholars credit the Muslims with its diffusion in India.

BUILDING CONSTRUCTION
Lime Mortar

The traditional basic units of construction in Ancient India consisted of clay, stone, wood and
occasionally bricks.
The simplest cementing material or mortar was plain earth mixed with water.
An improved kind was straw (bhus) added to a mixture of clay arid water which was used for
plastering also.
But lime mortal was definitely brought by the immigrant Muslims during the Delhi Sultanate.

Arch and Dome/Vaulted rooring

One result of lime mortar was the extensive use of bricks as it made the brick building more
durable.
Another important consequence was that lime mortar the way for the construction of true arch
(mihrab).
Actually, the very arrangement of bricks or stones in making a true arch demands a strong
cementing material to hold the voussairs together.
Lime mortar fulfilled this need.
This explains the almost total absence of true arch in Indian buildings prior to thev Turkish
advent.
The only exception, however, was the Kushana period: excavations at Kausambi (near
Allahabad) have revealed the existence of some arches-over small window (not gates).
As you know, the Kushanas had come from Central Asia and, therefore they knew arch making.
Afterwards, there is not a single evidence of true arches in India, till the coming of the Muslims.
Another form of arch was the corbelled one; in fact, it was a variant of trabeate construction,
that is the pillar and bam technique which was the most distinguishing feature of pre-Muslim
Indian architecture.
From mihrab to gumnad (vaulted roofing or dome) was a natural development since vaulting or
dome was not possible without a knowledge of how to make a true arch.
That is why it is observed that a dome is a true arch turned 360 degree.
In other words, a dome was constructed on the principle of intersecting true arches.

MILITARY TECHNOLOGY

In this section, we will deal with three things only :

i) Stirrup,
ii) Horseshoe, and
iii) Gunpowder.

Stirrup

It is now an an established fact that iron-stirrup (rikab) was unknown in India.

For that matter, there is no Sanskrit word for stirrup.
Perhaps surcingle, big toe stirrup and suspension hooks were used in India, but stirrup proper
was the contribution of the Muslims.
This stirrup was first used in China around 6th century A.D. and later it diffused into Persia and
other Islamic countries during the next century.
A Persaian source on warfare complied during the reign of IItutmish employees the term rikab.

Horseshoe

While some scholars of Medieval India look at the stirrup as a contributory factor to the series
of military successes that the Turks achieved in India-at least in the initial stages of their
invasions-horseshoe (nal) has been treated as its poor cousin.
Domestication of horse was not enough.
With the view of controlling the horse for riding, some equipments were called-forth; viz.,
simple bridle, bitted bridle, saddle with pommel and cantle and, of course, the stirrup.

Gunpowder and Fire-Arms

Gunpowder consists of saltpeter sulphur and charcoal, and it was first invented in China.
Later, it spread to the Islamic society.
The immigrant Triuks brought gunpowder to India perhaps in late 13th or early 14th century.
But it must be pointed out that even by the reign of Sultan Feroz Shah Tughluq its only use was
for pyrotechny or fireworks (astahbazi), not for fire-arms of for propelling cannon-balls.
Fire-arms were used for the first time during the second half of the 15th century in some regions
of India like Gujarat, Malwa and the Deccan.
At any rate, the use of fire-arms on a regular basis was introduced by the Portuguese when they
came to Calicut in A.D. 1498, and by Babur in North India in the early 16th century.

TINCOATING

Domestic utensils of copper (and brass) are prone to acid poisoning from sour food kept in
them.
A coating of tin is given to them frequently, specially inside, to protect them from the chemical
action of acid food.
This craft came to India along with the Turks.
There is no reference to this technique in Ancient India.
The craftsman who does tin coating is called qalaigar (qalai=tin).
Tin (ranga) is a highly malleable and ductile metal, and its coating over metallic vessels protects
the latter from corrosion and chemical poisoning.
The craftsman first cleanses, the utensils to remove dirt, etc.
After, this, the vessels are mildly heated over a small furnance with charcoal.
Small bellows are used to maintain the required degree of heat.
The next process is to apply a mixture of pure tin and Salammoniac (nosadar) with a cotton pad.
The Salammonic vapourizes leaving a metallically clean surface.
Meanwhile the tin melts and by constant rubbing of the pad it is evenly distributed over the
whole vessel-outside and inside.
Abul Fazl refers to tincoating in the Ain-I Akbari.

GLASS MANUFACTURE

The earliest use of glass in India has been set somewhere during the first millennium B.C. But
Indian glass objects did not range or go beyond the manufacture of tit-bits like beads and
bangles.
With, the Muslim advent, pharmaceutical phials, jars and vessels started coming to India from
the Islamic countries.

SHIPBUILDING

The entire frame of boast and ships were made of timber like everywhere in the world.
The planks were first joined by the rabbeting or tongue and groove method.
Then they were sewn with ropes made from the coconut husk.
Sometimes wooden nails were also used.
But iron nails and clamps to join the planks was a later development under the influence of
European shipbuilding after A.D. 1498.
Anchors were made of stones: later, Europeans introduced iron anchors.

DISTILLATION

There are two ways to get wine: fermentation and distillation.

The first was widely known in the world.
Wine was produced by fermenting rice, sugarcane juice, mahuwa flower, etc.
Distillation was a late comer.
Some think that it was first discovered in Italy in the 12th century A.D.
For India, there is an opinion that distillation was contribution of the Trunks.
This view is not acceptable.
Excavations at Sirkap (Taxila) and Shaikhan Dheri, now in Pakistan, have yielded distillation
apparatus like these condensers and parts of still, many of which are now lodged in the period
from 2nd century B.C. to 2nd century A.D., much before the Turks came to India.
However, we may gives credit to the Turks for its eastward diffusion.

Economy of India 16th-18th Century

Mughal Land Revenue System
INTRODUCTION

The central feature of the agrarian system under the Mughals was the alienation from the
peasant of his surplus produce (produce over and above the subsistence level) in the form of
land revenue which was the main source of states income.
The Persian term for land revenue during the Mughal rule was mal and mal wajib.Kharaj was
not in regular use.
The process of land revenue collection has two stages: (a) assessment (tashkhis/jama), and (b)
actual collection (hasil)

METHODS OF LAND REVENUE ASSESSMENT

Under the Mughals assessment was separately made for kharif abd rabi crops.
After the assessment was over a written document called patta, qual or qaid-qarar was issued
in which the amount or the rate of revenue demand was mentioned.
The assessee was in return supposed to give qabuliyat i.e. the acceptance of the obilgation
imposed upon him, stating when and how he would make the payments.
Commonly used methods:
1) Ghalla Bakhshi (Crop-sharing): In some areas it was called bhaoli and batai. The Ani-I
Akbari notes three types of crop-sharing:
(a) Division of crop at the threshing floor after the grain was obtained. This was
done in the presences of both the parties in accordance with agreement.
(b) Khet batai: The share was decided when the crop was still standing in the fields,
and a division of the field was marked.
(c) Lang batai: The crop was cut and stacked in heaps without separating grain and
a division of a crop in this form was made. In Malikasas Nigarnama-I Munsgi
(Ute 17th century) crop sharing has been mentioned as the best method of
revenue assessment and collection. Under this method, the peasants and the
state shared the risks of the seasons equally.
2) Kankut/Danabani: The word kankut is derived from the words kan and kut. Kan denotes
grain while kut means to estimate or appraisal. Similary, dana means grain while bandi is
fixing or determining anything. It was a system where the grain yield (or productivity)
was estimated. In kankut, at first, the field was measured either by means of a rope or

by pacing. After this, the per bigha productivity from good, middling and bad lands was
estimated and the revenue demand was fixed accordingly.
3) Zabti: In Mughal India, it was the most important method of a assessment. The origin
of this practice is traced to Sher Shah. During Akbars reign, the system was revised a
number of times before it took the final shape. Sher Shah had established a rai or per
bigha yield for lands which were under continuous cultivation (polaj), or those land
which very rarely allowed to lie fallow (Parati). The rai was based on three iptes,
representing good, middling and low yields and one third of the sum of these was
appropriated as land revenue. Akbar adopted Sher Shahs rai. Akbar introduced his socalled karori experiment and appointed kakoris all over North India in 1574-75. The
entire jagir was converted into khalisa. On the basis of the information provided by the
karoris regarding the actual produce, local prices, productivity, etc. in 1580, Akbar
instituted a new system ain dahsala, where the average produce, of different crops as
well as the average prices prevailing over the last ten years (15-24 R.Y. of Akbar) were
calculated. One-third of the average produce was the states minimum share. Under
karori experiment, measurement of all provinces took place. Bamboo rods with iron
rings called tanab were used instead of hempen ropes. On the basis of productivity and
prices prevailing in different regions they were divided for revenue purpose into dastur
circles. The grates of assessment in cash for each crop in every dastur was decided, and
the demand was fixed accordingly. The main features of the zabti system as it finally
came into operation under Akbar were:
i) Measurement of land was essential;
ii) Fixed cash revenue rates known as dastur ul amal or dastur for each crop.
iii) All the collection was made in cash.

Form an administrative point of view, zabti system had some merits:

i) Measurement could always be rechecked;
ii) Due to fixed dasturs, local officials could not use their discretion; and
iii) With fixing the permanent dasturs, the uncertainties and fluctuation in
levying the land revenue demand were greatly reduced.
There were some limitations of this system also:
i) It could not be applied if the quality of the soil was not uniform;
ii) If the yield was uncertain, this method was disadvantageous to peasants
because risks were borne by them alone. Abdul Fazl says, If the peasant
does not have the strength to bear zabt, the practice of taking a third of the
crop as revenue is followed.

iii) This was an expensive method as a cess of one dam per bigha known as
zabitana was given to meet the costs towards the maintenance of the
measuring party; and
iv) Much fraud could be practiced in recording the measurement.
Zabti system was adopted only in the core regions of the Empire. The main
provinces covered under zabti were delh, Allahabad, Awadh, Agra, Lahore
and Multan. Even in these zabti provinces, other methods of assessment
were also practiced, depending on the circumstances of the area. Nasaq
was not an independent method of assessment; it was subordinate to other
methods. It was a method or procedure which could be adopted whatever
be the basic method of revenue assessment and collection that was in force.
In North India it was nasaqi zabti, while in Kashmir it was nasaqi ghall
bakhsi. When it was applied under zabti the annual measurement was
dispensed with and previous figures were taken into account with certain
variations. Since zabti system involved annual measurement, the
administration and revenue payers both wanted to replace it. ZabtiIharasala or annual measurement was, therefore, set aside with some
modifications.
Revenue Farming (Ijara)

Ijara system or revenue farming was another feature of the revenue system of this time.
Though, as a rule Mughals disapproved of this practice, in actual fact certain villages
were sometimes farmed out.
The practice of Ijara, it seems, could not have been very common in the zabti provinces,
Gujarat and the Mughal Dakhin.
In the khalisa lands also this practice was very rare.
However, in the jagir lands it became a common feature.
Revenue assignees (jagirdars) farmed out their assignments in lieu of a lump sum
payment, generally to the highest bidders.
Sometimes, jagirdars sub-assigned part of their jagirs to his subordinate/troopers.
During the 18th century ijara system became a common form of revenue assessment
and collection.

Magnitude of Land Revenue Demand

Aurangzed explicity said that the land revenue should be appropriated according to shariat, i.e.
not more than one half of the total produce.
European traveler Pelsaert who visited India in the early 17th century, declared that so much is
wrung from the peasant that even dry bread is scarcely left to fill their stomachs.
Sher Shah formed three crop rates on the basis of the productivity of the soil, and demand was
fixed at 1/3 of the average of these three rates for each crop.

Abul Fazl comments that under Akbar, Sher Shahs 1/3 of revenue demand formed the lowest
rate of assessment.
Recent studies show that revenue demand under the Mughals ranged between 1/3 to of the
produce, and sometimes even in some areas.
On close scrutiny we find that the revenue demand varied from suba to suba.
In Kashmir, the demand in theory was one-third while in practice it was two-thirds of the total
produce.
Akbar ordered that only one-half should be demanded.

MODE OF PAYMENT

The practice of collecting land revenue in cash was in use in some regions even as early as the
13th century.
In the Mughal period, the peasant under zabti system had to pay revenue in cash.

Collection of Land Revenue

Under ghall bakhshi, the states share was seized directly from the field.
In other system, the state collected its share at the time of harvest.
Usually, the revenue was deposited in the treasury through the amil or revenue collector.
Akbar encouraged the peasant to pay directly, Todar Mal recommended that the peasants of
trusted villages, within the time limit, could deposit their revenue in the treasury themselves
and could obtain receipt.
The village accountant, patwari, made endorsement in his register to establish the amount paid.
Irfan Habib considers these regulations as precautration to avoid fraud and embezzlement.

RELIEF MEASURES

It also seems to have been a common practice to demand the arrears, owed by peasants who
had fled or died, from their meighbours.
Aurangzed issued a hasb ul hukm in A.D. 1674-75 to check this practice in khalisa and jagir
lands, arguing that no peasant could be held responsible for arrears contracted by others.
Taqavi (strength giving) loans were granted to enable the peasants to buy seeds and cattle.

LAND REVENUE ADMINISTRATION

So we find three types of officials:
(a) Officials and agents of jagirdars;
(b) Permanent local officials many of whom were hereditary. They were generally not affected by
the frequent transfers of the jagirdars.
At the rural level, there were many revenue officials:

i)

Karori: In 1574-75, the office of karori was created. Describing his duties, Abul Fazl says
that he was incharge of both assessment and collection of the revenue. An important
change look place during Shah Jahans reign. Now amins were appointed in every mahal
and they were given the work of assessment. After this change, karori (or amil)
remained concerned chiefly which collection of revenue which amin had assessed.
ii) Amin: The next important revenue official was amin. As we have already mentioned,
that the office of amin was created during Shah Jahans reign. His main function was to
assess the revenue. He, too, was appointed by the Diwan.
iii) Qanungo: He was the local revenue official of the pargana, and generally belonged to
one of accountant castes. It was a hereditary post, but an imperial order was essential
for the nomination of each hew person.
Nigarnama-I Munshi holds qu=anungos responsible for malpractices because they have
ho feat of being transferred or deposed.
iv) Chaudhari: He was also an important revenue official like the qanungo. In most cases he
was the leading zamindar of the locality. He was mainly concerned with the collection./
He also stood surety for the lesser zamindars.
v) Shiqqdar: Under Sher Shah, be was the incharge of revenue collection and maintained
taw arid order. In Akbars later period, he seems to be a subordinate official under the
karori. Abul Fazl mentions that in case of an emergency, the shiqqdar could give the
necessary sanction for disbursement which was to be duly reported to the court.
vi) Muqaddam and Patwari: The moqaddam and patwari were village level officials. The
former was the village headman. In lieu of his services, be was allowed 2.5 percent of
the total revenue collected by him. The patwari was to maintain records of the village
land, the holdings of the individual cultivators were entered in his bahi (ledger). On the
basis of information contained in these bahis, the bitikchi used to prepare necessary
papers and records according to while assessment and collection was carried out. In
each pargana, there were two other officials the fotadar or khazandar (the treasurer),
and karkun or bitikchi (the accountant). Under Sher Shah, there were two karkuns, one
for keeping the records in Hindi and other in Persian. But in A.D. 1583-84 Persian was
made the sole language for accounts.

Land Revenue System: Marathas

REVENUE SYSTEM: MARATHAS AND THE DECCAN STATES
Modes of Assessment

Under Malik Ambar, it was based on the assessment of actual area under cultivation and the
cash value of the crop produced.
By the actually did not order for the survey of the land and the assessment was done not by
actual measurement but by the observation.
Assessment was done with the help of hereditary village officials deshmukh and patils.
But Shivaji paid foremost attention to the measurement of land.
Seeing the inaccuracy of rope (which was liable to variations in different seasons), Shivaji
substituted it by a kathi ( a measuring rod).
Twenty kathis constituted a bigha and 120 bighas a chavar.
But local variations in the bigha size existed.
Annaji Datto was entrusted the task of systematic assessment in 1678.
Malik Ambar classified the land broadly into two categories: baghayat (garden land) and zirayat
(cultivated land)
The later was further divided into four categories.
In Shivajis time this member increased to twelve.
Malik Ambar followed the system of progressive assessment for the assessment of these new
reclaimed lands.
Adil Shahi rulers of Bijapur also seem to have followed the same methods of assessment as
those of Malik Ambar.
Here we get reference to the use of tanab or measuring chain.
About Golkunda we are not sure whether the assessment was done on the basis of actual
measurement or observation.

Incidence of Revenue Demand

Malik Ambar claimed 2/5 th of the produce as state share in kind which, when converted into
cash demand amounted to 1/3 of the total value of the crop.
The same amount was claimed by the Marathas, too.
However, when Shivaji abolished other cesses, a consolidated share of 40 per cent was claimed
by the state.

Revenue Collection

After the state demand was fixed art annual estimate of revenue was made which was called
jamabandi.
From this estimated revenue a deduction for revenue free lands (inam) was made.

Dues of the state officials were also deducted from the total revenue demand.
Revenue was collected twice a year after rabi (May) and Kharif (October) harvests.
Village level officials: The village headman (muqaddam, patel) was responsible for the collection
of revenue.
He was assisted by a kulkarni who was a village accountant.
Tapa and pargana level officials: At tapa level, deshmukh or desai was responsible for revenue
collection.He was assisted by karkuns (clerks).He was assisted in his work by deshpande or
deshkulkarni who was the record keeper-cum-accountant.
In Golkunda, the havaldar was responsible for the collection of revenue at the pargana level.
This office was auctioned and given to the higher builder.Though sarsimt (incharge of simt/tarf)
was to keep watch over his actions, he practically acted at will.
In the Nizamshahi dominion, these revenue officials were largly Brahmins.
To keep a check on them, they were placed under the supervision of Muslim officers.
In the Adil Shahi knigdom, the office of amir Jumla headed by the wakil was incharge of the
revenue administration.At the sarkor level, the subedar was responsible for the collection of
land revenue.
Under the Peshwas, the sarsubedar exercised Wide powers in revenue matters.
He fixed the remuneration of the kamavisdar etc; he had the right to increase or decrease the
rasad (advance payment of even, had the, right to appoint or dismiss phadnis.
In certain cases, the sarsubedar could appoint the mamlatdar with the approval of the centre.

State and the Peasant

Shivaji attempted to lake special measures to protect the peasants from the oppressive revenue
officials.
he tried to curtail the power of the deshmukh, deshpandes, patels, etc.
He also abolished all the cessess (adwabd) to the advantage of the peasants.
He appointed even his own state officials who used to visit personally and supervise the
collection.
To reclaim the arrears, the cultivators tools and implements were not to be confiscated.
Revenue is to be collected in the proper season and not at the tome of sowing or ploughing or
while the crops were still standing.
In times of famine, drought and damage of crops, special concessions were given to the
peasants.
Taqavis in the form of cash, seeds and ploughs were distributed among peasants in times of
need to be repaid on easy instalments.
But Shivajis system soon fell into abuse.
The increasing powers of the kamvisdars, who almost acted as revenue farmers by advancing
rasad to the Peshwas, destroyed all the advantages of Shivajis measures.

Taxes other than Land Revenue

Besides land revenue a number of illegal cesses and abwabs were paid by peasants.
Under the Marathas and the Bijapur kingdom number of such cesses was around 50.
Besides, forced labour also prevailed.
Shivaj seems to have abolished all illegal cesses.
Custom dues formed an important source of income.
But the dues levied on import and export were fairly low.
Favours were granted to the European companies.
In the Golkunda (Kurnool) and Bijapur (Raichur Doab) kingdoms diamond mining formed
important source of states income.
Besides, various taxes were imposed on salt, tobacoo, vegetables, tari (fermented juice of date
palm), etc.
Jiziya, too, was a source od Adil shahi income.
Income from minting and peshkash (tributes) and war booty, etc. also formed important
sources of states income.

Chauth and Sardeshmukhi

These two formed the major sources of income for the Marathas.
Some have termed it sheer plunder and loot.
Sardeshmukhi was an exaction of 10 percent imposed upon the revenues of the entire Maratha
kingdom.
Shivaji claimed it as the supreme head of the country (sardeshmukh, i.e., head of the
deshmukhs).
The Marathas claimed chauth (i.e. th of the total revenue) from the neighbouring chieftains
whose territories die not form part of their homeland / swarajya.

Agrarian Relations: Deccan and South India

CATEGORIES OF LAND RIGHTS

The rights and privileges enjoyed by the cultivating families comprising the village community
were determined in accordance with the degree of superiority of proprietary rights in land by
them.
The cultivated area of a village was divided into: (1) Miras lands (2) Inam lands (3) States lands
and (4) lands of extinct families.

Mirasi Right

The word miras is of Arabic origin.

As mentioned in the Marathi documents, it refers to hereditary or teansferable right or
patrimony (bap roti) obtained by descent, purchase or girt, etc.
The mirasdars were the holders of land under the mirasi tenure.
They owned the village land and could exact rent in money or service from persons who lived on
their land.
There were two categories of the mirasdars (1) the herediatary owners of the miras land, and
those who had reclimed the gatkul land of the village.
The hereditary mirasdars were placed in the old and list of the village called thalazadas, but
they did not possess ant title deeds over land.
The other category possessed mires patra (miras-deeds) attested by the authorities of the
village communities of the neighbouring areas and by the deshmukhs and deshpandes of the
district.
The village land was held by the mirasdars: 1) on the basis of joint co-parcenary terms
according to which the village land was divided into several shares, and 2) on the basis of a
single proprietor ownership of the village.
Mirasi rights held on the basis of village coparcenary or ancient Thai system.
Such lands were held in common or jointly by the members of different families of a village.
The share and the rights and immunities which went with these were clearly demarcated.
The original that was held by the jatha collectively comprised the lineal descendants of the first
occupants of the thal.
The chief characteristics of miras tenure:
The mirasdars could sell their lands as an when required.
The purchaser could be an outsider who might not settle in the village where he had not
brought land.
He could arrange for some members of his family to stay in the village where he had purchased
land.

Buying and selling of miraa lands required the sanction or recognition of village officers and
neighbours.
The sale could be carried out without the prior approval of the state which lends support of the
view that the state did not process proprietary rights over the mires land.
The purchaser on payment of revenue to the state was at liberty to use the land.
The state sanctioned the sale by issuing a document for which it charged a fee equal to one
fourth of the sale price.
The mirasdar possessed, complete private proprietary rights in the mirs land.
The state could not encroach upon the mirasi rights.
Also the headman and other people of the village could convert the mirasi lands into house sites
after giving due compensation to the mirasdars in the form of gatkul lands.
The corporate functioning of the village and desh was ensured due to the existence of the mirasi
tenure.

Inam Lands

Inam is an Arabic word originally meaning gift or reward.

In its broadest sense, it suggest either simply inam, inam village or inam lands.
Mere inam implied grant of specific amount of revenue of a village to a person.
The inam village was assigned on a hereditary basis to persons or officials.
Here we will focus only on the nature of inam as a category of land tenure.
The inam lands were either totally exempt from tax, or subject to a low tax, called inam patti.
It was a privileged category of land right.
Inam was assigned to different catehories: hereditary village officials, state officials, temples and
balutedars (priests).
The holders were designated inamdars.
There were both resident and absentee inamdars.
There is sufficient evidence to prove that these land assignments were hereditary.
Rights in the inam land held by a watandar (hereditary village office holder) were saleable and
transferable together with the office or watan.

State Land (Crown Land)

Land held by the government as a corporate body or by the Peshwa/ruler could be treated as
state land, although there might have been some kind of difference between the two.
State lands existed in many villages of the Deccan managed by the local bureaucrats.
They could be sold by them after taking approval from the central government.
These lands were granted in inam or could be developed into house sites.

Waste Lands or Lands of Extinct Families

The Mirasi rights and inam rights were unambiguous; however, the rights in the land of extinct
families or wastelands contained a large degree of vagueness.

These lands could be sold by eother the village headman or village assembly or state.
The lands of the families which had become extinct were called gatkul zamin.
Lands which were left uncultivated for long periods were called pad zamin.
Even the miras lands contained pad zamin.
Both gatkul zamin and pad zamin meant wastelands.
The term khalisa pad zamin referred state wastelands.
The wastelands could be appropriated and disposed off the village headman, local village
assembly and government.
The lands expropriated by the village headman were regarded as miras lane as on which land
revenue was levied.
Wastelands were disposed off by the local assembly either as miras or as inam lands.
The purchaser (inamdar) of wastelands in the form of inam was not required to pay land tax on
the lands.
However, the village as a group had to pay land tax to the government on a large inam lands
thus sold.
Wastelands sold as miras lands were subject to a heavy land tax which had to be paid by the
new incumbent.

Gota Sabha or Majlis

Gota Sabha was an independent body which held jurisdiction over the administrative, fiscal and
judicial affairs of the village or pargana.
The administrative body of the village consisting of the local officials of the pargana was called
diwan.
The two got and diwan pertormed the role of arbiter in disputes brought to them by the village
community.
The watandars and balutedars-watandars participated in the meeting of the got sabha.

Watan System

Watan is an Arabic term and watan system owes its origin in the Deccan to the establishment of
the Muslim rule.
Broadly speaking, it refers to a hereditary grant made by the government to an office-holder in
a village, in lieu of services rendered by him to the village community.
The hereditary village officers were permanent residents of the village (desaks) and were
granted land by the state together with rights and immunities in lieu of administrative tasks
performed by them in the village.
The desalts were called watandars (deshmukh, desai, deshpatide, kulkarni, etc).
They were exempted from payment of land revenue to the government.
The Siritis refer to vrittis which was the indigenous variant of watan, and the emolument
received by the holders of vrittis were termed as nibandhas.
The rent-free land held by the watandar was called inam.

The chief hereditary officer to the village was the patel, also called gave patel or mokaddam
patel in the contemporary Marathi records.
The main responsibilities of the patel was to collect the land revenue and remit the government
share to the state treasury.
As the village headman, he performed several administrative duties in the village.
In return, he received certain privileges (haq) and perquisites (lazims) which were mentioned in
his watan-deed.
Haq was granted to him as the matter of right (legal grants).
It consisted of a share of the total revenue collection in cash or kind which was fixed by the
state.
Larim was voluntary payment such as phaski (a handful of any corn) pasodi (a garment), etc;
free services from mahars and artisans; seniority rights (man pan) which enabled him to preside
over the village festivities.
Beside the patel, other officers such as kulkarni and chaugula (patels assistant) also enjoyed
perquisites and rights in return for their services.

Balutedars

The rural servants in Mahrasthrian villages are referred to as twelve balutes (barahbalute) or
alutas.
The scholars differ regarding the composition of the balutedars.
However, the following were invariably included in this list: carpenter, blacksmith, potter,
leather-worker, ropemaker, barber, washerman, astrologer, Hindu priest and mahar.
The term (referred to by Grant Duff, etc) twelve alutas was probably an extension of the word
balulas and had the same connotation.
The alutas are not mentioned in the 18th century Marathi documents and, thus, it appears that
they were found only occasionally in villages.
There were two categories of the balutedars: watan holding balutas and strange (upari) balutas.
The first category possessed hereditary monopoly over their services.
They were employed by the village as a whole and served the individual villager.
The balutedars were paid by the paid by the peasant in three ways:
1) In kind or cash called baluta;
2) In the form of perquisites, rights and privileges in cash or kind, and
3) In the form or revenue-free inam lands.

Fiscal and Monetary System, Prices

FISCAL SYSTEM
Taxes other than Land Revenue

The main sources were tools and levies on craft production, market levies, customs and rahdari
(road tax) both on inland and overseas trade, and also mint charges.
Apart from these, the state treasury received huge amounts by way of war booty, tributes and
gifts from various quarters.

Almost everything sold on the market was taxable.

Apart from merchants, all the artisans also paid taxes on their products.
Katraparcha was a tax levied on all sorts of cotton, silk and wool clot.
Indigo, saltpeter and salt were other important commodities subjected to taxation.
In some cases as in Panjab. The tax on salt during Akbars time was more than double the prime
cost.

Customs and Transit dues

When the goods were taken from one place to another, a tax was levied.
We have some information on the rate of custom levies.
All merchandise brought through the ports was taxable: Abul Fazl says that during Akbars time
the duties did not exceed 2 per cent.
One early seventeenth century account suggests that at Surat the charges were 2 per cent on
goods, 3 per cent on provisions and 2 per cent on money (gold & silver).
Towards the close of the 17th century, the customs ranged from 4 to 5 per cent.
According to one contemporary account of the 17th century (Khafi Khan), rahdari was considered
illegal but large amounts were collected from merchants and traders.
This tax was collected on river routes also.

Income from Mints

The tax generated at mints was another source of income for the Empire.
The state minit-fee was called mahsul-I darul zard.
The charges were around 5 % of the value of the money minted.
Besides, two other charges were also collected.
These were rusum-I ahikaran (perquisities of officials) and ujrat-I karigaran (wages of artisans).

Mechanism of Collection

Like land revenue there was a well organized machinery for collection of these taxes.

The effort of the state was to keep separate accounts for the income from land-revenue and
other taxes.
For this purpose, the taxes were classified into two mal o jihat and sair jihat.
The former related to land revenue and the latter to taxes charged on merchandise and trading.
For the convenience of assessment and collection, separate fiscal division called mahalat I sair
or sair mahals were created in big cities and towns.
The mahal was a purely fiscal division and was different from the pargana which was both a
revenue and territorial division.
Ports had a separate set of officers.
The mutasaddi was the chief official or superintendent of port.
He was directly appointed by the Emperor and was responsible for the collection of taxes.
The Mutasaddi had a number of officials working under him who assisted him in valuation and
realization or custom dues and maintaining accounts.
Some of them were the mushrif, tahwildar, and darogha-I Khazana.

CURRENCY SYSTEM

Under the Mughals, the currency system was very well organized.
A high level of purity of metals was also achieved.

The Coinage

The Mughal currency system may be termed as trimetallic.

Coins were of three metals, viz, copper, silver and gold.
However, the silver coin was the base of the currency.
The silver coin has a long pre Mughal history.
It was used during Delhi Sultanate for long as tanka.
Sher Shah for the first time standardized the silver coin.
It was called rupaya and had a weight of 178 grains (troy) (troy weight is a British system of
weights used for gold, silver and jewels in which I pound = 12 ounces = 5760 grains).
For glinting purpose, an alloy was added which was kept below 4 percent of the weight of the
coin.
Akbar continued the rupaya as the basic currency with more less the same weight.
Under Aurangzeb the weight of the rupaya as the rupaya was increased to 180 grains (troy).
The silver rupaya was the main coin used for business and revenue transactions.
The Mughals issued a gold coin called ashrafi or mohr.
It weighed 169 grains (troy).
This coin was not commonly used in commercial transactions.
It was mainly used for hoarding purpose and also for giving in gift.
The most common coin used for small transactions was the copper dam which weighed around
323 grains.

The weight of the copper dam was reduced by one third during Aurangzebs reign presumably
because of the shortage of copper.
Further, for very petty transaction kauris (see-shells) were used in coastal areas.
These were brought mainly from the Maldive islands, Around 2500 kauris equaled a rupaya.
Apart from the silver rupaya other types of coins were also used.
The most important of these were mah,udis, a long standing silver coin of Gujarat.
Even after establishment of the Mughal rule in Gujarat it continued to be minted and used in
Gujarat for commercial transaction.
In the Vijaynagar Empire, a gold coin called hun or pagoda was used.

Exchange Value of Coins

For transaction purposes during Akbars period, 40 copper dams were considered equal to one
rupaya.
After his death, as the rate of copper appreciated sharply, this ratio could not be maintained.
Silver coins of small fractions called ana were also used.
It was one-sixteenth of a rupee

The Minting System

The Mughals had a free coinage system.

One could take bullion to the mint and get it coined.
The state had the sole authority to issue coins and no other person could issue them.
A very strict standardization was followed to maintain the purity of coins.
A large number of mints were established throughout the Empire.
Attempts were made to have these mints in big towns and ports so that the imported bullion
could be taken to mints easily.
Every coin carried the name of the issuing mint, and the year of minting and rulers name.
The newly minted coin in the current or previous year was called taza sikkar (ewly minted).
The coins issued and in circulation in the reign of an emperor were called chalani (current).
While the coins minted in the earlier reigns were called khazana.
Except for the taza all other coins were subjected to reduction in value.
A mint was headed by an officer called darogha I darul zarb.
The duties of this officer were supervise the overall working of the mint.
He was assisted by a number of officials, skilled artisans and workmen.
The sarraf was employed by the mint as assessor.
He was the judge the purity, weight and age of the coin and fix deducations on their value.
The mushrif was to maintain accounts.
The tahwildar kept accounts of daily profit and kept coins and bullion in safe custody.
The muhr kan (engraver) was a person who engraved and made dies.
The Wazan kash (weightman) weighed the coins.
There were many artisans like the zarrab (coin maker), sikkachi (stamper), etc.

Production and Trade

Agricultural Production
EXTENT OF CULTIVATION

Abul Fazl in his Ain-I Akbari provides are figures for all the Mughal provinces in North India
except Bengal, Thatta and Kashmir.
In the case of most of the provinces, like Delhi, Agra, Awadh, Lahore, Multan, Allahabad and
Ajmer, separate figures are provided for each pargana (with a fw exceptions).
The figures of the Ain-I Akbari belong to the year c. 1595.
The area figures of the 17th century for various regions are available in an accountancy manual
of A.D. 1686.
The same figures have been reproduced in a historical work Chahar Gulshan (1739-40).
The set of figures available from Aurangzeds regin provide a better picture.
These dhow that almost fifty per cent of the villages were nit measured till A.D. 1686.
The figures of Aurangzeds reign show that the measured area increased compared to the Ain
(1595).
The cultivated area between the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 20th century
almost doubled.
The increase in Bihar, Awadh and parts of Bengal is ascribed to the clearance of forest.
In Punjab and Sind the spread of canal network also contributed to the extension in cultivation.

MEANS OF CULTIVATION AND IRRIGATION

The Indian peasant used a variety of implements and techniques for cultivation depending on
the nature of soil and need of the crops.
Similarly, irrigation was done through various means in different regions.

Means and Methods of Cultivation

Tillage was performed by harnessing a pair of oxen to the plough.

The latter was made of wood with an iron ploughshare.
A separate devise was used for breaking the clods or lumps of earth.
This was done with the help of wodden boards called patella in parts of north India.
The sowing of seeds was generally done through scattering by hand.
In 16th century Barbosa also refer to the use of a sort of seed drill in the coastal region for
sowing rice.
Efforts were made to increase the fertility of the soil through artificial means.
In South India flocks of goal and sheep were widely used.

Generally flocks of these cattle were made to spend a few nights in the agricultural field for their
droppings were considered good manure.
Rotation of crops was used for the optimum utilization of land throughout the year.
It was also considered good to maintain the productivity of the soil.
Peasants through the experience of generations had acquired some knowledge of using rotation
of crops for the good of the soil.
A semi circular sickle was used for cutting the crop.
The harvested crop was spread on the ground for threshing.
Our sources refer to two methods: in the firt method the crop was beaten with sticks; in the
second method the animals were made to move on the spread out crop.
The weight and movement of the animals treaded the grain.
The threshed out matter was put in open baskets and the contents were thrown outside the
basket at a controlled speed.
The chaff got scattered by the wind and the grain feel on the ground.

Means of Irrigation

Indian agriculture was heavily dependent on rains for irrigation needs.

Apart from rain water, a number of devices were used for artificial irrigation.
Well-irrigation was the most common method employed throughout the length and breadth; of
the country.
A number of methods were used to lift water from wells.
On the Northern plains both masonry and non-masonry wells were dog.
The non-masonry wells were not durable and some digging was required every year.
The mansonry wells were durable and were suitable for fixing better water lifting devices.
These are also known as ring wells.
A number of devices were used for lifting water from the wells.
i)

The most simple method was to draw water with rope and bucket by hand without any
mechanical aid. Due to its limited capacity this device could not have been used for
irrigation large fields.

ii) The second method was the employment of pulleys over the well. The same rope and
bucket was used over the pulley to lift the water. With the help of pulley larger
amounts of water could be drawn with less effort than our first method. Both the above
devices were used for the supply of water in domestic use of for irrigating small plots.
iii) In the third method the rope-pulley was used with the addition of the employment of a
pair of oxen. The use of animal power in this method helped in irrigation larger areas.
iv) The fourth device worked on a lever principle. In this method a long rope is lashed to
the fork of an upright beam or trunk of a tree to put it in a swinging position. The

bucket was fastened to rope tied on one end of the pole. The poles other end carried a
weight heavier than filled bucket. One person is required to operate it.
v) The fifth method required the use of a wheel. In its earlier form the pots were attached
to rims of the wheels which was to rotate with the help of animal power. It was used to
lift water from shallow surface and was of no use for wells. The use of wheel for lifting
water from well was also made. In this norms a garland of pots was used with 3 wheels,
a gear mechanism and animal power.
Lakes, tanks and reservoirs of water were also used uniformly in all parts of the country.
In South India, this was the most prevalent method used for irrigation. In Northern
plains, canals figure prominrntly as a means of irrigation. The Nahr nFaiz built during
Shah Jahans reign was around 150 miles in length. It carried the water from the
Yamuna to a large area. Another canal, around 100 miles long, was cut from the river
Ravi near Lahore. Remains of a number of canals are available in the whole Indis delta.

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE
Food Crops

The majority of seasonal crop in North India were grown in two major crop seasons kharif
(autumn) and rabi (spring. In some areas the peasants tended to grow even three crops by
producing some short-term crops in between. Rice was the main kharif crop and wheat was rabi.
Rice and wheat were the two major food crops throughout the country. The regions with high
rainfall (40 to 50) accounted for the bulk of rice production. The whole of Northeast, Eastren
India (Bihar, Bengal, Orissa with parts of eastern U.P.), southern coast of Gujarat and South India
there were two main seasons of rice cultivated during the summer and winter seasons.
Apart from these two major coops, barley was grown extensively in the Central plains.
Millet is reported with some exceptions mainly from wheat producing zones. Jowar and bajra
were the two main millets.
Pulses are reported from different regions. Important ones are gram, arhar, moong, mouth,
Urad and khisari (the latter was grown extensively in Bihar and the regions of present Madhya
Pradesh). However, Abul Razl says that its consumption was injurious to health.

Cash Crops

Crops grown mainly for the market are commonly termed as cash crops. These are referred in
Persian records as jinsi kamil or jinsi ala (superior grade croops). Unlike seasonal food crops,
these occupied the fields almost the whole year. The major cash crop in 16th-17th centuries were
sugarcane, cotton, indigo and opium.
Sugarcane was the most widely grown cash crop of the period. Sugar from Bengal was
considered to be the best in quality.
Indigo was another cash crop widely cultivated under the Mughals.

The varieties high in demand were those of Bayana and Sarkhej. Bayana, a place near Agra, was
considered as producing the best quality of indigo and fetched high price. Sarkhej near
Ahmedabad, was considered second in quality and also fetched a high price.
Cultivation of opium is reported from a number of places in India. The Mughal provinces of Bihar
and Malwa seem to nave produced good opium.
Cultivation of tobacco seems to have spread in India in a short time. The Ain-I Akbari does not
mention it as a crop in any of the dastur circles or other regions. It seems to have been
introduced in India during the 16th century by the Portuguese.
Cultivation of coffee seems to have started during the second half of the 17th century white tea
does not figure during the period of our study as a common beverage.
Sericulture (rearing of silkworm on a mulberry plant) was earned on in Bengal, Assam, Kashmir
and western coast.
The plants whose seeds were used for extracting oil come under the category of food as well as
cash crops. The main oil yielding crops listed are rapessed, castor, linseed.

Fruits, Vegetables and Spices

Horticulture seems to have reached new heights during the Mughal period. The Mughal
Emperors and the nobels planted lavish orchards. A number of fruits available today were
introduced in India during 16th and 17th centuries. Pineapple (anannas) is one such fruit which
was brought from Latin America and introduced in India by the Portuguese.
Papaya and cashew-nuts were also introduced through the same agency, but their spread was a
bit slow. Leechi and guava seem to have been introduced later. Cherries were brought from
Kabul and grown in Kashmir through grafting. The practice of grafting was in order to improve
the quality of a number of fruits. Quality of oranges and other types of citrus, apricots, mangoes
and a host of other fruits was greatly improved through grafting.
Seeds of different variety of melons and grapes were brought from Kabul and successfully grown
in the gardens of Emperors and nobles.
A large variety of vegetables were grown all over the country. The Ain-I Akbari provides a long
list of vegetables in use at that time. Potato and Tomato seem to have been introduced in the
17th century abd after.
Saffron grown in Kashmir was celebrated for its colour and flavor. Pan (betal leaf) was produced
in many areas.

Non-Agricultural Production
AGRO-BASED PRODUCTION
Textiles
Cotton

Gujarat emerges as one of the important region of textile manufacture.

Here the main centres were Ahmedabad, Broach, Baroda, Cambay, Surat, etc.
In Rajasthan we could mention Ajmer, Sironj and many small towns.
In U.P., Lucknow and a number of small towns around it.
Banaras, Agra, Allahabad etc. were prominent centres.
Other areas in the North like Delhi, Sirhind, Samana, Lohore, Sialok, Multan and Thatta produce
textiles of good quality.
In Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, Sonargaon and Decca, Rajmahal.
Qasimbazar and a number of small towns around it were famous textile centres.
In Deccan Burhanpur and Aurangabad produced cotton cloth of a fine variety.
On the western coast of Maharastra Chaul and Bhivandi had a flourishing weaving indisrty.
The Qutab Shahi kingdom was also famous for producing good quality cotton.
The fine yarn required for Decca muslin was spun by young women with the help of takli or
spindle.
Bafta is described in the Ain-I Akbari as a type of high quality calico normally white or of a single
colour.
The word calico was commonly used by Europeans for all kinds of cotton cloth.
It also meant white cloth of a thick variety.
Tafta was a slik cloth some times inter-woman with cotton yarn.
Zartari was a cloth which was inter-woven with gold or silver thread.
Muslin was a very fine quality of thin cloth.
Chintz (Chheent) was cotton cloth with floral or other patterns printed or painted.
Khasa was a kind of muslin.
It was expensive cloth of a fine quality.
Broach in Gujarat was supposed to be the best bleaching place because of the special quality of
its water.

Silk

Silk was another important item for the manufacture of textiles.

Abul Fazl mentions Kashmir where abundant silk textile was produced.
Patna and Ahmedabad were known for silk fabrics.
Banaras was equally famous.

In the seventeenth century, Bengal produced the largest amount of raw silk which was exported
abroad as well as to other parts of India.
In Bengal silk fabrics were manufactured at Qasimbazar and Murshidabad.

Wool

Wool was another important material used for manufacturing textiles.

The most famous was the Kashmir shawl, exported all over the world.
The fine wool used in these shawls was imported from Tibet.
Akbar promoted its manufacture at Lahore but it could not match the quality of Kashmir shawls.
Finer varieties of woolen textiles were generally brought in by the Europeans for the upper
classes.
Blankets were made from wool almost all over North India.
Other textile items included cotton durries, carpets (of silk and wool), tents and quils, etc.
Carpet weaving was yet another branch of textile production.
Bihar (Daudnagar, Obra, tec.), Delhi, Agra, Lahore and Mirzapur were famous centres in the
north.
Warangal in the south was also famous for carpet weaving.
The carpet weaving was also done in Masulipatam along the Caromandal coast.

Indigo

The demand for it in the country and for export was very high.
In Gujarat, other centres where indigo dye could be had were Jambussar, Broach, Baroda, etc.
In North India, Agra and Lahore were two other cities where indigo dye could be purchased in
vast quantities.
On the Coromandal coast, Masulipatam was another important mart for this dye.
The process of extracting was simple.
The stalks of plants were put in water.
After then dye was dissolved, the water was taken to another vat where the dye was allowed to
settle at the bottom.
It was strained and dried in the form of cakes.
The process was done mostly in the villages by peasants.

Sugar, Oil, etc.

Since sugarcane was cultivated widely, sugar was also manufactured all over the country, we get
references to three types of sugarcane products; the gur or jiggery; the powder sugar and the
finer quality grains called candy.
The method of extracting sugarcane juice involved the cane-press, which was operated
manually or with animal powder.
Bengal sugar was considered the best and was in great demand for export to Europe and Persia.
Extraction of oil was mostly a village based industry.

The oilseeds were put to a simple oil press operated manually or by animal power.
The specialized caste involved in extracting the oil was called telis.
The residual product was used for animal feed.

MINERALS, MINING AND METALS

Deep mining was not carried out in the 16th and 17th centuries in India, but surface mining for a
large number of minerals and metal was practiced.
We will deal with both in this section.

Mineral Production

The salt was the essential commodity in which India seems to have been self-sufficient.
The sources of salt were the Sambhar lake in Rajputana, the Punjab rock-salt mines and sea
water.
Saltpeter was one of the most important mineral products.
It was in great demand by the Europeans.
It was primarily used as an ingredient for gun powder.
Initially, saltpeter was extracted at Ahmedabad. Baroda, etc.
But since the supply could not meet the demand, it started to be made even in the Delhi-Agra
region.
However, by the second half of the seventeenth century, Patna in Bihar became an important
centre for procuring saltpeter.
The method of obtaining saltpeter from salt earth was a simple one.
Other minerals such as alum and mica were produced on small scale.

Metals

India did not have gold and silver mines in the proper sense.
The famous gold mines of Kolar were not explored.
Most of the silver requirements were met through imports.
Gold and silver were used for minting of coins.
A large amount was used for making ornaments and for hoarding purposes as precious metal.
Rajasthan was the main centre for copper production where copper mines existed (at Khetri).
The bulk of the copper was used for minting copper coins.
Iron was the most commonly found metal.
Iron mines were widely distributed in the north, east, west, central and southern parts of the
country.
Abul Fazl records Bengal, Allahabad, Agra, Bihar, Gujarat, Delhi and Kashmir as iron producing
regions.
Chhotanagpur in Bihar and adjoining regions of Orissa also produced large quantities.
The iron found in the south was converted into steel.
Lead was found in north and western India.

Diamond Mining

Diamond mining was carried out in some parts of India, but the diamond miners of Golconda
were most famous.
Other places included Biragarh in Berar, Panna in Madhya Pradesh, Khokhra or Chhotanagpur in
Bihar.

DADNI

The situation during that period rise to a revised form of production called dadni or a sort of
putting-out system.
In dadni the money was advanced to artisans by the merchants and the artisans promised to
deliver the goods at a given time.
Here the merchant was in a position to dictate his specifications.
The practice in textiles sector became so widespread that it was difficult to obtain cloth without
making advance payment to the artisans.
In the seventeenth century, the weaving industry in Deccan was found to be dominated by
merchants.
The system of dadni empowered the buyer to dicate the quality and quantity of the good
produced.
The artisan got the much needed money to buy raw material with the guarantee of the sale of
the goods made, but he lost his control over sale.

Karkhanas

A unique feature of production in the period of our study was the karkhanas.
These karkhanas were in operation even in 14th -15th centuries.
These karkhanas were part of the royal establishment and also of the nobles.
These produced things for the consumption of the royal household and the court.
Many high nobles also had their on karkhanas.
Generally expensive and luxury items were produced here.
Skilled artisans were employed to work under one roof to manufacture things needed.
They were supervised by state officials.
The need for such karkhanas arose because the artisans on their own were not in a position to
invest huge amounts required for royal needs.

Inland and Foreign Trade

INLAND TRADE
Local and Regional Trade

The surplus agricultural produce was to be sold.

Bulk of this was sold in the village itself.
Most of this purchase was made by banjaras-the traditional grain merchants.
They, in turn, carried it to other towns and markets.
In additional, every locality had markets in the nearby towns where people from the
surrounding areas would come to buy and sell things.
Apart from these regular markets, there were hat and penth where people from the villages
could exchange or buy things of their daily need.
These hats or penths were periodic markets which were held on fixed days in a week.
Sometimes there were hats for specific goods.
These local trading centres were linked to bigger commercial centres in a region.
If we take Mughal provinces as region, we notice that each of them bigger commercial centres
serving as nodal centres for all the commodities produced in various parts of suba.
Generally, these big towns also served as administrative headquarters of the suba.
There were some towns that specialized in the trading of specific commodities: for example,
Burhanpur (cotton mandi), Ahmedabad (cotton textiles), Cambay (gems market), Surat-Sarkhej
(indigo), Agra for Bayana indigo, etc.

Inter-Regional Trade

During the period of our study, trade between different regions of India was quite developed.
Considering the time consuming and expensive mode of transport, such large scale interregional trade was phenomenally high in volume.
Goods produced at one place were carried to long distance of hundreds and in some cases
thousands of miles for purposes of trade.
The main commodities of large scale interregional trade were foodgrains and various sorts of
textiles.
Luxury items, metals and weapons also occupied a prominent place in the long distance trade.

Coastal Trade

Because of long distances and slow moving transport system interregional trade we also
conducted through the sea route involving large number coastal areas.
This coastal trade was most prominent on the western coast.
The eastern coast also had substantial trading operations.
The trading operations on the two coasts were organized in different ways.

Piracy on the western coast was rampant.

As a result most of the traffic here was conducted through convoys.
While on the eastern coast small boats plied throughout the year.

FOREIGN TRADE

i)

For centuries India had maintained trading relations with other countries.
The pattern of trade and commodities underwent changes over the period.
During the 16th and 17th centuries also India had a flourishing trade with a large number of
foreign countries.
The significant aspect of foreign trade during this period is coming of the Europeans.
This increased Indias foreign trade manifold.
Most of this trade was in the form of exports of Indian goods.
The importants were very small.
In this section, we will take account of this foreign trade.
We shall discuss it under the heads of exports and imports.

Exports
Textiles, saltpeter and indigo formed the major share of Indian exports.
Other important items were sugar, opium, spices and other sundry commodities.
ii) Imports
As compared to exports from India, the imports were limited to only a few select
commodities.
Silver was the main iteam of import as it was brought to finance the purchases of
European Companies and other merchants from different parts of Europe and Asia.
Copper too, was imported in some quantity.
Lead and mercury were other important commodities brought to India.
Silk and porcelain from China were imported into India by the English.
Good quality wine, carpets and perfumes were brought from Persia.
Some items like cut glass, watches, silver utensils, woollen cloths and small weapons
from Europe were in demand by the aristocracy in India.
Horses from Central Asia were imported in large number of military uses.
The state was the main purchaser.
Besides, India had trade relations with its immediate neighbours in the hill kingdoms.
Musk was brought from Nepal and Bhutan to India where it was bought by the
Europeans.
Borax was also imported from Tibet and Nepal.
Iron and foodgrains were supplied in return to these hill regions.

TRADE ROUTES AND MEANS OF TRANSPORT

Trade Routes
Inland Trade Routes

It is to credit to Mughal Emperors that we find an elaborate network of trade routes linking all
the commercial centres of the Empire by the beginning of the 17th century.
Generally, the roads were looked after by the state or chieftains through whose territory they
passed.
In certain regions, these roads were obstructed by a large number of rivers which were crossed
by fords or sometimes bridges had to be built.
The fords and bridges were also built and maintained by state or nobles.
To give you an idea of some important trade routes we have listed them below:

Agra-Delhi Kabul Route

Agra-Faridabad-Delhi-Sonapat-Panipat-Karnal-Ambala-Ludhiana-fatehpur-Lahore-RohtasfortRawalpindi-Shamsabad-Peshawar-Fatehabad-Kabul.

Agra-Burhanpur Surat Route

Agra-Dholpur-Gwalior-Narwar-Sironj-Handiya-Burhanpur-Talner-Nandurbar-Kirka-Surat.

Surat-Ahmedabad-Agra

Surat-Biroach-Baroda-Ahmedabad-Palampur-Jalore-Merta-Ludana-Hinduan-Fatehpur Sikri-Agra.

Agra-Patna-Bengal Route

Agra-Firozabad-Etawa-Sarai Shahzada-Allahabad-Banaras-Sahasram-Daud Nagar-Patna-MungerBhagalpur-Rajmahal-Dampur-Dacca.

The river route from Agra to Bengal ran almost parallel to the land route.

Routes for Foreign Trade

i)

Foreign and Indian merchants traded through, both, the overland and overseas routes.

Overland Route

The most frequented overland route during the medieval period was the one connected
with the great silk route.
The great silk route beginning from Beijing passed through Central Asia via Kashighar,
Samarqand and Balkh and Kabul.
Indian hinterlands were connected with this great route at Lahore.

It passed through Multan, Qandahar (and then entered Persia via Yezd, and Isfahan),
Baghdad, and after crossing the Euphrates it reached Aleppo.
From there, the commodities were taken to Europe abroad ships.

ii) Overseas Route

The sea routes on both the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal were well frequented.
Before the discovery of the sea route via the Cape of Good Hope, the most frequented
sea routes in the north were;
a) From Cambay, Surat, Thatta to the Persian Gulf and Red Sea;
b) From other parts like Dabhor, Cachin and Calicut commodities were carried via Red
sea and then through overland route to Alexandria via Cairo, Alexandria was another
point of distribution of commodities into European countries. With the foundation of
the Cape of Good Hope, the European countries got new openings. Now they no
maore depended on Alexandria or Aleppo. Instead, they dealt directly with India and
South Asian countries. As for Eastren seas, since long the Indian merchants were
having seaborne trade with China and the Indonesia Archipelago. From Hugli,
Masulipatnam and Pulicot, commodities were sent directly to Achin, Batavia and
Malacca. Through the Malacca traits, merchants used to go as far as Macao and
Canton in China.

Commercial Practices
COMMERCIAL PRACTICES
Bills of Exchange (Hundi)

During this period hundis or bills of exchange became an important from of money transaction.
Hundi was a paper document promising payments of money after a period of time at a certain
place.
To begin with, the practice started because of the problems involved in carrying large amounts
of cash, for commercial transactions.
The merchants interested in carrying cash to a particular place would deposit it with a sarraf
who would issue a hundi to the merchants.
The merchants was to present it to the agent of the sarraf at his destination and encash it.
This started as a safe and convenient method of transferring money.
The use of hundi was so widespread that even the imperial treasury and state were using it.
Many big merchants also issued hundi.
A commission was charged by the sarrafs om each hundi.
The rate of exchange depended of the rate of interest prevalent and the period for which it was
drawn.
The period was calculated from the date of issue to its presentation for redemption.
The rate fluctuated as it also depended on the availability of money at the time of issue and
maturity.
If money supply was good, the rate would drop.
In case of scarcity, the rates rise.
To give you a rough idea a few rates are provided.
In normal times 1 per cent was charged for hundis from Patna to Agra and 7-8 per cent from
Patna to Surat.
For the hundi drawn at Ahmedabad for Burhanpur 7 per cent was charged in 1622.

Banking

The sarrafs apart from issuing bills of exchange, also received money for safe deposit.
This was returned to depositor on demand.
The depositor was paid some interest on his deposits.
The rate of interest payable to depositors kept changing.
The rates available for Agra, for 1645 and Surat for 1630 works out around nine and half percent
per annum.
The backers in turn would give money on loan to the needy on a higher rate of intrest.

Usury and Rate of Interest

Money lending for personal needs and commercial purposes was an established practice.
Much of trading was conducted through the money taken on interest.
Generally the sarrafs and merchants both indulged in money lending.
Sometimes the moneylenders were called Sah, a distinct category.
The loans were taken for various purposes.
The money was taken on loan by peasants for paying revenue and repaid at harvest.
Nobles and zamindars would take it for their day-to-day expenses and repay it at the time of
revenue collection.
Money lending for business purposes was also very common.tapan Roy Chaudhuri shows that
peasants took loans at a high rate of 150 per cent per annum in Bengali in the eighteenth
century.
The rate of interest fox Patna in 1620-21 is given as 9 per cent annum, while around 1680 it
seems more than 15 per cent.
At Qasimbazar (Bengal) the rate of interest in 1679 is given as high as 15 per cent per annum
while the rates for the corresponding period for Madras (8 per cent per annum) land Surat (9
per cent per annum) were much less.
The English factory kept a vigilant eye on the interest rates and would supply money to their
factories in various regions after taking loans from the place where interest was lowest.

Buottomry

A number of uncertainities and risks were involved in long distance sea coyages.
These uncertainties gave rise to a new practice called avog or bottomry.
It was a type of speculative investment which was quite popular during the period of our study.
In Bottomry money was lent at high rates ranging between 14 to 60 per cent.
The money was lent to be invested in a cargo for a particular destination.
The rate of interest depended on the risks involved.
The lenders were to bear all the risks of voyage.

Insurance (Inland and Marine)

Another important commercial practice prevalent in India on a limited scale was that of
insurance or bima.
In many cases, the sarrafs used to take responsibility for the safe delivery of goods.
The English factory records also refer to the insurance of goods, both inlands and overseas.
The rates for sea voyages were higher than goods going throught land.

MERCHANTS TRADING ORGANISATIONS AND THE STATE

Since towns were the centres of commercial activities, the administractive officers there looked
after the smooth conduct of trade.

The maintenance of law and order and providing peace and security were important for better
business environment.
This was the responsibility of the kotwal and his staff in the towns.
Merchants had their own guilds and organizations which framed rule.
We get references to such organizations in our sources.
In Gujarat, these were called mahajan.
The most influential and wealthy merchants of the town was called nagar seth.
Sometimes it was treated as hereditary title, Nagar seth was a link between the state and the
trading community.
If there were certain disputes among the merchants, the mahajans resolved them.
Generally their decisions were respected by all.
The Mughal administration also recognized these mahajans and took their help in matters of
conflicts and disputes or to seek support for administrative policies.
In 1639, Shah Jahan invited Virji Vohra, one of the biggest merchants of Surat, to enquire into
the grievances of merchants against the governor of Surat.
The merchants in spite of huge resources (Virji Vohra is said to have left an estate of Rs.
80,00,000 at his death) did not take much interest in politics.
Shaista Khan tried to monopolise a number of commodities, especially saltpeter.
Mir Jumla, another prominent noble, was a diamond merchant.

The European Trading Companies

EUROPEAN TRADING COMPANIES IN INDIA: 1600-1750
The Dutch East India Company

The Dutch East India Company was formed in 1602 through a charter.
The Dutch were primarily interested in spice trade.
They established their first factory at Petapuli in North Coromandal in 1606, followed by another
at Masulipatam in the same year.
Gradually, they realized that Indian textiles could be the best commodity for exchange with the
spice islands (Indonesian Archipelago).
This necessitated expansion of their network in India.
They established their factories at Pulicat (1610), Cambay (1620), Surat and Agra (1621),
Hariharpur (1633), Patna (1638), Decca (1650), Udaiganj (1651), Chinsura (1653), Qasimbazar,
Baranagore, Balasore and Negapatam (1659-60).
However, in 1619 the Dutch managed to have a truce with English and both agreed to become
copartners in India trade.
The English Company was allowed to share the Pulicot tarde provided they before half
maintenance cost of the Dutch fort and garrison there.
But it did not last long.
In 1623 and again in 1653-54, the Dutch attacked the English ships.
Between1672-74 the Dutch again tried to obstruct English settlements at Surat and Bombay and
captured an English vessel in the Bay of Bengal.
The English realized the supremacy of the Dutch over the Eastern Islands.
They decided to drive them away from their Indian possessions.
To fulfill their designs the English joined hands with the Portugues in India.
Finally, they succeeded in defeating them at Bedara (1759) with weakened the Dutch opposition
in India greatly.
By 1795, the English succeeded in expelling the Dutch completely from their Indian possessions.

The English East India Company

In 1599 the English Association of the Merchants Adventures was formed to trade with the
east.
This company (popularly known as the East India Company) got a Royal Charter with her trade
monopoly in the East by Queen Elizabeth on 31 December 1600.
In 1608 the English merchants decided to open their first factory at Surat.
By 1619, they succeeded in establishing factories at Agra, Ahmedabad and Broach.
In the South, the English, opened their first factory at Masulipatam in 1611.
In 1626, another factory was opened at Aramgaon.

In 1639, they got Madras on lease from the local Raja.

Soon, they fortified it which came to be known as Fort S.t. George.
They acquired the island of Bombay in 1668 and fortified soon after.
It was soon to supersede Sirat (by 1687) as the headquarters of the Company on the west coast.
They established their first factory in Orissa at Hariharpur and Balasore in 1633.
In 1651, they got permission to trade at Hugli.
Soon they also opened their factories at Patna (Bihar) and Qasimbazar (Bengal).
In 1690, an English factory was opened at Sutanati which was later (1696) fortified.
In 1698, the English acquired the zamindari of Sutanati, Kalikata and Govindpur, where they
built the Fort William.
Soon it grew into a big city and came to be known as Calcutta.

The French East India Company

The French were late comers to the Eastern trade.

The French East India Company was founded in 1664.
The first French factory was establish at Surat in 1668.
In 1669, the French established their second factory at Masulipatam.
In 1673, they got, Pondicherry, and in 1674 the Nawab of Bengal granted them a site near
Calcutta where in 1690-92 they built the town of Chandranagore.
Thus, Golkunda in coordination with the Dutch power, decided to expel the French from St.
Thome (1674).
Finally, the French had to surrender St. Thome.
Later, in the early 1690s, when the war broke out between France and the Netherlands, their
Indian counterparts also raised their arms against each other.
In 1693 the Dutch captured Pondicherry from them.
There was fierce rivalry between the English and the French.
Clashes in India began with the war between the two countries (France and Britain) in Europe in
1742 leading to the three Carnatac wars (1746-48; 1749-54; 1758-63), The decisive battle was
fought at Wandiwash (January, 1766).
The France were defeated and lost almost all their possession in India.

Other European Trading Companies

The Danes entered as traders in 1616 but with no ambition to establish an Empire.
They managed to secure the Trancquebar port from the Nayak of Tanjore in 1620 and built a
fort there.
But the overall resources available to them were extremely scanty.
They also established their factories at Masulipatam, Porto Novo and Serampur (1755).
However, their success was limited, and ultimately they sold off their factories to the English
and finally quit India in 1845.

The Swedish East India Company was formed in 1731, but its activities were directed exclusively
towards China rather than India.
The Flanders merchants established the Ostend Company in 1722 but their activities were also
limited in India.

PARENTAL CONTACT AND CONTROL

The Dutch

Dutch East India Company was established through a charter granted by the Dutch Government
(States General).
The Company was to be governed through 17 Directors commonly known as Gentlemen XVII.
Batavian Governor-General-in-Council enjoyed almost sovereign authority in so far as the Dutch
East Indian trade was concerned.
The Council at Batavia was an efficient administrative body.
The Directors of the Company at home were heavily dependent for information upon Batavian
Council which in turn collected information through factors stationed at various places in India
and other eastern countries.
At times Governor General at Batavia and factors in India often tried to twist orders.

The English

In the early 17th century, the English East India Company was the single largest Company of
England.
It strictly adhered to monopoly with regard to Eastern trade vis--vis other English merchants.
Therefore, from the very beginning it attempted to oust rival mercantile interests from the
Eastern Seas and to secure exclusive privileges.
No Non-member was allowed to trade with the East.
This maturally created dissatisfaction among those English merchants who were denied their
share in the huge profits from the Eastern tarde.
These merchants tried to influence political leaders but the Company somehow (through bribes,
etc.) managed to retain its privileges upto Charles IIs reign.
In spite of all opposition these merchants, known as interlopers continued to defy the
monopoly of the Company by indulging in the East Indian trade on their own.
By 1688 the situation turned favourable when in British Parliament they became supreme.
These Free Merchants tried to press their demands in public as well as in parliament.
In 1694, the Parliament passed the resolution that all the citizens of England had equal right to
trade in the East.
This resulted in the formation of New Company.
But the Old Company refused to surrender their privileges.
Finally, after long drawn conflicts, both the Companies agreed to join hands and a new
company, The Limited Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies, was
formed in 1708.

There existed close relationship between the Company and the Crown.
Queen Flizabeth herself was one of the shareholders of the Company, After Queen Elizabeths
death (1603), James renewed the charter (1609) thought it could be revoked at any time at
three years notice.
In 1615, the Company got the power to enforce law to maintain discipline on long voyages.
The charter of 1623 further enhanced the Companys powers of controlling and punishing its
servants.
Another charter was granted to the Company in 1661 by Charles II.
By this charter, the Company was empowered to appoint governors and suboridanate officers
for administration.
Their judicial powers to punish were enhanced.
The Company also got the right to empower the governor and the Council of its each factory to
supervise the person employed under them according to the English law.
The charter of 1668 was the major step in the transition of the Company from a mere trading
body to a territorial power.
As we have mentioned earlier, in 1669 the Company procured territorial rights over Bombay.
Now the Company could freely make laws and issue ordinances for governing the island.
The Company even secured the right to mint money at Bombay in 1676.
The charter of 1683 further granted the Company to raise military forces within a prescribed
limit, and to declare war on or make peace with America, Africa and Asia.
In 1687, the Company was permitted to establish a municipality and a Mayors court at Madras.

The French

The French East India Company was a state controlled organization and thus differed from the
Chartered Companies of England and the Netherland.
The French East Indian Company was highly dependent on the French government for its grants,
subsidies, loans, etc.
After 1723, it was almost wholly controlled by the French government with Directors as its
representative.
Its shareholders were mostly nobles and reinters and not merchants.
They were more interested in short term dividend French government, such level of control was
obviously harmful for the French east India Company.
The Companys headquarter was in Paris.
But it had equally largest staff at Lorient under the charge of a resident director.
The French Company owned its own fleet.
But the wastage in the French East India Company was higher than in the other two large East
India Companies.
From 1769-1785, and again after the French Revolution (1789), the French, East India trade was
thrown open to individuals.

Urbanisation, Urban Classes and Life-Style

APPROACHES

The town, in contrast to a village, is now, by consensus, seem to posses two basic features:
dense concentration of population within a defined and also limited space, and a predominantly
non-cultivating character of this population.
A town thus has a definite man-space ratio and an essentially heterogeneous occupational
pattern.
For the emergence of towns, in medieval India, several explanations have been put forward.
The causative factors inherent in these explanations postulate the emergence of mainly four
types of urban centres:

i)
ii)
iii)
iv)

Administrative
Religious
Military / strategic
Market

The administrative (owns obviously functioned primarily as seats of governance.

For the Mughal Empire, towns like Delhi and Lahore, come under this category.
The religious centres were pre-eminent pilgrim attractions, e.g., Varanasi and Mathura.
The military or strategic towns developed essentially as military cantonment, and, in due
course of time attracted civilian population also.
The towns like Attock and Asirgarh fit this description.
Finally, there were urban centres as the focus of large scale commercial activities or were
predominantly production centres.
Sometimes both these activities together characterized an urban centre.
We have, for the Mughal Empire, towns like Patna and Ahmedabad falling under this category.
Here two things should be noted.
An average town in the Mughal Empire was in fact an extension of the village in the sence of
social unities and attitudes.
This rural-urban continuum is thus a notable feature of urbanization during the Mughal period.

URBAN LANDSCAPE

Even while accepting the caveat about Mughal towns as stated in the preceding section, it is
possible to identify some common features.

Physical Configuration

Most of the towns had some sort of a fortification wall with one or more gates.
The main population of the city lived within these walls.
With the expansion of towns at times the cities outgrew their walls.
The example of the typical Mughal town can be found in the description of Agra by John
Jourdain at the beginning of the 17th century: The cities is 12 courses long by the river side,
which is above 16 miles; and at the narrowest place it is three miles broad.
Another important feature of the town was the presence of sarais which were halting places for
merchants of travelers.
Even the smallest towns had one.
On the whole, most of the towns lacked any detailed town planning.
Except the major street, other lanes and by lanes were congested and muddy.
The city had its own administrative machinery and regulations to run the day-to-day
administration.

Composition of Population (Urban Classes)

The urban population was not a homogenous one.

In our sources we come across various categories of people residing in towns. These can be
classified into four broad groups:
i) Nobles and their retainers, officials of the state and troops;
ii) Person engaged in merchantile activities (merchants, sarrafs, brokers, etc.);
iii) People involved with religious establishments, musicians, painters, poets, physicians,
etc., and
iv) Artisans, menials and workmen of sundry sorts.

Another important group in town comprised of people associated with the professions of
medicine, learning, literature, art and. Music.
Generally, the religious and charitable grants were given in the vicinity of towns.
Besides, a large number of poets, musicians, physicians also made their abode in towns because
here money could be earned or patronage of the king and nobles was available.
Artisans, workmen and labourers formed one of the biggest groups in towns having large
commercial activities.
We have already discussed the large number of crafts practiced in India during this period in.
The people working as artisans in various crafts may be divided in many groups :
i) The individual artisans working at their own place and selling their wares;
ii) Artisans working in the karkhanas of the kings and nobels, and in large scale building
construction undertaken by the kings and nobels.

iii) There was a large workforce of semi-skilled and unskilled workmen who would assist
artisans of work in such large scale enterprises as shipbuilding, diamond-mining,
saltpeter and salt making.
iv) A number of workmen were employed as domestic help and daily wage labourers.
Social Life

Joint family system was common.

Woman was subordinate to man.
The higher class women observed purdah.
Barbosa comments that in Khambayat, though, women observed purdah, they frequently
visited their friends.
There was ample freedom of social intercourse within the limits of the purdah.
The custom of jauhar was almost entirely confined totally among the Rajputs.
Their women, in time of despair (during war, etc.), seeing the imminent defeat, to save their
pride, used to set themselves afire.
Babur gives a vivid description of the jauhar performed by Medini Rais ladies at Chanderi.
Among the upper caste Hindus, the practice of sati or self-immolation was quite common.
Akbar took a serious view when the daughter of Mota Raja of Marwar was compelled to burn
herself against her wishes.
Akbar appointed observers in every town and district to ensure that while those who on their
own impulse wished to commit sati might be allowed to do so, they should prohibit and
prevent any forcible sati.
Akbar also took steps of permitting widow to remarry (1587).
Bothe Hindus and Muslims favored an early marriage age for boys and girls to 14 years.
Birth ceremony was of great importance.
Among the Muslims, the rite of aqiqa (shaving the hair of the head) was performed.
The Hindu child was placed in the charge of a guru at the age of five while, as per Muslim
traditions, a child was put in a school (maktab) after the completion of four years, four months
and four days.
The ceremony was known as bismillak Khwani.
Usually in the 7th year, the Muslim child was circumcised and the occasion was celebrated with
great rejoicing.
Akbar prohibited circumcising before the age of 12 and even then left it to the option of the
grown up boy.
The Hindus performed upanayana samsakara, i.e., tying of the triple sacred thread at the
completion of the 9th year.
Marriage ceremonies hardly differed from the present day celebration.
Elaborate ceremonies were performed at the time of death also.
Priests Chanted mantras, distributed alms, etc, put sacred Ganga water followed by shraddha
ceremony after a year.

The practice of burning dead was quite common among the Hindus.
Muslims performed siyum ceremony on the 3rd day of death.

Education

In general, education was beyond the reach of a common woman.

But women of elite class got opportunity to study.
Princesses were taught to read and write.
Akbar was greatly interested in female education.
Badauni comments that he recommended a new syllabus.
He established a school for girls at Fatehpur Sikri.
Some royal ladies were also interested in promoting ducation.
Bega Begum, Humayuns consort, founded a college near the mausoleum of Humayun.
Maham Anaga, the foster mother of Akbar, established a school at Delhi.
Gulbadan Begum was well versed in Persian and Turki and wrote the Humayunama.
She had a library of her own.
Similarly, Nur Jahan, Jahan Ara and Zaibunnisa (daughter of Aurangzed) were literary figures of
their age.
Aurangzeb educated all his daughters well.