Author: Satish Chandra
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 549
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0 195663365
Description
In this volume, one of India’s leading historians explores the interconnections between society, economy, religion, and state in medieval India. The author concludes with a thought-provoking discussion of the future of history and history writing in India.
Since the earliest of these essays was written in 1948, the shape and direction of history writing have undergone great change. The essays in this collection reflect –and have also been responsible for determining – new currents in history writing over the last five decades.
The essays, covering the period between the tenth and eighteenth centuries, range over a broad spectrum of subjects: the links between India and Asian societies during the pre-Sultanate and Sultanate periods and the effects of a hierarchical social system on state formation; the experiments with and growth of different types of Muslim states in medieval India-moderate, secularist, orthodox, and liberal – and the extent of their reach; more generally, the role played by religion in state formation in Indian history; and aspects of the Mughal economy.
Other topics include the Mughal alliance with the Rajputs, Mughal relations with the Deccan, and the rise of a Maratha principality in Western India. Professor Chandra’s path-breaking work on the subject of Jizyah, among his best known contributions to the study of later Mughal history, and his celebrated pieces on Aurangzeb, which offer a reassessment of the controversial Mughal ruler’s policies and motives, also appear in this collection.
By bringing together the various strands of a lifetime of work by a renowned medievalist, this volume will prove indispensable to students and scholars of Mughal and medieval Indian history.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
SOCIETY AND STATE
The Impact of Central Asian Institutions on the State and Society in Medieval India (Tenth to Fourteenth Centuries)
Society, Culture, and the State in Medieval India
The Eighteenth Century in India-
Its Economy and the Role of the Marathas,
the Jats, the Sikhs, and the Afghans
A Review of the Crisis of the Jagirdari System
The State and Economic Development under Timur,
with Special Reference to the Silk Road and the Great Asian Land Routes
SOCIETY AND COUNTRYSIDE
The Structure and Stratification in the Village Society in Eastern Rajasthan
Structure of Village Society in Northern India:
The Khud-kasht and Pahi-kasht
The Maratha Polity: Its Nature and Development
Social Background to the Rise of the Maratha
Movement during the Seventeenth Century
ECONOMY
The Commercial Activities of the Mughal
Emperors during the Seventeenth Century
Some Aspects of the Growth of a Money Economy
in India during the Seventeenth Century
The Role of the Local Community, the Zamindars,
and the State in Providing Capital Inputs for the Improvement
and Expansion of Cultivation
The Developmental Problematic in Medieval India
RELIGION AND STATE
The Historical Background to the Rise of the
Bhakti Movement in Northern India
Jizyah and the State in India during the Seventeenth Century
The Religious Policy of Aurangzeb during the
Later part of his Reign-Some Considerations
Jizyah in the Post-Aurangzeb Period
POLITICAL PROCESSES
Mughal Relations with the Rajput States of Rajasthan:
The Foundations
Mughal-Rajput Relations during the Seventeenth Century-
Problems of a Class Alliance
The Deccan Policy of the Mughals (I)- Up to Shah Jahan
The Deccan Policy of the Mughals (II)- Under Aurangzeb
Aurangzeb - A Critical Review
The Deccan, North India and Baji Rao I
HISTORIOGRAPHY
Decentring of History
Index