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  1. Home
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  3. The Cambridge Economic History of India
  • Cited by 122
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
March 2008
Print publication year:
1982
Online ISBN:
9781139054515
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521226929
Subjects:
Economics: General Interest, Area Studies, South Asian History, Asian Studies, History, Economic History
Series:
The Cambridge Economic History of India (1)
Collection:
Cambridge Histories - Asian History
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Contents

Page 2 of 2

Contents
  • 1 - European Trade with India
    pp 382-407
  • View abstract

    Summary

    In so far as the foreign trade of the Indian sub-continent is concerned, the aspirations and the activities of the Estado da India represented several institutional innovations. As a result of the Portuguese naval watch, at the end of the sixteenth century few Indian ships could venture to east Africa, the Spice Islands, or to China and Japan unless, the shipowners entered into indirect partnerships with Portuguese officials or merchants in Goa. Both the coast of Coromandel and the Gujarat plains in western India produced a wide variety of patterned cotton fabrics which found specialized markets in the islands of south-east Asia. During the eighteenth century, India's foreign trade underwent a considerable expansion as a result of the tripartite participation of the Dutch, English, and the French. It is inconceivable that European trade with India, in general for that matter, could have been sustained on a large scale for any length of time without the discovery of American silver-mines.
  • 2 - Indian Merchants and the Trade in the Indian Ocean c. 1500–1750
    pp 407-433
  • View abstract

    Summary

    At the turn of the fifteenth century, India's mercantile marine, largely in the hands of Gujarati Muslim merchants, appears to have been deployed principally in the middle Indian Ocean, dominating the sea-lanes between Cambay and Malacca. European trade in the Indian Ocean remained part of the traditional structure, which was enriched and strengthened through European skill and enterprise. On the eastern side, Pulicat and Negapatam were the principal ports of southern Coromandel. Of India's exports to the markets of the Indian Ocean three points are worth noting. First, as to India's major export, which was textiles throughout our period, the mass of it was of the coarser kind. Secondly, India exported common foods like rice and pulses, wheat and oil, for which there was considerable demand. Thirdly, the pattern of Indian exports like most other things, appears to have remained stable throughout the period. The vitality of Indian shipping notwithstanding, investment in shipping was not popular among Indian merchants.
  • 1 - Mughal India
    pp 434-451
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The cities and towns of the Indian sub-continent served as the repositories of higher culture and learning, both as reservoirs in which were preserved the Sanskritic and Indo-Islamic 'Great Traditions' and as conduits through which those traditions could be transmitted to society as a whole. Considering the enormous diversity of urban economies and urban cultures spanning the sub-continent, it would be impossible to speak of a typical Indian city of the Mughal period. The relations between the urban population and the Mughal state were determined in large measure by the fact that the traditional Indo-Muslim city, like the traditional Islamic city in north Africa and the Middle East, lacked any kind of corporate or municipal institutions. The kōtwāl's authority was so extensive and touched so many aspects of urban life, the towns and cities of Mughal India must have been very strictly controlled on behalf of the central government.
  • 2 - The Far South
    pp 452-457
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Urbanism is a distinctive feature of the economic history of later medieval south India. The Vijayanagara state was based upon heavily fortified administrative centres often under the control of warriors and Brahmans who were strangers to the place. Brahmadeyas of the Chola period were settlements of great size and wealth under the control of an assembly of Brahmans. Temples of the post-Chola period became centres of pilgrimage necessitating a variety of facilities seldom before demanded. Kānci was a focal point for many of the sectarian and caste activities of the central Tamil plain just as Tirupati was for the northern portions of the plain and as Palni, Nanjunad, and Perur for the southern and western parts of the interior upland of the macro-region. An independent stimulus to urban development was military. Vijayanagara, the capital city of the empire from 1340 to 1565, was one of the greatest fortified cities of all of India.
  • 1 - Mughal India
    pp 458-471
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter discusses the standards of living of the ruling classes to the common people in India during sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Owing to the marked division of seventeenth-century Indian society into classes and strata with great differences in income, customs and patterns of consumption, it will be convenient to treat separately the standards of living of the peasantry, the city poor, the middle strata and the nobility. Famine and epidemics were two major scourges in the lives of the villages. The employment of large numbers of servants and attendants by the upper classes was a characteristic feature of Indian society of the time. The upper classes in Mughal India consisted of the nobles, the autonomous chiefs and rajas, and the wealthy merchants in the towns. There were many rich merchants particularly in the coastal towns who rivalled nobles in luxurious living. Mughal centralization led to the growth of a remarkable degree of cultural synthesis among the upper classes.
  • 2 - Maharashtra and the Deccan
    pp 471-477
  • View abstract

    Summary

    There was a considerable economic differentiation among the peasantry in the medieval Deccan. The small peasants who held the land below 10 acres or so as well as the village artisans and servants may be regarded as the rural poor. Zamindārs and other large ināmdārs may be regarded as rural aristocrats. Domestic slaves owned by urban residents and government labourers, artisans, ordinary soldiers and the like, may be considered the urban poor. During the eighteenth century in Maharashtra there was a custom for the private as well as government slave to be paid a ser of coarse grains a day per head. Despite a great difference in the standard of living among different classes both in the rural and urban areas, the routine life of the people in the medieval Deccan was marked by a degree of stability in normal times. But this stability was often gravely disturbed by the sporadic famines, wars, and other calamities.

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