Money and the market in India, 1100-1700

The histories of money and the market are everywhere intimately interlinked. Thus, economic historians of pre-colonial South Asia have always seen a close relationship between monetization and commercialization - the growing use of money on the one hand, and the growing orientation towards the market of producers (agriculturists and manufacturers) on the other. In the past four decades, writings on this theme have acquired a sharp focus. Historians of medieval and early modern India have understood well that money is a social and political reality; therefore, writings on money and the market cannot be entirely separated from larger issues of revenue-raising, state power, and social and cultural attitudes towards commercial and monetary institutions. The essays collected in this volume range in their focus from medieval Tamilnadu under the Colas to Maharashtra in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. Some are clearly focused regional studies, while others are attempts at generalizing on a pan-Indian canvas. Together they provide a sense of diverse voices in a debate which has hitherto been portrayed somewhat monolithically in such standard volumes as the Cambridge Economic History of India, Volume I (1982). They also demonstrate that a great deal of regional variation exists in terms of both monetary history and economic history in general, and that much work needs to be done before we can securely attempt a generalization for all of medieval and early modern India.