Discuss, with examples, the significance of monetary transactions during the period under consideration.
(i)The political stability provided by the Mughal helped in establishing hoarsening trade relation with Ming (china), Safavid (Iran) and Ottoman (Turkey) empires. It led to increase in outland trade from China to the Mediterranean Sea.
(ii)The Discovery of new lands and sea routes also gave an impetus to Asia’s trade with Europe. As a result enormous amount of silver entered India as payment for goods bought from India.
(iii)Jovanni Karari, an Italian traveller, who passed through India in 1690 has written how the silver reached India from all parts of the world. From his description, we also came to know how there was an exchange of cash and goods in India in the 17th century.
(iv)This benefitted India as she did not have enough resources of silver. Therefore, from the sixteenth to the eighteeth centuries there was sufficient reserves of silver in India and the silver rupya was available readily.
(v)The mutual exchange in villages took place. As villagers established their links in the urban markets, there was a considerable increase in monetary transactions. In this way, villages became an important part of the monetary market.
(vi)It was due to the monetary transactions, became easier to pay daily wages to the labourers in cash and not in kind. This resulted in an unprecedented expansion in the minting of coins and circulation of money allowing the Mughal state to extract taxes and revenues in cash.
How were the lives of forest dwellers transformed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?
Discuss the ways in which panchayats and village headmen regulated rural society.
On an outline map of the world, mark the areas which had economic links with the Mughal Empire, and trace out possible routes of communication.
Examine the role played by zamindars in Mughal India.
To what extent do you think caste was a factor in influencing social and economic relations in agrarian society?
Describe the role played by women in agricultural production.
Examine the evidence that suggests that land revenue was important for the Mughal fiscal system.
To what extent is it possible to characterise agricultural production in the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries as subsistence agriculture? Give reasons for your answer.
What are the problems in using the Ain as a source for reconstructing agrarian history? How do historians deal with this situation?
Write a note on the Kitab-ul-Hind.
What have been the methods used to study the ruins of Hampi over the last two centuries? In what way do you think they would have complemented the information provided by the priests of the Virupaksha temple?
Explain with examples what historians mean by the integration of cults.
Describe the process of manuscript production in the Mughal court.
Compare and contrast the perspectives from which Ibn Battuta and Bernier wrote their accounts of their travels in India.
How were the water requirements of Vijayanagara met?
To what extent do you think the architecture of mosques in the subcontinent reflects a combination of universal ideals and local traditions?
In what ways would the daily routine and special festivities associated with the Mughal court have conveyed a sense of the power of the emperor?
Discuss the picture of urban centres that emerges from Bernier’s account.
What do you think were the advantages and disadvantages of enclosing agricultural land within the fortified area of the city?
Fig. 7.33 is an illustration of another pillar from the Virupaksha temple. Do you notice any floral motifs? What are the animals shown? Why do you think they are depicted? Describe the human figures shown.
Examine how and why rulers tried to establish connections with the traditions of the Nayanars and the sufis.
On an outline map of the world mark the countries visited by Ibn Battuta. What are the seas that he may have crossed?
Write a note on the Kitab-ul-Hind.
To what extent do you think the visual material presented in this chapter corresponds with Abu’l Fazl’s description of the taswir (Source 1)?
What were the concerns that shaped Mughal policies and attitudes towards regions outside the subcontinent?
Discuss the extent to which Bernier’s account enables historians to reconstruct contemporary rural society.
What were the similarities and differences between the be-shari‘a and ba-shari‘a sufi traditions?
What were the elements of the practice of sati that drew the attention of Bernier?
Read this excerpt from Bernier:
Numerous are the instances of handsome pieces of workmanship made by persons destitute of tools, and who can scarcely be said to have received instruction from a master. Sometimes they imitate so perfectly articles of European manufacture that the difference between the original and copy can hardly be discerned. Among other things, the Indians make excellent muskets, and fowling- pieces, and such beautiful gold ornaments that it may be doubted if the exquisite workmanship of those articles can be exceeded by any European goldsmith. I have often admired the beauty, softness, and delicacy of their paintings.
List the crafts mentioned in the passage. Compare
these with the descriptions of artisanal activity in
the chapter.