In this volume, one of India’s leading historians explores the interconnections between society, economy, religion, and state in medieval 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.
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