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.
Examine the role played by zamindars in Mughal India.
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.
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?
Discuss the major beliefs and practices that characterised Sufism.
Read any five of the sources included in this chapter and discuss the social and religious ideas that are expressed in them.
Discuss the ways in which the Alvars, Nayanars and Virashaivas expressed critiques of the caste system.
On an outline map of India, plot three major sufi shrines, and three places associated with temples (one each of a form of Vishnu, Shiva and the goddess).
Do you think Ibn Battuta’s account is useful in arriving at an understanding of life in contemporary urban centres? Give reasons for your answer.
Explain with examples what historians mean by the integration of cults.
Discuss the extent to which Bernier’s account enables historians to reconstruct contemporary rural society.
What are the architectural traditions that inspired the architects of Vijayanagara? How did they transform these traditions?
Discuss the major features of Mughal provincial administration. How did the centre control the provinces?
Assess the role played by women of the imperial household in the Mughal Empire.