India at the Death of Akbar (An Economic Study)

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The book attempts to supply such a beginning, by furnishing an account of the economic position at the close of Akbar's reign; there is little prospect that adequate materials for a similar study of earlier periods will ever become available, but our knowledge of the closing years of the 16th century appears to be sufficient to justify the attempt. The aim of the book is to present a sketch of the economic life of India at the opening of the 17th century that is to say, at the period immediately antecedent to the first appearance of those new forces which were destined to exercise an increasing and eventually predominant influence on the development of the country. Starting from 1608 when the English ship Hector reached Surat, it is possible to trace the economic story of the next three centuries, first in the narratives of travelers and the early Letter-Books of the East India Company, and then in the more copious official records and publications of later times to that a well-defined period for study is within the reach of our academic institutions.

THE aim of this book is to present a sketch of the economic life of India at the opening of the seventeenth century, that is to say, at the period immediately antecedent to the first appearance of those new forces which were destined to exercise an increasing and eventually predominant influence on the development of the country. If it be permissible to assign a precise date to what is essentially a gradual transition, we may say that the medieval history of India ended, and the modern history began, in the year 1608, when the English ship Hector reached Surat. Starting from this date, it is possible to trace the economic story of the next three centuries, first in the narratives of travellers and the early Letter-Books of the East India Company, and then in the more copious official records and publications of later times, so that a well- defined period for study is within the reach of our schools and universities, provided that a suitable beginning can be made. This book attempts to supply such a beginning, by furnishing an account of the economic position at the close of Akbar's reign; there is, I fear, little prospect that adequate materials for a similar study of earlier periods will ever become available, but our knowledge of the closing years of the sixteenth century appears to be sufficient to justify the attempt which I have made.