Medieval India: Society and Power

Medieval India was not simply a sequence of dynasties. It was a contest over land and revenue, a negotiation between conquerors and regional elites, a marketplace linking Gujarat to the Persian Gulf, and a devotional ferment that spoke in the languages of the street.

This book approaches the period through the questions historians actually argue about. It begins where the discipline begins — with the sources themselves: court chronicles and their silences, epigraphs, travellers' accounts, and archival records, and what each can and cannot be made to say. From there it moves through the making and unmaking of imperial power: Ghori's campaigns, the administrative experiments of the Tughluqs, the mansab-and-jagir machinery of the Mughal state, Akbar's Rajput and religious policies, the Maratha challenge under Shivaji, and the fiscal crisis that hollowed out the empire from within.

The closing chapters turn from the state to the society beneath it — the trade routes and monetary systems that financed empire, the architecture and painting that expressed it, and the Bhakti and Sufi movements that at times stood entirely apart from it.

Key Features

• Opens with a full chapter on source material and historical method

• Engages directly with the jagirdari crisis debate and the question of Mughal decline

• Substantial treatment of trade, money, and economic structures

• Integrated coverage of art, architecture, and devotional movements

• Chapter-wise organisation suited to structured study and revision

Ideal for students of history at undergraduate and postgraduate level, aspirants preparing for UGC-NET and civil services examinations, and general readers seeking a serious, argument-led introduction to the period.