Introduction

• Contemporary historiography divides Indian history into two phases regarding land, revenue, and agricultural relations between landlords and peasants.

• Early Indian history is seen as an age of prosperity, marked by long-distance trade, the spread of urban centers, less unequal land distribution, and communal land ownership.

• The post-Gupta period is considered the Classical age of Indian feudalism, characterized by local state formation, a rural agrarian economy, agrarian expansion, peasantization of tribes, decline of trade and urban centers, uneven land distribution, and regional agricultural structures.

• The early medieval period began with the consolidation of peasant activities and state structures influenced by Brahmanical ideology.

• The dynamic age of c. 750-1206 CE brought significant changes in land, revenue, and agrarian relations, which need to be studied in the context of the interrelated transformation of Indian polity, economy, and culture.

• Pre-Muslim India saw a higher level of elaboration and complexity compared to ancient India, with the formation of agrarian regions.

• Politically, the early medieval period was marked by the emergence of regional powers vying for supremacy, leading to political disorder and instability due to the absence of durable power.

• On the positive side, small kingdoms expanded state authority into previously unreached areas to utilize local resources.

• Peasant settlements, chiefdoms, and larger state systems interacted and evolved accordingly.

• Starting around 600 CE, an increasing number of land grants became a medium for the expansion of political authority in response to a shortage of workforce and money.

• Several Marxist historians highlight the significant socio-economic and political changes driven by land grants after c. 600 CE, which contributed to the formation of Indian feudalism.

• The revolutionary changes in land, revenue systems, and agriculture are considered the beginning of Indian feudalism around c. 750 CE.

• These changes started in north India and spread across the Indian subcontinent through a process of interaction.

Land

• Between c. 750-1206 CE, land and associated rights became central to almost all activities in early medieval India.

• Economy, polity, society, and religion increasingly depended on land and its resources until the establishment of the Muslim empire, which introduced large-scale cash payments.

• Land became the most important source of income for kings.

• Kings issued land as a medium of exchange for services rendered by officials and religious communities during financial crises.

• Kings fought to acquire more land, utilizing the land of their kingdoms to expand their power.

• Society became more stratified and complicated, with the quantity of land serving as a medium of social mobility and a status symbol.

• The status of farmers transformed, leading to the rise of a complex stratification based on land, such as rich peasants, middle peasants, poor peasants, sharecroppers, and tenants.

• Landless laborers, forming the working agricultural population, became valuable assets for the kingdoms.

• The early medieval economy was structured, modified, and functioned around land, which became a significant source of revenue.

• Kings also donated land to individuals and institutions in exchange for services to the empire.

• The system of land-grants became an all-India feature by c. 1200 CE, encompassing various types of land, including fertile, semi-fertile, arid, unfertile, pastures, and other ecological kinds.

• Religious institutions and communities became significant recipients of land grants from kings for their favor and services.

• Brahmanas, temples, government officers, and royal kinsmen benefitted most from land grants and became landlords.

• Land became valuable as private property during c. 750-1206 CE, unlike in ancient India.

• Rights of use, mortgage, resale, and gift were acquired with land, and denees (grantees) were free to use it.

• Epigraphical evidence of the sale and purchase of property dates back to the 2nd century CE.

• Several land sale records have been recovered from the post-Gupta and Chola periods.

• Proprietary rights emerged gradually in undeveloped areas with the gradual development of agrarian systems.