Agricultural production and village economy

Agriculture was the foundation of the medieval Indian economy, providing most state revenue, most employment, and the surplus that fed towns, armies, and courts. Production depended on monsoon rain, irrigation from wells, tanks, and canals, and the labour of peasant households organised in villages. A concrete example is the contrast between the well-irrigated, double-cropped heartland around Delhi and Agra and the rain-dependent dry zones of the Deccan, where a failed monsoon could quickly become famine. Understanding crops, irrigation, and village officials is therefore essential to understanding the state itself.