Social classification and rural society

Medieval rural society was classified in sources through overlapping categories: by caste and occupation, by rights in land, and by relationship to the state as payer, collector, or chief. No single label captures a village, because the same person could be a peasant, a member of a jati, and a follower of a local chief at once. A concrete example is the distinction between khud-kasht peasants who cultivated their own village land and pahikasht peasants who cultivated in another village, a difference that affected security of tenure and revenue terms. Reading these classifications carefully helps explain both stability and revolt in the countryside.