Book Reviews

Krishna Mohan Shrimali, Land, Agriculture and Money in Central India and Beyond (c. 100 to c 1300 CE): The Feudal Order Revisited, Aakar Books, Delhi, 2024, xxviii+488 pages, Rs. 1595.

The preface to this new veritable sourcebook on Vākāṭaka and the Śilāhāra dynasties and Valkhā chiefs of central and western India, of the Wainganga-Penganga doab, Kolhapur and the Konkan and Ratnagiri coasts underlines that it is an attempt to retrieve some aspects of economic history, with a distinctive focus on the role of land, agriculture and money in defining contours of socio-economic formation during a span of more than a millennium (circa 100 to circa 1300 CE). Data from more than four hundred and seventy settlements figuring in nearly 140 inscriptions, about forty archaeological sites and several numismatic finds (all represented in eight maps) form the bases of this study. Spatially, it covers forested areas, plateaux, marshy creeks and coastal territories of the aforesaid geographical spaces.