Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T07:34:20.461Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - South India

from X - Non-Agricultural Production

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
L. Alaev
Edited by
Tapan Raychaudhuri  and
Irfan Habib
Get access

Summary

In south India, as in other parts of the country, handicrafts were based almost exclusively on manual labour and development of professional habits. Technical improvements in the implements are not traceable. Technological improvements were to a great extent checked by caste rules, which fixed the methods of work. Natural sources of energy (for instance, water and wind power) were not used. To a very limited extent charcoal (in metallurgy) and cattle power (in oil-pressing and some other industries) were used.

Non-agricultural production demonstrated a great variety of forms of economic organization and of methods of integration into the macro-system of the economy. The classification given below is relative as there were no water-tight compartments. The two main kinds of handicrafts were, first, ‘natural’ and, second, market-oriented ones.

The first included the domestic crafts inside the agricultural families, inter-community professional crafts which met the demands of a narrow locality; and the manufactures attached to the chiefs’ courts.

For example, at the Golconda court guns, muskets, expensive arms and cloth etc. were produced. These workshops were natural in the sense that they were concerned with the immediate consumption of the court, the nobles, the army and not connected with the market. The labour in such workshops might be compulsory to some extent. It seems that this form of production did not develop much in south India which may perhaps be explained with reference to the limited resources commanded by the south Indian rulers in comparison with the Mughal emperors.

Keywords

non-agricultural productionoil-pressingeconomic organizationIndian artisansshipbuildingtextile productionsouth Indian handicraftsrural commodity
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Economic History of India , pp. 315 - 324
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aiyar, S. S. Economic Life in Malabar Village, Bangalore, 1925.
Barbosa, Duarte (c. 1518), The Book of Duarte Barbosa. An Account of the Countries Bordering on the Indian Ocean and their inhabitants, trans. Dames, Longworth, 2 vols., London, 1918 and 1921.
Bowrey, Thomas A Geographical account of the Countries round the Bay of Bengal, 1669 to 1679, ed. Temple, R. C., Hakluyt Society, 1905.
Buchanan, F. A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar, Madras, 1807.
Burgess, J. (ed.), Tamil and Sanskrit Inscriptions… Madras, 1886.
Cabral, Pedro Alvares, The Voyage of Pedro Alvares Cabral to Brazil and India, trans. Greenlee, W. B., London, 1938.
Carré, Abbe The Travels of the Abbé Carré in India and the Near East, 1672 to 1674, trans. Fawcett, Lady, ed. Fawcett, Charles, 3 vols. Hakluyt Society, 1947 and 1948.
Chicherov, A. I. India. Economic Development in the 16th–18th Centuries. Outline History of Crafts and Trade, Moscow, 1971. Original Russian edn, Moscow, 1965.
Dubois, J. A. Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Oxford, 1906.
Fawcett, C. The English Factories in India, new series, 4 vols., London, 1956–55.
Floris, Peter, Peter Floris His Voyage to the East Indies in the ‘Globe’ 1611–1625, ed. Moreland, W. H., Hakluyt Society, 1934.
Records of George, Fort St., The Baramahal Records, Madras: Superintendent of Government Press, seven parts, 1907–20.
Fryer, John A New Account of East India and Persia being Nine Years’ Travels 1672–81, ed. Crooke, W., 3 vols. Hakluyt Society, 1909, 1912 and 1915.
Further Sources of Vijayanagara History, (ed.) Sastri, K. A. Nilakanata & Venkataramanayya, N., 3 vols: Vol. I (Introduction); Vol. II (text in Sanskrit, Persian, Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam); Vol. III (translations), Madras, 1946.
Hamilton, Alexander A New Account of the East Indies, being the Observations and Remarks of Captain A. Hamilton (1688–1723). (I) Printed in Pinkerton, John, General Collection of the best and most interesting Voyages and travels in all parts of the World, VIII, London, 1811 ; (2) ed. Foster, W., 2. vols. London, 1930.Google Scholar
Irwin, J. ‘Golconda Cotton Printing of the Early Seventeenth Century’, Lalit Kalā, New Delhi, 1958.Google Scholar
Irwin, John ‘Indian Textile Trade in the 17th Century’, Journal of Indian Textile History, Ahmedabad., Vols. I (1955) ; II (1956) ; and III (1957), Ahmedabad.Google Scholar
Letters Received by the East India Company from its Servants in the East (1602–17), 6 vols., ed. Danvers, F.C. (Vol. I) and Foster, W. (Vols. II–VI), London, 1896–1902.
Logan, W. Malabar, 2 vols., Madras, 1887.
Marshall, P. J. East India Fortunes, The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century, Oxford, 1976.
Naidu, R. ‘Remarks on the Revenue System and Land Tenures of the Provinces under the Presidency of Fort St. George’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, London., 1834.Google Scholar
Olafsson, Jon, The Life of the Icelander Jon Olafsson, traveller to India, written by himself and completed about 1661 A.D., trans. Phillpott, Bertha S., 2 vols. London, 1931–2.
Panikkar, T. K. G. Malabar and its Folk, Madras, 1929.
Pavlov, V. I. Sotsialno-economicheskava Structura promyshlennosti India, Moscow, 1973; English trans. ed., Historical Premises for India's Transition to Capitalism (late 18th to mid-19th century), Moscow, 1978.Google Scholar
Ramanayya, N. V., Studies in the History of the Third Dynasty of Vijayanagara, Madras, 1935.
Raychaudhuri, T., Jan Company in Coromandel, 1605–1690: A Study in the interrelation of European Commerce and Traditional Economies, ’S-Gravenhage, 1962.
Relations of Golconda in the Early Seventeenth Century, ed./trans. Moreland, W. H., Hakluyt Society, 1931. The ‘relations’ are those of Methwold (1625), Schorer (1615–16) and an anonymous Dutch factor (1614).
Sarkar, J. N., ‘Some Aspects of the Qutb-Shahi Administration of Golconda’, Journal of the Bihar & Orissa Research Society, Patna, XXX, 1944.Google Scholar
Sen, Surendranath, Administrative System of the Marathas, 2nd ed., Calcutta, 1925.
Sewell, Robert, A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar, London, 1900; reprint (different pagination), Delhi, 1962.
The English Factories in India (1618–69), ed. Foster, W., 13 vols., Oxford, 1906–27. The volumes, which cover the period 1618–69, are not numbered, but each carries under its title the year to which its documents belong, viz. 1618–21, 1622–25, etc.
Wheeler, J. T., India Under British Rule from the Foundation of the East India Company, London, 1886.
Wilks, M., Historical Sketches of South of India in an attempt to trace the history of Mysore, 2 vols., London, 1810; reprinted, 2 vols., Mysore, 1930.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×