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210 T HEMES IN INDIAN H ISTORY – P ART II Source 4 Trade between the hill tribes and the plains, c. 1595 This is how Abu’l Fazl describes the transactions between the hill tribes and the plains isubaof Awadh (part of present-day Uttar Pradesh): From the northern mountains quantities of goods are carried on the backs of men, of stout ponies and of goats, such as gold, copper, lead, musk, tails of the kutascow (the yak), honechuk (an acid composed of orange juice and lemon boiled together), ➲ What are the modes of pomegranate seed, ginger, long pepmajith(a plant transport described in this producing a red dye) root, borax, zedoary (a root passage? Why do you think resembling turmeric), wax, woollen stuffs, wooden they were used? Explain what ware, hawks, falcons, black falcons, merlins (a kind of each of the articles brought from bird), and other articles. In exchange they carry back the plains to the hills may have white and coloured cloths, amber, salt, asafoetida, ornaments, glass and earthen ware. been used for. The spread of commercial agriculture was an important external factor that impinged on the lives Fig. 8.10 of those who lived in the forests. Forest products – A peasant and a hunter listening like honey, beeswax and gum lac – were in great to a sufi singer demand. Some, such as gum lac, became major items of overseas export from India in the seventeenth century. Elephants were also captured and sold. Trade involved an exchange of commodities through barter as well. Some tribes, like the Lohanis in the Punjab, were engaged in overland trade, between India and Afghanistan, and in the town-country trade in the Punjab itself. Social factors too wrought changes in the lives of forest dwellers. Like the “big men” of the village community, tribes also had their chieftains. Many tribal chiefs had become zamindars, some even became kings. For this they required to build up an army. They recruited people from their lineage groups or demanded that their fraternity provide military service. Tribes in the Sind region had armies comprising 6,000 cavalry and 7,000 infantry. In Assam, the Ahom kings had their paiks, people who were obliged to render military service in exchange for land. The capture of wild elephants was declared a royal monopoly by the Ahom kings. Reprint 2026-27