The Map has shown that India in the eighteenth century was a dynamic, though conflict-ridden, society. During the years 1680- 1 750 the waning of the Mughal hegemony had allowed the lower ranks of India’s ‘hierarchy of kings’ to achieve greater autonomy. Following the strengthening of regional centres of power the typical Islamic system of farming out the state’s revenues extended in the north and spread to areas of central and south India where it had made little impact before. Military entrepreneurs farmed revenue, engaged in local agricultural trade, and tried to build up holdings of zamindari land in the countryside. The magnates’ great households were usually closely linked to merchant houses of Hindu or Jain origin. These firms were essential to political dominion. They could mobilise large re- serves of liquid capital at times other than the harvest period because merchants alone participated in all-India chains of trade and credit. Busy. markets for agricultural produce and for rights and offices con- tinued to develop in the villages and fixed bazaars of areas which had survived or prospered in the political flux. These actors - the petty kings, the revenue and military entrepre- neurs, the great bankers and the warrior peasant lords of the villages — all represented forms of indigenous capitalism. All derived wealth from commodity trade; all speculated in money profit. The revenue farmers and rural lords were dependent on trade and the operation of rural markets because peasants had to sell their produce in order to pay rent in silver rupees. However isolated they were, even the rural Hindu lords needed cash to buy cannon, muskets, elephants and other badges of power and status. Mughal Library https://www.mughallibrary.com/ebooks2020/Indian-Society-And-The-Making-of-The-British-Empire