Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c8.15

c8.15

a dense population ; and they encountered in the soil of India favourable conditions for the application of this technology."⁷ Contemporary accounts of the times bear out the belief that the country was well peopled in a remote age. Although the Rig Veda talks of small villages only, the Brahmana literature, around 800-600 B.C., reveals that some of the villages had grown into towns and capitals with an urban mode of life. The caste system was crystallizing and the division of labour becoming more and more complex. Rice and other crops were being harvested, almost on a large scale. "The plough was large and heavy: we hear of as many as twenty-four oxen being harnessed to one..."⁸