Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c4.s1.t2.9

c4.s1.t2.9

Before dealing, however, with the sources of the present study, I may state here the limitation I have set to the scope and treatment of this subject. I have used mainly, almost exclusively, the evidence from literature, and very little, if any, from inscriptions or from epigraphical, numismatic or architectural data. My use of the Sanskrit texts is limited to the available translations into English; and I claim no responsibility for examining the originals. With such exceptions my material, though not exhaustive, is copious enough to warrant a study of the culture of Hindustan during this period. The following pages are a sketch rather than a definitive treatise of social life under the early Sultans of Delhi. They exclude all references to the civil administration, the system of land revenue, the army, the system of transport, the ideas on education, and the development of literature, or even to the religious life of the people. It is not possible to deal within the limits of this work with any but a very few aspects of social life. The treatment within these limits is further subject to the qualification that the account of these few aspects in these pages can only claim to be true in outline and may be falsified by local and provincial details which varied infinitely from place to place.