Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c6.s2.t2.5

c6.s2.t2.5

I have made a reference to the tiny market of the village. The city market will be described in another place. Besides business in the regular shops of the market, petty shopkeepers and dealers also carried on their business in movable stalls and on pack horses. Pedlars and itinerary dealers were common.² Bigger deals in commodities were made in special market towns or *mandis* which also served as convenient media of exchange for the surplus of corn or goods produced in the vicinity. Administrative centres like Multan and Lahore or capital cities like Delhi sometimes served as big clearing houses for whole provinces. At the annual or periodical fairs of a neighbouring town, the retail merchants and petty shopkeepers of the sorrounding places obtained their new stock of goods or replenished the old one. Special cattle fairs on a very large scale were held in well-known places for the sale of all kinds of cattle, e.g., horses, oxen, camels, cows and buffaloes, and people came long distances to buy or dispose of their animals.¹