Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c7.s5.2

c7.s5.2

It goes without saying that this culture and refinement of a very small upper class had no relation to the life of the common people.¹ The life of the vast majority of common people was stereotyped and unrefined and represented a very low state of mental culture. The economic condition of the masses will be gathered from a few stray references to their life which have been noted in their proper place. If a study of their religious life and culture was included in the present survey, it would be found to be full of the most primitive superstitions, charms, and magic. Their intellectual culture did not progress beyond the stage of folklore, folk-songs, and ghost stories. Little can be said about the political life of the common people when their life consisted of nothing but obligations and economic burdens. The great achievements of the age cannot be detached from this necessary social counterpart. The whole life and culture of the age, its good and bad points, its beauty and ugliness are an integral whole. It is beyond our purview to discuss the causes of decline but we may observe that most of them lie in these glaring social contradictions.