The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c15.s1.24

c15.s1.24

Admittedly, this line of reasoning raises more questions than this essay can even begin to answer. But it seems safe to assume that roads and their trade provided the basic framework of the empire. It was only through the intermediaries of the market towns along the trade routes that the cash nexus could be handled. This meant that the Mughal’s effective power and authority—as distinct from mere ceremonial suzerainty to be invoked or disregarded at will—was virtually limited to the trading centers and their immediate hinterlands. As the Dutch Company merchant Pelsaert reported, the Mughal “is to be regarded as king of the plains and open roads only”.³⁶ The expansion of the Mughal Empire was therefore as much a matter of extending control along the main routes as of developing lateral feeding roads and qasbahs in the further hinterlands.