The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c15.s1.31

c15.s1.31

The problem showed its sharpest edge in Aurangzeb's campaigns, but we may doubt whether this was simply a matter of foreign conquest that one could decide for or against as one saw fit. The problem was essentially the same as that of the inner frontier. The inner frontier was not, of course, a more-or-less fixed line but consisted of wide stretches of area weaving round the trade arteries. In these stretches, competing groups of warriors, traders, and landholders—categories which, as we saw, easily overlapped to the point of being indistinguishable—converged and struggled for control, sometimes coming dangerously near to the main centers. To understand the nature of these areas, it may be useful to recall the classical Indian opposition between the areas, or patches, of settled agriculture and the wastes surrounding them, each with its own way of life and institutions. While family and caste were at home in the agricultural village, the wastes were the home of the warrior and his war band. The two, though opposite and perpetually in conflict—latent or patent—with each other, were not mutually exclusive. People from the villages would join the warriors in the wastes, while the warrior and his retainers might either be called into the village for protection against other warriors or force their protection upon the village. Agriculturalists would try to extend their cultivation to the wastes, which they also needed for grazing their cattle, while warriors would strive for control of the settled areas and their productivity.⁴² Most important, however, was the fact that the connections between the areas of settled agriculture and between them and the greater urban centers ran through the wastes.