ABSTRACT
The village, in India, is and perhaps always has been the unit of national life. Towns there were, but in former times these have either been the residence of the court of a chief or a prince and his retainers, or only local marts for the exchange of country produce. This chapter aims to take the records of a single village, and to try and catch a glimpse of the economic life of Deccan villages during the last one hundred and twenty years of Maratha rule, chiefly during the time when that rule was in the hands of the Peshwas. The village selected, located about twenty-three miles to the north east of Poona, is one of the many hundreds for which records exist. The record discloses a village apparently half derelict with only seventeen per cent of its land under cultivation, and only nine acres under irrigation.
