Introduction This paper surveys the contribution that states made to economic growth in South Asia from the heyday of the Mughal Empire in the seventeenth century to the post-Mughal regional polities of the eighteenth century. It begins with a discussion of agriculture, which was a major arena of state activity. It then moves to trade and manufacturing, for which we possess less information but which was of the utmost concern to rulers. Armaments production, in particular, was essential to the maintenance and exercise of state power. The paper concludes with an examination of knowledge producing activities. While the links to economic growth are not always immediately evident, the accumulation and dissemination of technical knowledge was perceived to be of great political and economic importance and loomed large in the minds of states and their offi cials in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.