ABSTRACT
The historical debate on the frontier still echoes the classical vision of the frontier set out by Frederick Jackson Turner. One of the most lasting frontiers of India and the most significant in terms of delivering political dominion was the jungle immediately bordering on the western city walls of Delhi. From the Middle East and Central Asia the Arid Zone stretches deeply into the Indian subcontinent. In South Asia the conditions for horsebreeding were relatively poor as a result of the general want of nutritious fodder grasses. But although the best warhorses originated from Central Asia and Iran, some good Indian horses were bred along the fringes of the Arid Zone. The chapter introduces the Arid Zone as a category of South Asian history. The limits of the ecological zone broadly coincided with the always fluid frontier between pastoral nomadism and sedentary agriculture.
