ABSTRACT
The urban centres are playing an increasingly important role in Indian society as a whole, including rural society. The importance of understanding rural–urban relations can hardly be overemphasized. This chapter shows that an understanding of the rural–urban networks in the past is essential for an understanding of the rural–urban networks, urbanization, and social change in times. The distribution of urban population in an area is an important factor in the pattern of rural–urban relations. This population could be concentrated in one large city and only a small proportion of the urban population could be found in smaller towns, so that there would be a lot of distance between village and town, as well as a lot of contrast. While agricultural, pastoral and other pursuits were the basis of the village economy, non-agricultural pursuits were the basis of the urban economy. The urban Brahmans were involved in occupations requiring a high degree of literacy, and many of them learned Sanskrit.
