Title Agrarian expansion and urban decay post maurya.docx ✅

Exploitation of peasants by the landlords continued and slavery existed in the houses of large landlords. Sharma argues that the nature of grants changed over time. For instance, provisions in the grants state that the landlord is allowed to collect all types and kinds of dues and exploit them whichever way they wanted. After 7 th century, resources such as fertile lands and water resources which were commonly used by village communities were granted to the beneficiaries. More and more privileges were given to the beneficiaries. Vishti therefore amounted to the control over the labour of a person to the beneficiary himself. Also, a produced rent (kodamai) was charged from a peasant. So, rise in agrarian productivity and stratified society leads to more taxes and dues getting extracted from the peasants. The ideology of this period was instituted by Brahmanas and executed by the rulers. From the 8 th century onwards there is an extension of temples into the rural world. Local cults were marked by small shrines on roadsides within the village or at road-crossings. There was a growth of structural temples into domineering edifices. Gradually temples also became landlords. Land grants are a devise to provide payments to keep producing classes under control and to maintain to exploitative machinery. A grant of lands to Brahmanas is regarded by some as the weakening of the royal state and the fragmentation of power. On the contrary, Chattopadhyay and H. Kulke see it as an expansion the rural economy and agriculture. Rather than a period of stagnation the early medieval was a period of expansion. B.D.Chattopadhyay talks of Political decentralization. The state structure during this period is characterized by decentralization and hierarchy, features suggested by the presence of a wide range of semi-autonomous rulers,samantas,mahasamantas and similar categories and the hierarchized positioning of numerous rajapurusas employed by the royal court. He talks of the emergence of landed intermediaries which is considered the hallmark of Indian feudal social formation and is seen to be linked both to the disintegration and decentralization of state authority and to major changes in the structure of agrarian relations.The emergence of landed intermediaries-a