Chapter four returns to developments in north India, now from the mid-fourteenth through mid-sixteenth centuries. By the end of the fourteenth century, territories once under the Delhi Sultanate’s umbrella emerged as independent states. Political, economic, and cultural developments in Bengal, Gujarat, Jaunpur and Malwa are the initial focus, then we turn to Rajasthan, especially Mewar under the powerful Sisodiya ruler Rana Kuumbha. The remainder of this chapter focuses on important cultural trends across the north, including mosque and temple construction, literary developments as the use of vernaculars expanded, and widening religious beliefs. These include the spread of Sufism, the significant rise in Sant traditions including Kabir, and the increasing popularity of Krishna veneration.

This chapter examines the effects of regime change on the family and its practices, as Maratha chieftains took over the district of Dhar in Malwa in the early eighteenth centuries, overthrowing Mughal control and institutions. Documents from this period are used to reconstruct the difficult negotiations undertaken by landed families such as our protagonists, in order to convince the new rulers to recognize their existing titles and prerogatives. The chapter then proceeds to the second regime change in the early nineteenth century, when the local Maratha chieftain-turned-king – the Puwars – came under the control of the British colonialists. Using several document types – some continuing from Mughal times and some innovations – this chapter examines how older entitlements, conceived in a Persianate cultural world, were re-stated in an altered institutional and cultural environment.