RBSE Class 7 Social Science Notes History Chapter 6 Towns, Traders and Craftpersons

These comprehensive RBSE Class 7 Social Science Notes History Chapter 6 Towns, Traders and Craftpersons will give a brief overview of all the concepts.

RBSE Class 7 Social Science Notes History Chapter 6 Towns, Traders and Craftpersons

→ There are many types of towns like : a temple town, an administrative centre, a commercial town or a port town. Any other type of town, such as a craft production center or a compound town.

→ Administrative Centres (Thanjavur):

• The city of Thanjavur was built by the Chola kings built by the architect Kunjaramallan Rajaraja Perunthachchan on the Kaveri River. This was his capital.
• Besides the temple, there are palaces with mandapas or pavilions.
• The town is bustling with markets selling grain, spices, cloth and jewellery. Water supply for the town comes from wells and tanks. There are weavers in the nearby city and some distance away at Svamimalai, the sthapatis or sculptors are making exquisite bronze idols and tall, ornamental bell metal lamps.

→ Temple Towns and Pilgrimage Centres:

• Temple towns represent a very important pattern of urbanisation, the process by which cities develop. Towns emerged around temples such as those of Bhillasvamin, and Somnath in Gujarat. Other important temple towns included Kanchipuram and Madurai in Tamil Nadu, and Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh.
• Pilgrimage centres also slowly developed into townships such as Vrindavan, Tiruvannamalai, Ajmer etc.

→ A Network of Small Towns:
From the eighth century onwards the subcontinent was dotted with several small towns. These probably emerged from large villages.

→ Traders Big and Small:

• There were many kinds of traders. These included the Banjaras.
• The traders formed guilds to protect their interests. These guilds traded extensively both within the peninsula and with Southeast Asia and China.
• Apart from this, merchant communities like Chettiar, Marwari Oswal, Hindu Baniya, Muslim Bohra etc. also used to do business with other countries.
• Indian spices and cloth sold in the Red Sea ports were purchased by Italian traders and eventually reached European markets,

→ Crafts in Towns:
In the cities, there were Vishwakarma community, consisting of goldsmiths, bronzesmiths, blacksmiths, masons and carpenters, and craftsman community.

→ A Closer Look: Hampi, Masulipatnam and Surat:
The Architectural Splendour of Hampi-Hampi is located in the Krishna- Tungabhadra basin, which formed the nucleus of the Vijayanagara Empire, founded in 1336.

• Hampi was a well fortified city.
• The architecture of Hampi was distinctive. The buildings in the royal complex had splendid arches, domes and pillared halls with niches for holding sculptures.
• They also had well-planned orchards and pleasure gardens with sculptural motifs such as the lotus and corbels.
• In its heyday in the fifteenth-sixteenth centuries, Hampi bustled with commercial and cultural activities.
• Hampi fell into ruin following the defeat of Vijayanagara in 1565 by the Deccani Sultan—the rulers of Golconda, Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Berar and Bidar.

→ A Gateway to the West : Surat

• Surat in Gujarat was the emporium of western trade during the Mughal period.
• Surat was the gateway for trade with West Asia via the Gulf of Ormuz.
• The city was cosmopolitan and people of all castes and creeds lived there.
• The textiles of Surat were famous for their gold lace borders.
• It is noteworthy that file Surat hundis were honoured in the far-off markets. But in the last years of the 17th century, the downfall of Surat started.
• Presently. Surat is an important commercial center.

→ Fishing in Troubled Waters ; Masulipatnam

• The town of Masulipatnam or Machlipatnam (literally, fish port town) lay on the delta of the Krishna river. 
• In the seventeenth century it became an important port.
• Various merchant groups made this city densely populated and prosperous:
• Masulipatnam lost both its merchants and prosperity and declined in the course of the eighteenth century, being today nothing more than a dilapidated little town.

→ New Towns and Traders:
1. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, European countries were searching for spices and textiles, which had become popular both in Europe and West Asia. The English, Dutch and French formed East India Companies in order to expand their commercial activities in the east. Ultimately, the English emerged as the most successful commercial and political power in the subcontinent.

2. The eighteenth century saw the rise of Bombay (Mumbai), Calcutta (Kolkata) and Madras (Chennai), which are nodal cities today.

3. Europeans settled two types of cities

1. Black towns and
2. White towns.