Francois Bernier, a Frenchman, was a doctor, political philosopher and historian. Like many others, he came to the Mughal Empire in search of opportunities. Bernier travelled to several parts of the country and wrote account of what he saw, frequently comparing what he saw in India with the situation in Europe.

The question of land ownership or landed property : (i) According to Bernier, one of the fundamental differences between Mughal India and Europe was the lack of private property in land in the former. He was a firm believer in the virtues of private property, and saw crown ownership of land as being harmful for both the state and its people.
As an extension of this, Bernier described Indian society as consisting of undifferentiated masses of impoverished people, subjugated by a small minority of a very rich and powerful ruling class.
(ii) Bernier’s descriptions influenced Western theorists from the eighteenth century onwards. The French philosopher Montesquieu, for instance, used this account to develop the idea of oriental despotism, according to which rulers in Asia (the Orient or the East) enjoyed absolute authority over their subjects, who were keptin conditions of subjugation and poverty, arguing that all land belonged to the king and that private property was non-existent.
As in the case of the question of landownership, Bernier was drawing an oversimplified picture. There were all kinds of towns : manufacturing towns, trading towns, port towng sacred centres, pilgrimage towns etc.

Harappa is known to be a 4700 years old city in the subcontinent which was discovered around the time 1920. Soon after the discovery of cities like Lothal, Dholavira, Mohenjodaro, and Kalibangan have also been discovered and were come to be known as the Harappan cities or also the advent of Harappan Civilization. These cities were discovered around the river Indus, henceforth proving the existence of the Indus Valley Civilization.

When we look into a text such as Mahabharata, one thing that come to notice is the sheer length of it and many characters within the story. We find that it took V S Sukthanker and the team 47 years to produce critically edited Mahabharata of 13000 pages. It took such a long time because there was enormous text in sanskrit written in different scripts with variations. Thus even if look into the variation itself we can be sure that the Mahabharata was not a work of a single author.
As we can see that:
(i) The original story was probably composed by charioteer-bards known as sutas who generally accompanied Kshatriya warriors to the battle field and composed poems celebrating their victories and other achievements.
(ii) According to scholars in the beginning Mahabharata’s compositions were circulated orally. This was done by scholars and priests generation to generation. Then from the fifth century BCE, Brahmanas took over the story and began to commit it to writing. This was the time when chiefdoms such as those of the Kurus and Panchalas, around whom the story of the epic revolves, were gradually becoming kingdom.
(iii) We notice another phase in the composition of the text between C. 200 BCE and 200 CE. This was the period when the worship of Vishnu was growing in importance, and Krishna, one of the important figures of the epic, was coming to be identified with Vishnu. Subsequently, between C. 200 and 400 CE, large didactic sections resembling the Manusmriti were added. With these additions, a text which initially perhaps had less than 10,000 verses grew to comprise about 100,000 verses. This enormous composition is traditionally attributed to a sage named Vyasa.

The Zamindars failed to pay the revenue-demand in the early decades after the permanent settlement:
(i) The initial demands were very high. This was because it was felt that if the demand was fixed for all time to come, the Company would never be able to claim a share of increased income from land when prices rose and cultivation expanded. To minimise this anticipated loss, the Company pegged the revenue demand high, arguing that the burden on zamindars would gradually decline as agricultural production expanded and prices rose.
(ii) This high demand was imposed in the 1790s, a time when the prices of agricultural produce were depressed, making it difficult for the ryots to pay their dues to the zamindar.

i. It was located higher than the lower town because of the raised platform on which it was built.

ii. It was fairly small in size as compared to the lower town.
iii. Upper town is believed to be used for public purposes.
iv. It differed from the lower town because of its massive buildings, for example great bath, granaries. It is speculated that Great bath was used for some ritual baths. Hence it is believed that the citadel was kept way from the mundane activities.

i. It was located higher than the lower town because of the raised platform on which it was built.

ii. It was fairly small in size as compared to the lower town.
iii. Upper town is believed to be used for public purposes.
iv. It differed from the lower town because of its massive buildings, for example great bath, granaries. It is speculated that Great bath was used for some ritual baths. Hence it is believed that the citadel was kept way from the mundane activities.

The votive inscriptions are those inscriptions that records gifts made to religious institution. Votive inscriptions are among the oldest inscriptions. They may express gratitude for victory in a battle. They were found in a number of cities by the second century BCE. These mention the name of the donor, and sometimes specify his/her occupation as well.