Man and Environment - The Ecological History of India (A Peoples History of India 36)

Increasing interest has been shown in recent decades in matters relating to ecology, especially under the influence of the debate on climate change. The scope of ecology is, of course, much wider than that of climate alone, and involves in addition not only human relation with all species of animals and plants but also those conditions of human societies (material and intellectual) that influence our responses to the opportunities and challenges posed by nature. It is with this wider sense in mind that the history of ecology has been treated in this volume.

Prepared under the scheme of A People's Historyof India, this volume strives to conform to the approach, style and conventions followed by the preceding volumes of the series. Extensive extracts from sources have been provided; and there are special notes on Ecology, Climatology, Zooarchaeology, Natural History and Forestry. The reader may find in the Bibliographical note appended to each chapter a useful guide to further reading; the notes do not, however, aim at setting forth all the source material that has been explored for this book.

The volume is addressed to the general reader as well as the student. A special effort is made to keep the style non-technical without loss of accuracy.

Irfan Habib, Professor Emeritus of History at the Aligarh Muslim University, is the author of The Agrarian System ofMughal India (1963, revised edition, 1999), An Atlas of the Mughal Empire (1982), Essays in Indian History: Towards a Marxist Perception (1995) and Medieval India:The Studyofa Civilization (2007). He has co-edited The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. I (1982), and UNESCO's History of Humanity,V ols. IV and V, and Historyof Central Asia, Vol. V. He is the General Editor of the People's Historyof India series, and has authored five of its volumes (including the present one) and co-authored two.

Increasing interest has been shown in recent decades in matters relating to ecology, especially under the influence of the debate on climate change. The scope of ecology is, of course, much wider than that of climate alone, and involves in addition not only human relations with all species of animals and plants but also those conditions of human societies (material and intellectual) that influence our responses to the opportunities and challenges posed by nature. It is with this wider sense in mind that the history of ecology has been treated in this monograph. (For further remarks on the scope of Ecology see Note 1.1. on pages 20-23),

Prepared under the scheme of A People's History of India, this volume strives to conform to the approach, style and conventions followed by the preceding volumes of the series. Extensive extracts from sources have been provided; and there are special notes on Ecology, Climatology, Archaeozoology, Natural History and Forestry. The reader may find in the Bibliographical note appended to each chapter a useful guide to further reading; the notes do not, however, aim at setting forth all the source material that has been explored for this book, since that would have taken an unduly large amount of space. As in other volumes of this series, the standard system of Sanskrit transliteration has been modified by reading `sh' instead of 's'; `sh' instead of '§'; 're instead of 'r'; '6' instead of 'c'; and `chh' instead of `eh'. For Persian (and Arabic) words, the system adopted in Steingass's Persian-English Dictionary has been found to conform most closely to the Indian pronunciation; and it has therefore been generally used, though with some simplifications.

The writing of this book was facilitated by help from many friends. On wild life my knowledge from the printed word has been greatly enlarged by the guidance of Professor Shamim Jairajpuri, former Director General of the Zoological Survey, and Professor Jamal Ahmad Khan, Wild Life Department, AMU, both of whom lent me books to read. Dr Ishrat Alam, Member Secretary, Indian Council of Historical Research, let me use books from the rich library of the ICHR and also procured books for me from other libraries. Professor Shireen Moosvi, Secretary, Aligarh Historians Society, gave me much assistance and also guided me to certain sources. Mr Aziz Faisal reminded me of an official report, which appears as Extract 5.7-B. The staff of the library of the Department of History, AMU, have been uniformly courteous in meeting my demand for books.

Practically all the maps in this volume have been drawn by my son, Faiz Habib. Some maps drawn by him earlier have been republished, but most have been prepared especially for this volume.

Mr Muneeruddin Khan has processed the entire manuscript. Mr Sajid Islam of the Centre for Women's Studies, AMU, undertook the scanning of some maps, illustrations and diagrams. Mr Arshad Ali and Mr Idris Beg, working at the office of the Aligarh Historians Society, have constantly taken pains to ensure that everything needed for turning out this volume should proceed in the smoothest manner.

Finally, much gratitude is owed to Dr Rajendra Prasad and Ms Indira Chandrasekhar of Tulika Books, who have cooperated in every possible way to get this volume published in time and in as best a manner as possible.

**Contents and Sample Pages**