Craft Technology and Barriers to Innovation and Social Change in Mughal India (1526-1707)

The itineraries of European travellers are an important source material for the study of Mughal India. Although we find abundant political information in the Persian sources but they tell little about the socio-economic life of the common masses. For this, we depend largely on the accounts of European travellers who, came to India as traders, adventurers, missionaries and later as colonizers. This paper attempts to examine the European impressions and interpretations of Indian craft technology and barriers to innovation during the Mughal period.