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Economy under Harsha

The nature of the economy under Harsha became increasingly more feudal and self-sufficient. The decline of trade and commerce went on unabated under Harsha. This is evident from the decline of trade centres, paucity of coins and almost complete disappearance of guilds of traders and merchants. The decline of trade and commerce affected the handicrafts and other industries for want of demand. This decline affected even agriculture though indirectly. When trade was flourishing a great part of the merchandise consisted of food stuffs and also most of the raw materials for handicrafts and industries came from agricultural production. But now there was a lack of large-scale demand for agricultural goods. So the agriculturist now began to produce only that much which was required to meet his own needs and those of the locality but not for the market, both internal and external. This naturally led to the rise of a self-sufficient village economy in which all the needs of the village were met from within and also marked by an increasing dependence on agriculture.


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