A French traveller, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, remarked that in India a village must be very small indeed if it has not a moneychanger. To which century did he belong?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Seventeenth century
Option (1) Fifteenth century — Incorrect. The fifteenth century lies before the founding of the Mughal Empire by Babur, the first Mughal emperor. Tavernier made his remark about the village moneychanger during mature Mughal rule, well after this century.
Option (2) Sixteenth century — Incorrect. The sixteenth century was the age of Akbar, when the Ain compiled the aggregates of measured lands. Tavernier travelled in India a generation later, so his remark about the shroff belongs to the following century.
Option (3) Seventeenth century — Correct. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was a seventeenth-century French traveller. He found it remarkable that in India a village must be very small indeed if it has not a moneychanger called a shroff, who acted as a banker for remittances of money.
Option (4) Eighteenth century — Incorrect. The eighteenth century is the period in which women zamindars were known in Bengal, such as the woman at the helm of the Rajshahi zamindari. Tavernier's account of the shroff comes about a hundred years earlier.
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