Water and Historic Settlements

This book explores the manner in which human societies understood and managed scarce water resources. Focusing on the arid, rain shadow region of Marathwada, it documents the panoramic history of this region’s most important resource – water. It shows how water delineates the establishment of political authority, marks the intersection of networks of trade and pilgrimage and is the bearer of identity through community memories. The book foregrounds how, as a material as well as a ritual and symb