Journal of World History

This article aims to situate medieval South Asia in the broader taxonomy of frontier types and to identify it as a region that was neither wholly sedentary nor wholly pastoral but rather a place where internal frontier zones existed between these two ecological types. From the twelfth century onward, these zones were invigorated by the growing resources of mobile warriors, pastoralists, and merchants. Hence, state-building increasingly hinged on spanning the divide between arid jungle and humid arable land.