Focusing on inscriptional materials from South Asia, the essays in Social Worlds of Premodern Transactions bring together a range of new perspectives on social and economic history. They show how exchange is not only about commodities or items, but also about interactions and relationships between people. The essays span a broad time frame, starting from the early historic and extending into the medieval. They range from studies of sites and micro-regions to translocal communities and transcontinental voyages. Through a close engagement with inscriptions, what is offered is a history that views South Asia as a region framed by diverse, overlapping, and complex transactions. This volume will be of interest to students and scholars of premodern South Asia. It will also be useful to anyone interested in exploring issues of social and economic history across regions and time-periods. Table Of Contents Preface Introduction 1. The First Land Grants: The Emergence of an Epigraphic Tradition in the Early Deccan 2. Decentring the King: Kinship and Ideations of Power in the Ikxvaku Kingdom 3. Representations of Kingship: Epic Imagery in Kadamba Inscriptions 4. Ways to the Vajrasana: The Tibetan Approach (eleventh-Thirteenth centuries ce) 5. Temple, Trader and peptha in the inscriptions of the Srikakulam-Vishakhapatnam Region (ad 1000-1500) 6. Doors and Walls of Mosques: Textual longue-durée in a Premodern Malabari Inscription 7. Patterns of Transactions at Malabar Ports, c. Eleventh-Fourteenth Centuries ce Bibliography Notes on Editors and Contributors Index