Sources of the seventeenth century refer to two kinds of peasants –khud-kashta and pahi-kashta. The pahi-kashta were non-resident cultivators who belonged to some other village but cultivated lands elsewhere on a contractual basis. People became pahi-kashta either out of choice –for example, when terms of revenue in a distant village were more favourable –or out of compulsion –for example, forced by economic distress after a famine.
