The Deccan Plateau, formed millions of years ago, was once one of the richest centres of Indian commerce, sustained in part by its lucrative cotton routes. Similarly, Sopara, present-day Nalla Sopara in Mumbai, was a major port from which Indian traders sailed to Baveru, or Babylon, as mentioned in texts such as the Bhaveru Jataka. Paithan, the capital of the Satavahana Empire, emerged as another important trading hub, linking the Indian subcontinent with the Roman world. These were not isolated centres of prosperity but nodes in a vast network of rivers, roads and seas that facilitated the movement of goods, people and ideas across the subcontinent.
It is this interconnected history that Akshay Chavan explores in The Wealth Networks: How Roads, Rivers and Seas Shaped India. Dividing the subcontinent into 15 networks and their tributaries, the book argues that India’s economic and political power was closely tied to its geographical networks, which turned the subcontinent into a thriving centre of trade while also shaping the rise and fall of cities and empires. “Cities like Delhi, Agra and Mathura did not emerge in random places. They stood at key junctions on the Yamuna, where routes converged,” Chavan writes.
By placing geography at the centre of history, Chavan challenges the tendency to study regions, kingdoms and empires as separate entities. People organised their lives, trade and movement around rivers, roads and the changing seasons. The book shows how these networks connected otherwise distant regions and influenced everything from commerce and diplomacy to settlement and governance. Turning to the Cotton Routes, Chavan draws attention to India’s ability to build prosperity from its natural resources. Stretching from the Deccan to the south-western regions, these routes made cotton a major source of wealth and connected kingdoms and trading centres. “India had long been called a land of gold. But one of the main sources of its wealth was not mined or minted. It was grown—delicate, white and soft to touch. It was cotton.”
The book traces how such commodities shaped commercial centres and connected India to distant markets. Western India, for instance, became a vital link with the Middle East. Under the Yadava rulers, temples served not only as places of worship but also as “credit houses, grain stores, political anchors”. In Bengaluru, Chavan recalls a landscape once known as “a land of thousand lakes”, where man-made reservoirs helped communities withstand the summer.
By placing geography at the centre of history, Chavan challenges the tendency to study regions, kingdoms and empires as separate entities. People organised their lives, trade and movement around rivers, roads and the changing seasons
The fortunes of empires often depended on the routes that sustained them. Their policies and systems of governance were shaped by the condition of these networks, while changes in their course could alter political and economic relationships. The book brings into focus an aspect of Indian history that is often missing from conventional accounts: the infrastructure of movement that made political power and commercial prosperity possible.
This interplay of movement and culture is particularly evident in Chavan’s account of Amravathi. “It was this confluence of wealth and movement that gave rise to Amravathi, one of the earliest great cities of the Eastern Deccan. A place where the trade was not only in grains and goods, but also in philosophies and prayers,” he writes. A major diamond-trading centre, Amravathi became a meeting ground for different faiths and traditions. The traditions of the Nagas and Yakshas existed alongside Buddhism, traces of which remain in the Amravathi Stupa.
The Great Metal Highway offers another example. Chavan describes it as “a route that ran through Eastern India, linking the mineral-rich forests of Jharkhand with the green deltas of Coastal Andhra, and stretching north to Rajgir and Pataliputra.” Sacred routes leading to places such as Gaya also functioned as commercial networks, allowing minerals and other goods to move between different parts of India and beyond. Here, devotion and commerce travelled along the same routes, together shaping settlements and communities.
The Wealth Networks makes a persuasive case for looking at Indian history through its rivers, roads and seas. At a time when India is dealing with questions of economic growth, trade and strained diplomatic relationships, Chavan’s study offers a useful reminder that prosperity has always depended not merely on political power or natural wealth, but on the networks that allow them to circulate.
It is an engaging account of how India sustained a thriving economy for centuries despite famines, floods, and other disruptions. Chavan’s meticulous research, combined with an accessible style, makes the book valuable to both general readers and those interested in history. Its central insight is a simple but important one: to understand how India was shaped, we must also understand how people, goods and ideas moved across it.