As in most of the regions of India, textiles constituted a significant item of export from Orissa; but it was not on the same level as in Gujarat, Coromandel and Bengal, except in the case of certain varieties. The textiles exported from Orissa were of different varieties, like cotton, silk and mixed piece goods. Tussar was the most important among silk clothing. Though in quantitative terms the manufacture of tussar cloth was not so important, its quality was considered to be the best in Orissa. The piece goods enjoyed predominance in the export of the Europeans throughout the 17^th and 18^th centuries. The present study makes an attempt to study the mercantile scenario pertaining to textiles from Orissa during the late medieval period.

Production and distribution of economic goods in India as well as in Orissa was based on the coexistence and, at times, interpenetration of subsistence and a commercialized sector. As the bulk of the population lived in the villages and their needs for goods and services were satisfied through production for use and a network of reciprocal obligations, exchange accounted for a relatively small proportion of economic activity. Yet exchange of goods, found at virtually every level and sphere of economic life, was impressive in its magnitude and complexity. The dominance of subsistence-oriented production was modified by surpluses and deficits necessitating multi-tiered and multifaceted commercial activity.

Since capitalism alters fundamentally the relationship between agriculture and industrial productions, the increasing phenomena of non-agricultural or industrial production is natural to look for the signs of the beginning of capitalism in conditions that are obtained in the non-agricultural sector of the country. Although agriculture formed the main feature of the economic life of the people, there existed several crafts and industries in Orissa during the period under survey. As it seems, a considerable portion of Orissa's population earned their livelihood working as manufacturers of various kinds of non-agricultural products. The abundance of the products was such that even after the full needs of the people were met, there was considerable surplus left for export.

Textile production was the most important sector of India's economy, after agriculture, in pre-colonial times. In the 17^th century, it also accounted for a significant share in the entire international trade. It has often been assumed that, crafts have no history in India, i.e., all the elementary tools, devices and practices were already in existence at the earliest imaginable times"earlier even than the immigration of the Aryans"and that all developments since then have been of a minor or very secondary nature.

History and Culture Journal, Textile Technology, Economic Goods, Industrial Productions, Commercialized Sectors, European Markets, European Companies, European Countries, Non-Agricultural Productions, Multifaceted commercial activities, Multi-tiered Commercial Activities.