The papers presented in this volume arise out of the session on money, banking and finance, organized under the auspices of the Indian History Congress, Kolkata, 2000. In most historical periods in India, groups of people have been engaged in exchanges of their products, with money being extensively used as a medium of exchange. There is no point, however, trying to define who exactly were the bankers, or bankers and money-changers, or bankers, merchants, and money-changers rolled into one, without specifying the context. They functioned in very different ways, and thus alert us to the infinite potential of human ingenuity. Further, they tell us something about the way the use of particular institutions has a perceptible influence on the evolution of the larger society.