Aspects of Rural Settlements and Rural Society in Early Medieval India seeks to undertake two kinds of explorations, one methodological and the other thematic. Methodologically, it examines texts of inscriptions-historians' main source for references to ancient villages庸rom diverse angles to try and understand the morphologies of villages in relation to different terrains across the country. One important aspect of this exploration concerns understanding, to the extent possible, the relationship of village location/s and sources of water, both for fields and habitats.