Pali

Pali lies in southeastern Marwar, where routes from Gujarat and the Arabian Sea meet those crossing Rajasthan. It grew into a major trading town, with merchants supplying the Rathore kingdom and carrying goods between the coast and the interior. The old Somanatha temple and Jain shrines reflect the religious communities of a prosperous market.

Pali’s commercial importance continued into the early nineteenth century. The traveller James Tod described it as a leading market of western India, a place where land routes converged with commerce connected to the sea. Its merchants operated within the political world of the Rathore rulers of Jodhpur, while their connections extended well beyond Marwar. The town’s prosperity rested on this meeting of regional production and long-distance exchange.