This thesis offers a revisionist history of arid-zone South Asia read through the lens of land rights in Marwar state of northwest India. Employing a host of descriptive and statistical material from Marwari, Hindi, and British colonial archives, it demonstrates how ownership of and access to sources of land and water persistently inflected claims to and contests over hierarchical status in the course of three long centuries. In so doing, the thesis argues for a materially-grounded view of caste beyond the squarely social phenomenon of historiographical consensus. In particular, the thesis charts histories of the Charans – a community often mis-characterized as “bards” – who were among the most numerous recipients of tax-free (sasan) land grants in early modern and colonial Marwar. Highlighting Charan management of their lands, and their negotiations with Marwar authorities in resolving agrarian-social disputes, the thesis also argues that it was largely the official indifference of the Marwar royal court and other “state” offices that bolstered sasan landholder autonomy and socio-economic prestige. The thesis additionally contends with related structural constraints, such as precarious access to sources of water and regular bouts of famine, that together defined the harsh ecology of the greater Marwar region. The work thus joins social, economic, and environmental history as it explores the durability of a land regime that fundamentally shaped political economy and social hierarchies from the early modern era into the mid-twentieth century.