The lives of forest dwellers underwent significant transformation during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries due to various factors.

Forest dwellers were termed jangli in contemporary texts. This term did not mean an absence of "civilisation" as it connotes today. Rather, it described those whose livelihood came from gathering forest produce, hunting and shifting agriculture. These activities were largely season specific. For instance, among the Bhils, spring was reserved for collecting forest produce, summer for fishing, the monsoon months for cultivation, and autumn and winter for hunting. Such a sequence presumed and perpetuated mobility, which was a distinctive feature of tribes inhabiting these forests.

For the state, however, the forest was seen as a subversive place – a place of refuge (mawas) for troublemakers. Babur noted that jungles provided a good defence "behind which the people of the pargana become stubbornly rebellious and pay no taxes".

The spread of commercial agriculture was an important external factor that impinged on the lives of forest dwellers. Forest products like honey, beeswax and gum lac were in great demand. Some products, such as gum lac, became major items of overseas export from India in the seventeenth century. Elephants were also captured and sold. Trade involved an exchange of commodities through barter as well.

Some tribes, like the Lohanis in the Punjab, became engaged in overland trade between India and Afghanistan, and in the town-country trade in the Punjab itself. This marked a significant shift from their traditional forest-based livelihood activities.