7 - The financial system of Mughal India at the death of Akbar

Summary

At the death of Akbar “the Great” in a.d. 1605 Mughal India with a population of about 110 million and an area of about 2.5 million km², covering the entire peninsula down to about 19° North, contained about one-fifth of the population of the world, was only one-fourth below that of Ming China, and was slightly ahead of the total of the several dozen states into which Europe was then divided. This was a dramatic change from the situation at the accession of Akbar in 1556 when his domain was limited to about 0.3 million km² and probably had no more than 30 million inhabitants. The empire, enlarged as the result of about half a century's warfare, had become unified in some important respects – pax Akbarica, a common monetary system, free movement throughout the empire, and a basically similar system of taxation and land allocation – but it still showed many regional differences in the details of political and financial arrangements.

Although the size of the empire somewhat increased during the seventeenth century under Akbar's three successors (Jahangir, Shahjehan, and Aurangzeb, particularly in the Dekkan) and while urbanization, real national product per head, internal and particularly foreign trade increased, and the financial system developed, the empire at the death of Akbar was probably at the peak of its political power and coherence and close to its economic zenith.