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The Development of the Land-revenue System of the Mogul Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

W. H. Moreland
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Extract

The Land-revenue system described in the Āīn-i-Akbari differs widely from that which British administrators took over in the eighteenth century, and students of history or economics require to know when and how the changes took place. I cannot find any literature dealing with this subject, and I attempt in this paper to estimate the changes which took place during the reigns of Jahangir and Shah Jahan.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , January 1922 , pp. 19 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1922

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References

page 19 note 1 Translations of these farmāns appear in ProfessorSarkar, 's Studies in Mughal India, 1919.Google Scholar I have departed occasionally from his version of particular passages in order to bring out the use of certain terms, which I take to be technical.

page 20 note 1 In the former paper daytūr-ul-'amal was taken to indicate Akbar's schedules of assessment rates; the argument there was directed to show that a dastūr was an official paper and not a local administrative area, but it would perhaps have been more correct to say that the dastūr contained the schedule of rates, since its scope may have been wider.

page 20 note 2 For Karori as a soubriquet, see Rogers, and Beveridge, , Tūzuk, i, IIIGoogle Scholar, where we find Ali Khān Karori as daroa, of the Imperial drums, a post outside the revenue department. MrFoster, (English Factories, 1655–1660, p. 62)Google Scholar gives an instance of the correlative title, Amīn, being used as a soubriquet for a “Governor”.

page 21 note 1 See the account of the proceedings of the Diwān of Orissa in Sarkar, 's Studies in Mughal India, pp. 221 ff.Google Scholar

page 22 note 1 See Blochmann, & Jarrett, 's translation, ii, 38.Google Scholar The only reference I have found to the provincial Diwān's duties under Akbar is idem, p. 50, where we find him as a disbursing officer. The Akbarnama (Beveridge, iii, 412)Google Scholar shows that Akbar appointed Diwans on the provincial establishments, but does not indicate the nature of their duties.

page 22 note 2 Mr. H. Beveridge, who has been so kind as to furnish a large number of references regarding the position of various Diwāns, provincial and other, under Akbar, has suggested that the powerful and quasiindependent Diwāns of later times may be derived directly from the Imperial Diwān (who might in practice be Prime Minister), and not from these petty provincial officials. On this point also evidence would be welcome: at present we know only that the designation was identical.

page 24 note 1 See Elliot, 's History of India, v, 383, 514.Google Scholar

page 25 note 1 See Blochmann, & Jarrett, , ii, 44.Google Scholar

page 27 note 1 I am not sure of the exact meaning of this phrase. Sarkar has “the past year and the year preceding it”; but possibly sāl-i kāmil has the technical meaning of some “standard year” recognized in practice but not defined in the farmān, and in that case we should read “the produce of the standard year and the most recent year”. In the Akbarnama, sāl-ikāmil is contrasted with paiwasta sāl, but Mr. Beveridge is uncertain as to the precise significance of the contrast (vide his translation, iii, 688).Google Scholar

page 28 note 1 It may be objected that Akbar's dahsāla rates were still available; but, as we shall see further on, they had been rendered obsolete by the rise in the standard of assessment from one-third to half the gross produce, so that revised schedules would have been necessary.

page 28 note 2 Akbar prohibited nasaq on the specific ground that it might confer undue authority on high-handed oppressors (Blochmann, & Jarrett, , ii, 45).Google Scholar

page 33 note 1 Professor Sarkar inserts in the translation [if more than one-half decrease it], but these words do not appear in his printed text.

page 33 note 2 I hope to publish figures bearing on this point when the cost of printing renders publication possible.