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Sher Shah's Revenue System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

W. H. Moreland
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Extract

Historians are agreed as to the importance of the fiscal institutions established in Upper India by Sher Shah (1540–1545), but their precise nature is not easy to discover. The difficulty lies mainly in the authorities available. All the published chronicles of the Afghan kingdom derive in effect from the Tārīkh-i Sher Shāhī of Abbās Sarwānī, and the text of this writer has not yet been worked out from the discordant manuscripts which have survived, so that it is not possible to be certain what the chronicler actually wrote in the few and tantalising passages which he devoted to the fiscal system. The only detailed study of the subject which I have seen is contained in Professor Kalikaranjan Qanungo's monograph entitled Sher Shah, which was published in Calcutta in 1921. In what follows I shall have to question some of the Professor's conclusions regarding the fiscal system established by his hero, and it is only fair to begin by saying that my criticisms do not apply to more than a very small proportion of his work. He has not, indeed, faced the problems presented by the text of the Tārīkh, and consequently his study cannot be regarded as definitive, but in the questions of chronology, topography, and psychology which occupy most of his pages he seems to me to have exercised a generally sound judgment along with great industry, and there are not many of his conclusions from which I would dissent.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , July 1926 , pp. 447 - 459
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1926

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References

page 449 note 1 Qanungo writes (p. 370, 1) that “ Alauddin Khilji first devised the scheme of jarib (survey and measurement)”, and that the system did not “ take sufficient root to survive the death of the inventor ”, but his authority, Ziya Barni, gives no support for the word “ first ”, and the passages he quotes suggest to me that in the fourteenth century jarib was not regarded as a novelty, but rather as an institution too familiar to call for an explanation. Inscriptions quoted on pp. 150, 175, of Aiyangar's, South India (London and Madras, 1911)Google Scholar, show that revenue in the form of a fixed quantity of grain from each unit of area was taken in the Chola Empire before the Moslem conquest of Delhi, so that Measurement was in fact practised by Hindus in the South : I know of no similar records for Northern India, but it is more probable that Alauddin selected for general use a system which he found already in existence than that he invented independently a system which was practised in other parts of India.

Page 450 note 1 Elliot's History of India, iv. 313, 314. The MSS. I have examined (British Museum, Or. 164, Or. 1782 ; and India Office, Nos. 219, 220) show no important variations in this passage. Some of them say the choice of system was made by the peasants, not by the headmen as in Elliot. Qanungo (p. 18) makes much of this discrepancy, but it is not really significant, because the peasant's choice would in any case be declared by the headmen. In this passage, and occasionally elsewhere, Qanungo seems to overlook the dual position occupied by the headmen. It is true that they collected the revenue from the peasants, and there is good evidence that they occasionally oppressed them, but it is equally true that they were the peasants' chosen representatives, and sometimes protected the village against oppression from outside.

page 451 note 1 Elliot, iv. 317.

page 451 note 2 Elliot, iv. 413. I have failed to ascertain the source of the words placed in parenthesis. Dowson's note on p. 302 shows that the translator had four MSS., only one of which is named, and that doubtfully, while the editor had two others. One of the latter is Or. 1782, but it does not contain the passage in question, which must, I think, belong to one or more of those used by the translator. The MS. used by Qanungo does not contain the passage.

page 452 note 1 Elliot, iv. 399, 415, 416.

page 453 note 1 It appears in this sense in the Gazetteer of the Multan District, (1901–2), pp. 294, 385. I am indebted to Sir Edward Maclagan for this reference, as well as for some valuable suggestions regarding later paragraphs of this paper.

page 456 note 1 Jarrett renders “ generally obtained ”, but there is nothing in the text to justify the word “ generally ”. The text has “ found acceptance ”, and this can refer only to Akbar, because his decision was the only thing that mattered in an administrative question of the kind.

page 456 note 2 Journal R.A.S., January, 1918, p. 12 ff.

page 458 note 1 Shakespear, , Selections from the Duncan Records, Benares, 1873, vol. I passim, especially pp. 64, 257, and iii of appendicesGoogle Scholar. Wilson's Glossary gives the Arabic spelling of “ rye ” as re-alif-ain-ye, but this appears to be wrong. The vernacular papers of Duncan's time have not survived, but Mr. Riaz Ali, of the Commissioner's office, who has been good enough to examine the records for me, has found the word spelt as in the Ain in a document of 1842, while in earlier records it appears in the corrupt form re-ye, indicating its acclimatization in the local vernacular.