The agrarian system of Moslem India

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1804119261

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-188010

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Moreland, William Harrison http://d-nb.info/gnd/172263670

Title:: The agrarian system of Moslem India

Edition:: 2. ed. Reissue (d. Ausg. Cambridge) 1929; [Reprint]

Place of publication:: Delhi

Publisher:: Oriental Books, Munshiram Manoharlal

Year of publication:: 1968

Scope:: XVII, 296 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

iv INTRODUCTION the canon of variety of diction, or, in other words, they would do almost anything in order to avoid verbal repetition. It is natural, therefore, that a particular thing should appear under various names; but at the same time it must be remembered that bureaucracy was highly developed in India from the outset of the Moslem period, and, inside the public offices, words already in general use were adopted as precise terms of art, just as happens at the present day, so that general and technical senses might co-exist. Some- times, indeed, we find that different departments might use a word in different senses, as in the familiar case of mdl. An ordinary writer meant by that word “property” or “possessions,” but in the military department it denoted “booty taken in war,” while in the jargon of the financial offices it signified ‘‘land-revenue”; its meaning in any particular passage has to be inferred from the context. These terms of art in some cases persisted, and in others changed with the centuries, so that from time to time old things appear under new names; while, on the other hand, changes in practice might result in giving a substantially new meaning to an old-established term. Differences in respect of locality are also important; and, in particular, it is noteworthy that, two centuries ago, the agrarian language of Calcutta differed materially from that of Delhi, a fact which later on was to contribute to the misappre- hensions of the early British administrators in the North. This fluidity of the terminology is a matter of such significance for the historian that it may be well to give here one illustration where the main facts are not open to dispute. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Arabic word Diwan was used by Indo-Persian writers in a specific sense corresponding almost exactly to the modern terms “Department” or “Ministry”. Thus the “Vazir’s diwan”’ denoted the Revenue Ministry, because finance was the main business of the Vazir; and, when a new department was constituted, as happened from time to time, it was styled the diwan of the particular branch of administration with which it was charged. The literature of the fifteenth century is scanty, and I Jo not know when the change occurred; but, by the time of

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