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

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232 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA IV. FIrUz SHAH'S ASSESSMENT. (Text, Afif, 94. I have found no translation; only one sentence is given in Elliot, iii. 288.) I. The king . . . settled the Demand(zr) of the kingdom afresh. And for the settlement of that Demand Khwaia Hisa- muddin Junid was appointed. 2. The excellent Khwaja, having spent six years in the kingdom, 3. [and] having settled the Demand according to the “rule of inspection,” (2) 4. determined the “aggregate”(3) of the kingdom at 675 lakhs of tankas in accordance with the principle of sovereignty. 5. During forty years during the reign of Firiiz Shah the aggregate’ of Delhi was the same. NorTEes. (1) “Demand,” mahsul. Afif occasionally uses this word in the sense of revenue Demand, that is, as a synonym for khardj, never, so far as I can find, in the other sense of ‘ produce of the scil.”” which occurs in some later writers. (2) ‘Rule of inspection,” hukm-i mushdhada, occurs, so far as I know, nowhere else in the literature Barni tells us in the preceding passage that Firdz, at his accession, adopted the ‘““rule of the produce.” Afif’s account refers to the same period, for this appointment was made very soon after the King’s first arrival at Delhi; either then one of the writers made a mistake, or the two expressions mean the same thing. A mistake is improbable, for old bureaucrats like the writers do not misuse technical terms: on the other hand, Afif’s vocabulary differs from that of Barni in several cases, such as ‘‘khit’ or ‘“‘pargana,’”’ so that verbal divergence need not suggest error. The general idea conveyed by mushahada is “witnessing,” ‘‘observing’’; and in order to reconcile the two statements, all that is necessary is to take this word as denoting Sharing-by-estimation, the reference being to the persons who observe or inspect the condition of the growing crop in order to estimate the yield. We may say then that, while Barni tells us that Sharing was prescribed, Afif tells us that it was Sharing by Estimation, not actual Division. On this interpretation the disappearance of the term mushiahada can be readily understood, because the official literature of the Mogul period employs the Hindi name kankii to denote the process in question. The revenue-Demand under this system varied from season to season with the area sown and the produce reaped, so that the phrase ‘‘ to settle,” bastan, must not be read in the sense of fixing beforehand the number of tankas to be paid; I take the meaning to be that the arrangements for assessment were reorganised after the confusion which had developed during the previous reign. (3) ‘‘Aggregate,” jama, has in the later literature two well-defined senses. as has been .explained in Appendix A. Used for jama-i mal. it

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