The agrarian system of Moslem India

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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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APPENDIX E 241 above, or, what is, I think, more probable, it would be the office-name of the record in question, used to distinguish it from some other Valuation which it had superseded. In the latter case, it might have meant merely “written,” or, as Mr. Beveridge has suggested in a note on the passage in the Akbarnima dis- cussed below, it might indicate that the record was in the ragam notation; but, whatever its origin, it would be in fact a label. On this reading, the first sentence tells us that, while assess- ment was proceeding on the lines given in paragraph A, the Valuation in use was “arbitrary,” or “the Raqami,” according to the guess adopted; and we are told further that the figures in it were altered to meet the needs of the moment, and that corruption ensued. The salary-list became excessive owing to frequent promotions, and the kingdom was too small to bear the charge; the Revenue Ministry consequently wrote up the Valuation without reference to facts, so that officers would get Assignments which, on paper, were adequate to meet their claims, but which could not, in fact, yield the Income charged on them. With this procedure, corruption was obviously inevitable. Taking the paragraph by itself, then, “Valuation” is a much more probable interpretation than ‘“Demand,” and this view is ~onfirmed by two parallel passages. (¢) The Akbarnama (ii. 270) tells us that in the 11th year Akbar “turned his attention to the jama-i parganat, and ander his orders Muzaffar Khan set aside the jama-i ragami-i 7alami, which, in the time of Bairim Khan, had been nominally increased for the sake of appearances owing to the number of men and the smallness of the country; and that [sc. the increase] had always remained entered in the public records, and was tools of corruption.” The force of galami in this passage is uncertain. My friend Mr. R. Paget Dewhurst has suggested to me that it is merely a repetition of ragami, and that the two words together mean “recorded”; my own idea is that it may point to the phrase 2hl-i gala, “folk of the pen,” commonly used for the clerks in the public offices, so that it is a sort of apology for writing jargon—"‘the ragami jama, to use the office name.” Bairim Khan's “time” ended in the fifth regnal year; we can thus date the transaction as lying in his regency, and in Abdul Maijid’s vazarat, not later than the fifth vear.

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