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.

250 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA which was his best authority. The MSS. I have seen fall into two groups. One group runs the two parts of the clause into one, reading “wa har sal jins-i kamil afziin bid’ (RAS. 116, and 1.0. 266, 267, 268, 270). [Jins-i kamil bears the precise meaning of high-grade crops, such as sugarcane or poppy, which were encouraged by the Revenue Ministry on fiscal grounds, as yielding a larger Demand per bigha: this reading then asserts as a fact that cropping steadily improved. The assertion would not be absolutely irrelevant, because it would record the success of the new arrangements, but it is awkwardly placed, and does not fit in with the concluding words, because there is in fact no table showing such an increase. My reason for rejecting this reading is that, if it were the original, I do not see how the other readings could have arisen from it by gloss or error. On the other hand, a copyist, confronted with some of the alternative readings, might in despair pick out enough to make an intelligible sentence, omitting the apparently surplus words; or possibly the original MS. may have been altered in editing at this point, and the alterations were obscure. In the remaining MSS. the texts agree generally except for the second and third words, and for a few casual variations, which can be neglected. The second and third words stand as follows: — har sal printed text. har mil 1.0. 264, Add. 6546, 7652. partal 1.0. 265. har sal bar mal Add. 5645. tar mal Add. 5609. har hal Cambridge. niz mal Or. 2169. Add. 6552. Such diversity is very unusual, and I can account for it only on the view that the original contained some highly technical phrase, which was unintelligible to copyists outside the Ministry, that it was distorted almost from the outset, and that various attempts were then made to obtain sense. Or. 2169 is much the earliest of the dated MSS., and Add. 6552 is also early, “ probably 17th century’; their reading gives a technical sense, much better than anything which can be read into any of the remainder; while it is easy to see how distortion can have come, if the cryptic phrase mal-i jins-i kamil were either badly written or misunderstood. I therefore adopt this reading.

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