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.

Appendix F. LEGENDS OF TODAR MAL. [ HAVE mentioned in Chapter IV that, in describing Todar Mal’s work, I have followed the contemporary records, and discarded the account contained in the eighteenth-century chronicle of Khwafi Khan: my reasons for discarding it are given in this Appendix. The account in question is introduced by the statement that Todar Mal’s work was proverbial throughout Hindustan, and consequently some notice of him was required. It then records in succession his activities in connection with the coinage, his methods of assessment, and his system of advances to peasants; and then breaks into a long lament on the degeneracy of the writer's days, when nobody paid any heed to the peasants, the land had reverted to jungle, and an upright official was popularly regarded as an incompetent fool. As regards coinage, this account asserts definitely that Todar Mal introduced the silver rupee of 11 (sic) mashas, superseding the “black” tanka, which up to his time was the only currency; silver tankas had indeed been struck, but they were used only for rewards to foreign envoys and to artists were not generally current, and were sold as bullion. Now the Ain records (i. 26) that the silver rupee, of 11} mashas, was introduced in the time of Sher Shah. It is quite incredible that the official record of Akbar’s administration should deprive him of the credit of this reform if he was entitled to it; while the extant specimens of the silver coinage of Sher Shah and Islim Shih are so numerous as to place the fact of their currency beyond dispute. In this case, then, the writer of the account has clearly credited his hero, Todar Mal, with the achievement of an earlier reformer; and consequently the account as a whole is not above suspicion. As regards Todar Mal’s methods of assessment, the description given is as follows: For grain-crops of both seasons depending on the rains, Todar Mal settled that half the yield should be taken as revenue. For irrigated crops (grain, pulse, sugarcane, opium, turmeric, etc.), after one-fourth had been deducted for expenses, one-third was taken for grain, while for high-class crops like sugarcane, etc., the rates varied, 1/4,1/5,1/6, or 1/7, according to the crop. 2585

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