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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APPENDIX F 257 Platts indicate no technical use, but in Molesworth’s Marathi Dictionary it is rendered as “the usual rate (of rents, prices, etc.).” No Moslem writing in Hindustan would have needed to give such a word as an equivalent for a common expression like dastir-ul ‘amal, but the Marathi synonym comes in naturally in the Deccan. We have then a late account drawn up in the Deccan. Now the methods of assessment described in it are substantially those which, as is related in Chapter VII, Murshid Quli Khan had introduced into the Deccan about the year 1655, and which clearly left a strong impression on the locality. There is no reason for supposing that Murshid Quli was practically familiar with the word of Todar Mal, but there is no difficulty in the idea that, when he started work in the Deccan as a stranger, he should have invoked the traditional authority of Todar Mal for his innovations. Where he established Measurement, he was in fact working on Todar Mal’s lines, and the Deccan, which had no first-hand knowledge of Todar Mal, might very easily attribute to him the whole of Murshid Quli’s work, when in fact he was entitled to credit for only portions of it. To the extent that Murshid Quli introduced Measurement, he was a follower, though not a servile copyist, of Todar Mal: if his method of differential Sharing was, as it seems to me, a novelty in India, then the traditional fame of Todar Mal was sufficiently great, and also snfficiently vague, to carry it also. At any rate, it is clear from the accounts of Murshid Quli’s work that it was re- garded in the Deccan as based on that of Todar Mal; Khwifi Khan (i. 732), and the Maasirulumra (iii. 497) are in agreement on this point, though not on others; and it was doubtless this southern tradition which was absorbed later in the century by James Grant, when he described Murshid Quli’s work as servilely copied from that of Todar Mal. It may be noted that this southern account of the work of Todar Mal is not in agreement with the M adsirulumra, which was also compiled in the Deccan during the eighteenth century. The description there given (i. 127) is clearly condensed from the Ain and the Akbarnama, and gives no support to the view that the Raja’s methods included differential Sharing. I have found no other relevant passage in the literature, so that the account in Khwafi Khan appears to stand alone ; and, taking its date and locality into account, it cannot be accepted as contradicting the ‘ontemporary evidence on which I have relied in Chapter IV.

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