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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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter I. Antecedents

Collection:: Economics Books

ANTECEDENTS > de Farmers by arranging to pay a fixed sum instead of accounting for fluctuating collections; and thus various institutions, which must be distinguished for the purpose of analysis, might be blended in practice, so that at certain epochs the agrarian system presents a kaleidoscopic aspect, with Chiefs and Farmers, headmen and collectors, each assuming the appearance of the others. Enough has perhaps been said to indicate the nature, and the logical, though not the historical, sequence of the developments from the primitive method of dividing the produce, but a word must be added regarding the form in which the State’s share was actually received. Each of the methods enumerated could be worked, so far as the peasant was concerned, either in cash or in kind, the State’s share of produce being valued, when this course was deemed convenient, at rates determined in various ways. The payments of Intermediaries, on the other hand, were ordinarily assessed, and made, in terms of cash, at any rate from the first century of Moslem rule! I do not know the date when the cash-nexus between the peasant and the King (or his representative) first came into existence, but the view that it is a modern phenomenon must be rejected as unhistorical; as we shall see in the next chapter, the peasants of the country round Delhi normally paid their share in cash during, at anv rate. the latter part of the thirteenth centurv. The question when these various developments originated is one which must be left mainly to students of the Hindu period. I suspect that most, if not all, of them date from before the Moslem conquest, but all I can do here is to point to some features which are probably, or certainly, indigenous. The most obvious example is the grant for religious or charitable endowment, the existence of which is established by surviving inscriptions, recording title- deeds of dates far earlier than the Moslem conquest. Assignments in lieu of salary were apparently recognised 1 There are a few cases on record where some part of the revenue of a province was stated in commodities, e.g., elephants from Bengal, but they are clearly exceptional.

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