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.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter II. The 13th and 14th centuries

Collection:: Economics Books

THE 13tra AND l4tH CENTURIES 63 as in others, individual Chiefs and assignees may have followed their own inclinations. It can be said with confidence that the records of the century disclose no trace of either the institution, or the conception, of private ownership of land in the sense which the term “ownership” bears to-day. All forms of tenure were liable to summary resumption at the King’s pleasure, and, with a succession of despots of strong characters and varying views, the phrase ‘‘the King’s pleasure’ must be taken in its literal sense; even religious endowments, the nearest approach to what would now be called ownership, could be annulled by a stroke of the pen. The attitude of Firiiz to Grants in general was, indeed, such that a right of ownership in them seemed to be developing, but this de- velopment was not destined to proceed through later periods. So far as the peasants were concerned, the idea prevalent in Hindu times, that cultivation was a duty to the State, and not a right of the individual, still persisted, and manifested itself on occasion in administrative practice. The position of the Chiefs was a matter of politics rather than of law. Ordinarily they could hope to retain their jurisdiction so long as they paid the stipulated revenue; when they defaulted or rebelled, the matter in dispute was settled by force or by diplomacy according to circum- stances. Regarding the internal organisation of the villages, the chronicles are silent, and, if we take them by themselves, it is almost impossible to point to a single definite phrase indicating the existence of anything which could be described as an organised village; chance references to the headman'’s perquisites, and to the records of the village-accountant, are practically all that has survived. The inference that such institutions did not exist would, however, be unjusti- fiable. We shall meet them at later periods, bearing in- disputable marks of their great antiquity; it is incredible that they should have originated in the intervening cen- turies; and there are no grounds for questioning their con- tinuity from a date antecedent, at any rate, to the Moslem conquest. It is better to interpret the silence of the chronicles, not as showing that organised villages did not

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: The agrarian system of Moslem India

Monograph

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

Chapter

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation