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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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter III. The Sayyid and Afghan dynasties

Collection:: Economics Books

THE SAYYID AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES 73 Grants were made commonly during this period (iv. 450) for the maintenance of scholars, saints, or persons with some sort of claim against the King. These Grants were, as a rule, comparatively small; their total value is a matter of conjecture, but taking Grants and Assignments together, there can be no doubt that the greater part of the revenue of the Afghan kingdom was alienated, and that the real masters of the peasant were the assignees. One passage (iv. 414) of some importance remains to be noticed. In describing Sher Shah's introduction of Measure- ment as the general rule, the chronicler says that ‘before his time it was not the custom to measure the land, but there was a ganiingo in every pargana, from whom was ascer- tained the present, past, and probable future state of the pargana’’ In point of time, this. is the earliest mention I have found of the ganiingo as the local authority who furnished the information required for the assessment of his pargana; but he is presented as an established institution, and there is no reason to doubt that the post dates from before the Moslem conquest. His appearance in this connection suggests that before the reign of Sher Shah the revenue-Demand was ordinarily fixed for a village or pargana as a whole, and not on the individual peasant; the passage thus points to either Group-assessment, or Farming, or both. The one essential for these methods was the local information provided by the qaniingo, showing what each village had paid in the past, and what new factors had to be taken into account in its assessment; so far as we know, he was not in a position to furnish such information separately for each individual peasant (which would have been the duty of the village-accountant), and his appearance on the scene is always a suggestion, though not a proof, that either Group-assessment or Farming was for the time in operation, alongside of the methods of individual assess- ment, which never entirely disappeared, or at least recurred after any temporary disappearance. Probably then the period under review was characterised by one, or both, of these methods, but definite evidence is wanting. It is possible that a clue to the position is contained in a sentence in the Ain (i. 296), which states incidentally that

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