The agrarian system of Moslem India

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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

74 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA under Sher Shah Hindustan passed from Sharing and (a doubtful word) to Measurement. The doubtful word was printed by Blochmann as mugtis. 1 can find no such word in the dictionaries, nor have I met it elsewhere in the literature; but derivatives from the same root are applied in some cases to Assignment, in others to Farming, and it would be possible to render the passage either ‘‘ from Sharing and Assignment,” or “from Sharing and Farming.” The exact meaning must remain obscure until other uses of the word in a similar context come to light. 2. SHER SHAH AND HIS SUCCESSORS (1541-1555) Passing for the moment over the first, unstable, period of Mogul rule, we come to Sher Shah, one of the outstanding administrators of Moslem India, and the only sovereign who is known to have gained practical experience in manag- ing a small body of peasants before rising to the throne of a peasant kingdom. The main source of information re- garding his administrative activities is the chronicle of Abbas Sarwani to which reference has already been made, but it is confirmed and supplemented by a chapter in the Ain-i Akbari. In itself, the chronicle! is fairly good his- torical material, but the manuscripts differ widely, and, so far as I can learn, nothing has yet been done to establish a definitive text. The administrative unit adopted by Sher Shih was the existing pargana, each of which was placed in charge of two officers, shiqqdar and amin,? with a treasurer and clerks, ! The material portions of the chronicle (translated by E. C. Bayley) are in Elliot, iv; for the state of the MSS, see p. 302. I know of no printed text. The MSS. I have examined are Or. 164 and Or. 1782 in the British Museum, and Ethé, 219, in the India Office, as well as an Urdu version (Ethé, 220). All these appear to belong to one family, and omit some important sentences found in the translation; all are obviously careless copies, and I should not like to assert their authority against the un- specified MSG. on which the translator relied. t Elliot, iv. 413. The term shiqqdir clearly does not denote the ad- ministrator of a shiqq, in the sense of an aggregate of parganas, found occasionally at an earlier period; at this time it is applied consistently to the revenue officer of a single pargana, whether a State official or the servant of an assignee. Sher Shah’s designation for his district officers was *‘ shiqgqdar of shiqqdars,” rendered ‘chief shigqdar” in the translation. “Amin” appears in all the MSS. I have examined, and is clearly ap- propriate; the variant “amir,” which is given in the translation, is im- probable, and I conjecture that in the MS. of the translation (which I have failed to trace) the » may have been misread as 7.

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