The Agrarian System of Moslem India: A Historical Essay with Appendices c19: Appendix F. Legends of Todar Mal
The Agrarian System of Moslem India: A Historical Essay with Appendices c19
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Appendix F. Legends of Todar Mal
c19.2
I HAVE mentioned in Chapter IV that, in describing Todar Mal's work, I have followed the contemporary records, and discarded the account contained in the eighteenth-century chronicle of Khwāfī Khān: my reasons for discarding it are given in this Appendix.
c19.3
The account in question is introduced by the statement that Todar Mal's work was proverbial throughout Hindustan, and consequently some notice of him was required. It then records in succession his activities in connection with the coinage, his methods of assessment, and his system of advances to peasants; and then breaks into a long lament on the degeneracy of the writer's days, when nobody paid any heed to the peasants, the land had reverted to jungle, and an upright official was popularly regarded as an incompetent fool.
c19.4
As regards coinage, this account asserts definitely that Todar Mal introduced the silver rupee of 11 (sic) māshas, superseding the "black" tanka, which up to his time was the only currency; silver tankas had indeed been struck, but they were used only for rewards to foreign envoys and to artists, were not generally current, and were sold as bullion. Now the Aīn records (i. 26) that the silver rupee, of 11½ māshas, was introduced in the time of Sher Shāh. It is quite incredible that the official record of Akbar's administration should deprive him of the credit of this reform if he was entitled to it; while the extant specimens of the silver coinage of Sher Shāh and Islām Shāh are so numerous as to place the fact of their currency beyond dispute. In this case, then, the writer of the account has clearly credited his hero, Todar Mal, with the achievement of an earlier reformer; and consequently the account as a whole is not above suspicion.
c19.5
As regards Todar Mal's methods of assessment, the description given is as follows:
c19.6
For grain-crops of both seasons depending on the rains, Todar Mal settled that half the yield should be taken as revenue.
c19.7
For irrigated crops (grain, pulse, sugarcane, opium, turmeric, etc.), after one-fourth had been deducted for expenses, one-third was taken for grain, while for high-class crops like sugarcane, etc., the rates varied, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, or 1/7, according to the crop.
c19.8
If desired, a fixed cash-charge was levied on the bigha for each crop, which was called Rāja Todar Mal’s *dastūr-ul ‘amal* and *dhārā*.
c19.9
This account points to two alternative methods of assessment, differential Sharing, and Measurement at cash rates. The contemporary records which I have followed in the text give no hint of differential Sharing; and they show clearly that Todar Mal’s Measurement-rates were not fixed in cash, but were stated in grain, and commuted on annual prices. The discrepancy is therefore serious.
c19.10
In estimating the value of this account, it must be remembered that the text of the chronicle is very uncertain. Colonel W. N. Lees is quoted in Elliot’s *History* (vii. 210) as writing that “no two copies that I have met with—and I have compared five apparently very good MSS.—are exactly alike, while some present such dissimilarities as almost to warrant the supposition that they are distinct works.” So far as I know, no attempt to settle the text has yet been made: the first volume issued in *Bibliotheca Indica* promised a critical preface, but the promise has not yet been fulfilled, and no description is extant of the MSS. which were used by the editor. In the present case, however, it is apparent that this account did not form part of the original chronicle, but is a later insertion. It is given in two places in the printed text, the notes to which show that in two MSS. it is inserted (p. 155) under the sixth year of Akbar’s reign, while in a third (p. 195), it appears under the 34th year. It is scarcely possible to suppose that an integral portion of the original chronicle should have become displaced in this way; the facts point clearly to a later insertion, which was made in two copies at the first mention of Todar Mal, and in another at the record of his death. I am not prepared to express a definite opinion on the question whether the insertion was made by Khwāfī Khān, or by someone else. The style of the chronicle is not uniform: this account resembles some portions of it, but not others; and it may well be that the portions which it resembles are other insertions by the same hand.
c19.11
The account, whoever wrote it, is thus separated from the facts by 150 years or more. It is also separated from them by distance, for the chronicle belongs to the literature of the Deccan, not of Hindustan. The word *dhārā*, which is given as a synonym for *dastūr-ul ‘amal* points to the locality of origin: in Hindi it means primarily a stream, and the dictionaries of Forbes and Platts indicate no technical use, but in Molesworth’s Marāthī 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 *dastūr-ul ‘amal*, but the Marāthī synonym comes in naturally in the Deccan. We have then a late account drawn up in the Deccan.
c19.12
Now the methods of assessment described in it are substantially those which, as is related in Chapter VII, Murshid Qulī Khān 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 Qulī 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 Qulī’s work, when in fact he was entitled to credit for only portions of it. To the extent that Murshid Qulī 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 sufficiently vague, to carry it also. At any rate, it is clear from the accounts of Murshid Qulī’s work that it was regarded in the Deccan as based on that of Todar Mal; Khwāfī Khān (i. 732), and the Maāsīrulumra (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 Qulī’s work as servilely copied from that of Todar Mal.
c19.13
It may be noted that this southern account of the work of Todar Mal is not in agreement with the *Maāsīrulumra*, which was also compiled in the Deccan during the eighteenth century. The description there given (i. 127) is clearly condensed from the Aīn and the Akbarnāma, and gives no support to the view that the Rāja’s methods included differential Sharing. I have found no other relevant passage in the literature, so that the account in Khwāfī Khān appears to stand alone; and, taking its date and locality into account, it cannot be accepted as contradicting the contemporary evidence on which I have relied in Chapter IV.
c19.14
I think then that the statement that Murshid Qulī was a servile copyist of Todar Mal may fairly be described as legendary. Another legend, found in some early English writers, is that Todar Mal was himself a copyist, and that the Āīn-i Akbarī derives directly from Tīmūr’s *Institutes*. The original of this work is not known to be in existence, but a Persian version, said to have been made in the reign of Shāhjahān, was published in 1783, along with an English translation by Major Davy, under the editorship of Joseph White. Doubts have been thrown on the authenticity of this work. If it is a later forgery, the idea that Todar Mal copied from it is ruled out; but, assuming it to be genuine, a comparison of it with the Āīn negatives decisively the view of direct derivation. Naturally some of Tīmūr’s institutions, particularly in the military departments, survived into Akbar’s time, and consequently some resemblances in detail exist between the two works; but (1) the assessment-system, and (2) the practice in regard to Assignments, show material differences.
c19.15
(1) Tīmūr’s assessment-system, as described on pp. 360 ff. of White’s edition is of the distinctive Islamic type, based on differences in the water-supply, while the Āīn nowhere recognises such differences.
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(2) Tīmūr’s practice regarding Assignments (pp. 236 ff.) was that allocation was made by lot, that an Assignment was held for three years, that it was then inspected, and that, if the assignee was found to have oppressed the peasants, he received no salary for the next three years. In Mogul India, allocation was not by lot, but by favour of the Dīwān, the term of holding was indeterminate, and there is no record of any process of inspection, or of a prescribed penalty for oppression.
c19.17
There is nothing in the Āīn to suggest that Akbar’s Revenue Ministry accepted the *Institutes* as authoritative, or indeed had even heard of them. The work is not mentioned in the historical essay on taxation (i. 289), where we should expect to meet it, while the fact (if it be a fact) that a translation had to be made in the reign of Shāhjahān suggests that nothing of the kind existed previously. There are no grounds, therefore, for the view that Todar Mal used the *Institutes* as his guide; and all that can be said is, that, if he knew of their existence, he departed widely from their provisions in his practice.