History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c38.51

v2.c38.51

When Shāyista Khān of Bengal was rebuilding the Mughal Nawwārā for the destruction of the Portuguese pirates of Chittagong, Orissa had to furnish its quota in materials and artisans. Khān-i-Daurān wrote to Muḥammad Jān asking him to advance money to weavers, artisans, oil-vendors and cultivators for articles ordered for the fleet. He was directed first of all to settle the price with the brokers and then to take bonds with the attestation of the brokers for the delivery of the goods in time. *Do-sufi* cloth was required for the making of sails, and Muḥammad Jān was directed to send cloth to the *Dārogha* of the fleet. All master-craftsmen and blacksmiths living in the port of Harishpur and other places were directed to be won over and sent to Baleswar for shipbuilding. At the same time Khān-i-Daurān wrote to Muḥammad Jān, "the officers of the Imperial Government have reported that 210 *Kudi* of cloth, of the *sahan*, *barbarah*, *do-sufi* and *thafi* varieties, 20,000 maunds of rice, 300 maunds of mustard oil (yellow oil), 260 maunds of sesamum, 100 maunds of *gulmosaft* are required for the provisioning of the ships of the State. According to the schedule attached to this letter, urge the officers of Jajpur Bhadrak and other *Muhals* in your *Faujdari* to get them ready quickly and send them before the sailing season to the port of Baleswar to Muhammad Baqar, the *darogha* of ship construction. The price of these things will be deducted from the amounts due from the *Amlas*. Dated 28th December 1664."¹ The revenue system of Mughal Orissa was very intricate. In addition to collections in kind, the rate of which was fixed, but the price fluctuated according to the market, there was another great difficulty in the way of the assessment; the money payment was in Cowrie shells, a system which was in vogue in Sylhet till the end of the 18th century. The *Ṣūbah* of Orissa was divided into two parts, the first of which consisted of the three *sarkārs* of Jaleśwar, Bhadrak and Katak. In Orissa this part of the country is known as the Mughalbandi. The rest of the country under the semi-independent hill Rājās, was called the Zamindary. In the Mughalbandi Imperial revenue was collected by means of the Ijārādars (the modern Zamindars) or by direct collection through revenue officers called āmils and Kroris. The figures available are not always reliable on account of the difficult system of numeral notation used by Mughal scribes called Raqāim “symbolic marks suggestive of Chinese writing.” As Sarkar has proved already, Mughal revenue returns are not reliable, as (a) the area assessed was not always the same, (b) the figures given contain only the standard or paper assessment and (c) some of the figures quoted are probably unreliable :