The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c22.8

v4.c22.8

All these sources of the central revenue, taken together, were quite small when compared with the land-revenue, which was reckoned at more than ninety millions of rupees in the latter part of Akbar’s reign, and at 220 millions in the larger empire of Shāh Jahān. The disparity is indeed sufficient to justify the practice traditional in India, and adopted in the remainder of this chapter, of using the word “revenue” in the restricted sense of land-revenue. The burden on the land was increased further by the levy of cesses, proportionate to the revenue, or charged on the unit of cultivation, as the case might be, some of them general and permanent, others local and temporary; but the authorities say very little about these, and no estimate can be formed of the aggregate addition which they made to the burdens of the peasant. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to Revenue in the restricted sense, beginning with a general view of the agrarian system of the country, and then describing the course of events during the Mughul period.