Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c18.77

v1.c18.77

Barār.—*Barar* is an indefinite term for taxation, and is connected with the thing taxed: as *ghanim-barar*,² ‘war-tax’; *ghar ginti-barar*,³ ‘house-tax’; *hal-barar*, ‘plough-tax’; *neota-barar*, ‘marriage-tax’; and others, both of old and new standing. The war-tax was a kind of substitute for the regular mode of levying the rents on the produce of the soil; which was rendered very difficult during the disturbed period, and did not accord with the wants of the prince. It is also a substitute in those mountainous regions, for the *jarib*,⁴ where the produce bears no proportion to the cultivated surface; sometimes from poverty of soil, but often from the reverse, as in Kumbhalmer, where the choicest crops are produced on the cultivated terraces, and on the sides of its mountains, which abound with springs, yielding the richest canes and cottons, and where experiment has proved that four crops can be raised in the same patch of soil within the year.