Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c8.51

c8.51

We may say that the prices of our period on the whole stand in a ratio of 1 : 2 to those of the reign of Akbar. Moreland has worked it out that a rupee of Akbar, for general purposes, would equal in purchasing power six rupees of the period before the Great War; or, in other words, a monthly income of five rupees would provide the same quantity of necessities as could be purchased from an income of thirty rupees in 1912 (*vide* India on the death of Akbar, 56). In other words, if our calculations are not altogether misleading, we may say that a Tanka of the period under review will purchase twelve times the necessities that could be purchased with a rupee before 1914. This, of course, is a very rough calculation, but will help us to appreciate better some of the facts of economic life.