The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c15.s1.14

c15.s1.14

The point is that at least from the thirteenth century onward, the revenue was assessed and paid in cash.²¹ So the crux of the matter was the conversion of the extracted surplus into money. The relationship between warrior-administrator and peasant could therefore hardly be a direct one. In between the two was the cash nexus. Short of an enormous state trading organization—even with the help of modern facilities such ventures are beset with dismal failures—the administration was unable to handle the cash nexus by itself. The only possibility was to shift the burden of the problem to the peasant and let him cope as best he could with the conversion tangle.