The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c15.s1.17

c15.s1.17

By this route, the merchant and financier found his way into the bureaucracy to which he was anyhow indispensable. Tax collecting and "engaging for the revenue" look very much like the two faces of the same Janus—if indeed they were not identical—and we can readily understand the orders, which, as already noted, attempted to bypass the *'āmil*, or tax collector. As one mansabdār complained with characteristic literary flourish, "the boat of his jāgīr was floundering in the flood of misappropriations raised by his tempestuous 'āmils." And this was only a jāgīr; the vast imperial and provincial bureaucracy must have offered staggering opportunities to the "tempestuous." At any rate, whether tempestuous or not, the official tax collector needed to have the same financial expertise, knowledge of the district, and understanding of the market as the grain dealer and moneylender.