The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c15.s1.8

c15.s1.8

However, this was only part and perhaps not even the most important part of the picture. The actual base of the empire was clearly agrarian, which means that the central concern had to be the extraction of whatever agrarian surplus could be made available, for this had to pay for the mansabdārs and their troopers, either indirectly through salaries derived from the crown lands or directly through assignments of taxable land (*jāgīr*). So the main problem was not conquest but the extraction and management of the agrarian surplus from the tracts that could be controlled. This obviously called for intensive regulation and considerable bureaucratic effort. The mansabdārs, therefore, were not only warriors and courtiers, they had to be competent administrators as well, so as to be able to head the bureaucratic establishments at the center and in the provinces—not to mention the supervision of the management of their land assignments.