The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c5.29

c5.29

Of course, such developments are only possible when advantage can be taken of adjoining rich areas and their resources, as in Roman Gallia. The Mughal Empire started in the early sixteenth century with exactly such a predatory war band, led by the founder of the dynasty, Babur. On a smaller scale, dacoity seems to play the same role in rajput state formation.²⁹ The critical point in such developments is, however, the moment of success, for by itself the war band does not crate new resources but only causes a reshuffle. It may be of interest to note that in early medieval Europe, as in the Mughal case, the principle of a nonascriptive contractual bond with the ruler that also governed the original war band lived on in the organization of the polity—in Europe as feudalism, in India as the *jāgīr* system. But the end result remained the same—segmentary diffusion—for the main part of the resources remains tied up with the soil. This in turn means, as already argued, a reversal to segmentation and the parceling out of total packages of rights and power. Thus the Mughal Empire could only exist as a *Personalverband* based on personal relations.