The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c4.s2.15

c4.s2.15

*Khūrāk-i-dawābb*. — This is, literally, *khūrāk*, feed, *dawābb*, four-footed animals. It was a deduction from a *manṣabdār*’s pay on account of a certain number of horses and elephants belonging to the emperor, with whose maintenance such officer was saddled. The germ of this exaction can, I think, be found in Akbar’s system of making over elephants to the charge of grandees (*Āīn*, i, 126). “He (Akbar) therefore put several *halkahs* (groups of baggage elephants) in charge of every grandee, and required them to look after them.” Akbar would seem to have paid the expenses; but in process of time, we can suppose, the charge was transferred to the officer’s shoulders entirely, and in the end he had to submit to the deduction without even the use of the animals being given to him. At any rate, the burden became a subject of great complaint. This is shown by a passage in Khāfī Khān, ii, 602.