The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c4.s2.17

c4.s2.17

"When the agents (*wakīls*) complained of this oppression to the emperor, the head of the elephant stables and the Akhtah Begī so impressed matters on the emperor's mind, that the complaints were not listened to, and all the men were reduced to such an extremity by this oppression, that the agents resigned their agency. In Bahādur Shāh's reign, the *Khān-i-Khānān* decided that when the *manṣabdārs* received a *jāgīr* for their support, the number of *dāms* required for the cost of feeding cattle should be deducted first from the total estimated income, and the balance should be assigned as the income. In this way, the obligation for meeting the cost of feeding the animals was entirely removed from the heads of the *manṣabdārs* and their agents. Indeed, to speak the truth, it was an order to absolve them from the cost of the cattle provender." Dowson (Elliot, vii, 403) could make nothing of this passage.