The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c4.s2.9

c4.s2.9

Loans, Advances, and Gifts. — The technical name for a loan or advance of pay was musāʿadat (Steingass, 1225, A, helping, favour, assistance, aid), and the conditions as to interest and repayment are given in Book ii, Āīn 15, of the Āīn-i-Akbarī (Blochmann, i, 265). Historians frequently mention the advance of money under this name. In later times, especially from the reign of Muḥammad Shāh, no commander ever took the field without the grant of the most liberal cash advances to meet his expenses. Possibly these were never repaid, or were from the first intended as free gifts. When we meet with the phrase tankhwāh-i-ināʿm, I presume that there can be no doubt of the payment being a gift. Here the word tankhwāh seems to denote the order or cheque on the treasury, and the word ināʿm (gift, present), differentiates it from other tankhwāh, which were in the nature of payments to be repeated periodically. The recovery of loans and advances came under a head in the accounts called muṭālibah (Steingass, 1259, asking, claim, due). Another term of somewhat similar import, *bāz-yāft* (Steingass, 146, the resumption of anything, a deduction, stoppage), seems to have been confined to the recovery of items put under objection in the revenue accounts by the *mustaufīs*, or auditors. At one time the recovery of an advance was made from a man's pay in four instalments; but towards the end of ‘Ālamgīr’s reign, it was taken in eight instalments (B.M. N°. 1641, fol. 58*b*).