Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India c8.s1.28

c8.s1.28

During the Mughal period, the quantum of such gains increased because of their exceptional success in war. Babur's gains were immense. As will be seen later on he distributed huge amounts of these to his ladies, princes and Begs. And if Humayun was not successful in this regard, Sher Shah and his successors made up for the deficiency. Akbar was victorious in almost every campaign and the extent of his success determined the quantity of loot, tribute and Khams during his reign of half a century. It is not necessary to catalogue all the monetary gains of Akbar through war. An example alone may suffice to give an idea of the same. In 1564 Asaf Khan I, the governor of Kara under Akbar, invaded the kingdom of Gondwana of Rani Durgawati on behalf of the emperor. "When the fort (of Chauragarh) was taken there fell into the hands of Asaf Khan and his men an incalculable amount of gold and silver. There were coined and uncoined gold, decorated utensils, jewels, pearls, figures, pictures, jewelled and decorated idols, figures of animals made wholly of gold, and other rarities. The coin was said to include a hundred large pots full of the gold *ashrafis* of Alauddin Khalji."⁴⁷ If a small kingdoms like Gondwana could bring in so much wealth, how much more would have been collected in loot and Khams from larger kingdoms can only be imagined. But it is not possible to go into the gains from all the enterprises of Akbar and his successors.