The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c21.30

c21.30

the eighteenth. It may be admitted at once that both the so-called Pathân administration (13th—15th century A.D.) and the Mughal administration (16th—18th century A.D.) hit upon devices of their own to meet the circumstances of the times. Then there was the law of the Qurân and Hadis, binding on the whole body of the Faithful, to exercise a deep influence on Muslim politics in India as elsewhere. There is again enough evidence to show that the institutions of Musalmâns in India were affected by the political ideas and practices of the western Muslim countries particularly by the example of the courts of Baghdâd and Cairo and, from the sixteenth century onwards, by Persia, the glory and mistress of the Muslim world. Nevertheless in several important branches the Muslim administration in India largely retained the old practices. Throughout the medieval period the ancient revenue and fiscal arrangements lasted in India. The Muslims simply took over the old fiscal divisions, the old fiscal system and the old classes of officers. For long they did not directly collect the taxes but employed for the purpose agencies which adhered to the old methods. Many of the old divisions and sub-divisions of ordinary local administration were retained. They all appear in the Âin-i-Akbarî, the great imperial gazetteer compiled by the Allâmî Abul Fazl in the reign of Akbar towards the close of the sixteenth century. The Âin, supplemented by Persian chronicles, shows that under the pressure of tradition and environment the Muslim administration was reproducing some of the old conditions. Certain Âin descriptions of even unimportant matters like the imperial harem,¹ ensigns of royalty, *inter alia*, musical instruments,² division and sub-division of precious stones,³ specific gravity,⁴ remind one of the