The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli c11.73

c11.73

the *nīti-shāstras* freely acknowledge the right of the king to levy it: the fundamental idea of *kharāj* was firmly rooted in Hindu society.¹ It is natural that the state should devise various methods of settling the claims of the ruler upon the cultivator. The simplest and the most primitive, yet the safest and the most just, method would be to divide the actual produce when it was ready. If the state were small, like an ancient city state, this method would be ideal; but in larger states it would not work satisfactorily. It would mean the employment of a large staff at harvest time when, in an agricultural community, labour would be practically unavailable. If the staff were not inordinately large, there would be delay in dividing the produce; and in unfavourable weather, great loss would result both to the state and to the cultivator. Besides, the system would be almost entirely unworkable in case of perishable articles. But so long as actual sharing is the method adopted it may be done in several ways; weighing, forming equal heaps, or dividing the cultivated area would all be feasible. In all such methods of sharing, the basic difficulty of finding a numerous staff persists, and there is the strong probability of the crops suffering on account of inclement weather while they are waiting for division or collection. To remedy this, and to spread the work over a longer period so that a small whole-time staff may be kept employed, a new method was devised. Experienced men with expert knowledge estimated the probable produce by inspecting the crops before harvest. With practice these estimates would become almost accurate; it would also be possible to appraise the value of the crops at an early stage. This system may be called 'appraisement'. To see that no injustice is done, the peasant would generally have the right to insist on actual sharing if he was dissatisfied. A subsidiary growth of this system would be that, if the peasant so desired, he might buy the share of the state, which in actual practice meant the payment of the state demand in cash at the current price. If there are no violent changes caused either by political revolutions or natural calamities, both the peasant and the state would come to know how much they could expect from certain crops in a particular area, and would find it simpler to fix a demand on the basis of past experience which would resolve itself into the well-known method of a fixed quantity, or even a sum of money, per unit of area for each kind of crop. The state would then have schedules of rates for the different crops grown on various kinds of soil. This system mainly depends on 'measurement' and should be called by that name.¹ When prices change or a political or natural calamity devastates a region, it would be necessary to alter the arrangement, and sharing or appraisement may again come into force. We find all three methods of sharing, appraisement and measurement existing in different parts of India, sometimes side by side.² Even in the days of Akbar these methods had preserved their Hindi names which are recorded in the *Ā'in-i-Akbarī* and point to the existence of the systems in pre-Muslim days.³ Fortunately, however, there is positive evidence in some of the *Jātakas* which enables writers on Hindu polity to say with certainty that sharing, appraisement and measurement existed in India before the Muslim conquest.⁴