Administrative System of the Marathas c18.s28.25

c18.s28.25

Excise duties, as a source of income, may be ignored altogether. For in controlling the manufacture and sale of liquor, the Peshwa acted not only as the secular head but also as the ecclesiastical head of the state. Here, his revenue policy was influenced by religious ideas. Drinking was forbidden by the *Shastras* and the Peshwa, as the head of a great Hindu empire, tried to enforce this injunction. In the year 1775-76, during the administration of the second Madhava Rao, Balaji Ganesh, the officer in charge of Taluka Devgad, was ordered to stop the manufacture of liquor from cocoanut trees from the beginning of the next year.⁴² A similar order was sent to the officer at Vijaydurg on the same date.⁴³