Administrative System of the Marathas c27.s10.7

c27.s10.7

In Shivaji's time and in the Peshwa days too, soldiers were paid partly in money and partly in clothes.⁵ In Book II we have taken notice of a queer practice that deprived the Maratha official of a month's or two months' salary although he had to serve the State for full twelve months. Every Maratha soldier was familiar with *baramahi chakri* and *dahamahi* or *akra mahi pay.* Here also the Maratha government simply imitated a common practice of the Mughal army. Akbar deducted one month's pay every year on account of the horse.⁶ Abul Fazl informs us that, "The commander of every contingent is allowed to keep for himself the twentieth part of the pay of his men, which reimburses him for various expenses."⁷ We read in Harivansanchi Bakhar, that Purushottam *alias* Daji Patwardhan used to deduct one month's pay for the same reason. In Manucci's time the Mughal soldier did not get even ten months' pay. Writes the Italian adventurer, who had personal knowledge of the Mughal practice, "For in respect of one year's service they receive six or eight months' pay. Even that is not all in coin; they are always foisted off as respects two months' pay with clothes and old raiment from the house-hold."⁸ The Marathas found it specially convenient to pay partly in clothes because this enabled them to dispose of a portion of the spoils that they got in their Mulukhgiri expeditions.