Akbar's conciliation of the Hindus, and his interest in their literature and religion, made him many enemies among the pious Musalmáns. His favourite wife was a Rájput princess; another of his wives is said to have been a Christian. On Fridays (the Sabbath of Islám) he loved to collect professors Akbar's of many religions around him. He listened impartially to religious principles. the arguments of the Brahman and the Musalmán, the fireworshipper, the Jew, the Jesuit, and the sceptic philosopher. The history of his life, the Akbar-námah, records such a conference, in which the Christian priest Redíf disputed with a body of Muhammadan mullás before an assembly of the doctors of all religions, and is given the best of the argument. Starting from the broad ground of general toleration, Akbar was gradually led on by the stimulus of cosmopolitan discussion to question the truth of his inherited beliefs. The counsels of his friend Abul Fazl, coinciding with that sense of superhuman omnipotence which is bred of despotic power, led him at last to promulgate a new State religion, The His new faith. Divine Faith,' based upon natural theology, and comprising the best practices of all known creeds. Of this eclectic creed Akbar himself was the prophet, or rather the head of the Church. Every morning he worshipped in public the sun, as the representative of the divine soul which animates the universe, while he was himself worshipped by the ignorant multitude. Divine It is doubtful how far he encouraged this popular adoration, honours to but he certainly allowed his disciples to prostrate themselves before him in private. The stricter Muhammadans accused him, therefore, of accepting a homage permitted only to God. Akbar not only subdued all India to the north of the Akbar's organizaVindhya Mountains, he also organized it into an Empire. tion of the He partitioned it into Provinces, over each of which he placed Empire. a Governor, or Viceroy, with full civil and military control. This control was divided into three departments-the military, the judicial, including the police, and the revenue. view to preventing mutinies of the troops, or assertions of reforms. independence by their leaders, he reorganized the army on a new basis. He substituted, as far as possible, money payments to the soldiers, for the old system of grants of land (jágírs) to the generals. Where this change could not be carried out, he brought the holders of the old military fiefs under the control of the central authority at Delhi. He further checked the independence of his provincial generals by a sort of feudal organization, in which the Hindu tributary princes took their place side by side with the Mughal nobles. The Akbar. With a Army Akbar's judicial administration was presided over by a lord justice. system of justice, (Mir-i-adl) at the capital, aided by Kázis or law-officers in the principal towns. The police in the cities were under a superintendent or kotwál, who was also a magistrate. In country districts where police existed at all, they were left to the management of the landholders or revenue officers. But throughout rural India, no regular force can be said to have existed for the protection of person and property until and police. after the establishment of British rule. The Hindu village had its hereditary watchman, who in many parts of the country was taken from the predatory castes, and as often leagued with the robbers as opposed them. The landholders and revenue-officers had each their own set of myrmidons, who plundered the peasantry in their names. Akbar's revenue system. Akbar's revenue system was based on the ancient Hindu customs, and survives to this day. He first executed a survey to measure the land. His officers then found out the produce of each acre of land, and settled the Government share, amounting to one-third of the gross produce. Finally, they fixed the rates at which this share of the crop might be commuted into a money payment. These processes, known as the land settlement, were at first repeated every year. But to save the peasant from the extortions and vexations incident to an annual inquiry, Akbar's land settlement was afterwards made for ten years. His officers strictly enforced the payment of a third of the whole produce, and Akbar's land revenue from Northern India exceeded what the British take at the present day. From his fifteen Provinces, including Kábul beyond the Afghán frontier, and Khándesh in Southern India, he demanded 14 millions sterling per annum; or excluding Kábul, Khándesh, and Sind, 124 millions. The British land tax from a much larger area of Northern India was only 12 millions in 1879. Allowing for the difference. in area and in the purchasing power of silver, Akbar's tax was about three times the amount which the British take. His total Two later returns show the land revenue of Akbar at 163 and 17 millions sterling. The Provinces had also to support a local militia (búmí) in contradistinction to the regular royal army, at a cost of at least 10 millions sterling. Excluding both Kabul and Khándesh, Akbar's demand from the soil of Northern India exceeded 22 millions sterling per annum, under Akbar's land revenue. revenue. 1 1 Namely, Bengal, £3,767,082; Assam, £378,618; North-Western Provinces and Oudh, £5,942,197; and Punjab, £1,991,867; total, £12,079,764.-Parliamentary Abstract, p. 27 (1880). There were the two items of land revenue and militia cess. also a number of miscellaneous taxes. Akbar's total revenue is estimated at 42 millions.1 Akbar's Hindu minister, Rájá Todar Mall, conducted the revenue settlement, and his name is still a household word among the husbandmen of Bengal. Abul Fazl, the man of letters and Finance Minister of Akbar, compiled a statistical survey of the Empire, together with many vivid pictures of his master's court and daily life, in the Ain-i-Akbari, which may be read with interest at the present day." Abul Fazl was killed in 1503 at the instigation of Prince Salím, the heir to the throne. 1 PROVINCES OF THE DELHI EMPIRE UNDER AKBAR, CIRC. 1580. The land revenue was returned at 16 millions sterling in 1594, and £17,450,000 at Akbar's death in 1605. The aggregate taxation of Akbar was 32 millions sterling; with 10 millions for militia cess (búmî); total, 42 millions sterling. See Thomas' Revenue Resources of the Mughal Empire, pp. 5-21 and p. 54 (Trübner, 1871). These and the following conversions are made at the nominal rate of 10 rupees to the pound sterling. But the actual rate was then about 8 or 9 rupees to the . The real revenues of the Mughal Emperors represented, therefore, a considerably larger sum in sterling than the amounts stated in the text and footnotes. The purchasing power of silver, expressed in the staple food grains of India, was two or three times greater than now. 2 The old translation is by Gladwin (1800); the best is by the late Mr. Blochmann, Principal of the Calcutta Madrasah, or Muhammadan college, whose early death was one of the greatest losses which Persian scholarship has sustained in this century. in 1697; and thence to its fall in 1761:— foundation by Akbar to its final expansion under Aurangzeb Mughal Empire in India, during the century from its practical It may be here convenient to exhibit the revenues of the REVENUES OF THE MUGHAL EMPERORS AT THIRTEEN VARIOUS PERIODS FROM 1593 TO 1761,1 FROM A SMALLER AREA AND POPULATION THAN THOSE OF BRITISH INDIA. 1 The above Table is reproduced from Mr. Edward Thomas' Revenue Resources of the Mughal Empire, published in 1871. Mr. Thomas has kindly revised it for me, from materials collected since that date. I insert the words nett and gross by his direction. nett 34,506,640 1605, and ruled until 1627 under the title of JAHANGIR, or SALIM, the favourite son of Akbar, succeeded his father in Conqueror of the World. The chief events of his reign are Jahangir, Emperor, summarized below. His reign of twenty-two years was spent 1605-27. in reducing the rebellions of his sons, in exalting the influence of his wife, and in festive self-indulgence. In spite of long wars in the Deccan, he added little to his father's territories. India south of the Vindhyás still continued apart from the northern Empire of Delhi. Malik Ambar, the Abyssinian minister of Ahmednagar, maintained, in spite of reverses, the independence of that kingdom. At the end of Jahangir's reign, his rebel son, Prince Sháh Jahán, was a refugee in the Rebellion Deccan, in alliance with Malik Ambar against the Mughal troops. The Rajputs also began to reassert their independence. In 1614, Prince Shah Jahán on behalf of the Emperor defeated the Udaipur Rájá. But the conquest was only partial and for a time. Meanwhile, the Rájputs formed an Revolt important contingent of the imperial armies, and 5000 of Rajputs. their cavalry aided Shah Jahán to put down a revolt in Kábul. The Afghán Province of Kandahar was wrested from Jahángír by the Persians in 1621. The land tax of the Mughal Empire 1 REIGN OF JAHANGIR, 1605-27 : 1605. Accession of Jahangir. 1606. Flight, rebellion, and imprisonment of his eldest son, Prince Khusrú. 1610. Malik Ambar recovers Ahmednagar from the Mughals, and reasserts independence of the Deccan dynasty, with its new capital at Aurangábád. 1611. Jahangir's marriage with Núr Jahán. 1612. Jahangir again defeated by Malik Ambar in an attempt to recover 1613-14. Defeat of the Udaipur Rájá by Jahangir's son Prince Shah 1616-17. Temporary reconquest of Ahmednagar by Jahangir's son Shah 1621. Renewed disturbances in the Deccan; ending in treaty with Sháh Jahán. Capture of Kandahár from Jahangir's troops by the Persians. 1623-25. Rebellion against Jahangir by his son Shah Jahán, who, after defeating the Governor of Bengal at Rájmahál, seized that Province and Behar, but was himself overthrown by Mahábat Khán, his father's general, and sought refuge in the Deccan, where he unites with his old opponent Malik Ambar. 1626. The successful general Mahábat Khán seizes the person of the Emperor Jahangir. Intrigues of the Empress Núr Jahán. 1627. Jahangir recovers his liberty, and sends Mahábat Khán against Prince Shah Jahan in the Deccan. Mahábat joins the rebel prince against the Emperor Jahangir. 1627. Death of Jahangir. Materials for Jahángír's reign: Sir Henry Elliot's Indian Historians, vols. v. vi. and vii. ; Elphinstone, pp. 550-603. of his son. of the |