that when Dr. Fryer and the Rev. John Ovington changed their money in 1673 and 1689, they got as good value for it as Bernier in 1666, or Manucci in 1697. So great a discrepancy as is involved in Mr. Keene's estimate of the French livre is clearly inadmissable.
The fiscal unit of the Native returns is the dám, and forty dáms went to the rupee: of this there is no dispute. The European returns are given in rupees, which may be taken, as I have said, on the average at 2s. 3d., or in livres of about the value of 1s. 6d. Reducing dáms to rupees, and rupees and livres to pounds, in accordance with these values, we obtain the following returns of the annual revenue for different years[1], expressed in round figures:—
| £ | ||||
| Akbar | 1594 | 18,640,000 | (Abu-l-Fazl) | |
| Akbar„ | 1605 | 19,630,000 | (De Laët) | |
| Jahángír | 1627 | 19,680,000 | (Bádsháh-náma) | |
| Sháh-Jahán | 1628 | 18,750,000 | (Muh. Sharíf) | |
| Sháh-Jahán„ | 1648 | 24,750,000 | (Bádsháh-náma) | |
| Sháh-Jahán„ | 1655 | 30,080,000 | (Official returns) | |
| Aurangzíb | 1660 | circ. | 25,410,000 | (Bernier) |
| Aurangzíb„ | 1666 | 26,700,000 | (Thevenot) | |
| Aurangzíb„ | 1667 | circ. | 30,850,000 | (Bakhtáwar) |
| Aurangzíb„ | later | 40,100,000 | (Official returns) | |
| Aurangzíb„ | 1697 | 43,550,000 | (Manucci) | |
| Aurangzíb„ | 1707 | 33,950,000 | (Ramusio) | |
The preceding figures show a reasonable and
- ↑ The authorities from which the returns are derived will be found fully described in the late Mr. Edward Thomas's penetrating essay The Revenue Resources of the Mughal Empire in India (1871), with the exception of those for 1628, and circa 1667, which I have taken from the Majális as-Salátin of Muhammad Sharíf Hanafí, and from Bakhtáwar Khán, respectively.
