3
traders and shopkeepers, and a forced service of a day in each month by the handicraftsmen. But we are concerned here with land revenue and the various pro- cesses of its collection which were in vogue in the Mughal empire. In the preface to his famous work, Abul-Fazl says:[1] "The assistants of victory, the collectors of revenues and those who are entrusted with the management of the receipts and the disbursements of Government resemble wind; either a heart-rejoicing breeze or a hot pestilential blast.” It is evidently clear that much depends on the machinery employed for the collection of the revenues and the spirit in which it works. Custom and principles of equity enjoin upon the king the paramount necessity of being an "upright intendant of finances” in the first place, the discharge of his duties as protector of the husbandmen from oppression by upstarts, the sole fountain of justice and the consequent moulder of the destinies of a nation.
Land revenue depends mainly upon the gross output of the various products of a country which vary in different parts of the land, subject to such determining causes as the vicinity or distance of water for irrigation purposes, the nature of the soil itself which tells upon the nature of the crop, and others. Besides the rate of assessment which varies according to circumstances and the level of administrative vision which a government has attained, the revenue depends upon the extent of the land cultivated and the nature of the crops grown. India is a country mainly agricultural, and Indian finances always depend largely on the land policy of the
- ↑ Ain-i-Akbari, p. 11.
