Rajah, deliver their booty in gold silver jewels and costly cloth to him, present their accounts, and take their dues from the Treasury. The officers and men were to be promoted or punished according to their conduct during the late campaign. Then they would again remain for four months in camp." (Sabh. 29-30.)
§ 6. Revenue system and administration.
"The land in every province was to be measured and the area calculated in chavars. The measuring-rod was 5 cubits and 5 muthis (closed fists) in length. A cubit was equal to 14 tansus, and the measuring-rod was [therefore] 80 tansus long. Twenty kathis (rods) square made a bigha and 120 bighas one chavar. The area of each village was thus ascertained in detail. An estimate was made of the expected produce of each bigha, three parts of which were left to the peasant and two parts taken by the State.*[1]
"New ryots who came to settle were to be given money for seeds, and cattle, the amount being recovered in two or four annual instalments. The revenue should be taken in kind at harvest time."
- ↑ * Captain Robertson in 1820 and 1825 gave a different and more complicated account of Shivaji's revenue system. (Bom. Gaz., xviii. Pt. ii. pp. 321-322.) It is quite probable that the system was not so simple and uniform as Sabhasad represents it; but we do not know the Captain's authorities and have no means of testing his statement about a system nearly two centuries old and under a dynasty which had passed away.
