Land revenue and the flow of silver

Land revenue was the economic mainstay of the Mughal Empire. The office of the diwan supervised the fiscal system.

Revenue had two stages: jama, the amount assessed, and hasil, the amount actually collected. Cash payment was preferred, but payment in kind was also allowed. Methods included kankut (estimating the crop by dividing the land), batai or bhaoli (dividing the harvest), khet-batai (dividing the fields after sowing) and lang batai (dividing the cut grain).

Land was classified by how regularly it was cultivated: polaj (cultivated every year), parauti (left fallow for a while), chachar (fallow for three or four years) and banjar (uncultivated for five years or more). For the first two, the state's share was fixed at about a third of the average (medium) produce.

In 1665, Aurangzeb ordered revenue officials to prepare annual records of the number of cultivators in each village, assessing revenue village by village, peasant by peasant. Mughal nobles, the mansabdars, were paid by assignments of revenue called jagirs.

A huge amount of silver flowed into India from the Americas (through Spain) and from Japan, to pay for Indian goods. This allowed the Mughals to mint the stable silver rupya. The Italian traveller Giovanni Careri (about 1690) described how this silver came to India. Measure, classify, collect.