Estimating forests, wastes and fields, c. 1600

Studies in History

Volumn 14, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 301-311

  Trivedi, K K ^a  

^a JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY   (India)

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EID: 66549084608     PISSN: 02576430     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/025764309801400207     Document Type: Article

References (53)

1. W.H. Moreland, ‘The Agricultural Statistics of Akbar's Empire’, Journal of U.P. Historical Society, II, Part I, June 1919;
2. Irfan Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India (1556–1707), Bombay, 1963, pp. 5–6.
3. Also see Shireen Moosvi, The Economy of the Mughal Empire, c. 1595: A Statistical Study, Delhi, 1987, pp. 44, 48, for the suggestion that the size of uncultivable waste was in the range of 10 per cent only. However, regional enquiries suggest that the area of uncultivable waste was much larger.
4. According to S.P. Gupta, The Agrarian System of Eastern Rajasthan, Delhi, 1986, p. 41, it constituted about 7 to 20 per cent of the area.
5. Shaukat Ullah Khan, ‘Agricultural Statistics of Mughal India: A Reconsideration’, Studies in History, 13, 1, n.s. (1997), p. 131, suggests that the size of uncultivable waste in Gujarat, in post-Aʼin period, was around 33 per cent of the measured area.
6. Moreland, p. 3;
7. also see Habib, p. 3, that ‘the Mughal administration measured land primarily for assessing revenue upon it’ (emphasis added);
8. Moosvi, The Economy of the Mughal Empire, p. 39, is more emphatic when she insists that, ‘it is obvious that land measurement must have been undertaken by the Mughal administration basically (emphases added) for purposes of revenue assessment.’
9. Khan, ‘Agricultural Statistics’, appears to vacillate between two different hypotheses.
10. Moreland, The Agrarian System of Moslem India; see Appendix, pp. 27–39.
11. Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India, p. 2n.
12. K.K. Trivedi, ‘Area Statistics of the Agra Suba in the Aʼin-i-Akbari’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 1972, pp. 270–75
13. Moosvi has made extensive use of these manuscripts and has also provided collated statistics up to the sarkar level; see Moosvi, The Economy of the Mughal Empire, pp. 23–31, 19.
14. Aʼin, p. 199.
15. See Aʼin, p. 297, 297.
16. Habib, ‘Agriculture and Agrarian Conditions’, p. 12, however, doubts if any double-cropped land was given in this grant.
17. Obviously, names of the crops that take two seasons to mature escaped the notice of Habib when he was referring to George Watt (Commercial Products of India, New Delhi, rpt. 1972, pp. 883–84) in some other context, on the same page.
18. Dilbagh Singh, The State, Landlords and Peasants: Rajasthan in the 18th Century, Delhi, 1990, p. 55; for cultivation of sugarcane, see pp. 70–81.
19. Badauni, Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, eds, Kabir al-Din Ahmad Ali and W.N. Lees, Bib. Ind., Calcutta, Vol. II, p. 189.
20. However, Lowe has translated this portion as ‘All the parganas of the country, whether in dry or irrigated, whether in towns or hills, in deserts and jungles, by rivers, reservoirs, or wells, were to be measured…,’ Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, tr. W.H. Lowe, Delhi reprint, 1973, Vol. II, p. 192.
21. Where the break-up of measured land is given, area occupied by rivers, tanks, wells, habitation, & c, is shown as part of the measured land. See Gupta, The Agrarian System of Eastern Rajasthan, pp. 41, 237–39, 257–59;
22. Singh, The State, Landlords and Peasants, pp. 31–32;
23. Moosvi, The Economy of the Mughal Empire, pp. 42–43;
24. Khan, ‘Agricultural Statistics,’ pp. 126–27.
25. Gupta, The Agrarian System of Eastern Rajasthan, pp. 41, 23–39, 257–59, 291;
26. Singh, The State, Landlords and Peasants, pp. 31–32.
27. Aʼin, p. 199.
28. Rai Churaman Saxena, Chahar Gulshan. The geographical and statistical section translated by Sir Jadunath Sarkar is available in his India of Aurangzeb. I have, however, consulted the manuscripts preserved in the Maulana Azad Library, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Nos. 69, 87/7 and 292/62.
29. Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India, pp. 3–4;
30. Trivedi, Area Statistics’, PIHC, 1972, pp. 270–75.
31. H.H. Wilson, Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms &c. of British India, Delhi reprint, 1968, p. 425.
32. A sixteenth-century Chaknama (in original) belonging to village Wajihar, pargana Bhojpur, near Kannauj in suba Agra, is available with the Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh (an English translation of this grant is available in my ‘Reappraisal of Aʼin's Area Statistics: A Note’, Seminar Proceedings, ‘Diplomacy and Administration in the Indo-Mughal Context’, 1995 (forthcoming). Also see, ‘Shamsabad and Bilhaur Documents’, Photocopies and Transcripts of the original with the Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Transcripts No. 172, Document Nos. 7, 8, 9; Muhammad Amir Hasan Madari, Tazkirat-ul-Muttaqin, Kanpur, 1904–05, Vol. II, pp. 180–81.
33. Based on Moosvi, The Economy of the Mughal Empire, pp. 27–31; see also pp. 187–89.
34. Gupta, The Agrarian System of Eastern Rajasthan, pp. 60, 62;
35. Singh, The State, Landlords and Peasants, p. 57.
36. Aʼin, p. 442;
37. Steel and Crowther in Purchas and his Pilgrimes, MacLehose. IV, p. 268, informs that ‘All the country betwixt Agra and Lahore…yields great store of poudered Sugar.’ For cultivation of sugarcane in Gujarat, see Habib, ‘Agriculture and Agrarian Conditions’ (mimeographed), pp. 1–27.
38. O.H.K. Spate and A.T.A. Learmonth, India and Pakistan: A General Regional Geography, 1967, pp. 516–20, 525–26, 534–54.
39. Spate and Learmonth, India and Pakistan, pp. 552–53 (Fig. 18.1).
40. Aʼin, p. 199.
41. For a discussion and estimation, see Moosvi, p. 127–29.
42. Habib, An Atlas of the Mughal Empire, Delhi, 1982.
43. Documents from eastern Rajasthan record many minor forest areas though we do not find any mention of these in the chronicles; see Gupta, pp. 41, 290–91;
44. Singh, p. 54.
45. Aʼin, pp. 132, 205, 424;
46. Jahangir, Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, ed. Sir Saiyid Ahmad, Ghazipur and Aligarh, 1863–64, pp. 78, 92, 274, 375 &c.;
47. Khwaja Kamgar Husaini, Maʻasir-i-Jahangiri, ed. Azra Alavi, Bombay, 1978, pp. 125, 126, 134–37;
48. Peter Mundy, Travels, II, Travels in Asia, 1630–34, ed. Sir R.C. Temple, Hakluyt Society, London, 1914, p. 58;
49. Abdul Hamid Lahori, Badshahnama, Bib. Ind., Calcutta, 1866–72, 1 (i), pp. 244–45; I (ii), pp. 5, 9, 106, 123, 276; II, pp. 10, 345.
50. Abul Fazl, Akbarnama, Bib. Ind., Calcutta, 1873–87, III, pp. 266–67;
51. Finch in Early Travels in India (1583–1619), ed. W. Foster, London, 1927, p. 177;
52. Jean Baptiste Tavernier, Travels in India, 1640–67, tr. V. Ball, revised by Crooke, Delhi reprint, 1977, II, p. 205.
53. See Habib, The Agrarian System of the Mughal Empire, pp. 11–17; An Atlas, Sheets 4A, 6 A, 8A.