The essence of Chapter 8, for last-minute revision: definitions, names, tables, a timeline and a recap. The full explanation lives separately in the detailed notes.
Ain-i AkbariRaiyatJins-i kamilMuqaddam / mandalJajmani systemJangliMilkiyatJama / hasilPolaj / parauti / chachar / banjarMulk-abadi
1 Every definition, in one place
Learn these word for word
Raiyat / riaya / muzarian / kisan / asamiIndo-Persian and other terms for a peasant
Khud-kashtaa peasant cultivating land in his own village
Pahi-kashtaa non-resident peasant cultivating land in another village, by choice or compulsion
Jins-i kamilliterally “perfect crops”; cash crops like cotton and sugarcane the state encouraged for higher revenue
Muqaddam / mandalthe village headman, chosen by elder consensus and ratified by the zamindar
Patwarithe village accountant who assisted the headman
Jati panchayata caste’s own panchayat, arbitrating disputes within and between castes
Begarunpaid forced labour, a frequent subject of panchayat petitions
Miras / watanhereditary artisan landholdings in Maharashtra, given as compensation for craft services
Jajmani systemthe later name for goods-for-services exchange between artisans and peasant households; the term itself is not from this period
Jangliforest dwellers living by gathering, hunting and shifting agriculture; not “uncivilised”
Mawasa refuge in the forest for troublemakers, from the state’s point of view
Peshkasha form of tribute collected by the Mughal state; from forest people it often included a supply of elephants
Milkiyata zamindar’s own personal property, worked by hired or servile labour
Khidmatservice performed for the state, one basis of a zamindar’s elevated status
Sanadan imperial order confirming a zamindari, including one gained by conquest
Jama / hasilthe amount of revenue assessed, versus the amount actually collected
Amil-guzarthe revenue collector
Polaj / parauti / chachar / banjarAkbar’s four land categories: always cultivated; temporarily fallow; fallow 3-4 years; fallow 5+ years
Kankut / batai / khet-batai / lang bataithe Ain’s four described methods of revenue assessment and collection
Manzil-abadi / sipah-abadi / mulk-abadithe Ain’s first three books: the household, the military/civil administration, and fiscal administration
2 The Ain-i Akbari, at a glance
| Aspect | What to remember |
|---|---|
| Author and date | Abu’l Fazl; completed 1598, Akbar’s 42nd regnal year, after five revisions |
| Place in a larger work | third book of the Akbar Nama (the first two are historical narrative) |
| Five books (daftars) | manzil-abadi (household), sipah-abadi (military/civil admin), mulk-abadi (fiscal admin, “Account of the Twelve Provinces”), 4th-5th (religion, culture, Akbar’s sayings) |
| Sarkar-level table columns | pargana/mahal, qila (forts), arazi/zamin-i paimuda (measured area), naqdi (cash revenue), suyurghal (charity grants), zamindars, their castes, their troops (sawar/piyada/fil) |
| Real strengths | rich, uncontested quantitative evidence on agrarian relations; oral testimony cross-checked; numeric data spelled out in words to prevent transcription error |
| Real limits | a “view from the top”; numerous totalling errors (minor arithmetic/transcription slips); skewed coverage, e.g. no zamindar caste data for Bengal/Orissa; price/wage data mainly from Agra |
| Its historical achievement | broke from the medieval chronicle tradition of writing almost only about wars, conquests and dynastic politics |
3 Society in the countryside
| Group | What to remember |
|---|---|
| Peasants | khud-kashta (own village) vs pahi-kashta (elsewhere, on contract); rarely owned more than a pair of bullocks; Gujarat, 6 acres = affluent; Bengal, 5 acres = average upper limit, 10 acres = rich asami |
| Menial castes | majur (labourers), halalkhoran (scavengers, housed outside village boundaries), mallahzadas (Bihar, treated like slaves); direct correlation of caste with poverty at this level |
| Rising intermediate castes | Gauravas sought Rajput status; Ahirs, Gujars, Malis rose via cattle-rearing/horticulture; Sadgops, Kaivartas gained peasant status via pastoral/fishing work |
| Village artisans | up to 25% of village households; paid via harvest share, land (miras/watan in Maharashtra), or cash (later called the jajmani system) |
| Panchayat and headman | panchayat = caste-mixed oligarchy of elders, binding decisions; headman (muqaddam/mandal) supervised accounts with the patwari; corrupt mandals could shift revenue burden onto the poor |
| The “little republic” myth | 19th-century British officials’ romantic label; the chapter is explicit this was not egalitarian, individual ownership and caste/gender inequity were real |
4 Women, forests and tribes
| Topic | What to remember |
|---|---|
| Women’s labour | men tilled/ploughed, women sowed/weeded/threshed/winnowed; heavy female role in spinning, pottery, embroidery; menstrual taboos on plough/potter’s wheel/betel groves persisted |
| Women’s rights | bride-price (not dowry) common; remarriage legitimate for widows/divorcees; landed women (Hindu and Muslim) inherited and freely sold/mortgaged zamindaris; Rajshahi zamindari (Bengal) headed by a woman |
| Women in petitions | panchayat petitions from wives protesting neglect/infidelity survive, but women’s own names were dropped from the record (referred to only as “mother/sister/wife of”) |
| Forest cover | no exact figure possible; informed conjecture suggests about 40 per cent of the land |
| Jangli | gathering, hunting, shifting cultivation, not “uncivilised”; Bhils’ seasonal cycle: spring-gathering, summer-fishing, monsoon-cultivation, autumn/winter-hunting |
| Tribes becoming states | Sind tribes: 6,000 cavalry/7,000 infantry; Ahom kings’ paiks (military service for land); Koch kings’ long wars of subjugation; many chieftains became zamindars or kings |
5 Revenue and silver
| Topic | What to remember |
|---|---|
| Jama vs hasil | jama = assessed; hasil = actually collected |
| Land categories (Source 5) | polaj (never fallow), parauti (temporarily fallow), chachar (3-4 years fallow), banjar (5+ years fallow) |
| Assessment methods (Source 6) | kankut (estimate), batai/bhaoli (divide harvested crop), khet-batai (divide standing field), lang batai (divide cut grain into heaps) |
| 1665 order | Aurangzeb told revenue officials to record cultivators village by village, peasant by peasant |
| Silver’s route (Source 8, Careri) | New World bullion, via Europe, into Ottoman Turkey and Safavid Persia (coffee, silk, other goods), onward via Red Sea ports (Moka, Bassora) to India |
| Why silver mattered | India had no natural silver of its own; the inflow stabilised the silver rupya and strengthened cash-based revenue collection |
6 Who’s who
| Name | What to remember them for |
|---|---|
| Abu’l Fazl | Akbar’s court historian; authored the Ain-i Akbari and the Akbar Nama |
| Babur | first Mughal emperor; described peasant mobility (Source 1) and irrigation devices (Source 2) in the Babur Nama |
| Aurangzeb | 1665 order for annual village-level cultivator records (Source 7) |
| Henry Blochmann | edited and translated Volume 1 of the Ain (Calcutta, 1873) |
| H.S. Jarrett | translated Volumes 2 and 3 of the Ain (Calcutta, 1891, 1894) |
| Jean-Baptiste Tavernier | French traveller who noted every village had its own money-changer, the Shroff |
| Giovanni Careri | Italian traveller, c. 1690, who described silver’s global journey into India (Source 8) |
| Mukundaram Chakrabarti | author of Chandimangala; his hero Kalaketu clears forest to found a kingdom (Source 3) |
7 Timeline
1526Babur defeats Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat, becomes first Mughal emperor
1556-1605Reign of Akbar
1598The Ain-i Akbari is completed (42nd regnal year)
1604Akbar and his nobles first encounter tobacco
1605-27Reign of Jahangir
1628-58Reign of Shah Jahan
1658-1707Reign of Aurangzeb
1665Aurangzeb orders an annual count of cultivators village by village
c. 1690Giovanni Careri passes through India, describes silver’s route
1600-1800India’s population grows by about 50 million (about 33 per cent)
1765The diwani of Bengal transferred to the East India Company
Quick Revision · read this the night before the exam
- The Ain-i Akbari is the chapter’s central source: rich and quantitative, but a “view from the top”, with real errors and skewed coverage, needing regional records and East India Company documents to balance it.
- Peasants (raiyat/kisan/asami) held small, individually owned plots; khud-kashta farmed their own village, pahi-kashta farmed elsewhere on contract.
- Jins-i kamil cash crops (cotton, sugarcane) were interwoven with subsistence staples, not opposed to them.
- Village society ran on caste hierarchy, panchayat and headman governance, and artisan exchange networks (miras/watan, later called jajmani), not the egalitarian “little republic” some British officials imagined.
- Women shared field labour fully and held real, exercised inheritance rights over zamindaris, even as ritual restriction and tight male control persisted.
- Forests covered roughly 40 per cent of the land; “jangli” meant a livelihood, not an absence of civilisation, and tribal chiefs often became zamindars or kings.
- Zamindars formed the narrow, powerful apex of rural society, yet in practice often allied with peasants against the state rather than against them.
- Revenue assessment (jama) and collection (hasil) used land classification (polaj, parauti, chachar, banjar) and multiple measurement methods (kankut, batai, khet-batai, lang batai).
- A global silver influx, driven by New World bullion and Asian trade networks, stabilised Mughal currency and strengthened cash-based revenue collection.
- Every claim in this chapter should be read against the question “according to which source, and what are its limits?” That is the single most examinable idea here.
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