During Sher Shah Suri’s short reign, the Sur administration developed influential revenue practices—systematic land measurement, classification of land, and assessment often described as taking a fixed share of produce—that later Mughal officials adapted and expanded.
After Akbar’s accession, Mughal fiscal administration increasingly focused on making land-revenue assessment more regular and governable across expanding territories, laying groundwork for later standardization under Todar Mal and Abu’l Fazl’s documentation.
Akbar’s administration gathered multi-year local statistics on yields, prices, and cultivation to create a predictable assessment basis. This data (commonly described as a ten-year series) underpinned later standard rates and cash assessments associated with the zabt/dahsala approach.
Akbar shaped the mansabdari system into a framework for imperial service, linking rank to obligations and remuneration. Over time, cash pay was often replaced by revenue assignments, tying administrative-military elites to the land-revenue apparatus without making offices or estates hereditary.
Akbar introduced the karori experiment to improve revenue collection and accounting in crown lands, appointing officials tasked with meeting large assessed targets and strengthening measurement/record practices—an important step toward more uniform assessment systems.
The dahsala (often treated as part of the zabt system) is widely dated to 1580 under Akbar and associated with Raja Todar Mal. It used standardized measurement and a multi-year average of produce/prices to set cash revenue rates, aiming to reduce arbitrariness and stabilize state income.
A detailed memorandum on revenue administration and assessment methods is described as having been submitted by Todar Mal around 1582–1583, reflecting consolidation/refinement of measurement, classification, and cash assessment practices within Akbar’s fiscal reforms.
Abu’l Fazl compiled the Ain-i-Akbari (written roughly 1589–1596) as an administrative-statistical account of Akbar’s government, including revenue administration and assessments, helping preserve and disseminate the empire’s fiscal procedures as a reference point for later practice.
Under Akbar’s mature system, imperial officials relied heavily on local rural elites and zamindars as intermediaries who collected revenue from cultivators and remitted it upward while retaining customary perquisites—embedding older local authority into Mughal fiscal governance.
In the Mughal jagir system, the state assigned rights to collect an estate’s revenues (often in lieu of salary) to officials, typically with non-hereditary tenure and reversion to the state—creating a revenue-backed service structure tightly connected to land assessment and collection.
Mughal practice emphasized transferring jagirs to prevent officials from building local power bases. While this supported central authority, it also encouraged short-term revenue extraction, shaping agrarian relations and the day-to-day interaction between jagirdars, zamindars, and cultivators.
By the later 1600s (often associated with Aurangzeb’s reign), tensions mounted around matching a growing pool of service elites to revenue assignments. Historians describe a jagirdari crisis dynamic—pressure on assignments and fiscal-administrative balance—contributing to broader political instability.
In 1793, the East India Company’s Permanent Settlement in Bengal institutionalized zamindars as proprietors for revenue purposes, transforming earlier Mughal-era intermediary roles and revenue claims into a durable landed arrangement with major consequences for agrarian structure.
Mughal jagir, zamindari and the evolution of land revenue systems (16th–18th centuries)
