Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/125

 CHAPTER VII

The Revenue

It may well be asked what resources the Emperor possessed to defray the cost of his splendid Court, to provide the immense sums required for the salaries of the nobles and mansabdárs, and to maintain the vast standing army and multitudinous civil staff of the Empire. The revenue of the Mughal Emperors has recently been the subject of controversy, and I may be pardoned if I am therefore obliged to enter into somewhat minute details. A good many returns of the actual sums annually paid by each province to the imperial exchequer have been preserved, both by Native and European contemporaries, and of the consistency and rough accuracy of these returns there can be no doubt whatever. The controversy which has been raised does not impugn their credibility, but merely relates to two points: first, the conversion of the Indian revenue into English money of the time; and secondly, the question whether these returns include the gross revenue from all sources, or merely the income from the land-tax.