Page:History of Aurangzib (based on original sources) Vol 1.djvu/211

CHAP. IX.] Guzerat. Shah Jahan was alarmed at this chronic deficit and strongly urged Aurangzib to improve the peasant's lot, extend the cultivation, and relieve the Imperial treasury from the annual drain.

On his arrival in the Deccan, Aurangzib was faced with a serious financial difficulty. The actual yield of the jagirs was only a fraction of their nominal revenue. The Mughal officers posted in the Deccan would have starved if they had to depend solely on their jagirs in that province. Therefore, during his first viceroyalty, both Aurangzib and his chief officers had been given additional fiefs in other and more prosperous parts of the empire, so that they managed to live on the combined income. And now, also, his officers besieged him with clamour, saying that they could not maintain their quotas of soldiers on the poor revenue of their existing jagirs, and demanding that more productive jagirs should be transferred to them, so that they might be sure of getting a fixed portion of their income at least.

Everywhere Aurangzib found signs of mal- administration, the work of his predecessors. The actual collection was sometimes only one-