Page:History of Aurangzib (based on original sources) Vol 1.djvu/221

CHAP. IX.] peasant in the Deccan cultivated as much land as he could with a plough and a pair of oxen, grew whatever crop he liked, and paid to the State a small amount per plough,—the rate of revenue varying in different places and being fixed arbitrarily, without bearing a definite proportion to the actual yield of the field, because it was not the practice there to inspect fields and estimate the quantity and value of crops.

This utter absence of system and principle in revenue matters laid the peasantry open to the caprice and extortion of the petty collectors. The long wars of Mughal aggression and a succession of rainless years, completed their ruin. The oppressed ryots fled from their homes, the deserted fields lapsed into the jungle; many once flourishing villages became manless wildernesses. Shah Jahan had reduced the revenue of Khandesh to one-half in 1631, but even this amount was never fully realised before Murshid Quli's time.

The new diwan's reform consisted in extending Todar Mai's system to the Deccan. First, he worked hard to gather the scattered ryots together and restore the normal life of the villages by giving them their full population and proper