Page:History of India Vol 3.djvu/176

 142 MOHAMMAD TAGHLAK AND FIBOZ SHAH fall that they were not valued more than pebbles or potsherds. The old coin, from its great scarcity, rose four-fold and five-fold in value. When trade was inter- rupted on every side, and when the copper tankas had become more worthless than clods, the Sultan repealed his edict, and in great wrath he proclaimed that who- soever possessed copper coins should bring them to the treasury and receive the old ones in exchange. Thou- sands of men from various quarters who possessed thou- sands of these copper coins, and caring nothing for them had flung them into corners along with their copper pots, now brought them to the treasury and received in exchange gold tankas and silver tankas. So many of these copper tankas were brought to the treasury that heaps of them rose up in Taghlakabad like mountains," and there they were seen a century later in the days of Mubarak Shah II. All these innovations harassed and annoyed the peo- ple and made the Sultan unpopular. The failure of his schemes embittered him, and his extreme severity toward all who contravened his enactments brought wide-spread discontent and rebellion. There were other causes for insurrection. The provincial officials were no longer the old feudal landowners, attached by ties of race and gratitude to their Turkish sovereigns. The Turks had been displaced; the triumph of the Khaljis had loosened the old bonds that knitted the governing class together; a new dynasty that was neither pure Turk nor Khalji was in power, and the officers govern- ing the provinces were hungry adventurers, often for-