Page:History of India Vol 5.djvu/379

 SHAH JAHAN'S ALLEVIATION OF SUFFERING 323 other countries. Under the directions of the wise and generous emperor, therefore, taxes amounting to nearly seven million rupees were remitted by the revenue officers, a sum equal to an eleventh part of the whole revenue. When such remissions were made from the exchequer, it may be conceived how great were the reductions made by the nobles who held fiefs and com- mands. ' This short extract is sufficient to show that famine is no new thing in India. The next selection relates to the world-renowned Peacock Throne of Delhi, which is accounted among the richest treasures ever owned by an Oriental monarch. This throne was constructed at the order of Shah Jahan in the eighth year of his reign, early in the seventeenth century (1044 A. H., 1634 A. D.), but it now reposes in the palace of the Shah of Persia, at Teheran, having been carried away from India by Nadir Shah, after his victorious invasion of Hindustan, about the middle of the eighteenth century. Lord Curzon, nevertheless, maintains that the throne now in Teheran is not the original Peacock Throne of Delhi, but was made for Fath Ali Shah more than half a century after Nadir Shah's time. Be that as it may, the description of the jewelled Takht-i Td'us, or " Pea- cock Throne," by Abd-al-Hamid is none the less in- teresting. ' In the course of years many valuable gems had come into the imperial jewel-house, each one of which might serve as an ear-drop for Venus or as an adorn- ment for the girdle of the Sun. Upon the accession