Mughal Empire and Mansabdri System

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INTRODUCTION The mansabdari system under the Mughals in India was the product of an evolutionary process. This institution was borrowed in some form from Western Asia and modified to suit the needs of the time in India. The mansabdars were an integral part of the Mughal bureaucracy and farmed, as Percival Spear says, 'an elite within elite'. They were appointed in all government departments except the judiciary. They held the important offices of wazir, bakshi, faujdar and the subadar, etc MANSAB SYSTEM The word mansab means a place or position and therefore it means a rank in the mansab system under the Mughals. During Babur's time, the term mansabdar was not used; instead, another term wajhdar was employed. The latter differed in some ways from the mansab system that evolved under the Mughals after Babur. Akbar gave mansabs to both military and civil officers based on their merit or service to the state. To fix the grades of officers and classify his soldiers, he was broadly inspired by the principles adopted by Chingiz Khan. The latter's army had been organised on decimal system. The lowest unit was of ten horsemen, then came one hundred, one thousand and so on. Abul Fazl states that Akbar had established 66 grades of mansabdars ranging from commanders of 10 horsemen to 10,000 horsemen, although only 33 grades have been mentioned by him. Mansab denoted three things: i) It determined the status of its holder (the mansabdar) in the official hierarchy. ii) It fixed the pay of the holder. iii) It also laid upon the holder the obligation of maintaining a specified number of contingents with horses and equipment. THE DUAL RANKS: ZAT AND SAWAR Initially a single number represented the rank, personal pay and the size of contingent of mansabdar, In such a situation if a person held a mansab of 500, he was to maintain a contingent of
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