The Mughal Treasury: Khazana, Coinage, and Imperial Finance
The imperial treasury, the khazana, was the principal financial institution of the Mughal empire, and the careful management of the treasury was a central concern of the imperial administration from Akbar to Aurangzeb. The khazana received the revenue collected by the amils and the zamindars of the parganas, the customs and tribute of the ports, the presents of the provincial governors, the proceeds of the jagir assignments, the spoils of war, and the income from the imperial estates, and the khazana disbursed the salaries of the mansabdari nobility, the costs of the court and the household, the expenses of the public works, the charity of the emperor, and the costs of war. The present page treats the khazana itself, the provincial treasuries, the sources of revenue, the expenditures, the coinage, the role of the sahib-i-diwan or treasurer, and the famous treasures of the Mughal emperors. The broader administrative framework is surveyed in the Mughal administration overview, and the revenue side of the system is treated in the land revenue administration page.
The Khazana: The Imperial Treasury
The khazana was housed in a strongly fortified section of the palace complex in the imperial capital. The khazana of Akbar at Agra, of Jahangir at Lahore and Agra, of Shah Jahan at Delhi and Agra, and of Aurangzeb at Delhi was a substantial establishment, comprising a series of strong rooms, a counting house, an assaying office, an office of the sahib-i-diwan, and a guard of household troops. The khazana was in the custody of the sahib-i-diwan, the treasurer, who was directly responsible to the wazir and to the emperor.
The khazana held three principal kinds of assets. The first was coin, the bulk of the imperial revenue having been converted to coin at the time of collection. The second was bullion, the gold and silver that had not yet been coined or that had been received as tribute. The third was jewels and precious objects, the jawharat, which the emperor wore or displayed on ceremonial occasions and which were treated as a reserve of the khazana. The most famous of the jawharat was the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which passed from the Mughal emperors to the Persian Nadir Shah in 1739, to Ahmad Shah Abdali, to Ranjit Singh of the Punjab, and ultimately to the British Crown.
The khazana was audited periodically, generally at the end of the fiscal year, and the audit was carried out by a special officer, the mustaufi, who reported directly to the wazir and to the emperor. The audit was a formal process: the sahib-i-diwan presented the accounts, the mustaufi checked the entries against the supporting documents, the wazir and the emperor reviewed the result, and the farman of confirmation was issued. The sahib-i-diwan who failed to account for the funds was subject to severe penalties.
The Provincial Treasuries
The khazana of the imperial capital was supplemented by a network of provincial treasuries, the khazana-i-subah, in each subah of the empire. The provincial treasury received the revenue collected in the parganas of the subah, disbursed the salaries of the provincial officers, and remitted the surplus to the imperial khazana. The provincial treasury was in the custody of the diwan of the subah, who was responsible to the subahdar and to the imperial wazir and diwan.
The remittance of the provincial surplus to the imperial khazana was a major administrative operation. The remittance was made in coin, in bullion, in jewels, and in kind, and the remittance was transported under guard by the dak chowki system. The remittance was generally made twice a year, before the kharif and before the rabi harvest. The provincial treasuries were, in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, increasingly retained by the provincial governors, and the remittances to the imperial centre became less regular. The subahdars of Bengal, the Deccan, Awadh, and other great provinces accumulated substantial treasuries of their own, and the nawab of Bengal’s treasury at Murshidabad was the largest in India at the time of the British diwani in 1765.
The Sources of Revenue
The imperial khazana drew on five principal sources of revenue. The first and largest was the land tax, the kharaj, the mal, or the zabti, the share of the produce of the soil that was collected by the imperial administration and the zamindars. The land tax is treated in detail in the land revenue administration page and in the Akbar’s revenue reforms page.
The second source was the customs duties, the rahdari and the band-i-sarak, the duties collected at the customs posts, the river crossings, the mountain passes, and the city gates. The third source was the tribute, the peshkash, paid by the rajas, the zamindars, and the subordinate rulers. The fourth source was the spoils of war. The fifth source was the presents, the nazr and the pishkash, offered to the emperor on ceremonial occasions.
The Expenditures
The expenditures of the khazana fell into four broad categories. The first and largest was the military, including the salaries of the mansabdari establishment, the costs of the standing army, the costs of the jagir assignments, the costs of the campaigns, the costs of the fortifications, and the costs of the war materials. The military expenditure was the principal burden on the khazana throughout the Mughal period.
The second category was the court, the costs of the imperial household, the khadim-i-khas, the mir saman, the sadr-us-sudur, the kitchen, the stables, the gardens, the durbar ceremonies, the festivals, and the ceremonial presents. The third category was the public works, the costs of the roads, the bridges, the sara-i, the canals, the reservoirs, the jami’ masjid, the madrasa, the imperial tombs, the palaces, and the fortifications. The fourth category was the charity, the sadaqa and the waqf, the emperor’s religious and charitable distributions.
The Coinage
The Mughal coinage was of the early modern world, and the rupee and the mohur were widely used in India and the Indian Ocean trade. The Mughal coinage was based on the silver rupee, the gold mohur, and the copper dam. The principal mints were at Agra, Delhi, Lahore, Ahmedabad, and Ajmer.
The rupee was the principal unit of account, the standard silver coin, containing approximately 180 grains of silver. The gold mohur was a multiple of the rupee, used for the larger transactions. The coinage was regulated by the dar-ul-zarb or mint, supervised by the sahib-i-zabt or mint master.
The Role of the Sahib-i-Diwan
The sahib-i-diwan, the treasurer, was the principal financial officer of the empire. The sahib-i-diwan was appointed by the emperor and held a high mansab rank, generally between mansab 2000 and mansab 4000. The sahib-i-diwan was responsible for the custody of the khazana, the receipt of the revenue, the disbursement of the funds, the maintenance of the accounts, the supervision of the provincial treasuries, the management of the mint, the audit of the revenue, and the preparation of the annual accounts. The sahib-i-diwan worked in close cooperation with the wazir and the diwan of the subah.
The sahib-i-diwan’s office maintained a detailed set of records, the siyaha or annual account, the bahikhata or ledger, the tahvil or receipt register, and the mushahida or statement. The records were audited by the mustaufi or auditor. The records are an important primary source for the history of the imperial finance, preserved in part in the Indian archives, in the British Library, and in the various regional archives.
The Famous Treasures
The Mughal khazana contained several famous treasures that have become symbols of the dynasty. The first is the Takht-i-Taus or Peacock Throne, commissioned by Shah Jahan in 1634 and completed in 1638. The Takht-i-Taus was a substantial throne of gold, encrusted with diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and pearls, and the back of the throne was in the form of a peacock’s tail, with the gemstones arranged to suggest the iridescent feathers. The Takht-i-Taus was installed in the diwan-i-khas of the Red Fort in Delhi and was the principal throne of the empire. The Takht-i-Taus was taken as booty by the Persian Nadir Shah in 1739.
The second famous treasure was the Koh-i-Noor diamond, a large diamond of Indian origin that was in the possession of the Mughal emperors from the time of Babur. The Koh-i-Noor was set in the Takht-i-Taus, in several of the imperial crowns, and in the personal ornaments of the emperor. The Koh-i-Noor was taken as booty by Nadir Shah in 1739, passed through several hands in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and is now in the British Crown Jewels. The fate of these treasures is treated in connection with the British conquest of India.
Sources
- Irfan Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India (1963; rev. 1999), ch. 2.