Mansabdari and Jagirdari Systems

The Mansabdari and Jagirdari systems formed the core of Mughal civil and military administration. They were interlinked and essential for understanding how the empire functioned.

Mansabdari System

Introduced by Akbar, every imperial officer was assigned a mansab (rank), denoted by two numbers:

• Zat: Determined personal salary and status.
• Sawar: Indicated the number of cavalrymen the officer had to maintain.

Ranks ranged from 10 to 5,000 (raised to 7,000 for princes). Officers could be transferred and promoted. The system encompassed all officials, whether military or civil. Each mansabdar was required to bring his contingent for periodic review (dagh and chehra) to prevent fraud.

Jagirdari System

Mansabdars were paid either in cash (naqd) or by the assignment of a jagir – a tract of land whose revenue collection rights were given to the officer in lieu of salary. The jagirdar was not a hereditary landowner; he only had the right to collect land revenue. Jagirs were frequently transferred to prevent local roots being established.

Key features:

• Types of Jagirs: Mashrut (conditional on service), Inam (grant without service conditions), Watan (hereditary chieftaincy).
• Jama-dami: The assessed revenue of a jagir, calculated in dams.
• Tankha: The salary claim of a mansabdar.

The jagirdari system worked well when there was a surplus of available land for assignment. In the later Mughal period, a crisis (jagirdari crisis) emerged due to a shortage of paibaqi (unallocated lands) as the number of mansabdars grew and the empire’s land revenue base shrank.

Together, these systems allowed the Mughals to maintain a large, centralized army and bureaucracy without a massive cash treasury.