CIVIL ADMINISTRATION 141

land or money in return for military service; and the civil administration was governed on the same prin- ciple. The mansab and jagir system pervaded the whole empire. The governors of provinces were mansab dars, and received grants of land in lieu of salary for the maintenance of their state and their troops, while they were required to pay about a fifth of the revenue to the emperor. All the land in the realm was thus par- celled out among a number of timariots, who were prac- tically absolute in their own districts, and extorted the uttermost farthing from the wretched peasantry who tilled their lands. The only exceptions were the royal demesnes, and these Were farmed GOLD cora OF AURANGZIB, STRUCK AT THATTA, i A. H. 1072 (A.D. 1661 - 2). out to contractors who had all the vices with- out the distinction of the mansabdars. As it was always the policy of the Moghuls to shift the vassal- lords from one estate to another, in order to pre- vent them from acquiring a permanent local influence and prestige, the same disastrous results ensued as in the precarious appointments of Turkey. Each gov- ernor or feudatory sought to extort as much as pos- sible out of his province, or jagir, in order to have capital in hand when he should be transplanted or deprived, and in the remoter parts of the empire the rapacity of the landholders went on almost