The Administration of the Mughul Empire

Preface THIS BOOK is intended to be a companion volume to my earlier work The Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli. Unlike it, how- ever, this is far from being a pioneer effort. There are several full length studies of the Mughul administration. Indeed there are books on some topics which form only chapters in this treatise. I am, therefore, fully conscious of my temerity in writing a new book on this subject. The explanation is that, in all humility, I feel that another book will not be superfluous. A number of controversial problems have been discussed in greater detail and I hope that a more satisfactory interpretation of the available data has been offered. Besides, an attempt has been made to create greater synthesis in the data and to bring out the logical correlation among the different institutions. Thus, I hope, an integrated picture of the administration has emerged.

This study has taken a long time to take shape. It has slowly emerged from lectures given to post-graduate classes in four uni- versities. Several generations of critical students have contributed to my understanding of the subject. Indeed the idea of writing a book on it did not occur to me until I began to feel that I had given so much thought to the various features of the Mughul administration that it would be wasteful not to commit my thoughts and conclusions to writing.

**Contents and Sample Pages**