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such rigorous measures, followed precedents set by Harsa and various other ancient Indian kings, who preferred the life of a best to that of a man.15
The order forbidding the confiscation of the property of deceased persons is expressed in the text of the inscription (v. 32) by the words Hatha Karaa42194"the whole estate of the dead was to be released.' The command professed to repeal the rule of practice under which the Mogul emperors were accustomed to seize the property of any deceased subject who left an estate worth confiscating. The order of repeal, like many other benevolent enactments issued from time to time by Akbar and his successors, was not acted on. When Akbar's mother died in 1604, leaving a will directing her estate to be shared among her male descendants, the emperor disregarded her injunctions and seized the whole for himself, as Du Jarric relates. 16
According to Badāoni (Lowe, p 404), the legislation of A.H. 1002 (=A.D. 1593-4) provided that -
‘An inspector and registrar of the effects of those who died or disappeared was to be appointed. So that if any one who died had an heir (P. 391), after it had been proved that he did not own anything to the imperial exchequer, was not a karori (tax-gatherer), or a banker receiving deposits, the heir might take possession of it; otherwise it passed into the imperial treasury; and until they got a receipt from the treasurer, they were not to bury the deceased'.
Those rules, it should be observed, were issued long after the decree obtained by the Jains which professedly abolished the confiscation of the estates of deceased persons in general terms. The modified rule of 1593 was not observed, and the protection given to the subject was illusory. There is abundant evidence that Akbar and his successors ordinarily seized all estates worth taking. There was much 'make see to use the Chinese phrase, about the orders repeatedly issued to abolish burdensome imposts and practices.
The Jizya was supposed to have been abolished universally in the ninth year of the reign (1564); and when Gujarat was annexed in 1573, the abolition should have taken effect in the province. But the inscription shows that it did not, and that a fresh order of abolition was required in 1593. Probably the local governor disregarded the concession made to the Jains at that date, just as he had disregarded the general orders of 1564. The Viceroys, as a matter of fact, could ordinarily do what they pleased in all questions of administration, and in many cases were personages far too
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