DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

10.4] ROLE OF SLAVERY 379
liberal manner. In some places they were provided for in the army, and villages were
granted to them; those who were placed in cities had ample allowances varying from
100 down to 10 tankas, which was the lowest, amount. These allowances were paid
in full, without any deduction, at the treasury, every six, four, or three months...
Some (slaves) were placed under tradesmen and were taught mechanical arts, so that
about 12,000 slaves became artisans (kasih) of various kinds... The institution (of
slavery) took root in the very centre of the land, and the sultan looked upon its due
regulation as one of his incumbent duties... There was no occupation in which the
slaves of Firuz Shah were not employed. None of the sultan’s predecessors had
ever collected so many slaves. The late sultan Ala’uddln had drawn together
about 50,000 slaves, but after him no sultan had directed his attention to raising
a body of them until sultan Firuz adopted fhe practice... When the slaves
under the great feudal chieftains became loo numerous, some of them, by order of the
sultan, were given in the charge of amirs and maliks, that they might learn the duties of
their respective employments... But after his (Firuz Shah’s) death, the heads of
these favoured servants (i.e. slaves) of his were cut off without mercy, and were
made into heaps in front of the darbar.” (Ed. 3.330-342).
Slavery was thus an attempt on the part of the Sultan to become
less dependent upon his vassals. The bondsmen helped run his private
plantations whose produce not only supplied the palace but was also
sold in the open market, as were the rugs and fabrics woven by his
slave factories. Forty thousand slaves were guards in royal equipages
or palaces. The total number of these imperial slaves (bandagan-ikhas)
was 180,000, as against the 50,000 of Ala’uddln. As part of his
wife’s dower, Firuz had received a slave Imad-ul-Mulk, who later
became the richest man in Firuz’s reign, having treasure estimated at
130 million tankas. “He held the fief of Rapri and looked very
vigilantly after it.” When we consider that most of the abler previous
emperors of Delhi had been slaves, it is clear that this sort of slavery was
not essential to the productive mode. The feudal lords felt it dangerous
enough for them to slaughter a large number of the slaves the moment
Firuz died. In general, feudal slaves were mostly household servants, for
independence from local retainers who might, in a crisis, show
loyalty to their own caste or community. For smaller landholders,
particularly soldiers pensioned off, the slaves was often the heir, actually
so adopted, who would care for the aged or disabled master during
his lifetime (MEL 3.496-7).