Who were mansabdars? How were they paid?

The term 'mansab' means rank or position and the term mansabdar refers to an individual who holds a mansab. The mansabdars formed the ruling group in the Mughal empire. Almost the whole nobility, the bureaucracy as well as the military hierarchy, had mansabs. The lowest rank in the system was 10, and the highest was 5000 for nobles. It was a grading system used by Mughals to fix rank, salary and military responsibilities.

Mansabdars were paid salaries as revenue assignments called jagirs. They had rights to the revenue of their assignments which was collected from their jagirs by their servants.