 In southern India , none of the pre @-@ 1760 regimes were able to achieve the " fiscal absolutism " of their European contemporaries . Local chieftains , who had close ties with their social groups , and who had only recently risen from them , opposed the excessive monetary demands of a more powerful regional ruler . Consequently , the larger states of this period in southern India , were not able to entirely change their mode of creating wealth from one of extracting tribute payments , which were seldom regular , to that of direct collection of taxes by government officials . <unk> tribute under threat of military action , according to Stein , is not true " military fiscalism , " although it is a means of approaching it . This partial or limited military fiscalism began during the Vijayanagara Empire , setting the latter apart from the more " <unk> " regimes that had preceded it , and was a prominent feature of all regimes during the period 1565 – 1760 ; true military fiscalism was not achieved in the region until the rule of Tipu Sultan in the 1780s . 
