context, of the passage quoted at p. 388 of the "Chronicles," giving his statement of the amount of the current income. Speaking of the country of Hindústán, he proceeds-"Its length from Hindú Kóh, on the borders of Badakhshán, to the country of Orissa, which is on the borders of Bengal, from west to east, is 1680 legal kos. Its breadth from Kashmír to the hills of Barújh, which is on the borders of Súrat and Gujarát, is 800 kos Iláhi. Another mode is to take the breadth from the hills of Kumáon to the borders of the Dakhan, which amounts to 1000 Iláhi kos. ... At the present time, namely A.H. 1002,1 Hindústán contains 3200 towns, (including 120 large cities) and 500,000 villages, and yields a revenue of 640,00,00,000 tankah Murádi." The writer adds, that as there is no room for the list of cities in this summary, he proposes to give them in full alphabetical order on some future occasion, a task he was never able to fulfil, as he died in the same year.

There can be very little contest about the value of Nizámud-dín's pieces designated as "Tankah Murádi." They were in effect the old Sikandari Tankah of twenty to the Silver Tankah or Rupee, of which numerous proofs have already been adduced. So that the total revenue of the kingdom is here defined as £32,000,000.3 It is not expressly stated whether him, secured, in early life, a position at the Court of Akbar; and in that monarch's twenty-ninth year attained the dignity of Bakhshi of Gujarát. The value of his work has been freely testified to by Budaoni (a contemporary author of nearly equal credit), in his declaration, that "Nizám-ud-din Ahmad spent his life in the service of the Emperor Akbar, (and) his history in all that relates to the reign of that Sovereign can be implicitly relied upon." Elliot's Index, p. 204; Morley's Catalogue of the Royal Asiatic Society's MSS., p. 61; Stewart's Catalogue of Tippoo Sultan's Library, p. 11; Col. N. Lees, Journal Royal Asiatic Society, vol. iii., N.S., p. 458.

1 A.H. 1002 commenced on the 17th of September, 1593.

2 "Chronicles," pp. 336, 370, 384, 387, 437.

3 640,00,00,000—20=32,00,00,000÷10=£32,000,000.

this sum is the produce of land revenue pure and simple, or the grand total of taxes, cesses and imposts of every description realized for the Imperial exchequer; but the latter seems to be the most reasonable conclusion, more especially as throughout these returns there will be found a closely relative proportion between the land revenue and the total income of the State from all sources, which latter rules more or less equably at double the former.

The Institutes of the Emperor Akbar embody a very complete description of the Indian revenue system, embracing the theory of assessment, methods of collection, and the general practical working of the indigenous scheme as matured by Shír Sháh; together with the tentative reforms introduced by Akbar's own ministers, so effectively completed by that paragon of Hindú vazirs, Rája Todar Mall.1

In cursorily noticing the leading peculiarities of the Indian land-tax, it may be as well to premise that the context of the Aín-i Akbari gives no countenance to the fiction of the State ownership of the soil, the king's demand in no case extends beyond his share of the produce. It is true that an absolute monarch, who could take, with impunity, a subject's head, could with equal licence take that subject's land; but the

1 Rája Todar Mall (Toral Mall) was not less brave as a soldier, and successful as a commander, than he was efficient as an administrator. His first prominent employment in the latter department was his assessment of Gujarát in the eighteenth year of Akbar's reign. In the twenty-second year he was made vazir, and in the twenty-seventh year he introduced his important financial reforms, associated with a complete change of the language in use in the revenue accounts, superseding the indigenous Hindí by the exotic Persian. Todar Mall died in A.H. 998.-Blochmann's Aín-i Akbari.

2 By Muhammadan law, the Sovereign was only entitled to the regular onefifth of the land taken in war (immovable possessions followed the same law as movable goods); he had, however, the option of taking that fifth as divided off land, or in one-fifth of the annual produce of the whole capture.-Sale's Kurán, i. p. 195.

soil was valueless without the ascripti glebæ; and so far from desiring to oust owners or occupiers, the raiyat was encouraged in every possible way to become a good cultivator. The king, in effect, was in partnership with the husbandmen of the nation: the more they succeeded in extracting from the earth, the more the Sovereign received as revenue; hence we find the ruling power using all kinds of devices to extend and improve the cultivation, commencing with advances to the needy, premiums upon the use of good seed, and other paternal measures, extending even to the despotic interdiction of the slaughter of "oxen, horses, buffaloes, or camels." 1

The old system seems to have recognized nothing but payment in kind; and Akbar was so well aware of the advantage of such an arrangement to the agriculturists, that he invariably leaves the option of money payments to them, except in the case of sugar-cane, and such expensive crops, as implied the possession of certain means on the part of the grower, and a power to pay the State dues in cash. There were no less than four methods of estimating and setting apart the regal share of the produce which the occupier might elect to claim-1. The division of the field when sown; 2, an estimate on the standing crops; 3, a rough division by heaps; or 4, a precise division of grain. The introduction of the new settlement, which attempted to fix future payments on an average of the crops of the previous ten years, was calculated to act injuriously against the cultivator, in so far as it made no allowance for bad seasons, so that in extreme cases the poorer agriculturists might positively have to bor

1 Ibn Khordádbah mentions that the great Hajáj bin Yusaf, acting under the like crude idea, introduced a similar prohibition against the slaughter of oxen, very much to the disgust of the beef-eating population of Irák.—Journal Asiatique, 1865, p. 242.

row grain to meet the Government dues. With a notoriously improvident race, and money lenders who knew no usury laws, a single failure of the harvest might impoverish a village community for a generation; whereas, under the old system, the State shared the loss, and in famine-years could advance no claim whatever. If, in addition to these drawbacks, we take into consideration the fact that the Imperial demand ordinarily ranged at no less than one-third of the total crop,1 it may be imagined how readily a confessedly fickle climate might disorganize the most elaborate calculations extending over far longer averages than any given ten years. The old system unquestionably insured a larger profit to the State in the long run, and greater ease and comfort to the subject; while the new arrangement, sooner or later, must have involved reductions in the general average to secure uniformity and regularity of realization. No doubt, under the revised law, there were merciful considerations extended to defaulters; it was undesirable to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs; and the king's troops and the usurer alike understood that there were bold hearts and sharp swords in many an aboriginal village. The former were only employed in extreme cases, and the latter often had to risk something dearer than their own money.

Abúl Fazl's returns of Akbar's revenues are summarized from his imperfect data in the subjoined table, amounting, with later returns, but with all other deficiencies, to a total

1 Akbar tells us that in former times the kings of India only took one-sixth of the produce. The rates of other Asiatic countries are specified. Turkey, onefifth; Turán, one-sixth; Irán, one-tenth.—Aín-i Akbari, Gladwin, i. p. 349. (Shír Shah claimed one-fourth.)

2 A calculation has lately been made by a trustworthy writer in the Calcutta Englishman (August, 26, 1871), that if the province of Orissa had now to pay in grain, the Government would receive £1,000,000 instead of the £460,000 they compounded for in silver.

of five arbs,1 sixty-seven krors, sixty-three laks, 83 thousand and 383 dáms, a sum not very far removed, with fair allowances for omissions in such imperfect documents, from the speculative correction of six arbs (6,62,97,55,246), proposed at page 389 of the "Chronicles," an estimate I elsewhere adopt in preference to the tentative figures herein embodied, which were originally deduced simply for the purpose of testing my proposed emendation of Abúl Fazl's text, and which are now retained only for the purpose of instituting comparisons with the provincial statistics of subsequent reigns There is no suspicion of Abúl Fazl's want of faith, even if any motive could be imagined for such a tendency; but it is clear that a comprehensive work like the Kín-i Akbari, a positive gazetteer of all India, must have been compiled from the statistics of various State departments, working with little systematic concert, and its tabulated returns would at all times be liable to correction, as imperfectly brought up to the changes of the day.

It must be understood, in forming any comparative estimate of Akbar's assessments, that each province had to furnish a State contingent of cavalry and infantry, specified in full detail with other imperial demands, apart from the mere money payments entered in the divisional accounts; so that

1 The arb is 1000 millions, or 100 krors; the kror is 100 laks, and the lak 100 thousand. Wilson (Sanskrit Dictionary), Shakespeare (Hindustani Dictionary), and Haughton (Bengali Dictionary), alike concur in making the arb 100 millions; and the new St. Petersburgh Sanskrit Dictionary follows the same lead. Molesworth, in his Mahrattá Dictionary, however, gives "1000 millions," which the whole series of figures employed by the Muhammadan writers proves to be the correct amount. See also Elliot's Glossary, ii. p. 196.

2 The majority of these taķsím jam'a statements refer to the fifteenth year of the reign, and probably indicate a much lower revenue than the improved management of the succeeding twenty-five years secured for the State. The incorporation, however, of the returns of the new súbahs plainly demonstrates the fact of later additions to the original text.