iv 
INTRODUCTION 
the canon of variety of diction, or, in other words, they 
would do almost anything in order to avoid verbal repetition. 
It is natural, therefore, that a particular thing should 
appear under various names; but at the same time it must 
be remembered that bureaucracy was highly developed in 
India from the outset of the Moslem period, and, inside 
the public offices, words already in general use were adopted 
as precise terms of art, just as happens at the present day, 
so that general and technical senses might co-exist. Some- 
times, indeed, we find that different departments might 
use a word in different senses, as in the familiar case of 
mdl. An ordinary writer meant by that word “property” 
or “possessions,” but in the military department it denoted 
“booty taken in war,” while in the jargon of the financial 
offices it signified ‘‘land-revenue”; its meaning in any 
particular passage has to be inferred from the context. 
These terms of art in some cases persisted, and in others 
changed with the centuries, so that from time to time old 
things appear under new names; while, on the other hand, 
changes in practice might result in giving a substantially 
new meaning to an old-established term. Differences in 
respect of locality are also important; and, in particular, 
it is noteworthy that, two centuries ago, the agrarian 
language of Calcutta differed materially from that of Delhi, 
a fact which later on was to contribute to the misappre- 
hensions of the early British administrators in the North. 
This fluidity of the terminology is a matter of such 
significance for the historian that it may be well to give 
here one illustration where the main facts are not open to 
dispute. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the 
Arabic word Diwan was used by Indo-Persian writers in 
a specific sense corresponding almost exactly to the modern 
terms “Department” or “Ministry”. Thus the “Vazir’s 
diwan”’ denoted the Revenue Ministry, because finance was 
the main business of the Vazir; and, when a new department 
was constituted, as happened from time to time, it was 
styled the diwan of the particular branch of administration 
with which it was charged. 
The literature of the fifteenth century is scanty, and I 
Jo not know when the change occurred; but, by the time of