246 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA 
nearly three pages of Blochmann’s text: from Multan to Alla- 
habad, the country to which this chapter applies, there were 
more than a thousand parganas, so that some 3000 pages would 
have been needed to give tagsims prepared on the same lines 
for each pargana. 
There remains an apparent discrepancy in date. The Ain 
speaks of the 15th year, while the Akbarndma and Igbalnima 
have the parallel passages under the 11th year. Mr. Beveridge, 
in a note to his translation of the Akbarnama, suggested that 
there had been confusion somewhere between the two words, 
which are nearly identical in Persian script; the only real 
difference is between p and y, and this is a matter of three dots 
instead of two. The suggestion, however, raises difficulties. 
So far as the Akbarnama is concerned, there is no question of 
a copyist’s error: it is a strictly chronological work, and we 
should have to suppose that Abul Fazl, whose chronology is 
ordinarily precise, put this event four years too early, a mistake 
which is conceivable but distinctly improbable. It would be 
easy to alter 15th to Irth in the text of the Ain, but in 
my opinion it would not be justifiable. Of the 1z MSS. 
which I have myself examined, 10 have the initial p clearly 
marked, and the remaining two are nearer p than y: copyists 
must have been quite familiar with this pitfall, and the obvious 
efforts to make the p clear cannot be disregarded.l 
Again, the table of rates, which indicates a general change in 
assessment in the 15th year, indicates equally an absence of 
change between the 10th and the 12th. Again, the Akbarnama 
tells us (ii. 333) that in the 13th year, the assessment 
of the Reserved lands by Measurement was given up, and 
Group-assessment substituted: it is highly improbable that 
revised rates sanctioned in the 11th year should be discarded 
in the 13th. but it is quite likely that rates which had 
absolutely broken down should be discarded, and a temporary 
arrangement made. while waiting for the new rates to be sanc- 
tioned. 
My reading is that Akbar took up the question in the 11th 
year, as the Akbarniama, followed by the Igbalndma, states, 
and ordered a new Valuation to be prepared; that it took three 
years to make the necessary enquiries and calculations; and that, 
as the Ain states, the new Valuation came into force in the 
1 Sir Richard Burn informs me that, of the Bodleian MSS., 15th is quite 
clear in 214, but 215 has 11th.