APPENDIX F 
257 
Platts indicate no technical use, but in Molesworth’s Marathi 
Dictionary it is rendered as “the usual rate (of rents, prices, 
etc.).” No Moslem writing in Hindustan would have needed to 
give such a word as an equivalent for a common expression like 
dastir-ul ‘amal, but the Marathi synonym comes in naturally in 
the Deccan. We have then a late account drawn up in the 
Deccan. 
Now the methods of assessment described in it are substantially 
those which, as is related in Chapter VII, Murshid Quli Khan 
had introduced into the Deccan about the year 1655, and which 
clearly left a strong impression on the locality. There is no 
reason for supposing that Murshid Quli was practically familiar 
with the word of Todar Mal, but there is no difficulty in the idea 
that, when he started work in the Deccan as a stranger, he should 
have invoked the traditional authority of Todar Mal for his 
innovations. Where he established Measurement, he was in 
fact working on Todar Mal’s lines, and the Deccan, which had no 
first-hand knowledge of Todar Mal, might very easily attribute 
to him the whole of Murshid Quli’s work, when in fact he was 
entitled to credit for only portions of it. To the extent that 
Murshid Quli introduced Measurement, he was a follower, 
though not a servile copyist, of Todar Mal: if his method of 
differential Sharing was, as it seems to me, a novelty in India, 
then the traditional fame of Todar Mal was sufficiently great, 
and also snfficiently vague, to carry it also. At any rate, it is 
clear from the accounts of Murshid Quli’s work that it was re- 
garded in the Deccan as based on that of Todar Mal; Khwifi 
Khan (i. 732), and the Maasirulumra (iii. 497) are in agreement 
on this point, though not on others; and it was doubtless this 
southern tradition which was absorbed later in the century by 
James Grant, when he described Murshid Quli’s work as servilely 
copied from that of Todar Mal. 
It may be noted that this southern account of the work of 
Todar Mal is not in agreement with the M adsirulumra, which was 
also compiled in the Deccan during the eighteenth century. The 
description there given (i. 127) is clearly condensed from the Ain 
and the Akbarnama, and gives no support to the view that the 
Raja’s methods included differential Sharing. I have found no 
other relevant passage in the literature, so that the account in 
Khwafi Khan appears to stand alone ; and, taking its date and 
locality into account, it cannot be accepted as contradicting the 
‘ontemporary evidence on which I have relied in Chapter IV.