252 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA 
crops.” That is what the Ain tells us was done, on the reading 
I adopt. 
According to the reading, then, the Ain tells us that what 
was done was either to strike an average of Demand, or else 
to strike an average and then adjust it. Either course is 
irrelevant to the emergency caused by the breakdown of com- 
mutation; both are equally relevant to the preparation of a 
new Valuation, and thus paragraphs D and E are apparently 
illogical. The emergency was that commutation had broken 
down: the remedy was a new jama, which, from the details 
given, was obviously a Valuation. The last words of the para- 
graph give a further illogicality. They refer to “the table,” 
but the tables which follow in the text, as we have it, are those 
of the Demand-rates, which we know were introduced at this 
time to meet the commutation emergency. 
One other point must be mentioned. As has been shown in 
Chapter IV., numerous detailed references in the Akbarnama 
prove that the practice of Assighment was in fact reintro- 
duced in the old provinces in, or just after, the 24th year. This 
must have been intentional, though no order is on record, 
and consequently a new Valuation must have been prepared 
at this time, because Assignments could not be made without 
one; the paragraph under examination can be understood only 
as describing the preparation of this third Valuation; so that, 
from the facts on record, it is certain that two distinct, but 
connected, operations were carried out at this time—preparation 
of the cash-Demand schedules, and of the third Valuation. The 
account in the Ain points to both of these, but so obscurely 
that we must infer either that it was badlv drafted. or that it 
was mutilated in editing. 
We must now turn to the parallel passage in the Akbarnima, 
(iii. 282). It tells, as we have seen, that Akbar devised the 
jama-i dahsala as a remedy for the breakdown of commutation, 
and proceeds: — “the essence of the device is that, having 
determined the hal-s dahsdla of each pargana from the variations 
of cultivation and the range of prices, he established 1/10th thereof 
as malt harsdla, as is explained in detail in the last volume of 
this work.” The Ain is the last volume of the Akbarnama, and 
hence this sentence should be read as a condensed paraphrase 
of what we are examining. In that case, hal-i dahsdla represents 
mahsil-i dahsala, and malt harsala represents harsila. The 
latter may be accepted as the same thing in more elegant