THE REIGN OF AKBAR (1556-1605) 89 
minimum charge made in each province, and can say nothing 
more than that the average lies somewhere within these 
limits: where, for instance, wheat was charged from 40 to 
75 dams, it is not permissible to take 573 dams as the 
average rate, because the extremes may, for all we know, 
refer only to a few small parganas, and the charge on the 
bulk of the province may have lain close to either of them. 
Without the aid of averages, exact comparison between the 
two sets of rates is impossible; taking probable figures deter- 
mined by inspection, the general result is that, while the 
ten-year rates show no such extreme figures as those of 
some earlier seasons, extremes being naturally eliminated in 
the process of averaging, their range is, on the whole, some- 
where between 10 and 20 per cent. higher. We must 
remember that Akbar’s bigha was not introduced until 
the 31st regnal year, and that it was about 20 per cent. 
greater than the unit previously employed?; it is to my mind 
highly improbable that the voluminous tables of the ““19- 
year” rates, which were certainly struck in terms of the 
earlier unit, were ever re-calculated in terms of a unit which 
was adopted after they had become obsolete; and, if the 
ten-year rates were in fact averages of the charges for 
10 years, but necessarily adjusted later on to the enlarged 
bigha, they would in fact show some such increase as is 
disclosed by inspection. Too much weight must not be 
attached to this argument, because the process of inspection 
is very far from being infallible; my point is merely that the 
ten-year rates, as we have them, stand somewhere about the 
level which would be reached by an average of ten years’ 
actual charges adjusted for the increase in the size of the 
bigha. 
No later changes in the methods of assessment are re- 
corded during Akbar’s reign. It is open to us to conjecture 
that the rates, as given in the Ain, may have been modified 
in detail between the 24th year, when they came into force, 
and the 4oth year. when that record was completed; but 
the general system was clearly maintained. - The operation 
of Akbar’s invention was two-fold. Administratively, it 
t Ain, 1. 204, 390.