102 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA
Imperial Service. The passage in the Tabaqit-i Akbari
on which Badaiini’s account is based runs as follows:
“Since much of the land of Hindustan was uncultivated and
fallow, and was capable of being cultivated in the first year, to
the advantage and profit alike of the peasants and the Revenue
Minister, the Emperor (compliments) after careful consideration
ordered that the area of the parganas of the Empire should be
examined, and that the extent of land which, after cultivation,
would yield one kror of tankas should be separated off, and
entrusted to an official (compliments). That official was to be
designated Krori, and sent to the pargana with a clerk and a
treasurer, so that by his efforts and exertions the uncultivated
land should be brought under cultivation, and the correct
Demand realised ’’1

We have thus two unofficial chronicles in conflict with
the official version. Now the motive alleged by Nizamuddin
Ahmad and Badaiini is in itself creditable, and, what is more
to the point, would have been regarded as highly creditable
in official circles in Akbar’s reign; why then should it be
ignored in an official, and ordinarily eulogistic, record,
which, in place of it, reveals discreditable facts, for inability
to secure the maintenance of an honest Valuation is certainly
not creditable to the administration concerned? It seems
to me that in such a case we are bound to accept the official,
and less creditable, version, in the sense that the direct
cause of the change was, in fact, Akbar’s determination to
put the remuneration of the Imperial Service on a more
satisfactory basis; but to take this view is not to charge
the unofficial writers with deliberately inventing a more
creditable motive. What I suggest is that, while Akbar
had his own motive, the Revenue Ministry, possibly with his
concurrence, introduced another.
It is easy to realise what the change must have meant
from the departmental standpoint. The Ministry had
hitherto been in a position to give effect to the traditional
policy of agricultural development only in the relatively
! My rendering of this passage is based on Or. 2274, f. 203, checked
by Add. 6543, f. 238, and RAS 46 (Morley), f. 262. Add. 6543 is defective
in the opening sentence, the copyist having passed from the first to the
second appearance of the word “cultivated.” RAS 46 has many verbal
blunders, but agrees generally. The version given in Elliot, v. 383, is
substantially different; the MSS. on which it is based are not specified,
and conseauently I have been unable to examine the differences in detail