THE REIGN OF AKBAR (1556-1605) 103 
small areas which were directly under its charge; the new 
order gave scope for its activities over the whole of Northern 
India from Multan to Allahabad; and it is quite safe to 
assume that the traditional policy was impressed on the 
small army of collectors recruited at this time, and probably 
in terms sufficiently rhetorical to provoke Badaiini’s 
sSneers. 
Again, we can scarcely suppose that the Ministry would 
be anxious to give publicity to the discreditable facts 
placed on record in the Akbarnama; the obvious course 
for it was to emphasise the secondary, and creditable, 
motive, and to ignore the other. The reasons for reticence 
no longer existed when the Akbarnama was being written, 
because the events in question had passed into history; 
but at the moment the most prudent course would be to 
say nothing in public about them, but to give currency to 
the version which the unofficial chroniclers have pre- 
served. 
It is not necessary to assume that in taking this course 
the Ministry acted independently, for Akbar himself may 
have thought it wiser to make public a version which did 
not accurately represent his real motives. In any case, 
it is easy to see how the unofficial account could have gained 
currency; while it is to my mind quite impossible to suppose 
that Abul Fazl invented the discreditable version which 
appears in the Akbarniama. 
As regards the subsequent events, the silence of the official 
record regarding past scandals, of no particular importance 
from the writer's standpoint, is too natural to require ex- 
planation; but, as a matter of fact, two documents pre- 
served in the Akbarnama seem to me to afford ample, 
though indirect, confirmation of Badiiini’s story, in that 
they disclose, firstly, gross oppression by the collectors, 
and, secondly, a ferocity in audit which was followed by 
the practical supersession of Raja Todar Mal. These 
documents are difficult, as well as important; and, in order 
to understand them, it is necessary to enter into some details 
regarding the Raja’s position in the administration 
To begin with, we must recall the concurrent tradition 
that Todar Mal joined to honesty and great capacity the