110 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA 
5. THE WORKING OF THE REGULATION SYSTEM 
The working of Akbar’s revenue system in what appears 
to be its final form, and which may be called the Regulation 
system, must be studied in those chapters! of the Ain which 
prescribe the duties of the collector and his clerk. These 
chapters belong to a group which can be read only as con- 
taining the working orders for various officers in force at 
the time when the Ain was compiled. They are not essays 
in history, or descriptions of a system, but, alike in form and 
in content, they are definitely orders, assuming a knowledge 
of the system, and prescribing the manner in which it is to 
be worked. As such, we may safely take them as the orders 
actually in force; some points in them indicate that Todar 
Mal’s proposals of the 27th year had been incorporated, with 
later modifications in detail; other provisions suggest a 
gradual development by way of piecemeal amendment, 
such as is tamiliar in codes of administrative practice at 
the present day; and there is no room for doubt as to their 
nature and purpose. 
The chapters in this group show some curious contrasts. 
In the case of the Viceroy of a province, stress is laid rather 
on general conduct than on specific duties, and a high 
ideal is presented in rhetorical language, fortified with 
apposite quotations from the poets; but, as we go down the 
scale, the rhetoric disappears, and details of specific duties 
become prominent, till we reach the local treasurer, the 
chapter relating to whom can be compared only to a portion 
of the Civil Account Code used in the British period. Con- 
fining our attention to the chapters dealing with the col- 
lector and his clerk, it is obvious, in the first place, that 
their complete application extended only to the areas 
Reserved for direct administration; as we have seen in an 
earlier section, the Assignment system had by this time been 
restored in the North and, while the sanctioned schedules 
of assessment-rates were binding on assignees, there 1s 
nothing to suggest that any attempt was made to enforce 
on them uniformity of procedure in detail. So far as I 
1 Ain, i. 285-288. These chapters must be read together, the details 
in the latter supplementing the more general provisions of the former.