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 containing
 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. Confining
 our attention to the chapters dealing with the collector
 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.