THE REIGN OF AKBAR (1556-1605) 115 
question naturally arises whether their performance was 
possible in practice. We do not know the size of a collector’s 
charge at this period; but, assuming that the standard of a 
kror of dams fixed in the 1gth year had not been altered 
materially, and taking the Demand on a bigha as ranging 
round 40 dams, the figure indicated by the assessment- 
rates, a circle would contain somewhere about 250,000 
bighas of cropped land, and the duties imposed by the rules 
could not possibly have been carried out by the officials in 
person. We must regard them rather as the heads of 
staffs employed by themselves and on their responsibility; 
we know! in fact that collectors had agents (gumdshta), 
and we may assume that in the same way the clerk had a 
staff of writers, one of whom would accompany each 
measuring-party in the field. That there might be several 
parties at work simultaneously in each circle is plain from 
Todar Mal’s proposal (Akbarnama, iii. 382), that the number 
employed should be adjusted to the area to be measured, 
and that the collector should station himself at a central 
place whence he could visit them all. 
It is, I think, possible to obtain a general view of this 
system as it must have presented itself to an ordinary 
peasant. He knew beforehand the extent of his liability 
to the State, and could plan his season’s cropping with a 
knowledge of the amount of cash he would have to find; 
but he was necessarily ignorant of the prices at which he 
would be able to sell his produce. So far as the revenue- 
Demand was concerned, he was not exposed to the tyranny 
of a village oligarchy, but, on the other hand, he would 
have to reckon with the exactions of the measurement- 
party and the subordinates employed in collection. He 
might be harassed further by an energetic collector intent 
on the extension of cultivation and the improvement of 
cropping, without due regard to the possibilities of the 
locality; or he might find himself placed in relations with a 
prudent and sagacious officer who would assist him to make 
the most of his resources. Thus the effects of the system 
must have depended wholly on the manner of its adminis- 
tration: according to circumstances, it might be either 
| See, e.g., Akbarnama, iii. 457, where the gumashtas’ misconduct is 
noticea .