156 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA

say, that sometime in this century, when Income was found
to have diverged from Valuation, the Ministry, instead of
laboriously calculating a new Valuation on the lines followed
under Akbar, chose the figures of some particular year as a
standard to serve the same purpose; but, for some reason
or other, the obsolete figures were preserved alongside of
the new standard, so that the three columns showed respectively
 the old and new Valuations and the current
Income. The idea of a typical, or standard, year (sal-1
kamal) existed at least as early as the reign of Akbar! and
the adoption of such a standard for Valuation would not be
an altogether unreasonable expedient, but I can find no
positive evidence on the subject, and all that can be said
with confidence is that some sort of Valuation was used
in the Ministry until the practice of Assignment decayed
in the eighteenth century.

 Akbarnama, iii. 457; Badshahnama, I, ii. 287