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 re- 
spectively 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