178 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA 
the mugaddams of Mogul times were very like the mugaddams 
described in the passages already quoted, men with sufficient 
power to render them a danger to the other peasants in 
the village. 
When we go back to the fourteenth century, the ground 
is less firm, for there are a few instances in Ziya Barni’s 
chronicle where the word mugaddam seems to refer to the 
Chief of a considerable area, but in most cases the natural 
interpretation is identical with that of later times. It 
must be remembered that Arabic names for Indian in- 
stitutions can in no case be older than the twelfth century, 
and it is not necessary to assume that the official terminology 
was fixed all at once. We have seen that the word zamindar 
had not been definitely chosen to denote a Chief in Ziya 
Barni’s time, though it was coming into use in that sense, 
and I suspect that the term mugaddam, as denéting a village 
Headman, was, so to speak, crystallising out at the same 
period; it might still carry the unspecialised meaning of a 
leader or a prominent man, but, when used in relation to 
a village, it had become practically specialised. It is 
probable then, though it is not formally proved, that the 
institution of village-Headmen continued through the 
Moslem period, and dates from Hindu times. 
In the same way, the few chance references to the village- 
accountant seem to furnish definite evidence of continuity. 
Under Alauddin as under Aurangzeb, we have seen this 
functionary recording the village-accounts in such a form 
that they might be of great value to the administrator; 
while Akbar’s rules for collectors show him incidentally at 
his daily work, keeping records which could serve as a check 
on the officials employed in assessment and collection. 
We cannot argue with entire certainty from the Headman 
to the Brotherhood, because, as we have seen, the word 
mugaddam covered managers in villages of all sorts; and a 
student reasoning i# vacuo might contend that the mugad- 
dams of whom we read during the Moslem period were in 
all cases managers of villages without a Brotherhood, or, 
examination of the various passages discloses no trace of a distinction 
between these terms, and I take them to be one instance of what is a 
common feature in this portion of the work, the attempt to secure the 
ntmost possible variety of diction by a free use of synonyms.