204 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA 
be probable that this figure was of old standing, and not 
an innovation; and, in the absence of records, the guess 
is perhaps admissible that the reduction made after 
Alduddin’s death was from one-half to one-third, and that 
this figure continued to be the standard, until, some time 
in the first half of the seventeenth century, the maximum 
claim was raised to one-half. It is possible, then, though 
it is certainly not proved, that the share of one-third, which 
was recognised by commentators on the Hindu Sacred 
Law as the highest permissible claim, was in fact the 
general claim in Northern India in the twelfth century, that 
it was accepted by the Moslem conquerors, and that, apart 
from the episode of Alauddin, it persisted into the Mogul 
period as a traditional standard, too familiar to everybody 
to find a place in the chronicles. 
It is also possible that the general rule in the twelfth 
century may have been more flexible, the claim varying 
from one-third to one-half according to circumstances, that 
particular Moslem rulers selected one figure or the other as 
they judged best, and that the claim indicated in Aurang- 
zeb’s farmans was in accordance with the ancient tradition 
of the country. We have seen that in Udaipur, up to the 
present century, the claim was either one-third or one-half, 
and this may be a survival of the same tradition, unin- 
fluenced by Moslem practice. On the available evidence, 
either of these hypotheses seems to be admissible, not, of 
course, as a conclusion, but as a basis on which to consider 
any new facts which may come to light. 
As regards the form in which the peasants’ payments 
were made, we know of two occasions on which, for par- 
ticular reasons, collections were ordered to be made in 
grain; and we know, or have reason to think, that in some 
backward tracts the same practice prevailed as a regular 
thing. In the North, however, the periods of general grain- 
collection were clearly episodes of short duration, and we 
must regard payment in cash as the ordinary rule from the 
thirteenth century onwards. I have not come across a 
single instance of payments in grain being made by headmen 
or farmers: and since in these cases the assessment was 
ordinarily made in money, we may safely infer that payments