APPENDIX D

235

read frequently of a Viceroy being posted to the nazm wa nasagq,
or to the zab¢ wa rabt, or to the hirdsat wa hukimat, of his province,
and we meet also the connected expression fansiq wa tanzim in
cases where an officer was posted to organise the administration
in newly-acquired territory. The general sense is thus clear,
and it may be observed that the objection under consideration
applies equally to the interpretation of 2abdf adopted in the text,
hough I have not heard that this interpretation has been
Juestioned.

That this general meaning may make nonsense in some
contexts can be shown by examples. The Ain tells us (i. 296)
that, under Sher Shah and Salim Shih, Hindustan passed from
ghalla-bakhshi to zabt. No one, so far as I know, has disputed
the identification of the former term with the method of assessment
 which I describe as Sharing, the division of the crop
between State and Peasant; and in this passage zabt must be an
alternative method. To say that Hindustan passed from
Sharing to Administration (in the general sense) makes nonsense:
2abt must mean a method of assessment different from Sharing,
and the other passages where the word is used in the Ain bear
out the interpretation that it denotes the method of Measurement,
but usually with the implication of rates fixed in cash and not in
grain. This sense is rare in the general literature of the period,
but it occurs in a passage in the Akbarniama (ii. 333), which tells
us that in the 13th year Shihdbuddin Ahmad Khin, on
appointment to the charge of the Reserved lands, “having set
aside the annual zabdf, established a nasag.” Here again the
general meanings of the two words make nonsense, or at least
[ can get no idea out of the statement that ‘ the annual administration
 was replaced by an administration.” In order to make
sense, the two words must be taken as denoting different species
of the same genus; and since zab¢ is one method of assessment,
nasaq must be some alternative method. The same interpretation
 is necessary in order to make sense of the description of the
Gujardt practice (Ain, i. 485), “mostly nasaq, and paimaish is
little practised,” where the contrast between two alternative
methods is unmistakable; and it brings sense and order into the
classification employed in the *“ Account of the Twelve Provinces,’
where Multan, for instance, is described as “wholly zabfi,”
Allahabad as.partly zadfi, Berar as “for a long time nasagqi,”
while in Bengal (i. 389) “the demanding of revenue proceeds on