Appendix E. 
AIN-I DAHSALA. 
THE primary source for the development of Akbar’s revenue 
administration is a short chapter in the Ain (i. 347), bearing 
this title. Its interpretation is exceedingly difficult, for the 
account is greatly condensed, the language is technical, and 
there are some grounds for suspecting that the concluding passage 
may have been mutilated. Blochmann’s text of this chapter 
is not satisfactory. In one important passage it cannot be 
interpreted; it differs materially from his best MS., that which 
he denoted H, and which is now numbered Or. 2169 in the 
British Museum; and there are no footnotes to indicate the 
various readings which in fact exist. I have found in the 
literature no satisfactory interpretation of the chapter as a whole, 
while various misleading inferences have been based on phrases 
divorced from their context. 
The following MSS. have been used in the interpretation 
which I now offer; those in the Bodleian Library were examined 
for me by Sir Richard Burn, the rest by myself. 
British Museum, Or. 2169: Add. 5609, 5645, 6546, 6552, 7652. 
Royal Asiatic Society, 116 (Morley). 
India Office, 264-68, and 270 (Ethé). 
Cambridge University Library, NN. 3, 57, 15. 
Bodleian Library, 214-16. 
These MSS. have not yet been critically studied as a whole, 
and their relative value is consequently uncertain. Judging 
by dates, where these are known, Or. 2169 is decidedly the 
best, but, as Blochmann recorded in his preface, it is “by no 
means excellent ’’ and there are a few obvious errors in the 
chapter under examination; nevertheless, it is probably much 
nearer to the original in point of time than any other in the 
list. Of the others, RAS. 116 belongs to the middle of the 
seventeenth century, and this is probably true also of Add. 6552; 
the remainder are apparently later. 
The text of the chapter falls into five paragraphs, which I 
mark with capital letters, and discuss in order. The translation 
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