APPENDIX E 
241 
above, or, what is, I think, more probable, it would be the 
office-name of the record in question, used to distinguish it from 
some other Valuation which it had superseded. In the latter 
case, it might have meant merely “written,” or, as Mr. Beveridge 
has suggested in a note on the passage in the Akbarnima dis- 
cussed below, it might indicate that the record was in the ragam 
notation; but, whatever its origin, it would be in fact a label. 
On this reading, the first sentence tells us that, while assess- 
ment was proceeding on the lines given in paragraph A, the 
Valuation in use was “arbitrary,” or “the Raqami,” according 
to the guess adopted; and we are told further that the figures 
in it were altered to meet the needs of the moment, and that 
corruption ensued. The salary-list became excessive owing to 
frequent promotions, and the kingdom was too small to bear 
the charge; the Revenue Ministry consequently wrote up the 
Valuation without reference to facts, so that officers would get 
Assignments which, on paper, were adequate to meet their 
claims, but which could not, in fact, yield the Income charged 
on them. With this procedure, corruption was obviously 
inevitable. 
Taking the paragraph by itself, then, “Valuation” is a much 
more probable interpretation than ‘“Demand,” and this view is 
~onfirmed by two parallel passages. 
(¢) The Akbarnama (ii. 270) tells us that in the 11th 
year Akbar “turned his attention to the jama-i parganat, and 
ander his orders Muzaffar Khan set aside the jama-i ragami-i 
7alami, which, in the time of Bairim Khan, had been nominally 
increased for the sake of appearances owing to the number of 
men and the smallness of the country; and that [sc. the increase] 
had always remained entered in the public records, and was 
tools of corruption.” 
The force of galami in this passage is uncertain. My friend 
Mr. R. Paget Dewhurst has suggested to me that it is merely 
a repetition of ragami, and that the two words together mean 
“recorded”; my own idea is that it may point to the phrase 
2hl-i gala, “folk of the pen,” commonly used for the clerks 
in the public offices, so that it is a sort of apology for writing 
jargon—"‘the ragami jama, to use the office name.” Bairim 
Khan's “time” ended in the fifth regnal year; we can thus date 
the transaction as lying in his regency, and in Abdul Maijid’s 
vazarat, not later than the fifth vear.