Xvi 
INTRODUCTION 
alternative, and, secondly, that it is fruitful of results. 
There is, however, a practical difficulty in presenting these 
results in convincing form. To set out all the relevant 
passages, with, in each case, enough of the context to show 
their bearing, and to demonstrate how successive possibilities 
must be ruled out, until the certain, or probable, meaning 
is reached by a process of elimination—all this would require 
a substantial number of volumes before the subject was 
exhausted ; while my object is to present the results as shortly 
as may be, and, if possible, in a form which shall not be 
entirely unreadable. The course I have adopted is as 
follows. Having first ascertained the nature of a thing, I 
have chosen an English term to denote it, giving preference to 
that one which carries the fewest misleading connotations, 
explaining each term at the point where it is introduced, 
and adhering consistently to a single use. Detailed dis- 
cussions of the precise nature of various Persian expressions 
have been placed in footnotes or appendices, which indicate 
the crucial passages, where any have been found, or failing 
them, a number of illustrative passages which I hope will 
be sufficient for the critical student, while the path of the 
general reader is encumbered by as few obstacles as the 
nature of the subject permits. 
The arrangement of the essay is chronological, not topical. 
At one time I was tempted to adopt the latter course, 
giving first a connected narrative of assessment, then of 
assignments, and so on; but the various topics are closely 
inter-related, and so much depends on the personality of 
autocratic rulers, that, after a few experiments, I reverted 
to arrangement by periods, which, as it happens, are well 
defined. In the course of Chapters VI and VII I have 
endeavoured to indicate the first stages in the transition 
from the Moslem to the British agrarian system, but, as 
[ have said above, it is no part of my present purpose to 
describe the development of the latter in detail; and I have 
not dealt with the transition in those regions where a period 
of Sikh or Maratha rule intervened. 
In bringing this essay to a conclusion, I wish to make 
quite clear that I do not offer it as a final treatment of the 
subject. Probably there is still extant in India a body of