THE SAYYID AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES 73 
Grants were made commonly during this period (iv. 450) 
for the maintenance of scholars, saints, or persons with some 
sort of claim against the King. These Grants were, as a 
rule, comparatively small; their total value is a matter of 
conjecture, but taking Grants and Assignments together, 
there can be no doubt that the greater part of the revenue 
of the Afghan kingdom was alienated, and that the real 
masters of the peasant were the assignees. 
One passage (iv. 414) of some importance remains to be 
noticed. In describing Sher Shah's introduction of Measure- 
ment as the general rule, the chronicler says that ‘before 
his time it was not the custom to measure the land, but there 
was a ganiingo in every pargana, from whom was ascer- 
tained the present, past, and probable future state of the 
pargana’’ In point of time, this. is the earliest mention I 
have found of the ganiingo as the local authority who 
furnished the information required for the assessment of 
his pargana; but he is presented as an established institution, 
and there is no reason to doubt that the post dates from 
before the Moslem conquest. His appearance in this 
connection suggests that before the reign of Sher Shah 
the revenue-Demand was ordinarily fixed for a village or 
pargana as a whole, and not on the individual peasant; 
the passage thus points to either Group-assessment, or 
Farming, or both. The one essential for these methods 
was the local information provided by the qaniingo, showing 
what each village had paid in the past, and what new factors 
had to be taken into account in its assessment; so far as 
we know, he was not in a position to furnish such information 
separately for each individual peasant (which would have 
been the duty of the village-accountant), and his appearance 
on the scene is always a suggestion, though not a proof, 
that either Group-assessment or Farming was for the time 
in operation, alongside of the methods of individual assess- 
ment, which never entirely disappeared, or at least recurred 
after any temporary disappearance. Probably then the 
period under review was characterised by one, or both, of 
these methods, but definite evidence is wanting. 
It is possible that a clue to the position is contained in a 
sentence in the Ain (i. 296), which states incidentally that