74 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA
under Sher Shah Hindustan passed from Sharing and
(a doubtful word) to Measurement. The doubtful word
was printed by Blochmann as mugtis. 1 can find no such
word in the dictionaries, nor have I met it elsewhere in the
literature; but derivatives from the same root are applied
in some cases to Assignment, in others to Farming, and it
would be possible to render the passage either ‘‘ from Sharing
and Assignment,” or “from Sharing and Farming.” The
exact meaning must remain obscure until other uses of the
word in a similar context come to light.
2. SHER SHAH AND HIS SUCCESSORS (1541-1555)
Passing for the moment over the first, unstable, period
of Mogul rule, we come to Sher Shah, one of the outstanding
administrators of Moslem India, and the only sovereign
who is known to have gained practical experience in manag-
ing a small body of peasants before rising to the throne of
a peasant kingdom. The main source of information re-
garding his administrative activities is the chronicle of
Abbas Sarwani to which reference has already been made,
but it is confirmed and supplemented by a chapter in the
Ain-i Akbari. In itself, the chronicle! is fairly good his-
torical material, but the manuscripts differ widely, and, so
far as I can learn, nothing has yet been done to establish
a definitive text.
The administrative unit adopted by Sher Shih was the
existing pargana, each of which was placed in charge of two
officers, shiqqdar and amin,? with a treasurer and clerks,
! The material portions of the chronicle (translated by E. C. Bayley) are
in Elliot, iv; for the state of the MSS, see p. 302. I know of no printed
text. The MSS. I have examined are Or. 164 and Or. 1782 in the British
Museum, and Ethé, 219, in the India Office, as well as an Urdu version
(Ethé, 220). All these appear to belong to one family, and omit some
important sentences found in the translation; all are obviously careless
copies, and I should not like to assert their authority against the un-
specified MSG. on which the translator relied.
t Elliot, iv. 413. The term shiqqdir clearly does not denote the ad-
ministrator of a shiqq, in the sense of an aggregate of parganas, found
occasionally at an earlier period; at this time it is applied consistently
to the revenue officer of a single pargana, whether a State official or the
servant of an assignee. Sher Shah’s designation for his district officers
was *‘ shiqgqdar of shiqqdars,” rendered ‘chief shigqdar” in the translation.
“Amin” appears in all the MSS. I have examined, and is clearly ap-
propriate; the variant “amir,” which is given in the translation, is im-
probable, and I conjecture that in the MS. of the translation (which I
have failed to trace) the » may have been misread as 7.
