The Agrarian System of Moslem India: A Historical Essay with Appendices c19.12

c19.12

Now the methods of assessment described in it are substantially those which, as is related in Chapter VII, Murshid Qulī Khān had introduced into the Deccan about the year 1655, and which clearly left a strong impression on the locality. There is no reason for supposing that Murshid Qulī was practically familiar with the word of Todar Mal, but there is no difficulty in the idea that, when he started work in the Deccan as a stranger, he should have invoked the traditional authority of Todar Mal for his innovations. Where he established Measurement, he was in fact working on Todar Mal’s lines, and the Deccan, which had no first-hand knowledge of Todar Mal, might very easily attribute to him the whole of Murshid Qulī’s work, when in fact he was entitled to credit for only portions of it. To the extent that Murshid Qulī introduced Measurement, he was a follower, though not a servile copyist, of Todar Mal: if his method of differential Sharing was, as it seems to me, a novelty in India, then the traditional fame of Todar Mal was sufficiently great, and also sufficiently vague, to carry it also. At any rate, it is clear from the accounts of Murshid Qulī’s work that it was regarded in the Deccan as based on that of Todar Mal; Khwāfī Khān (i. 732), and the Maāsīrulumra (iii. 497) are in agreement on this point, though not on others; and it was doubtless this southern tradition which was absorbed later in the century by James Grant, when he described Murshid Qulī’s work as servilely copied from that of Todar Mal.