The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c12.s3.16

v4.c12.s3.16

Another good thing in Hindūstān is that it has unnumbered and endless workmen of every kind. There is a fixed caste (*jam‘i*) for every sort of work and for every thing, which has done that work or that thing from father to son till now. Mulla Sharaf, writing in the *Zafar-nāma* about the building of Tīmūr Beg’s Stone Mosque, lays stress on the fact that on it 200 stone-cutters worked, from Āzarbaijān, Fārs, Hindūstān and other countries. But 680 men worked daily on my buildings in Āgra and of Āgra stone-cutters only; while 1491 stone-cutters worked daily on my buildings in Āgra, Sīkrī, Biāna (Bayāna), Dholpur, Gwāliar and Kol. In the same way there are numberless artisans and workmen of every sort in Hindūstān. (*Memoirs*, pp. 518–20.)