The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c22.34

v4.c22.34

These summary assessments must be regarded as a temporary measure, intended merely to tide over the emergency, for in the fifteenth year of the reign (1570–71) new schedules of assessment rates, applicable to all land whether assigned or reserved, were brought into force throughout the country. According to my reading of the authorities, the new schedules were of precisely the same form as the old, showing the demand to be made on the peasant as one-third of the average estimated produce; the difference lay in the fact that the average produce was now estimated separately for each *pargana*, and not for the empire as a whole, thus eliminating the difficulties which had resulted from ignoring local differences in productivity. The demand was still stated in terms of produce, and the prices at which it was valued in each season required the emperor’s sanction.