Mughal Administration c18.s2.1

c18.s2.1

The immense size of the *Ain-i-Akbari* and the unreality or rather the practical uselessness of much of its contents, made it undesirable to write similar works or to bring it up to date in the reigns of Akbar's successors. The needs of their officials were met by compiling a class of handbooks called *Dastur-ul-aml*, written in the exact antithesis of the style of Abul Fazl. These are highly condensed abstracts, full of facts, figures and lists, with no descriptive matter and hardly any complete sentence. Such small handbooks could be easily revised and brought up to date in successive reigns. But the revision took the form of making additions at the end of each section for bringing the work up to date.