on his own adherents.

In acting in this way he only followed the precedent set him by
previous sovereigns. But he had even more reason than that which
precedent would sanction. He found that the land specified in the
_firman_ granted to the holder but rarely corresponded in extent to
the land which he actually held. Sometimes it happened that the
language of the _firman_ was so ambiguously worded as to allow the
holder to take all that he could get by bribing the Kazis and the
provincial Sadr. Hence, in the interests of justice and the interests
of the crown and the people, he had a perfect right to resume
whatever, after due inquiry, he found to be superfluous. He
discovered, moreover, that the 'Ulama, or learned doctors, a class
more resembling the pharisees of the New Testament than any class of
which history makes record, and whom he cordially detested, had been
very free in helping themselves during the period of his minority,
and before the representations of Faizi had induced him to make
inquiries. He therefore made the strictest {191} investigation into
their titles. When these were found faulty, or he had reason to
believe that they had been dishonestly obtained, he resumed the
grants, and exiled the ex-holders to Bukkur in Sind, or to Bengal,
the climate of which had, in those days, a very sinister reputation.
At the period of his reform, moreover, he greatly reduced the
authority of the Sadr, transferring to his own hands the bulk of the
power which had devolved upon them.

Regarding the general tendency and result of the reforms instituted
by Akbar in the territorial system of the country, a distinguished
writer[6] has recorded his judgment that, much as they 'promoted the
happiness of the existing generation, they contained no principle of
progressive improvement, and held out no hopes to the rural
population by opening paths by which it might spread into other
occupations, or rise by individual exertion within his own.' I
venture, with some diffidence and with the greatest respect, to
differ from this criticism. Akbar, admittedly, promoted the happiness
of the generation amongst whom he lived. To have proceeded on the
lines suggested by Mr. Elphinstone, he would have destroyed a
principle which was then vital to the existence of Hindu society as
it was constituted. Akbar went dangerously near to that point when he
attempted to negotiate directly with the cultivators instead of
through the headman of th