A key feature of Todar Mal’s later reform was using a decade of observed yields and market prices to compute standardized cash rates. Many summaries describe the decennial window as running roughly 1570–1580, used to derive averaged produce and price figures that underpinned the eventual Ain-i-Dahsala (Ten-Year Regulations).
Akbar’s 1573 conquest of Gujarat created an administrative and fiscal challenge in a newly annexed, commercially important region. Contemporary narratives and later summaries note that Mughal officials—including Todar Mal—were involved in stabilizing governance and revenue arrangements in Gujarat, an experience closely associated with later empire-wide revenue standardization.
From the mid-1570s, Akbar’s administration intensified efforts to regularize revenue assessment: improving local fact-finding on cultivation, yields, and prices, and strengthening record-based administration. This set the groundwork for the later zabt-style standardized assessment that depended on measurement and consistent accounting.
The zabt (standardized assessment) relied on detailed land measurement, crop classification, and price estimation to impose a fixed cash demand tied to productivity—commonly summarized as about one-third of average produce converted to cash. This approach advanced fiscal centralization by replacing more ad hoc or locally negotiated levies where measurement and accounting were feasible.
A practical innovation associated with Todar Mal’s reforms was more reliable land measurement using a standardized jarib (often described as bamboo pieces/rod joined with iron rings), intended to reduce manipulation and improve uniformity across surveys. Accurate measurement was essential to a cash-assessed system like zabt/dahsala.
In 1580, Akbar’s government completed and promulgated the Ain-i-Dahsala, closely linked to Todar Mal and frequently treated as the mature form of zabt. It used decennial averages of yields and prices to fix standardized cash rates, aiming to make obligations predictable for cultivators and revenue flows more stable for the state.
Under the mature system, the state’s share—often summarized as about one-third—was converted into a cash demand using averaged prices. These crop- and locality-specific schedules (often called dastur or dastur-ul-‘amal) operationalized the zabt/dahsala assessment by standardizing what was due per measured unit of land.
Revenue demand depended on classifying land by cultivation history and productivity—commonly listed as polaj (regularly cultivated), parauti (temporarily fallow), chachar (fallow several years), and banjar (uncultivated longer). Classification helped match assessment rules to agricultural conditions and guided concessions for less productive land.
The zabt/dahsala method was applied most effectively where the Mughal state could measure land and maintain accounts, especially in major northern and central regions. Elsewhere, older methods (such as crop-sharing or estimation) often persisted where measurement and record-keeping were harder to sustain.
Late in Akbar’s reign, Todar Mal is repeatedly identified in reference works as a leading architect and administrator of the empire’s revenue settlement—associated with standard weights and measures, survey/settlement practice, and the zabt/dahsala approach commonly known as Todar Mal’s bandobast.
The system depended on a chain of officials and registers at different levels (including local record-keepers such as qanungos and patwaris in many descriptions). These records enabled measurement-based assessment, enforcement of standardized cash rates, and auditability compared with more discretionary arrangements.
Todar Mal died in 1589, but the administrative routines associated with zabt/dahsala—measurement, classification, and schedule-based cash assessment—continued as core components of Mughal revenue practice where conditions allowed. Later descriptions treat these reforms as a durable foundation for Mughal fiscal administration beyond his lifetime.
Todar Mal's revenue reforms and the zabt system (1573–1589)
