Ever march along the road of nobleness,
Ever cheerfully imprint the page of Time,
Casting a frank glance on the horizons,
Regarding as a spectacle the ways of the world.
What cares the right-thinking God-fearing man for joy or sorrow? But the sincere disciples of a new devotion acquired strength, and provision for the road was furnished to the general public.
One of the occurrences* was the division of the wide tract of India into twelve portions. It was unavoidable that the sovereign of lofty genius and protector of the weak should favour them by gifts and appointments (bakhshish u bakhshāīsh), and that he should reform the wicked and stiff-necked by the glory of counsels and the flashings of the scimitar. He distributed the territories according to suitable limits and laid out the garden of creation by appropriate methods. And he made it over to liberal and righteous guardians. He irrigated the world-parterres from the founts of knowledge. In this way did he make fitting division of the wide and fertile land of India, and in every province he appointed a viceroy (sipah-sālār), a Diwān a Bakhshī, a Mīr 'Aḍal, a Ṣadr, a Kotwāl, a Mīr Baḥr (admiral) and a Recorder (Wāq'anavīs).
One of the occurrences was the fixing of the revenue for ten years. Inasmuch as Time produces, season after season, a new foundation for rates, and there are great increases and decreases, there was a regulation that every year some experienced and honest men should send in details of the rates from all parts of the country. Every year a general ordinance (dastūr-al-'amal) was framed with respect to the payment of dues. When the imperial domains became extensive, and the territories of many great rulers came under the shadow of the world-lord's justice, these reports arrived late and at different times. The soldiers* and the peasantry suffered loss, and there were disturbances about arrears and about excess demands. It was also rumoured that some recorders of rates had gone aside from the path of rectitude. The officers at headquarters were harassed, and were unable to find a remedy. The wise sovereign gave relief to multitudes by introducing the new system of payment of dues. The gist* of the invention was that the condition of every pargana during ten years, according to degree of cultivation and the price of produce, was ascertained, and that one tenth thereof was fixed as the revenue of each year. This has been explained at length in the concluding volume of this great work. Though the carrying 832 out of this great design was committed to Rajah Todar Mal and Khwājah Shāh Manṣūr, the Rajah was sent off to the eastern provinces, and it was the Khwājah who by dint of his sagacity comprehended the sublime instructions and arranged the exquisite plan.