[Land Tenures.] Besides the class of vernacular terms that belong to the administration of the province, certain technical words connected with the tenure of land are of frequent occurrence in this history. For each of these, in addition to the English equivalent which as far as possible has been given in the text, some explanation seems necessary. During the period to which this history refers, the superior holders of the land of the province belonged to two main classes, those whose claims dated from before the Musalmán conquest and those whose interest in the land was based on a Musalmán grant. By the Musalmán historians, landholders of the first class, who were all Hindus, are called zamíndárs, while landholders of the second class, Musalmáns as a rule, are spoken of as jágírdárs. Though the term zamíndár was used to include the whole body of superior Hindu landholders, in practice a marked distinction was drawn between the almost independent chief, who still enjoyed his Hindu title of rája, rával, ráv, or jám, and the petty claimant to a share in a government village, who in a Hindu state would have been known as a garásiá. [692] [Hereditary Hindu Landholders.] The larger landholders, who had succeeded in avoiding complete subjection, were, as noticed above, liable only for the payment of a certain fixed sum, the collection of which by the central power in later times usually required the presence of a military force. With regard to the settlement of the claims of the smaller landholders of the superior class, whose estates fell within the limits of the directly administered districts, no steps seem to have been taken till the reign of Áhmed Sháh I. (A.D. 1411-1443). About the year A.D. 1420 the peace of his kingdom was so broken by agrarian disturbances, that Áhmed Sháh agreed, on condition of their paying tribute and performing military service, to re-grant to the landholders of the zamíndár class as hereditary possessions a one-fourth share of their former village lands. The portion so set apart was called vánta or share, and the remainder, retained as state land, was called talpat. This agreement continued till, in the year A.D. 1545, during the reign of Mahmúd Sháh II. (A.D. 1536-1553), an attempt was made to annex these private shares to the crown. This measure caused much discontent and disorder. It was reversed by the emperor Akbar who, as part of the settlement of the province in A.D. 1583, restored their one-fourth share to the landholders, and, except that the Maráthás afterwards levied an additional quit-rent from these lands, the arrangements then introduced have since continued in force. [693]