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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
It is probably well known to most readers interested in tenure questions, that the villages of the Dakhan Districts of Bombay are in that form in which no joint-ownership of the whole (separately named) area appears: the holdings within the village are entirely separate, and no area of waste land is included as the ‘ common ’ property of the whole body, and capable of partition. But apart from the fact that the village is a geographical unit, the feeling of being a ‘ community ’ is maintained by the common interests and customs of the local group, by obedience to one hereditary headman, and by its self-contained life : having its own staff of artizans and servants, the village does not need to look outside its own limits for the supply of its ordinary wants. This constitution is quite different from that of the joint-village of Upper India, though some features (such as the artizan staff) must necessarily be common to both.
page 239 note 1 Whatever joint-ownership now exists (following the Hindu law), it is within the different family holdings, which themselves are, and always have been, seperate.
page 241 note 1 Parbhārā means ‘ intermediate,’ ‘ indirect.’ I use throughout the common Marāthī form hak for the Arabic ḥaq, and so the (M.) spelling mirās for (Ar.) mirās, and watan or vatan for waṭan, motarphā for muḥtarfah, etc.
page 241 note 2 “ Recht und Sitte auf den verschiedenen wirtschaftlichen Kulturstufen.” (Jena: G. Fischer, 1896.)Google Scholar
page 243 note 1 In some cases still designated by old terms, such as nāḍu, parhā (mutṭhā among the Kāndh tribes), etc. In other parts they became the ṭappa, 'ilāqa, pargana, tālukā, etc., which marked the local limits of later conquering chief-ships; and later still, official divisions of land recognized for administrative purposes.
page 243 note 2 On this subject, and as to the (superior) Aryan title being regarded as an overlordship, not at first an actual soil-ownership, see my “Indian Village Community” (Longmans, 1896), p. 204Google Scholar.
page 245 note 1 For example, in days of revenue-farming, the village manager—and his family after him—constantly have become, unless circumstances interfered, co-sharing ‘ proprietors ’ in later days.
page 246 note 1 In the co-shared village the old institution of a privileged headman entirely disappears; the village is governed by a council of the heads of the shareholding families.
page 249 note 1 The name given to the country by the later Hindu writers, Māhārashtra, seems much more likely derived from the name of this race than from the wholly unmeaning mahā = great, sc. ‘magna regio,’ as sometimes suggested.
page 249 note 2 See Sykes', Colonel paper in J.R.A.S., Vol. II, p. 208Google Scholar.
page 249 note 3 Who was a Marāthā Kuṇbi, and who became a ‘ Rājā,’ performing various ceremonies and taking the title of a Kshatriyā from the Brahmans. See Grant-Duff, , “ History of the Mahrattas” (Bombay reprint), vol. i, p. 225, noteGoogle Scholar.
page 250 note 1 Such fees are also common in North India; also in the Madras villages, where they are called merai. Such a plan of providing for daily wants is, naturally, one that would he found in every kind of village, no matter what its internal constitution or origin.
page 251 note 1 As appears, for instance, in Manu (vii, 115) when the king appoints a head of each village, a head of a small group of ten, and a head of a district of 100 (deṣmukh), etc., thus adopting the immemorially existing organization of agricultural society.
page 251 note 2 Malcolm, , Memoir of Mālwā and Central India (Bombay reprint), vol. ii, pp. 17, 18Google Scholar.
page 252 note 1 And, of course, it is not intended to be denied that where the Rājā was a conqueror or an alien it must frequently haye happened that the headmanship was seized by, or conferred on, one of the ruling race to the displacement of an older indigenous chief.
page 252 note 2 Journal Soc. Arts, vol. xxxv, p. 622, 05, 1887Google Scholar.
page 252 note 3 This is the natural prototype of the devāsthān and dharmādāi lands in the villages, still reserved for religious and charitable objects, just as the headman's holding was the prototype of the watan lands.
page 252 note 4 In some parts it was cultivated by slaves or by special tenants, who were given holdings of their own to support them.
page 253 note 1 It can, of course, be no more than a suggestion of probability that the old ‘ allotment for the (territorial) chief’ was sufficient in days of patriarchal or tribal government; but that when a Rājā with his court appeared, either the land was not sufficient, or was granted away by him to courtiers, relatives, or dependents. At any rate we have evidence, all over India, that in remote times a share in the grain became the principal source of ‘ State ’ revenue, and the still older ‘ Royal farms,’ if ever they were general, were forgotten, having become private holdings, and only survived in local memories here and there.
page 253 note 2 See Manu, vii, 119, where the king is to allow certain revenue officers the privilege of a certain area free of charge. It is reckoned by kulam, the area sufficient for the support of one family. One commentator explains it as equal to a ghaṇṭā, a double plough-land cultivated with six pairs of bullocks. (See Bühler's note ad loc.) It is remarkable, however, that this landed privilege is assigned to the chief of a small group of villages; the village headman is allowed, as a perquisite, such articles of food, wood, and grass, etc., as the villages were bound to find for the king's service. This is perhaps the real origin of the hak or grain fees and perquisites.
page 253 note 3 The Mārathās destroyed the privilege in the Central Provinces, but it survived under the Moslem rulers in the Nimār district: it is abundantly traceable (as a tenure) in Berār, and in many parts of the Madras Presidency.
page 254 note 1 See Berār Gaz. 1870 (A. C. Lyall), p. 101.
page 254 note 2 Hence the addition to some village names of Khurd (corr. of;Ḵhurd) and Budrakh (P. buzuṛg), and = greater and less, or rather elder (i.e. original) and younger (the offshoot).
page 255 note 1 In Elphinstone's celebrated minute “On the Territories Conquered from the Peshwā ” (see Forrest's, “Official Writings of Mountstuart Elphinstone,” p. 92), an account is given of these levies—bābtī, jyāsti-pattī, etc.—which went to the treasury, or at least to the superior revenue-farmers, and were quite distinct from the hak by which the village officers levied for their own purposesGoogle Scholar.
page 256 note 1 It is said that the former term had reference to the prevalent black soil of the arable land, the latter to the white or lighter-coloured (and less friable) clay of which walls and cottages were built. Flat-roofed houses of sun-dried bricks are common, and the villages were formerly walled and gated or surrounded by thick hedges of ‘ prickly pear ’ (Opuntia Dillenii).
page 256 note 2 Bombay reprint, vol. i, 27, note.
page 257 note 1 Sometimes written yeskar.
page 258 note 1 It has been suggested that the position of the tribe with regard to boundaries and their intimate knowledge of the old village holdings and limits generally, point to the probability (which accords with their own tradition) that they were once (in days long gone by) the original possessors of the soil.CfOppert, Gustav, “ The Original Inhabitants of India,” pp. 21, 47, etcGoogle Scholar.
page 259 note 1 Haḍolī is stated by Mr. Gooddine not to refer to ḥad, the boundary (Arabic), but to be derived from haḍ, ‘ a bone,’ and oḷī, ‘ a row,’ because of the Mahār having to see to the clearing of the village of dead cattle. Domnī means ‘ a dish ’ of a certain kind, and refers to the means of filling it, or perhaps to the scraps or remains.
page 259 note 2 He also got the skins of cattle dying in the village, except those belonging to the Pātel, whose dignity demanded that the Mahār should return their skins on receiving a small fee called hāth-dhone = to ‘ wash his hands’ (after the skinning). When the services of the Mahār to certain district officials were not required, they used to levy on the Mahār families a small tax called rābtā in lieu of the services.
page 259 note 3 IIt may be mentioned as showing the minute division of duty which custom enforces that for the pegs the Mahar finds the wood, while it is the duty of the Satār or carpenter to shape and point them.
page 260 note 1 The reckoning in the Dakhan is by Khaṇḍī (Candy), and the scale is 1 khṇḍī = 20 man. 1 man = 16 pāīlī. 1 pāīlī = 4 ser. But the ser is a local one which (judging from some of Mr. Gooddine's calculations) is of such size that four of them = 3⅕ (nearly) of the standard (2љ) ser.
page 261 note 1 The Kulkarnī took a similar fee called gūgrī.
page 262 note 1 By this means the Treasury was saved the task of finding a larger salary, and the Pātel was always able to refer to his fixed allowance of free-land or cash as his only emolument; if pressed with the fact that he got so much more from fees he would have a hundred excuses—that they were not paid, that this was for a special and different service, etc., etc. It is certainly curious to notice how oriental races seem always to cling ta an idea of fixed rates, although circumstances have long compelled a change : the increase is disguised by a fiction. Thus we are familiar with the way in which not only later Mughal rulers, but also the Marāthās, would often profess to retain the original revenue rates, but add on a lot of cesses—which appeared to be temporary and for special reasons, but which, once imposed, were never taken off. This method also concealed, on both sides, the real extent of what was taken or charged, and this both liked. I notice a curious instance of the same feeling in Grant Duff's account of a treaty in which Sivajī engaged to compensate the British Government of Bombay (in the seventeenth century) for depredations committed on a certain factory. He was really to pay 10,000 pagodas, but he stipulated that it should appear as an agreement for the Governor to purchase Marāthā merchandise to the value of 5,000 pagodas annually for three years, which was only to be paid for at one-half the value. And for the rest an exemption from customs duty was granted. Thus pride was salved and the Treasury saved from a ready-money demand.
page 263 note 1 Lagnā is a first marriage; muhūrt a second.
page 263 note 2 In the joint-Tillages of Northern India the ‘ village expenses ’ are paid out of the malha, a fund collected from the profits of the waste and the undivided part of the estate (if any), and by a rate on the co-sharers. The headman had to pay the charges and recover them subject to audit by the co-sharers, who might dispute the propriety of the charge in any instance.
page 264 note 1 Malāi is a field in the soft alluvium on the edge of a stream.
page 265 note 1 Mr. Gooddine's derivation from gāē ‘ a cow,’ and raṇ ‘pasture,’ is surely fanciful; nor would the long vowels of the first member go into the syllable gai-.
page 265 note 2 Connected with the root wirs, wirsa = ‘inheritance,’ ‘hereditary,’ etc.
page 265 note 3 Their revenue system necessitated the use of many terms (naturally Persi-Arabic), which became fixed in the usage of the country, and were kept up by the Marāthās long afterwards. It should be added that the term mirās became also common in the Tamil country of Madras, where (as always) it indicated a superior privileged tenure; but in Tamil the term kānīādsī also survived, expressing the same idea. In Marāthī there is a term kuṇbāvā (bhāvā) which is said to mean ‘ agriculture’ in general, being connected with kuṇ (the Kuṇbi caste) and bhāvā, state or condition. But I should like to be sure that kuṇbī was not itself derived from kun, meaning some superior kind of agricultural tenure, and not vice versâ. Certainly in the Marāthā State of Tanjore (see Mirasi Paper, 1862, p. 89) it was stated that kuṇbāvā was the equivalent of kānīādsī, i.e. the superior tenure or privileged holding of land. In the Dakhan thalwāhīk or thalkarī was certainly used not for any tenant, but as the equivalent of mirasdārGoogle Scholar.
page 266 note 1 See p. 244, ante.
page 266 note 2 Land held by the distinctly tenant class when privileged (for any reason) is said to be ‘ hereditary,’ but the term used is maurūsī—another and distinct derivative from the same root.
page 266 note 3 Nor do we find such a distinction in other raiyatwārī villages of Dravidian origin. Mirāsī rights do occur in Madras, it is true, but not in the same way as in the Dakhan. For an account of the Madras tenures see my “ Indian Village Community ” (Longmans, 1896), p. 362Google Scholar.
page 267 note 1 Tal means ‘level,’ and it is possible that as some of the ruling families would be concerned in holding the forts (gaḍh) on the hills, while others were occupied with the lands in the level villages, cultivated under the protection of the first, they were called talkari as opposed to gaḍhkari. The Reports, however, all write ‘thal.’
page 268 note 1 Mr. Gooddine remarks: “The priority of place in an assembly at a festival, or in a procession, and the right of sitting in the Municipal Council (this highsounding phrase means nothing more than the village pancāyat), are inestimable marks of distinction to a people among whom there is so little real property… I have been told that in some parts of the Sattara district a mirāsdār would consider himself insulted were even a private merry-making to take place without his being at least asked to take pān-supārī at it ” (p. 8, § 14).
page 268 note 2 I have even seen it suggested that Malik 'Ambar created the mirās title: this he certainly did not as regards the general institution, but he may have revived it, and even granted it anew where the old family had disappeared.
page 269 note 1 Duff, Grant, “History Mahrattas,” i, 106Google Scholar.
page 269 note 2 Grant Duff states, on the authority of the native historian Ḵẖafi Ḵẖān (Muḥammad;Ḥāshim Ḵẖān) that the silver tankā was introduced by the Mughalsm in 1637, and about twenty years earlier in the Nizām-shāhī territories (“ History of the Mahrattas,” i, 81). He notes also that many Kulkarnīs could still state the village revenue in the older copper currency.
page 269 note 3 Mr. Gooddine states that the Moslems recognized and even defined these haks. It seems likely that the levy of them by the Pātel and Kulkarnī was suggested by the analogy of the similar but old customary haks already taken by the village artizans and servants. The Pātel's responsibility, which was an arbitrary and new imposition, would at once deprive him of any benefit from the exemption of his watan lands from revenue-payment, and necessitated his having some way of recouping his losses.
page 270 note 1 As Mr. Gooddine remarks (§ 14), “the native account of mirās is [i.e. as existing at the time] that it has generally been obtained from the Pātel in troublesome times, when from some predatory visitation or pecuniary difficulty he has been compelled to seek assistance from the villagers, granting them in return immunities from the Pātel's share of thj haks on their land.” (This, in fact, came to be the chief advantage derivable from miras besides the social position.)
page 271 note 1 Hence (Report, §18) the mirāsdars used to express their position by saying “the land is the Sirkār's (Government), but the mirās is mine.”
page 271 note 2 See the excellent remarks of SirMalcolm, J. (“Central India,” vol. i, p. 67Google Scholar) on the way in which the Marāthā chiefs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (at that time returning to a life of military duty and governing function from the peasant or village life) preferred village titles, watans or village headship privileges, to the more ostensibly regal and aristocratic tenures taken by the Rājput chieftains or Mughal nobility. For an example of a village headship seized by a Marāthā chief, and the mirās lands taken into his own hands, and mostly not exempted from imposts where they still remained in other hands, see the village table further on.
page 272 note 1 It would be interesting to know to what extent custom still enables Pātels and Kulkarnīs to levy certain dues in kind—as pairs of shoes, shawls or turbans, and special offerings, etc. Doubtless some are still given, out of respect for old custom and to secure favour or good will. The village artizans' and menials' customary haks are, of course, not interfered with.
page 275 note 1 In the Gujarāt districts we find many lands held in this way (from the whole village) under the designation of pasāetuṅ. This is a Gujarāti term which means free land for payment of village servants or for religious and charitable grant: it requires a further addition to explain what particular purpose is intended. Thus we have vechāniya (land sold out-and-out), girāniya (land mortgaged), etc., etc. These terms do not occur in the Dakhan Eeport; but the idea is the same. Someone would advance money and take a pasāetuṅ (or pasāita) grant from the village on the understanding that until the land was redeemed (in case of a mortgage) the holder should not pay any rent or revenue on it; the villagers must make up their revenue total, on the other lands, as best they could.
page 275 note 2 In Rāhātī the Marāthā chief who has become Pātel has not cared to reserve any watan for himself by that name, since he has taken more than half the village as paying haks to him. Observe the small area he allows to be held as mirās, which is wholly or partly free from his haks. The inām area is moderate; I find it made up of necessary holdings for the Kulkarnī, the Pātel (perhaps allowed to the working deputy), the Mahār, etc., and for religious and charitable objects. Even where the land was nominally mirās (5027 B.) the chief had made it nearly all pay haks to him. I suspect, too, there is something peculiar about the very large area of gairān or unculturable; this was probably written down so that it might not be assessed to revenue, but was really held for the chief's advantage.
page 277 note 1 Applying the bīghā measurement, it was understood that 30 went to the pāīn, and therefore 120 to the cāhūr.
page 278 note 1 See also Bombay Gazetteer, vol. xiii, p. 550. There are several words connected with mūṇḍ, e.g. mūḍī, mūḍā, still used in the Karnātā country. Mūḍā or mūṛā means a certain quantity of grain. Mr. Gooddine conjectures kās to be connected with an Arabic word qās, but there is no reason for this; the word qās never occurs in any revenue terms whatever. We have the term ḵhāṣ and mukhasa (mokasa), but these are from ḵhāṣ (and the participial form), meaning ‘private,’ ‘special,’ ‘reserved,’ etc. In the rare cases where the kās land measure survives., the name is certainly not derived from any Persi-Arabic word.
page 278 note 2 This, and the fact that several persons might be together holding one of the old kās lots, led to the absurd idea that the kāsbandī represented a co-sharing system of holding like the pattīdārī of Northern India ! The idea of equalizing holdings by artificial measures, such as making the bīghā small for good land and large for inferior, is found in Northern India, not in pattīdārī, but in other forms of village; but it is a perfectly natural device for equalization, and is not connected necessarily with any system of joint-holding.