CORNELL UNIVERSriY LIBRARY ITHACA, N.Y. 14853 South Asia '"oLlection CORNELL UNIVERSnY LIBRARY 3 1924 074 416 805 The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924074416805 In compliance witii current copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1984 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 1994 CORNELLUNIVERSnY LIBRARY riHACA, N. Y. 14853 South Asia Collection KROCH LIBRARY THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY EXAMIXED WITH REFEEENCE TO THE PHYSICAL, ETHNOGRAPHIC, AND HISTORICAL CONDITIONS OF THE PROVINCES ; CHIEFLY ON THE BASIS OF THE REVENUE -SETTLEMENT RECORDS AND DISTRICT MANUALS B. H. BADEX-POWELL, M.A., CLE. LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY 1896 ^11 rights reserved a: PREFACE No apology will be needed for the publication of a book devoted to an account of the ' Village Communities ' as found in the several provinces of India. In this department, at any rate, there is a distiactly vacant place. But an apology is very much needed for the imperfect manner in -which the attempt to supply the want has now been made. That there are mistakes of detail I cannot but fear ; that there are other defects will be only too evident. But the errors will at least be such as admit of ready correction by superior knowledge. There is another matter for apology. The accounts of the Indian village which have hitherto appeared are either brief and generalised, or they represent an ideal rather than an actual form of the institution. There has been no means of testing such accounts ; and it is small wonder that a particular theory of the Indian village has become accepted — and, indeed, some- times taken for granted — by the ablest authors when discussing the rules of Hindu law, or tracing the history of institutions. It is impossible for any later writer wishing to give a faithful account of village-tenures to avoid pointing out the errors which an abstract and unified conception of ' the village ' can hardly fail to produce. But, to borrow a phrase of Professor Ashley's, * the piety of the disciple takes a controversial form ' solely with regard to this theory of Indian villages ; and he intends neither to undervalue the works alluded to nor to show any want of respect for their authors. VI THE INDIAN VILLAGE CO.MMUXITV Finally. I cannot but anticipate that one class of readers may be inclined to reproach me with not having more explicitly pronounced a judgment, if it is only a j^rovisional one, on the facts set out. But, in truth, the present state of the question seems to me to be such that a contribution to the materials for a decision will be more useful than any deductions which I could formulate. Whatever conclusions have hitherto been drawn from the Ijhenomena of the Indian village have proceeded, almost un- avoidabh^, from a slender basis of fact ; they have been drawn, too, in disregard of a number of circumstances, the importance of which in forming a just opinion will be obvious as soon as those circumstances are explained. I confess, therefore, to have felt more concerned about marshalling the facts of the case and setting forth the conditions under which those facts are found, than with elaborating arguments and conclusions. Nevertheless, the book will, I venture to think, brifig out with tolerable distinctness the view that the 'joint-villagfe' of India is not the universal or the most ancient form ; and that the common-holding of land (where it is not the result of some special voluntary association) is traceable only among the superior tenures of the Hindu-Aryans and the later tribes who settled in Northern or Upper India. Or, if I may state the matter somewhat more particularly, that the so-called joint- village followed, and did not precede, the village of separate Loldings ; and that in those cases where it represents a section of a tribal or clan territory, it derives a rather delusive appear- ance of being held ' in common ' from certain features of clan life and union ; while in the very numerous cases in which it is a small estate connected with an individual founder, the joint- ownership depends solely ' on the existence of the ' joint-family ' — ' That is, allowing (as above) for certain cases where a group of colo- nists or others has been formed by voluntary association and has culti- vated on a joint-stock principle — a matter which has obviously nothing to do with ' archaic ' custom. ]?REFACE VU i.e. on the law or custom of the joint-inheritance of a number of co-heirs in succession to an original founder or acquirer. How and when the joint-inheritance and the joint-family came to be invented may be a difficult question ; but if the idea of the joint-family is not primitive, nor found among all tribes or races, and is rather the special creation of the developed ' Hindu ' law and custom as such, and if it is only found among other tribes after more or less contact with Hindu-Aryans, then the joint-village cannot be demonstrably a primitive, still less a once universal, form of land-holding. B. H. BADEN-POWELL. Oxford : September 1896. CONTENTS CHAPTEE I PAGE THE INDIAN VILLAGE AND ITS FOEMS IN GEXEBAL 1 Sec. I. The Generally-received View of Village Tenures ... 1 Sec. II. The Two Forms of Village described 9 A. The Raiyatwari Village 9 B. The Joint- village 20 CHAPTER II THE GEOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSICAL FEATUEES OF INDIA AS AFFECTING THE MOVEMENT OP AGEICULTUEAL TEIBES AND THEIE FOEMS OP LAND-HOLDING 38 Sec. I. Geographical Features 39 1. The North- Western and Western Hill Eanges ... 39 2. The Vindhyan Barrier 42 Sec. 11. Physical and Climatic Features bearing on the Forms of Agri- cultural Settlement 48 1. General Remarks ......... 48 2. Shifting or Temporary Hill-cultivation .... 52 3. Instances where Village Groups are not found . . . 57 4. Physical Conditions which invite Village Formation . . 65 CHAPTER III ETHNOGEAPHIC CONSIDEEATIONS 76 Sec. I. The Aryan Immigration 78 Sec. II. The Population of Upper India 93 1. The Panjab 93 2. The Population of the Ganges Plain 104 Sec. III. India South of the Vindhyan Ranges Ill 1. The Population of Upper- Western and Central India . Ill 2. The Population of Southern India 116 Sec. IV. The present Location of Aryan (Rajput) Land-holding Com- munities 121 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY CHAPTEE IV PAoa CUSTOMS EEGAEDING LAND-HOLDING OBSEEVED AMONG NON-AETAN EACES 130 Sec. I. The Tibeto-Burman Group 130 Sec. II. The Kolarian Group 151 Sec; III. The Dravidian Group 159 CHAPTER V THE AEYAN AND LATEE CONQUEEING EACES AND THEIE CONNECTION WITH THE LAND 183 /'Sec. I. Aryan Caste in its Relation to Agriculture 185 See. II. The Aryan Clan-organisation and the Hindu State . . . 192 ^ Sec. III. Aryan Ideas of Property in Land 202 Sec. IV. The ludo-Scythic, or Northern Tribes. The Mussulmans . . 215 CHAPTER VI THE TEIBE AND THE VILLAGE 225 Sec. I. Preliminary Observations 225 Sec. II. Tribal Custom as exhibited in the Panjab Frontier Districts . 244 Sec. III. Clan-villages, and ' Cultivating Fraternities,' in Upper India . 266 1. Illustrations from the Panjab Districts 269 2. Illustrations from the North- West Provinces (with Appendix) 281 3. Illustrations from Oudh 287 CHAPTER VII JOINT-VILLAGES AEISING FEOM FOUNDATION BY INDIVIDUALS. 293 Sec. I. Villages connected with the Establishment of Local Kingdoms or Chiefships 29G Sec. II. Villages arising from the Disruption or Decadence of Kingdoms and Chiefships. Illustrations from — (i) Panjab ; (ii) North- West Provinces ; (iii) Oudh 304 Sec. III. Villages founded by Individual Adventurers and Settlers un- connected with the State or with Territorial Chiefship . . 320 Sec. IV. Colonist Associations 823 CONTENTS XI CHAPTER YIII PAGK THE VABIETIES AND MODIFICATIONS OF VILLAGE FOEMS 328 (Appendix). The Defects of the Official System of classifying Villages in the Agricultural Beturns ........ 353 CHAPTER IX THE TWO TYPES OP VILLAGE IN JUSTArOSITION LOCALLY 361 Sec. I. Joint Villages in Madras . . 362 Sec. II. Traces of Over-lord Right in the Dakhan Villages . ... 380 Sec. III. Modern (or existing) Cases of the Juxtaposition of the Two Types of Village 1. The Gujarat Districts of Bombay ...... 386 2. The Bikaner State 394 CHAPTER X GENEEAL SUMMAEY AND CONCLUSION S9S Sec. I. Ideas of Property, Collective and Individual 398 Sec. II. Some Practical Considerations regarding the Village-forms . . 423 IxDEX 447 MAP India, showing Mountain Eanges, chief Rivers, and principal Territorial Divisions . To face p. 39 Errata Page 136, line 24 ; for Ahom read Ahom „ 153, line 25 ; for The Ho adds Munda, read The Ho and Manda 177, note (6is) ; for Kanara read Kanara 187, note 1 ; for Khsatriya read Kshatriya 210 (note), 219, 283 ; for Dakhan read Dakhan 279, line 28 ; for majra read majra 287, 311, &e.; the more correct name of the clan seems to be Candel not Cdndel. LIST OF BOOKS EEFEEEED TO The following list includes such books or periodicals as are quoted by abbreviated titles, or need explanation as to the particular edition or reprint made use of. ' S. B. ' = ' Settlement Report ' of the several districts. The date of publication or the author's name is added where there have been several such reports. ' D. M. ' = the ' District Manuals ' for the several districts of the Madras Presidencj', and which contain the information found in the other pro- vinces in the ' S. E. ' or in ' Gazetteers.' ' Agricultural Statistics ' (Eetums of Land-tenures, &c.). Those referred to are called ' Beturns of the Agricultural Statistics of British India,' published from time to time by the Bevenue and Agricultural Department of the Government of India (Calcutta : Superintendent of Government Printing). The table showing ' Varieties of Tenure, &c.' is ' Form I-E 3.' ' Ayin-i-Akbari ' (translation), vol. i. by H. Blochmann; vols. ii. and iii. by Colonel Jarrett (Bengal Asiatic Society: Calcutta, 1873-1894). This is the celebrated work of Abu-1-Fazl, giving an account of the administration of the Mughal Empire in the reign of Akbar. ' Archseological Survey of India Eeports.' Serial volumes from 1862 (the earlier ones are by Sir A. Cunningham). This series is distinct from that of the Archaeological Survey of Southern India. (Quoted as ' Bep. Arch. Surv.') Baden-Powell, ' The Land Systems of British India.' 3 vols. (Claren- don Press, 1892.) (Quoted as ' L. S. B. I.') ' Bengal : a Statistical Account of.' (Ed. Sir W. W. Hunter.) 20 vols. (London : Triibner, 1872.) ' Berir Gazetteer.' (Ed. A. C. Lyall.) 1 vol. (Bombay : Education Society's Press, 1870.) ' Bombay, Gazetteer of.' (Ed. James Campbell.) 25 vols. (Bombay Government Central Press, 1880.) Some of the volumes are not yet out. (Quoted as ' Bombay Gazetteer.') Caldwell (Bev. K., D.D.). ' A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages ' (Introduction and Text). 2nded. (Triibner; London, 1875.) (Quoted as Caldwell, ' Introduction.') XIV THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY Campbell (afterwards Sir G.)- The Essaj- on ' The Tenure of Land in India ' alluded to is found in ' Systems of Land Tenure in variovis Countries : a Series of Essays published under the Sanction of the Cobden Club.' 2nd ed. (London : MacmUlan, 1870.) ' Central Provinces Grazetteer.' (Introduction and text.) 1 vol. (Ed. C. Grant), 2nd ed. (Bombay : Education Society's Press, 1870.) Cunningham (Sir. A.), 'The Ancient Geography of India' (1. The Buddhist Period), vol. i. (only this volume published). (London: Trlibner, 1871.) (Quoted as Cunningham, ' Anc. Geog.') Elliot (Sir H. M.), ' The Baces of the North-West Provinces of India, &c.' Ed. John Beames. (London : Triibner, 1879.) 2 vols. (Quoted as ' Elliot's Gloss.') Elphinstone- (The Hon. Mountstuart), 'History of India.' 6th ed. (E. B. Cowell). (John Murray, 1874.) (Quoted as Elphinstone, ' Hist.') ' Fifth Eeport of the Select Committee on the Affairs of India, 1812.' Vol. I. Bengal, Vol. II. Madras. Madras Reprint of 1883. (Quoted as ' Fifth Eeport.') Forrest (G. W.), ' Selections from the Minutes and other Official Writings of the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone.' (London : Bentlej', 1884.) (Quoted as Forrest, ' Elphinstone Minutes.') 'Gazetteer.' See under Bombay, Panjab, North-West Provinces, &c., &e. Grant-Duff, ' A History of the Mahrattas.' Bombay Reprint of 1873. 2 vols. Hunter (Sk W. W.), ' Bengal MSS. Records, &c.' 4 vols. fSV. H. Allen, 1892.) (Quoted as Hunter, ' Bengal Records.') Hunter (Sir W. W.), 'Orissa.' (Smith and Elder, 1872.) 2 vols. (Quoted as ' Orissa.') Ibbetson VD. C. J.), ' Outlines of Panjab Ethnography ; being Extracts from the Panjab Census Report of 1881, treating of Religion, Language, and Caste.' (Calcutta : Superintendent of Government Printing, 1883.) 4to. (Quoted as Ibbetson's 'Panjab Ethnography.') India : Census Report of 1891. My reference is to the Parliamentary Blue Book, which is a summary with tables, by J. A. Baines, Census Commissioner, 1893. There is a fuller report published by the Superin- tendent Government Printing, Calcutta, for all India, and the series of Provincial Reports published by the local Governments. India: ' Imperial Gazetteer of.' (Ed. Sir W. W. Hunter.) 14 vols. (London: Trubner.) India. ' Statement exhibiting the Moral and Material Progress.' (Parliamentary Blue Book. Two parts, with Maps and Tables.) These are published decennially. My reference is to that of 1883, written by J. S. Cotton, B.C.S. Lassen (Prof. Christian), ' Indische Alterthumskunde. 2nd ed. 4 vols. (Leipzig, 1867.) (Quoted as Lassen.) LIST OF BOOKS REFERRED TO XV Laveleye (Emile de), ' De la Propriete et de ses formes primitives.' (Paris : Bailliere, 1874.) McCrindle (J. W.), ' Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian.' (London : Trtibner ; Calcutta and Bombay : Thacker, 1877.) McCrindle (J. W.), 'Ancient India as described by Ptolemy' (1885). Madras : ' Manual of the Administration of the Madras Presidency.' (Government Press. 3 vols, folio.) Vol. I. is paged separately for ea<;h division— History, Ethnology, &c. (Quoted as ' Macleane's Manual.') Maine (Sir H. S.), ' The Early History of Institutions.' (John Murray, 1875.) Maine (Sir H. S.), ' Village Communities in the East and West.' 3rd ed. (John Murray, 1876.) Malcolm (Sir J.), ' A Memoir of Central India, &c.' 2 vols. Reprint of3rded. (Calcutta and Bombay : Thacker & Co.) (Quoted as Malcolm, ' Cent. Ind.') ' Manu, The Laws of ' (translated by Georg Biihler), being Vol. XXV. of the ' Sacred Books of the East.' (London : Trubner.) (Quoted as 'Laws ofManu.') Mayne (J. D.), ' A Treatise on Hindu Law and Usage.' 4th ed. 1888. (London : Stevens & Haynes.) Muir, J., ' Ancient Sanskrit Texts, &c.' 4 vols. (Quoted as Muir, ' A. S. T.') ' N.-W. Provinces Gazetteer.' 14 vols. (Allahabad : North-West Provinces and Oudh Government Press.) Oppert (Gustav), 'The Original Inhabitants of India.' (Constable, Westminster, 1893.) (Quoted as G. Oppert.) ' Oudh Gazetteer.' 3 vols. (Luoknow, 1877.) ' Panjab Gazetteers,' in separate district volumes of various dates. (Government Central Press, Lahore.) ' Papers on Mirasi Bight selected, &c.' (Madras : Pharaoh & Co., 1862.) (Quoted as ' Mirasi Papers.') ' Eajputana Gazetteer.' 3 vols. (Calcutta : Superintendent of Govern- ment Printing, 1879.) ' Royal Asiatic Society Journal.' (Quoted as ' J. E. A. S.') ' Society of Arts Joiirnal.' (Quoted as ' J. Soc. Arts.') Tod (Lieut.-Colonel James), 'Annals and Antiquities of Eajast'han, &c.' Third reprint. 2 vols. (Madras : Higginbotham, 1880.) (Quoted as Tod.) Wilson (Prof. H. H.), 'A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms.' (W. H. Allen, 1855). (Quoted as Wilson, ' Glossary.') Zimmer (Heinrich), ' Altindisches Leben : Die Cultur der Vedischen Arien.' (Berlin, 1879.) (Quoted as Zimmer.) XVI THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY NOTE ON THE SPELLING OF ORIENTAL WORDS Technical terms in the Indian languages are printed in italic letters and transliterated, as far as possible, on the system used by the Royal Asiatic Society. The reader not acquainted with any Indian dialect wiU have no difficulty in pronouncing the words if he gives the continental sound to the vowels ; or comparing them with English words : — a — a, as the u in 'cut' — the a in 'father.' The sound of English a in ' flat ' is xmknown to any Indian language. i — i, as ' pit ' — ' peat.' u — u, as ' puU ' — ' pool.' o — always full, as in ' dep6t.' e — always as the ' ay ' in ' hay ' ; ' ai ' as the ' i ' in ' fire ' ; ' au ' as the ' ou ' in ' bough ' : ' y ' is always a consonant. Of the consonants, it is hardly necessary to say anything for the English reader, except to notice that the ' g ' is always hard ; and that the 'j ' is employed with its usual (English) sound. The inverted comma or apostrophe indicates the Arabic 'ain ; and the two forms of the Arabic kdf are distinguished, as ' k ' and ' q ' (in the latter case without the conventional ' u ' added). The kh and gh (underlined) indicate the g^ntturals ; n in a final syllable indi- cates the nasal pronunciation. ' Th,' it may conveniently be added, is never sibilant (either as in 'thin' or 'this') in any Indian dialect ; ^ it is ' t ' with an added aspirate. I may call attention to the c, which=ch, and saves the awkwardness of writing Hindi forms when the letter is both aspirated and reduplicated, as often is the case. In famihar words printed in ordinary type, I have retained the ' ch,' as there it seems more natural. I have used a modified spelling for the common words raiyat (ra'iyat), Tdluqddr {Ta'alluqdar), and mauza {mauza'). Indeed, when these words are written in any dialect that does not use the Persi-Arabic alphabet, they are actually so spelt (very nearly). When necessary to indicate the language or dialect, an initial has been added in brackets : S=Sanskrit, H=Hindi, M=Marathi, A=Arabic, P=Persian, Tam=Tamil, Tel=Telugu, Kam=Kan- arese, or the Karnata language. ■ It may be in Burmese ; and, though it is frequent and varied in classical Arabic, it is not so sounded in Indian use. THE INDIAN YILLAGE COMMUNITY CHAPTER I THE INDIAN VILLAGE AND' ITS FORMS IN GENERAL Section I. — The commonly received View of Village-tenures It may safely be assumed that the term ' Indian Village Com- munity' will not sound strange or unintelligible to English readers. As to the meaning which the term conveys, it is not so easy to feel confident. Our standard histories of India usually present us with a picture (more or less detailed) of what ' the Indian village,' as an institution, is ; and some of the passages in which these accounts are contained have, not undeservedly, become almost classical. We also, at the present day, instinc- tively connect the idea of ' village community ' with that of a survival of ancient forms of common ownership of land, a sur- vival which the intense conservatism of Eastern countries has made possible. There is no one book, as far as I am aware, that, dealing chiefly or solely with village-tenures, contains the collected evidence regarding the details of their history and their varied forms ; it is not surprising, therefore, that such knowledge of the subject as has become current is of a highly generalised and often theoretical character. It may be useful to recount briefly what is usually held reo'arding Indian villages, and see how far we can accept familiar ideas as a groundwork for a more detailed examination of the subject. It is understood, to begin with, that the country dis- P. 1 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY tricts are almost everj-vcliere divided up into groups of holdings which, for want of a better name, are called ' villages ' or ' townships.' Here and there, and sometimes throughout whole provinces, it is remembered, the ownership of ' villages ' has been absorbed by the growth of a wider landlord interest, as, e.r GENERAL 5 manent guides to scientific method in the collection and use of materials. Indeed, it is not too much to say that we owe to Sir H. S. Maine's invaluable pioneer work the very possibility of further advance ; since Ms work has constantly suggested the lines of inquiry which our later detailed reports have pursued. But some readers may further be disposed to regard the Indian case as necessarily concluded by a general verdict on the European evidence as to archaic common ownership of land. It would be quite beyond my scope to discuss the wide question ot early ' collective ownership ' as a universal phenomenon of ancient times ; but more than one of the hitherto received proofs or instances has of late yeai'S been rendered at least question- able owing to the re-examination of texts and documents ; and some cases of apparent common-holding supposed to be ancient have turned out to be comparatively modern, or to be explainable on other principles. I would not, however, venture to approach the subject, except for the one reason that if it is really the fact that in all the countries of the West ownership of land ' in common ' was a recognised feature in a certain (archaic) stage of social progress, then, no doubt, it might afford an a priori, reason, inclining us to believe that the Indian evidence must support a similar conclusion in the East. But I submit that under the circumstances of doubt that exist as to the European phenomena, the Indian case may with advantage be dealt with on its own merits, and without any predisposition one way or the other. At any rate, I think that we have every right to insist that the distinct existence of a type of Indian village in which ' ownership in common ' cannot be proved to be a feature either of the past or present should be duly acknowledged ; and that it is hardly possible to appeal to ' the Indian village community ' as evidence in any general question of archaic land-custom or of economic science, if we first obtain a single type by leaving out of view the wide area of country which furnishes divergent forms or features. And further, when the details of the history of the Northern Indian villages are so much better known, it becomes imperative to give due weight to the fundamental differences of structure and origin which exist among the ' joint ' villages themselves ; for these diBFerences must largely affect the b THE INDLA.X VILLAGE COMMUNITY sense in which we predicate ' holding in common ' or ' collective ownership ' of any or all of them. In the fii'st place, then, in deprecating the absence of all acknowledgment of two broad types of village in India, I think that I do not misrepresent the opinions actually expressed by Sir H. S. Maine when I conclude that distinctive evidence re- garding one type of village was not before him — that type which I have called the raiyaiwdri village, in which the separate holders (or raiyaf), whatever spirit of union they may have pos- sessed, never represented co-sharers in a unit estate nor ac- ■ knowledged any form of common ownership.^ The following passages appear to me to be conclusive on the subject. ' Over the greater part of the country,' writes Sir H. Maine,^ ' the village community has not been absorbed in any larger collection or lost in a territorial area of wider extent. For fiscal and legal purposes it is tJie proprietary unit of large and populous prociiices' (the italics here and elsewhere are mine). This may indeed be understood to allow that other provinces may exhibit some differences ; but there is no hint that any such differences may involve a distinction in principle, as they really do. And in another passage in which the author emphasises his desire to recognise considerable variety, it is still evident that it is only variety within the general lines of common holding ; it does not extend to distinguishing or accounting for the raiyatwdri principle. ' In the account of the Indian cultivating group which follows,' he says, ' you will understand that I con- fine myself to fundamental points, and, further, that I am at- tempting to describe a typical form towhioh the village communi- ties appear to me on the evidence I have seen to approxiinate, rather than a model to which all existing groups called by the name can be exactly fitt«d.' ^ This unity of general type indeed necessarily follows from the way in which collective ownership is assumed to be universal as a primary stage. And the general type is accordingly presented of a group of persons not only connected (really or by a fiction) by common descent, but who ' The word rcdyat, sometimes written phonetically ryot, is (correctly) the Arabic ra'Jyat, and means ' subject,' ' protected,' &c. ; hence any land- holder subject to the Crown or to a landlord. • = Vill. Comm. pp. 12, 13. » Ibid. p. 107. THE VUXAGE AND ITS FORMS IX GENERAL 7 also own the land in common or collectivelj-. This typical com- munity is distinguished by the absence, originally, of any one headman superior to the rest, the co-sharers being represented by a council of heads of families or houses. Recognising also that there often are inferiors and dependents (tenants) included in the village group, the author considers that these also formed part of the ' brotherhood.' ' The brotherhood, in fact, forms a kind of ' hierarchy,' the degrees of which are determined by the order in which the various sets of cultivating families have amalgamated with the community.^ In another place the author, speaking of ideas of ownership in land as prevalent in India generally, remarks that ownership was understood, 'but joint owiiership by bodies of men was the rule, several ownership by individuals the exception.' •' And in an interesting passage in the Early History of Institutions, the village group in general is traced to some form of expan- sion of the single family, in which the sense of common descent is gradually lost, and ' the assemblage of cultivators is held together solely by the land which they till in common.' In India, even where division of the culturable holdings has intro- duced separate ownership, and the waste only is held in common, . tJw Iiidian village community is a body of men held togetlier by the land that they occupy.* Now, such a general typical description cannot be applied at all to one class, and that by far the largest, of Indian villages. The form of village of which it is to a great extent a true repre- sentation is confined to India north of the Vindhyan HUl series — i.e. to the Panjab, the North-West Provinces, and Oudh, probably in former times including the northern part of Bengal known as Bihar. A few villages of the same kind are found in Upper Western India (Gujarat), and there are wide-spread ' Vill. Conim. pp. 123, 175, and compare p. 179, where some interesting remarks are made on the position of the grain-dealer in the village. ^ Ibid. pp. 176, 177. Tliis is something quite different from there bemg merely different grades of social rank in the village, such as landlord, tenant, farm-labourer, low-caste menial, &c. ; it is something within a general ' brotherhood.' 3 Ibid. p. 222. ' Early History of Institutions, pp. 77-82. (The itahes in all these passages are mine.) 8 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY traces of formerly existing shared (or landlord) village estates in the Dakhan and in certain parts of South India. But, broadly speaking, this form of village was never universal : it always implies, as I have said already, the growth of some individual overlordship or some settlement of conquering clans or expansion of families with their own notions of equal right and superiority to inferior races : it never extended generally over the greater part of Eastern, Central, Western and Southern India. A better idea will be formed about the relative importance of the areas in which the jcd^it and the raiyatwdri villages respec- tively are the prevalent kinds, if we set down the Provinces, with their area and population. Provinces Area in square miles Mean density of population per square mile Joint villages pre- valent The Panjab N.-WJProvinces Oudh 110,667 83,286 24,217 188 411 522 Total . . 218,170 Separate ownership or raiyatwdri vil- lages prevalent; traces of joint- villages once in existence locally, and from special causes 'Bengal Bombay and "1 Sindh ; Madras Ajmer ' '\ Coorg Central Pro- vinces Berar Assam 151,543 77,275 \ 47,789/ 141,189 2,711 1,583 86,501 17,718 • 49,004 471 207 \ 117/ 256 200 109 125 168 112 Total . 575,313 1 As to the second point — the real nature of the collective ownership that is observable in the northern Indian joint-village ' In Ajmer and in the Central Provinces the revenue system has pro- duced artificially a new proprietary title to the \'iUages ; but it is un- doubtedly the fact that, in both, the villages were naturally raiyatwdri. I have alluded to the probabihty of joiat-viUages once existing in the Bihar districts forming a part of Bengal. On the other hand, the sequel will show that in Oudh and the old Hindu kingdoms of the North-west the raiyatwdri form of %Tllage was originally prevalent among the lower castes and aborigines when the Hindu Eajis held the dominion ; so the one case at least balances the other. If I added the Native States of Bajputana, Centrallndia, and the Niziim's Territory, the raiyatwdri area would preponderate still more. THE VILLAGE AND ITS FORMS IN GENERAL 9 — my observations must be reserved to a later stage. Before any remarks on the subject would be intelligible it v^ill be necessary to consider a number of otber matters. It will be desirable, therefore, at once to present the reader with a sketch which aims at placing before him the two forms of village in contrast. It is easy to describe the raiyatwdri village, because in the nature of things its form is one : more difficult is it to sketch the other type, because its forms are several — that is to say, putting aside minor modifications in details of internal constitution, there are some fundamental distinctions which co-exist with a certain outward appearance of uniformity. Without further prelude, however, the attempt to present each type of village in its proper character must be made. Section II. — The Two Forms of Village-tenure A. The Raiyatwari Village In this form of village, so widely prevalent, the group of holdings in no sense forms a ' proprietary unit ; ' and the term ' community ' is properly applied to the group of landholders only so long as it is employed to indicate the connection which a group of cultivators must have when located in one place, bound by certain customs, with certain interests in common, and possessing within the circle of their village the means of local government, and of satisfying the wants of life without much reference to neighbouring villages. It is quite possible that when the first Dravidian and other tribesmen formed villages on this pattern, there was some general idea of tribal union, and that every member of the clan was entitled to receive an allotment sufficient for his wants ; but there is no trace of any common holding of the land occupied ; the several portions of the village are allotted or taken up severally, and are enjoyed quite independently from the first. I make this allusion to the clan or tribe, because in the countries marked by the prevalence of villages of this type we are almost always able to note evidences of a tribal stage of society which will be described in due course. There were clan-divisions of territory, containing a number of villages, each under its own headman or chief, who was a natural and essential part of the 10 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITV institution. This alone places this form of village in contrast with the other form, in which, as Sir H. S. Maine has promi- nently remarked, the ' headman ' is not originally a feature of the constitution. It may be concluded with reference to any possible numbers of the earliest agricultural tribes, as well as to the immense area of the country, that the villages were at first scattered over the jungle-clad plains at considerable distances apart, but within certain general bouudaiies of clan-territory. Each village group contained a number of household or family holdings, the holdings being larger or smaller as the means and the requirements of each suggested. In the oldest customs we shall find special allotments of land reserved in each \-illage for the chief, for the worship of the deitj-, and so forth ; but there is no community of interest in the cultivated lots. The cultivated area is naturally surrounded by waste and woodland, which may extend for some distance before the ' sphere ' of another village is reached. We have no evidence, as far as I can discover, of any formal tribal or other procedure for allotting the several village areas within the territory occupied by the tribe or clan. The area available for tillage was very large in proportion to existing tribal numbers ; and the naturally connected groups of families could settle where they pleased within the general area recognised as belonging to their clan. As the headman or chief of each village was always an important personage, it was doubtless by his influence that the site for clearing and settlement was selected ; and several neighbouring headmen in consultation could prevent any clashing of interests, even if such occurred, which is not likely.' Under the influence of established- custom — ^that potent factor in Indian aSairs — we find in later times that the headman regulated subsequent extensions of the cultivation and disposed of disputes about the occupation of fresh lands. When a Raja was (perhaps in still later days) established, it was always understood that there was no appropriation of waste land without permission, though in practice such appropriation was often tacitly allowed, and indeed ' I am alluding, of course, to the earliest agricultural villages founded by the original settlers, who could hardly have found any human enemies, but must have found the available area enormously in excess of any pos- sible requirements. THE VILLAGE AND ITS FORMS IN GENERAL 11 freely encouraged ; for the early State authorities were only too glad to see more land cultivated, because the King's revenue share of the produce, which was from very early times his chief resource, was thereby increased. Thus, the waste adjoining the village was not the ' common property ' of the village, any more than it is at the present day. And consequently in early times the boundaries between village and village were rarely, if ever, defined. It was only if one village was at enmity with the next that some definition of ' spheres ' would be made. There is reason to believe that only the clan territories were more definitely demarcated, and that encroachments on these would have led to resistance. I have been told of cases among the Assam clans, where one group would turn out in war array to prevent a neighbouring group trespassing on their grounds. This is in the hill country, where each group-area consists of a large tract of ' jungle ' and only a certain part of it is taken in hand at a time, by reason of the practice of shifting cultivation.' It is only reasonable to suppose that from the earliest times of tribal settlement the several tribal or clan areas were jealously guarded. But a general sense of right of some land over a given neighbourhood is quite consistent with very vague ideas of actual ownership ; and there is not the smallest reason to believe that in any early non-Aryan village the adjacent waste was ever regarded as a definite property available for partition at the option of the resident group of cultivators ; nor was it supposed that each man had a right to an area of waste proportioned to his arable holding, or any other share such as is always recognised in case of the waste belonging to joint or landlord villages. All traces of early custom show the villages just in the same condition in this respect as raiyatwdri villages of to-day. It should be remembered that the waste vs^as always used for grazing, and that hay-fields and hay-cutting are still generally unknown ; ^ hence there would be no need for dividing ' This is described at p. 53, post. ^ In the hiUs between Simla aad the plains, where there is no forest but a large expanse of hill-side which does produce hay, there is an excep- tional custom of marking out the area into ' doles ' or strips (gluisni), which are allotted among the landliolders ; and the area is only used for 12 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY grass lands intx) ' doles ' for hay, as in the English village of foi-mer days. Hence, too, there would be no opportunity for a sense of ownership to develop. It is doubtless this absence of definite claim to anything beyond the appropriated and cleared holding that made it so easy for the first rulers to assume their (very ancient) right to the waste. But wherever a village was made over by a Raja, who of course professed to assign the State-rights only, to some courtier or other grantee, the latter immediately seized on the adjacent waste as one of the most useful parts of his grant, and cultivated it, as far as the neces- sary area for grazing, &c,, permitted, for his own profit. So little was the waste adjacent to the old raiyatwdri vil- lages deemed a ' property,' and so rarely was it demarcated, that in the Revenue-settlement arrangements of the Mughal Emperors, or possibly at a still earlier time, it was sometimes necessary to define the limit of waste attached for grazing or other uses to a village ; and this process was effected by the primitive expedient of sending the village watchman to stand on the edge of the cultivated fields and shout. The waste re- served to the village use was then held to extend as far as his voice could be heard.' common grazing when the hay is cut. These lands are not the property of the hamlets, and pay dues to the Baja. I do not know of any instance in the plains where artificial cultivation of grass is resorted to. No doubt there are places where the natural grass, which springs up chiefly during the rainy season, is subject to a certain customary protection before grazing or grass-cutting is allowed. But, speaking generally, hay-culture is vin- known. ' It is curious to note that the origin of the familiar Indian measure of length, the Jcos (2 kos = 3 miles), is in this rough method of estimating distance. The word Icos (Tcroga) meant the distance to which a voice would reach (/. B. As. Soc. April 1894, p. 238 ; and for an illustration see the paper on the Burmese version of the Sdma Jataka in the same number, p. 222). The indefinite length was gradually converted into a fixed measure by substituting a given number of damda, or poles, of four cubits each. In the Ayin-i-Ahhanri (Jarrett's Trans, ii. 414) there is an elaborate account of the imperial Tcroh or Tios. In Hunter's Bengal Records, i. 87, there is an interesting notice of the subject; but the learned author is perhaps only speaking generally when he calls the waste within earshot the joint property oi the resident husbandmen (in Bengal). It was only when a village was made over to a grantee that the waste was THE VILLAGE AiS^D ITS FORMS IN GENERAL IS So much regarding the loiiste area. As to the residenwe of the landholders, a central village site is usually established within the group of arable lands. But circumstances may cause outlying hamlets to exist also. In this village-site the headman (called fcitel in Central India, but there are many other local titles) had a residence larger and better built than the others. In the Central Provinces the headman's residence is often spoken of as the garhi, or fort ; and in former days, at any rate, it was large enough to afford accommodation for the whole of his family and its dependents. Instances have occurred where the headman made his house a veritable fort of refuge, and defended his village against marauders or the attacks of enemies.^ It is sometimes stated that the headman was at first the nominee of the ruler, and that the office heeame hereditary.^ This is certainly not the case ; the hereditary headman is a distinctly original feature, and is traceable to old tribal times. But it was inevitable when the plan of taking a revenue by means of a share of the produce was introduced, and some kind of public administration was organised, that the ruler should enlist the efforts of the headman on the side of the State and recognise his oEBce and give him some additional privileges. As a matter of fact, I believe it will be found that the first action of the Raja, when that stage of society was reached, was not so much to deal with the existing headman and his old tribal authority, as to introduce a sort of second headman (mdhato of the Dravidian villages), who rather overshadowed the original chief, because he was necessarily literate and could keep accounts. In time it was found that both were useful, and both were officially recog- claimed as distinct property under the grant. For an ordinary raiyatwari village of old times, as at the present day in Bengal, the waste was only need by the villagers ; it could not be broken up, stiU less partitioned or alienated, without leave of the authorities, or later of the landlord. • See L. 8. B. I. ii. 464 (note), where there is a reference to the Chanda S. B. ^ See, for instance, Elphinstone, Hist. (6th ed., Cowell), p. 69. It will often be noticed m villages of Dravidian origin that the ' headman ' is re- garded as too dignified for executive duty ; he gives orders and decisions, but has a deputy (caughala), also hereditary, who attends to practical business (Grant-Duff, i. 28 and note). 14 THE INDIAIS' VILLAGE COMMUNITY nised. However this may be, the second officer was the proto- type of our modern village f^afwarl; ' his office, like everything in India, became hereditary; it is still allowed to be so to some extent and on condition of the efficiency of the heir. On him the cultivators rely for a knowledge of the official entries in the Records, and the survey details of their holdings ; he it is who makes out the receipts for their payments, and is the general adviser. All village accounts and village statistical returns are made out by him. He also is the village notary for matters re- quiring written documents such as bonds and land-transfers. The antiquity of this office is only second to that of the headman. The headman was always, at least nominally, the superior, for he had, and still has, small magisterial powers and various duties of police and protection. The office was remunerated by an important holding of laud — often the best in the village — which, in some cases, the ruler allowed him to hold free of revenue. Besides this there were various much-cherished privi- leges and precedence rights. The aggregate of these rights and privileges (mdnpan), together with the official land, constitute what was afterwards called the watan (dialectically vat an). As the whole was hereditary, it could be partitioned ; and in some cases of necessity was even sold or mortgaged.^ Otherwise, so strictly hereditary and held by the family was the iMtel^l (headmanship), that in former days the male heirs of the last 'pcitel sometimes held the office jointly ; and as, of course, its actual duties and responsibilities could only be performed or discharged ' This officer is eomnionly called ixttivUrl in Bengal and Upper India ; in Madras he is Ttarnam, and has other local titles ; m Bombay, hiolhaml ; or, if stipendiary and not hereditary (m certain parts), talatt. ^ There is every reason to believe that the village chief's ex-officio land was always hereditary; but of course these special features of faiTiily o'miership followed from the general adoption of Hindu social and religious ideas. In J. B. A. S. iii. 350, Colonel Sykes has given a translation of a long award relating to a dispute about partition, which incidentally shows what a number of rights and privileges there were to be divided. The headman's precedence was laid down in detail : e.ff., he had a right to throw the first cake into the Holl festival fire ; the right to have the pipes played first at his house at the Dasahra festival ; and to have his cow's horns first gilded at another festival, and so on. He also had certain dues of grain (so many ser in each vmund), called gfigrl ; certain dues in oil, hemp, pots, shoes, cloth from the weaver, &c. THE \ILLAGE .VND ITS FORMS IN GENERAL 15 by one at a time, tliey adopted a sort of rotation. The hereditary land was a much-cherished family possession. Similar holdings were enjoyed by the accountant and, on a smaller scale, by the artisans and menials of the village, to be described presently. But it is worth while mentioning that the Arabic name used for this special holding (watun) superseded any older indigenous name, as this institution was wisely preserved by the earlier Muhammadan kings of the Dakhan; and the revenue- and land-terms employed by them became locally current." The Marathas, on the other hand, used to impose a heavy jodl, or rent-charge, which must have destroyed the value of such hold- ings ; and in some districts their harsh arrangements for revenue collection caused the wholesale disappearance of the old ■pdtels, and with them of course the watan. Indeed, in the central districts, land held on this tenure is tww almost exclu- sively found in certain districts in the Central Provinces and Berar.^ It is well known in the Southern Presidency, where, however, the term tcaian does not seem to be in use. ' Watfiii means ' home ' — that which is tlie hereditary and intimately valued property of the family, as opposed to any land they might hold by purcliase or on managmg lease or other slighter tenure. When such a holding and privilege was attached to any hereditary of&eial or member of tlie family lie was said to be watanddr = holder of a watan. The very fact of this distinctive possession shows that the headman was never owner of the whole village. The strong attachment and loyal adhesion to the Piltel in Central India is vividly portrayed by Malcolm {Memoir of Central India, i. 12, and ii. 60). Great Mariltha, chiefs valued the title of Piitel. If deserted villages had to be re-established, strenuous efforts were made to discover some descendant of the original headman (Malcolm, i. 18, note). ^ We shall see in the sequel that the plan of setting apart a special holding in virtue of office for the headman and other viUage officers can be traced back to early Dravidian times. In the Laws of Manu we find the King directed to let the headman of the village, as well as the officer of larger revenue divisions, have a certain portion of his land free of revenue charges. The watan, it will be remembered, was not a State grant of land, but an old customary hereditary holding La virtue of office ; the only connection of the State with it was the privilege of remission of the revenue dues. It may be well to add that, in some reports, the terms ivatan, watanddr, are used as synonyms for hereditary land and its holder in general ; but this is not strictly correct. Owing, however, to the sale, &c., of ivatan lands, it is possible that plots may be claimed as 16 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY Besides these two principal officers, who usually in large villages had deputies or assistants, there were others, such as the village watchman, and the guardian of boundaries, and the messengers. In irrigated villages there would be also an official to regulate the distribution of water. But something else was wanted besides officers to make pro- vision for the self-contained life of the ' community.' A village group established perhaps in the forest at some distance from any other village, to say nothing of larger towns, would need some purely local means of providing for the simple wants of daily life. And therefore villages of this, and, naturally, of the joint type also, have always solved the difficulty by attracting to themselves a body of resident craftsmen and menials, who are not paid by the job, but are employed by the village on a fixed remuneration, sometimes of a bit of rent-free (and perhaps revenue-free) land, sometimes by small payments at harvest, as well as by customary allowances of so many sheaves of com, millet, &c., or certain measures of grain,' and perquisites in on this tenure, though there is no existing connection with any head- sliip or other office. As may be expected in a Dravidian country like Madras, the ex-officio holdings of the headman, and also of the Tccvrnam, or village accountant, and sometmies of other members of the village staff, are well known throughout the villages of the Presidency. As to the special holding of the headman in Madras, see Mirasi Papers (1862), p. 396, and many other places. We find the village watch tojoying this remuneration {grama- h'lvel), and a similar privilege to certain district police. The vattiyan, or sweeper, has his hereditary land, and so has the panjangan, or village astrologer, who fixes the propitious dates for ploughing, sowing, and reap- ing (pp. 180, 405). ' This custom of paying the artisans and menials by allowances of grain (taken out before the division of the crop between the King's officers and the cultivator) is very ancient. It is found in every province, either accoiupanied by a small grant of land or as the sole allowance. So various are the modes of payment that I can only select one or two characteristic examples, which in this instance I take from the joint- village provinces. Details will be found for Madras in Macleane's Administration Manual, i. (Bthnol.), 102 (note), 154 ; Mirasi Papers, pp. 180 ff, 405, &c. For Bombay, any district Gazetteer may be consulted: e.g. Ahmadabild (iv. 47), or Batnagiri (x. 139), Broach (ii. 385), &c. The usual features occur of small land ' vaians,' or allow- THE VILLAGE AND ITS FORMS IX GENERAL 1( kind. Each is also given a house-site in the village, or iu some cases, as in Madras, in a group outside it, forming a sort of suburb. The list of artisans varies in different parts, though of course some, being indispensable, are found in all cases, such as the blacksmith, potter, shoemaker or cobbler, carpenter, washerman, sweeper, and a barber, who also is surgeon, and is the proper person to carry messages connected with negotiations for betro- thals. In some villages there is a dancing-girl ; in others an ances in cash or grain or both. (See also Berar Gazetteer, p. 205 ff. It may be necessary to explain that the villagers supply the materials for the work to be done, but do not pay for the labour ; a stranger getting a . job done would pay for both. As a case in point I may instance the Gujrat district of the Panjiib {Gazetteer, Gujrat, 2nd ed. p. 97). The village servants are paid by grain- fees, with allowances of so many bundles of the crop before threshing, as there described : and the ' bundle ' {bhan-i) of wheat or barley means the bundle tied by a string of three straws length. The blacksmith affords a good example, as his work requires a supply of iron and also charcoal. He never provides the iron for the tools he makes (reaping-hook, spade, ploughshare, &c.), but he does provide the charcoal for the forge, unless, indeed, an unusual quantity will be required — as in making a great pan for sugar-boUing. And in general, it is noted, the blacksmith is allowed as a perquisite, the roots and branches of any tree cut by a viUage proprietor. As a sample of the custom of grain paj-- mentsin the North-West Provinces, I may quote from Mr. Hooper's Basti 8.R. (1891), § 64. In a village caUed Dhebarua,, the following persons take shares of grain (eaUed jeora) amounting to four panseri (measures of two «ers or four pounds avoirdupois each) for each ' plough 'of cultivated land in the village : the barber, washerman, carpenter, blacksmith, and cowherd. These also receive a further allowance (called TcalyiinT) when the ' business of the threshing-floor is over.' Another series of smaller shares are allowed to the Pandit or astrologer who determines the propitious seasons for sowing, &c. ; to the kahdr, who attends on visitors, such as the ddrogha of pohce, the revenue officer {cJiaprdst), and the ' exorcist ' (sokha) who secures the village from evil spirits, and sets up the little posts caUed Jak and Jaknt outside the vOage. This person, by the way, is often of the aboriginal tribes, because these are supposed to have the power of exorcising the spirits of their old country. The three last-named only get haU a jeora and no extra Jcalydnl. Besides these regular allowances, certain other deductions are made from the grain heap before it is divided between the tenant and landlord ; for example, five anjuri (double-hand- fuls) go for charity to Brahmans and faglrs. The ploughman's wife is allowed to take up as much as she can hold ' for luck.' 18 THE INDIAN VILLAGE CO.MilUNITY astrologer to announce the propitious seasons for agricultural operations ; in one account of the primitive villages in south- west Bengal I find mention of a ' witch-finder.' And in Berar (in the Amraoti district) some of the villages pay a gurjyctgdri, whose duty it is to avert hail by his incantations.' This residence in a more or less isolated group, with the common use of the adjoining waste or grazing ground, submis- sion to the village headman, and common employment of a local staff of artisans and menials, were the chief circumstances which formed the bond of union in a raiyaticdri village. Probably at their first foundation the village families were more closely con- nected by clan ties than they are now ; and there may have been some further feeling of 'community' on this ground. The nature of the revenue-system which early Governments adopted in dealing with these villages must have greatly influenced their solidarity. When the old custom of the State grain-share was quietly followed out, the headman managed the whole, and every holder in the village knew what he had to contribute. But in after times, when this system, with its natural complications caused by deductions and allowances on this account and on that, and by the calculation of average jnelds, proved too trouble- some, the practice arose of fixing lump sums in cash, for which various speculators contracted, and thus elements of oppression were introduced. The government of the village by its own headman was interfered with ; lands were sold and mortgaged to the bankers and others who advanced, or were security for, the revenue ; and in general the old order was upset, lands abandoned, and the original holders ejected. The result of Maratha mal- administration especially must have been to disturb greatly the old holdings, and, in fact, in the long course of years, to make the village population a very mixed one.^ I am unable to trace • Berar Gazetteer, p. 206. In L. S. B. I. i. 150, I have given some further Usts of village craftsmen and servants. In the Maratha villages, the complete nixmher was supposed to he twelve, hence the term hdra- halute for the body of village artisans and menials. Baluta (M.) is the grain-fee or allowance = inertii of the south. 2 It is one of the things much to be desired as regards village statistics that we should have some means of knowing how far the western and southern villages under the raiyatwari system still consist of land- THE -^^ILLAGE AND ITS FOEMS IN GENERAL 19 at any formei- period, anything resembling a community of pro- perty between the different holdings, or anything in early Dravidian custom that may have led to it. The individual holding now passes, on the death of the holder, to the descendants jointly, under the Hindu law ; and they subdivide it, as far as circumstances permit. If the family is too large and more land cannot be had, the sons come to terms, and some sell their shares and seek new homes or other means of livelihood. There is, of course, no joint responsibility of the separate families for the Government revenue.' The headman alone is, or was, respon- sible for such village expenditure as entertaining guests, cele- iDrating a festival, and the like. In former days he, and the oflScers of the superior revenue charges above him, used to levy a tax, or cess, called saAir-ivarid^ to meet such e:q)enses. It only needs to be added, in conclusion, that the 'present raiyatwa/r holder of land has, legally speaking, a somewhat pecu- liar position, which is the result not of his original rights, nor •of the intrinsic nature of his tenure, but of subsequent historical ■developments, especially in connection with the later claim of the rulers to be superior owners of all land. This point, how- ever, will be more easily explained at a later stage ; and as the modern legal nature of the tenure in a raiyatwa/ri village holding ■does not affect either the character of the village form or its principle of constitution, there is no occasion to pursue the question at present. holders of the same clan or caste ; it Tnay be that there is more of this than prima facie we shonld be disposed to expect. 1 The head of each famil y is alone responsible for the revenue of the holding; the revenue system also has its rules for allowing partition among the heirs on the death of a landholder, and for the separate shares being erected into separate ' numbers ' on the revenue register, provided tihey do not go below a minimum of size. " This means literally ' going out and coming in ' — ^referring to the arrival and departure of guests. The- levy seems to have been the occa- sion of many abuses. See Elphinstone's Minute (G-. W. Forrest's Beprint, p. 280). ' The expenses.of the -patel on pubhc affairs . . . are defrayed by a tax on the village. . . . This tax ... is a great source of proiit to ^ihe patels and kulkarnis.' c 2 ■J 20 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY B. The Joint-Village If we now turn to the joint-village of Upper India, we liave no longer a simple form to deal with. Without any previous knowledge of details, it will be obvious that, there being a joint- tenure of the village, that which is joint may be in time wholly or partly divided or partitioned : this alone will produce some variety of condition. And when estates are _yomi the principle of union need not be the same throughout. The former incident produces only minor varieties, including such as arise when the strict scale of shares gets forgotten or altered. The latter, in fact, produces important classes, in which the principle ofsharhig is different. Some indications of such a difference are given by those writers who speak of the ' aristocratic ' and ' democratic ' constitution of villages. This distinction is not a convenient one ; but it is quite true that some villages are so far ' aristo- cratic ' that they hold infractional shares which indicate a family property held in descent from a dignified (possibly once princely) ancestor ; others are ' democratic ' in the sense that the groups of families have a real common descent, but have adopted a more equal mode of sharing, or that they are voluntary associations of settlers. Neither term, however, serves to indicate the important class of villages whose joint constitution is due to some form of ftibal union and to surviving tribal or clan custom. I mention this fact, and only mention it, at this stage, because there is some obviously consequent danger of error in any generalised account of the joint-village, even when it has been acknow- ledged as a separate type. There are, however, certain features which all forms of joint-village possess in common, and these may be usefully described. In all cases the entire area of the village forms something like a unit estate.' The adjoining waste is here an integral part ' The village is not always, strictly speaking, itself the unit estate. It may happen that a connected group of co-sharers have come to be o^vners of an estate comprising several geographical villages, and that the different branches of the famOy have not divided the whole so as to make the separated shares consist each of one or more entire villages. Each branch may have taken its share partly in one place, partly in another. Hence the real unit, for revenue purposes at any rate, is the THE VILLAGE AND ITS FORMS IN GENERAL 21 of the property, and is at the absolute disposal of the owners as much as any other land. Consequent on this universal and ancient fact of unity, the waste is included by the Survey in the boundaries of the village, as well as the arable ; and when the waste comes to be partitioned, it will be so on a definite principle, usually, but not always, having relation to the existing shares in the arable area.' It is also in consequence of these essential features that the modern Land-Eevenue Administration is able to treat the village as one estate, liable for one lump sum of revenue which is dis- tributed over the holdings or among the co-sharers according to their own principle of constitution : the whole body is jointly responsible, until what is technically known as ' perfect ' partition severs the bond.^ It is quite possible, and in former days was usual, to partition the holdings for several enjoyment without dissolving the common responsibility. The body of owners who thus, whether their lands are partitioned or not, still hold together and have a certain joint interest in the village, arises in various ways, which will appear mahdl, or group of lands held under one and the same title ; and registers' are prepared to show the list of lands brought together for this purpose : on paper, but actually lying, some here and some there, possibly, through half a dozen mauza on the map. Still, there are a very large number of; cases in which a single village is also a mahdl, or estate. In the Panjabi it is quite usual ; ' In provinces like the Panjab and the Central Provinces, where the area of waste was very great, and it would have been impossible to suppose it all reaUy appropriated to one or other village, a special rule was laid down at the Land Revenue Settlement for allowing a liberal portion to each village ; the surplus was reserved to Government on the general principle that waste not occupied belongs to the State. Such surplus areas (called rahh in the Panjab) are utilised for grazing reserves, for forest purposes, and for colonisation when a scheme for irrigation can be carried out. In the North- West Provinces, except in some special districts, the whole of the waste was included in the village boundaries ; and the Revenue Law contains some special provisions about the area in case it is so large as to be beyond the requirements of the village. ^ ' Imperfect ' partition merely defines the severalty holdings, leaving the body still jointly liable for the revenue. ' Perfect ' partition goes further, and in fact constitutes so many new and distinct estates. The law may differ in different provinces as to the freedom with which this ' perfect ' partition can now be apphed for. 22 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COJIJIUNITY presently. I wish first to repeat once more that in all oases they are either a ruling, conquering, and often non- agriculturist caste, who have taken the superior or landlord position over an earlier existing village group of cultivators, usually of aboriginal or some mixed or humbler descent ; or else they Jiave fowided ilieir own village in- ilie virgin wa,ste, either by their own exertions, if agricultm-ists by nature, or by aid of tenants and dependents. But in either case, the village owner, or body of village owners, has the same sort of superior title. It depends on the locality which origin is the more common. The North- West Provinces official is extremely familiar with Rajput and other village owners, whose lordship was established over existing villages by various means, and not unfrequently has resulted from the prior existence of a territorial chiefship, which being afterwards partitioned among the family has left a number of individuals or families in possession of single villages. To the Panjab official such a proceeding is less familiar ; the joint-villages in the plain districts are much more frequently the direct foundations of individuals and clan-groups and colonist associates, who were agriculturists by nature and themselves cul- tivated the land ; but they have the same ideas of united and superior ownership. It is not at all necessary that the joint-village should be actually held undivided. In some cases it is so held ; and the reason for it is plain ; but in the majority of cases there is a com- plete separation of the individual or household holdings, and this may have been so from the moment of first settlement. Very ofben the arable is divided, and the waste not, either because it is more conveniently kept as a common grazmg ground,' or because it is not yet wanted for the extension of cultivation. As to the extent of land included in the ' village,' in many cases the estate is of what I may call a normal or average size, varying from a few hundred to a thousand or two thousand acres ; it represents the limit to which the original grant extended,, and to which the body of descendants have succeeded by in- ^ As I have elsewhere remarked, grazmg is usual, unless, from the absence of grazmg land, stall-feeding has to be adopted, with such grazing on fallow fields as is possible. Hay-growing is not practised in the plains j hence divided meadow-land is not kno^\ai. THE VILLAGE AND ITS FORMS IN GENERAL 23 lieritance, or the limit of the settlement of the particular group who own it, or it is the result of a distribution of a larger area among certain branches of a family. But we shall meet with some cases where a great area (of many thousand acres) has been occupied by a whole clan and divided by them into certain main divisions for each of the minor clan groups ; and it is only gradu- ally and ultimately that separate ' villages ' have emerged. There are also cases in which an extensive area was originally acquired by one family which has in the course of time multiplied into a clan, and so covered the whole, also without the intervention of any proper ' village ' grouping at all. Here, again, time usually produces a fission into ' villages ; ' but there are instances of great areas still held directly in numerous individual equal shares, and to these it is difficult to apply the term village. Taking, how- ever, the average-sized village, there is little in external appear- ance to distinguish the joint from the raiyatwdri form.' There is, of course, the group of residences — sometimes a central com- pact group, but often several scattered hamlets.^ Close to the village is a tank or pond, hollowed out by the process of digging the clay to make the sun-dried bricks of which the cottages are built 3 there is a dry dusty space around the group of houses where the cattle stand and where the weavers stretch and prepare their webs. There is also the village tree or grove, and the meet- ing-place of the villagers, sometimes with a raised platform of masonry to sit on. Ajid the village will have its mosque or temple, and its cemetery, if Muhammadan. The conditions which attract a group of permanent menials and artisans to serve the village are the same as in the raiyatwdri village.' But with the village officers there is a difference. The pat- wdri — whose native title we inadequately attempt to translate as ' Except that in Bombay and Madras, the revenue system being different and adapted to the rcdyatwiiri village, there is noiv a method of demarcating field or holding boundaries which is peculiar and strikes the eye of anyone familiar with the system, telling him that he has come into a raiyahvdri district. Perhaps also the raiyatwdri village has oftener the central residence of the headman as a pronainent feature. - In the next chapter vnll be found some account of the village build - ings and the circumstances which produce compact residence-sites or the contrary. 3 See p. 16. 24 THE INDIAX VILLAGE COMMUNITY ' accountant ' or ' village registrar " — is, of course, to be found. Receipts have to be given, village accounts kept, and statistics pre- pared, as much in joint-villages as elsewhere. But, as Sir H. S. Maine has pointed out, there is no real ' headman.' ' The manage- ment of the affairs of the joint body is properly by a committee of heads of houses, or jjanchayat. But some one must represent them at the Collector's office and be their spokesman, and also be responsible for the duties which the State may require of the village o^vners. Hence, at any rate, in modern times, a headman, whose hybrid title (Zam6«)-(:^tr= holder of a ' number ') ^ indicates his recent origin, is appointed ; and his office is allowed to be in some degree elective, while it also tends to become hereditary if the next heir is qualified. As most villages are divided into certain main sections or jjffitl (of this hereafter), there will bea fa.m- harddr for each section. In the Panjab, where the patti are often numerous, it has been found necessary to have a further single representative of the several section-headmen ; such a person is called the ^al= This is quite common in the North- West Provinces. In the Panjab, on the other hand, the village-owners are most frequently also the cultivators. That is why we so seldom meet with any reference to sir lands in the Panjab. 26 THE INDIAN VILLAGE OOMMUXITY of their possibly exproprietary character or other circumstance as defined by the Tenant Law ; in other words, some may be 'occupancy-tenants,' others, ' tenants-at-will.' In some cases, especially in the Panjab, there are tenants who not only are allowed to have occupancy rights, but they pay nothing beyond the Government revenue on their land ; they owe this position most frequently to their having consented in former days to come and help the village body in cultivating enough land to meet the heavj- assessment of some rapacious Sikh Governor. But I am not aware that in any case tenants form part of the ' brotherhood,' or that they can be represented as occupying a grade in any sort of hierarchy formed by the ' brotherhood.' ' The proprietors alone have a voice in the management. Tenants, even when they are of so privileged a class as to pay no rent beyond the Government dues, usually pay a nominal fee — perhaps a load of manure annually — for their house-site ; they often cannot sell the cottage; and it is a question of local custom whether, on leaving the village from any cause, any tenant or artisan can sell the house-timbers. No doubt good tenants will be under the protection of the co-sharers ; but they have no voice in the village council, no concern with profits or losses, nor any share in the waste, beyond a probable right by custom of grazing their cattle there. Still less are the artisans and menials part of the ' brotherhood ' in any degree whatever : they are always of different (usually lower) caste. Indeed, the idea that, e.g., a body of proud Rajput co-sharers would acknow- ledge their cultivating tenants, and a fortiori the potter, the carpenter, or the camdrj'- as part of their brotherhood, only in a lower degree, is something quite grotesque. ^ Ante, p. 7. It is quite possible that a person may have been in past days formally admitted as a co-sharer ijchatadur), and in time gets supposed to be of the ' founder's Mn ; ' but that is quite a different matter from coming as a tenant, however independent and however valued. - The low-caste cobbler, who has as a perquisite the skins of cattle dying in the village. So far from the brotherhood including anything beyond the actual co-sharers, absconding members who have retrurned and got readmitted to the village and yet have been imable to pay up the arrears on account of which they formerly threw up their holding \vill very often not be allowed to resmne their full position, but be admitted as a sort of tenant without voice in the management or share in the profits. THE VILLAGE AND ITS FORMS I\ GENERAL 27 The co-staring body, especially if they are of one clau, or are the joint successors to one man who founded or acquired the village landlordship, are often desirous of excluding strangers, as well as securing to themselves the chance of augmenting their own holdings. This desire gives rise to a custom of pre-emption, which is not inconsistent with the fact that, in former days, the pressure of a heavy revenue-assess- ment compelled them to take in special tenants, or even grant shares in the village to outsiders. Nor, of course, does the feel- ing prevent the custom (in some localities) of admitting the family Brahman to a share. In general, the intending vendor, whether of his whole share or of any field or plot, must offer it at a fair value to one of the existing co-sharers (usually in order of blood relationship to himself), and then to the members of the same subdivision, before selling to any outsider.^ So much may be said regarding the features of joint- villages in general : but it is impossible to form a just idea of such villages as they actually exist in the different districts, without understanding the principles on which the body of proprietors who own the whole village are united together, and on which the real or apparent collective ownership depends. The matter cannot be fully stated or illustrated, because some other matters have first to be considered. But I have already indicated, as a ground for caution in attempting a general description, that, apart from all those minor varieties which are the result of what I may call ' wear and tear ' — ^the alteration of the strict shares, and the more or less complete partition of joint-lands — there are several clearly-marked principles of joint-constitution. The application of one or the other is at once indicated by the mode of sharing the village. It is hardly necessary to add that the There are various customs regarding this readmission of absentees ; for, especiaUj in former days, sharers often found themselves unable to pay the revenue arid live on the holding ; they would go away until better times, and seek, perhaps twenty years later, to return. ' The custom varies locally. It is only effective if the other co-sharers are able to buy, or are willing to redeem the mortgages which are sure to have been made before the sale is proposed as a final measure. It may be doubted whether the custom has done much to prevent the lands of the less successful passing into the hands of money-lenders or capitalists. 28 THE liS^DIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY difference of constitution implies a corresponding difference in the mode of origin or foundation. The first principle of formation depends on there being a considerahle clan, of which the village is part ; indeed, in these cases, the ' village ' is often, as I have said, a very secondary consideration, and the co-sharing extends over the whole of a clan-area, or over some primary divisions of it much larger than ordinary villages. The second principle is always connected with the normal village area, and is observed in that large class of cases where the village body is a group of descendants from an individual founder. A third principle, which involves a variety of forms of shai-ing, may be also spoken of; and it applies to all cases where the dam or tribal principle does not appear, and where also the special features of the sharing in descent from a single aristocratic founder are not observed. The two salient cases of cZa.?i-settlement, and of individual or joird-fwmily settlement, may be a little further explained, something in this way : I. A whole clan has conquered or occupied a suitable district. Under the guidance of its patriarch and chiefs, the land is appor- tioned in the first instance in large tracts for its several main sections, or minor clans ; these effect among themselves the final allotment to households and groups of households, which ultimately form villages. More commonly, however, the appearance of a cZrtJi-settlement is due to the fact that a single enterprising family, having no pretensions to nobility or territorial rule, had originally located itself on a wide area — which good fortune preserved to it intact; on this the existing clan-group has gradually grown up till it has filled the whole. At first there was perhaps only a father and four sons ; but now, not only do the descendants occupy the whole territory, but they may have split up into villages all of the same clan. In these cases, some rule of equal division, such as we shall hereafter describe as the BhaiaCHara method, nearly always occurs. It is quite a distinct and characteristic method.' ' The term hhaidchara itself has unfortunately become misused in our offices, and has got applied to other forms also ; but this is a detail which I cannot here enter into. THE VILLAGE AND ITS FORMS IN GENERAL 29 II. In the other principal form, the estate originated with one man (or possibly two or three brothers), to wliomthe village was granted, or who simply usm-ped the superior position, or who gained a footing as farmer of the revenue or as purchaser in later days at an auction sale for arrears of revenue, or other- wise established himself in the management. New villages, too, have been constantly founded bj' individual enterprise, with or without the grant of a Eaja or local potentate. Very frequently, too, under this head come the cases, occur- ring more especially in the North- West Provinces, where the: village bodies are descendants of former chiefs or of Rajas, or of scions of princely houses or adventurous chiefs who once had a regular (or irregular) territorial rule ; but the rulership has long passed away, and remnants of the family, represented by two score or more of descendants, have clung to a village here, and two or three villages there, and have then become peasant la'tidlwds where they once were rulers. In all this class of cases, the principle of sharing is, or originally was, not one of ' democratic ' equality of right in the area obtained, but one depending on tliei pl-ace in tlie table of decent from the founder vr acqidrer, the! different heirs each taking the ' legal ' share that belongs to him | by the law or custom of inheritance. This is what is called the/ Pattidari principle of sharing.' Properly speaking, each takes' '■ his share in the land or in the proceeds, if the land is undivided, and pays the corresponding fraction of the revenue and other burdens.^ If the waste ha s remaine d undivided and is afterwards partitioned, the owners will share it in exactly t he same fractions ^asTiave determin eJjbheir-ho ldings-i B-4he— &rab"le. TEis"T S~tfae' admitted^_yieory^j_but_natarally_ij^^ "course of years the strict shares have been forgotten or chaiiged7~ ^ndjnerabers not really of the founder'skin-^perhaps members of the wives' families or otheT_^ helpers^ in time of need ' — may ' See diagram at p. 31, note. ' In estates of this kind the joint heirs may hold undivided for a long period. But the profits and burdens will be shared on the same principle {pattiddr'i). t From a temire point of view there is not the I slightest distinction between the joint-landlord and the severalty -landlord \ ■^-illage, as long as the ancestral share principle is followed in sharing the profits in one case or the fields in the other. 30 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY have been admitted to shares. Shares may also have been sold to outsiders under stress of necessity. Accordingly, where all re- membrance of the correct fractional shares is lost, and each now holds simply on the basis of his de facto possession, and pays the share of the revenue and charges according to an acreage- rate agreed on for the number of acres actually held, the village is officially put into another class — it ceases to be pattiddri, or ' ancestrally shared.' It also is often the case that a part of such a village has been divided and part not ; and the divided part is held in modified shares, or on mere de facto possession, and the rest still on the strict shares. All these are what I have called minor varieties, which must not detain us at this stage of our inquiry. This |)''i'ic%'^ (jpattiddr'i, or ancestral sharing according to the law of joint inheritance) is simply the result of the joint succession of all the heirs together. It is in villages of this class that it can truly be said that the village is the group which is held together hy the land which it occupies ' in common ' — i.e. as joint-heirs or co-sharers.\ It is also in villages of this class, as distinguished from those first mentioned, that we hear of a person being a ' 4 ana ' sharer — i.e. owning one-fourth of the estate, or being a '2 diia 3 2mi 15 kauri' sharer.' These terms could not properly be used of the other estates where the shares are so many equal lots, or are expressed in terms indica- ting the peculiar method on which the clan or family has ar- ranged the valuation of its land for the purpose of equitably distributing the revenue and other charges; nor where the holdings are merely so many acres, or so many ' plough ' lands, not being sh-arex of the unit estate area on any principle what- ever. When a pattiddri village is divided — and this may have ' In these cases the whole estate is treated as ' one rupee ; ' occasionally the whole is ' one h'lgha ' (land measure) ; but as the usual divisions of the currency or the square measure would not suffice to meet the numerous small fractions of a much multiplied body of co-sharers, various artificial sub-di^-isions have been invented. If the strict ancestral principle is maintained, the fraction indicates also the share of revenue payable ; and to say that a man owns a ' 4 angittule £.««t from. &r««ixwlch. 75 Ltyn-grruxn^. Grttn, dr Co-jLondoTh Ve^ Wrk,^ Bombto'. TAyrtMer.LiOto. 42J>tamtu1tMlt.S£. GEOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF IXDIA 39 There is also another matter which comes under the head of physical features and their influence. It is impossible to doubt that while social customs, and often purely natural liens of kinship, have been the main factors in determining to what extent sections of tribes and clans, as well as closer decrees of kindred, continue to keep up their connection or effect a certain fission and separation into groups, the ' village,' regarded as an aggregate of land-holdings, was suggested, not to say necessi- tated, by the physical features of country and climate; indeed, this is sometimes shown by the absence of villages and the sub- stitution of isolated homesteads or small hamlets in certain localities. Lastly, the opportunitj^ of a general chapter on the physical factors of our problem may be taken, to explain certain forms of agriculture or modes of cultivation which indicate the stages by which permanent land-holding may be gi-adually introduced. Section I. — Geographical Features (1) The Northern and Western Hill Ranges If we look at a map of India,' it will be obvious that- all invasions of tribes by land must have been from either the north- east or north-west end of the Himalayan chain. Any consider- able migrations across the central ranges are as little probable as they are without any traditional or historical suggestion. Ii we look first to the north-east comer as a convenient starting- point, it will be observed that there is nothing to prevent tribes from the north-east coming to the Brahmaputra Valley, to tha central and southern hills of Assam, and to Eastern Bengal generally. How much farther such tribes would advance into Central Bengal would depend on whether they were met by other people whose presence sufficed to check their progress. As a matter of fact, the tribes from this quarter, which belong to a distinctive group, did not affect the population far into Bengal Proper, as we shall afterwards see. But many of them found a congenial home in the outer slopes and valleys of the ' Throughout this section it is necessary to assume that the reader ■will have a fairly good map of India before him, showing the chief rivers, mountains, and provinces. It is impossible that the remarks made can be intelligible without such an aid. 40 THE INDIAN VILLAGE CO^r.AIUNITY Himalayan Mountains ; and it is curious to observe that tJiese outer districts of the hill country, as well as the tanli or malarious jungle country below it, became peopled, albeit scantily, by early Mongoloid races. The descendants of these early settlers, some unchanged in race and much degraded, others improved by more or less admixture with other tribes, are found in con- siderable numbers throughout the whole of the outer ranges almost up to the river Indus itself. But beyond the possibility of Mongoloid tribes entering India from the upper north-east end, there is little at present to call our further attention to this quarter. The chief interest lies in the geographical features of the north-west Himalayan frontier, of the Indus Valley, and of those of the broad but low ranges of mountains which divide Upper India from the Dakhan. The whole question of the facilities which existed for the advance of the Aryan invasion is connected with the north-west Hima- layan passes and those more westerly routes through the hills beyond the Indus Valley. The Vindhyan Hills, on the other hand, afford an explanation as to why limits were set, as they were, to any Aryan advance en masse to the south, and why Southern India remained isolated and onlj^ accessible to later Aryan influence in a totally different manner. The Vindhyan Ranges, too, are interesting by reason of the curious sort of ' re- fuge-ground,' if I may use the phrase, which they afforded to some of the earliest tribes which occup)ied Indian soil, and whose institutions can still be clearly traced in the platea.u country formed by the eastern terminal ramifications of the mountains. But first as regards the northern and western passes into India. If we glance along the great line of Himalayan Moun- tains as far as a point about due north of where Peshawar is marked on the map,' we shall notice that while one chief line of northern barrier mountains goes on more or less directly to the west, and bears the local names of the ' Hindu-Kush ' and ' Safed- koh,' another series, roughly parallel to it, forms a southern or outer Himalaya, including the Pir Pinjal, which bounds Kashmir, and further east the Dhauladhar, &c. At the western ^ In the Parliamentary Statement of the Moral and Material Pro- gress of India, 1883, will be found an excellent map of the mountain systems of India, and another of the rivers. GEOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF IXDIA 41 end this southern range branches off and turns southward, form- ing a western frontier for India and skirting the Panjab and Sindh. Of tliis western hill-barrier there are two main lines or ranges ; the outer one, next the river Indus, is lower in general elevation and terminates sooner; the inner one, or Sulaiman Eange, continues, though with diminishing height and under other names, almost as far south as the delta of the Indus. Both the noi'thern mountain ranges (at the norrh-west corner) and the western (Sulaiman) barrier are traversed by several passes. And these passes, speaking generally, rire in a double series : first crossing the highest, or farther rampart, and then crossing a second or plainward line of mountain crests before reaching the level country of the Panjab or Sindh respec- tively. Naturally, clans with their leaders, or conquering princes with their armies, coming from the more northern or north- western regions, would enter the BDimalayan group of hills by the north-west passes about Kabul. It is also quite possible for hardy northern races to have remained a long time among the valleys and slopes of the mountainous region about the Upper Indus and its affluents, lying, roughly speaking, between the northern high-line of the Himalaya (represented by the Hindu-Kush and its continuation east and west) and the outer line of the same group. Once across the northern main ram- parts, it would be possible to extend a settlement into the intramontane valley of Kashmir and the neighbouring valleys of Chamba, &c., as far east as Kangra. "Whether or not the tribes made such a settlement in the Hill Country, it would still be necessary to cross the remaining ranges in order to emerge on to the plains in the vicinity of Peshawar, or of the Jihlam River, as did Alexander. In the case of tribes coming from the north-west and follow- ing this general route towards the plain country., it would be possible either (1) to go south along the Indus Valley, which presents an open country, all the way to the sea ; or (2) to spread over the outer hills and also the level plains of the Panjab. Once having reached those plains, the tribes and their followers could advance eastward with no other difficulty than that of crossing various rivers, to the Ganges plain or valley, and to the rich 42 THE IXDIAIS" Vir>LAGE COMiMUNITY tracts of Oudh and Bihar. Ultimatelj- Bengal Proper and the Ganges mouths could be reached without anj? aerious phj'^sical obstacle. Sui:)posing, again, that other tribes chose the Indus Valley route, or perhaps entered India lower down — i.e. more towards due west — these would naturally occupy Sindh or would proceed to the Southern Panjab. If it was in their mind to go still further south, their line of progress would be by Kacch to Western India, as we shall presently see. (2) The Viiidhyan Banier Across the middle of India, just where the continent begins to taper to its triangular form, and south of the Chambal, the Jamna and the Ganges rivers, there is a broad but rather low series of hill ranges, which forms, as a whole, a continuous barrier almost from west to east. At either extreme end the barrier can be rounded ; but the whole central portion has, as a matter of fact, for many centuries afforded a practical line of demarcation between ' Northern India ' (the basins of the Indus and the Ganges), and the Dakhan and Southern India. This barrier does not strike the eye so much till its entire features are taken in. There are, in fact, a whole series of variously named ranges, which it may be permitted to generalise under the collective name of ' Vindhya.' If we consider the main lines of greatest elevation, we shall here also observe two general ' ramparts.' The great valley of the Narbada (or Narmada) river forms a convenient line to guide the eye.' Along the north of this, there is one continu- ous and comparatively high line of hills — the Vindhya proper — which continues far eastward in the Kaimur Hills. At the western extremity — at some considerable distance from the coast — ^this range turns somewhat suddenly northward, forming the line of the Mahi and Aravali Hills ; it thus encloses a partly barren, partly fertile, table land of which the rich plateau of ' These features are especially obvious in the outhne map of the hill systems in the Statistical Atlas, 1885, prepared by the Government of India for the India and Colonial Exhibition, and sold by Messrs. Eyre i Spottiswoode ; and better still by the beautiful map of the Hill Ranges printed with the ParUamentary (periodical) Statements on The Moral and Material Progress of India. GEOGRAPHICAL AKD PHYSICAL FEATURES OF INDIA 43 Mtihva is tte most noticeable feature. But it leaves the whole country west of Malwa to Kacch, Kathiawar and the coast, open to the north ; the desert country being the only obstacle. On the south side of the Narbada, comes the second ' ram- part,' marked by the great range of Satpura Hills, the Maikal, Mahadeo, Melghat, and other ranges. This southern line unites, at its western extremity, with the line of ' Ghat ' or Sahiyadri Mountains that extends southward along the western shores of India at a limited but somewhat variable distance from the sea coast. Below the junction is an opening into the Tapti Valley which would give access to Berar, and thence without difficulty to the plain of Nagpur, in the region of the modern ' Central Provinces.' But on passing the second or southern high line of the Vindhyan group, the country does not subside to a dead level, as Northern India does when the last of the Himalayan outworks are passed. For this reason the Vindhyan group, as a whole, does not stand out sharply and separately on the relief map ; the whole of the country inland of the Ghats and south of the Vindhyas forms the somewhat elevated but varied table-laud of the ' Dakhan.' ' This table-land is brought up on the east as well as on the west side, by a range of hills along the sea-coast. The range called Sahiyadri or Western ' Ghat,' already men- tioned, is higher and more continuous and in general much nearer to the sea-coast than the so-called ' Coromandel ' Ghat skirting irregularly the eastern side of the Madras Presidency. The general result of such a conformation is, that the whole of Upper Western India is also open to an advance of tribes from the Indus Valley or by the lower passages of the Western Sulaiman frontier. The route is across the open desert of Kacch and on to Gujarat.^ Once in this position, it would be a matter of no great difficulty either to turn eastward and domi- ' The dialectic form of ' Dakshinu,' or ' southern ' country, variously written in books as the ' Dekhan,' ' Deccan,' &c. - In early times there was, in all probability, a different conformation of the country, and the river Indus liad its mouth in the Bay of Cambay. But this does not affect the use of tlie route spoken of. (See an interesting paper on Gujarat bj' ^Mr. A. Rogers in Asiatic Quarterly Bevieiu for April 1896, p. 380. 44 THE [XDIAX VILLAGE COMMUiS'ITY nate the Narbacla Valley, or, by the Tapti. to reach Berar, tlie Gondwana country, and the western plains of the Central Pro- vinces. South and east, however, of the Nagpur Plain the country again becomes hilly and inhospitable, so the further advance will not be likely. On the other hand, tribes reaching India by the north-west passes, emerging on the Panjab and proceeding in an easterly direction towards the Jamna and Gauges Rivers, would find, as I have already explained, the Panjab and the Ganges Plain as far as Assam open.^ But should such settlers have tried to ex- tend southwards in anything like large bodies, across the wide series of Vindhyan Hills, they would be checked by interminable forests and hills. It is not until later times (apparently about the eighth century) when the country south-west of the Chambal River, Bundelkhand, &c., had been occupied from the Ganges Plain, that the Malwa Plateau was reached, and thence northern chiefs led their armies through the Main Hills into Gujarat and through the Vindhyan passes to the Central Pro- vinces. Thus, while the Vindhyan barrier generally restrained the Aryan advance to the south, it did not affect the western ex- tremity of the continent ; and in Upper Western India we have consequently to take account of a double series of Aryan movements. First, in remote times, Aryan tribes came without hindrance from the Indus Valley ; next came Turanian or Scythic tribes ; and then, in much later times, Hindu Rajputs from Malwa or Bundelkhand and Rajputana. All later movements were facilitated by certain passes in the Vindhyan lines themselves. There are two principal openings through the higher ' rampart.' One, at the eastern end gives access to the ujpper Narbada Valley (Jabalpur and Mandla). The other, at the western end, not onlj'^ gives access to the loiver Narbada Valley owing to openings, by Mhau and Indor, in the northern range, but also, by an isolated and somewhat wide opening in the southern Satpura range, to the Dakhan itself. This latter opening is commanded by a fine scarped and table- ' Indeed, when once Bengal was occupied and the mouths of the Ganges were reached, adventurous parties could, and did, go by sea to Arakan, Java, and Ceylon (Lanka,). GEOGRAPHICAL AND PIIVSIOAL FEATURES OF INDIA 45 topped hill, called Aslrgarli,' crowned witli a once extensive fort. It is not surprising that this place has again and again been the object of attack by northern armies seeking to reach the Dakhan from Delhi and Agra. It was taken by storm, on the last occasion, in the Maratha war (1819). The Mughal Emperors in their endeavours to conquer the southern kingdoms by an advance from Ajmer and Agra had always to take account of this pass. The passage at the eastern end is that now made use of by the railway from Allahabad to Jabalpur.^ Indeed, the existence of the railway and other modern roads rather blinds the tourist of to-day to the real character of the Vindhyan hill country as it must have been in old times. ' Not many years ago,' writes Mr. (Sir C.) Grant, ' the passes which would now scarcely excite notice but for the boldness of their scenery were looked forward to days beforehand with dread by cartmen, and most of the carriage of the country was effected by pack-bullocks. The valleys were sufficiently smooth and easy in fair weather, but a few hours' rain would convert the track through them into a trough of deep black compost, in which every step was a labour to the most lightly laden animal.^ It may be worth while, in conclusion, to notice how the actual condition of the ' Central Provinces ' (immediately beyond ' See iTTiperial Gazetteer (2nd ed.), i. 338. A good view of the fort is obtained by travellers on the Great Indian Peninsular Railway from Bombay to Allahabad. * I venture to think that Lassen (i. 112, 2nd ed.) attaches too high importance to this east-end route when he calls it the ' Hauptverbin- dungsstrasse ' (' chief line of communication) between Hindustan and the Dakhan.' It never served to do more, in early times, than enable an Aryan, or more probably semi-Aryan, royal family to establish a local lord- ship in the Upper Narbada Valley (Jabalpur and Garha-Mandlil). It seems also to have led only into the valley, and not given access further south ; at any rate, the Haihaya kings whose dommion was early estab- lished in this region only extended their sway to the districts of Chattls- garh (Raipur and Bilaspnr) in the immediate vicinity. All history shows that, apart from the access to Western India by the Indus Valley route, it was the passes at the western end that can be correctly de- scribed by Lassen's phrase as giving access from Hindustan (i.e. Upper India). ' Central Provinces Gazetteer, Introduction, p. xx. 46 TIIE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY the Vindliyan ' barrier ') shows the effects of 'the geographical features I have sketched. The northern or Narbada Valley dis- tricts contain most of the Aryan or northern element, as might be expected ; not only because they are nearest the north, but because the valley was from the earliest times more or less open to approach by the western (Indus Valley) route. Here it was that one of the most ancient of the Aryan or quasi- Aryan (Rajput) rulership was established in the well-known dynasty of the Haihaya, whose first capital was at Maheswar.' After the progress of the Hindu Aiyan tribes in Rajputana and Bundel- khand and Malwa, no doubt there would be more and more intercourse with the Narbada districts and Gujarat. But in reality it is known that the chief influx of Hindi-speaking people from the north of India only occurred within the last three centuries (since the reign of Akbar).- And the establish- ment of Hindus with their Brahman priests has resulted in the gradual absorption of many of the earlier races. But ' below the Ghat ' the country is more Dra vidian, including a Maratha ele- ment from the west, and a Telugu and Uriya one from the east and south.^ Another point deserves mention in connection with these Vindhyan ranges. Not only have the western and central hills served as safe retreats for the relics of tribes like the 1 Maheswar is now in the Indor State. Cf. Central Provinces Ga- zetteer, Introduction, p. cxxvl. ' It [the Narbada country] was ruled by chiefs called as usual Eajput, but these seem to have been days in which Rajputs had not been thoroughly assimilated with the Hindu caste system ' [which, I may add, was hardly then in existence] ; ' and it is quite conceivable that they may have reigned as a semi-foreign tribe directly over the aborigines without the- intervention of any class of Hindus.' ^ Central Provinces Gazetteer, Introduction, p. sv. The gradual ab- sorption of the population ^^-ithin the ranks of Hinduism was, as we shaU afterwards see, begun very early by Brahman hermits. HiUs and woods which completely stayed the waves of tribal emigration or the advance of large armies proved no obstacle to wandering hermits and those who sought the merits of ascetic life in the forest. ^ As a matter of fact {Census of India, Parliamentary Blue Book, 1891, p. 156), the Hindi-speaking population is now 60 per cent. ; the original Dravidian-Gond element stiU a little over 9 per cent., while the Mariithil element from the west represents 19-6 per cent., and the Uriya from the east, 6'35 per cent. GEOGRArillOAL AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OP INDIA 47 Koli, tlie Bhil, the Maria, and Kurkii, who have not been assimi- lated with the general ' Hindu ' population, but the eastern ex- tremity (South-western Bengal and Orissa) has its special features. Here there is an extensive plateau-land in the province of Ohutiya-Nagpur (corrupted into Chota-Nagpur) and the adjoining ' Hill States.' In this we find the refuge-ground of interesting races. For the countiy is at once fertile within and inaccessible from without.' Accordingly we find examples of the so-called Kolarian tribal land-customs, as preserved by the Santal, Ho, Munda, &c., as well as the Urdofi and other admittedly Dravidian tribes. It was mainlj'^ owing to the local features of this region that these tribes were able to establish a permanent home, and to find land to cultivate, while they retained their own peculiar customs, safe from external attack. Hill ranges have often served as the refuge for ancient tribes ; but they afforded no facilities for the permanent location of agricultural villages. On the contrary, they often directly invited a nomadic life and subsistence by the chase ; and where cultivation was adopted as a necessity, it was carried on by a method of temporary clearing to be described presently. Tribes placed in these situations have ended by remaining, or perhaps becoming, quite nomadic and uncivilised, or else by descending into the plains, and more or less completely losing their individuality in the mass of low-caste Hindu agriculturists or farm-labourers. The districts of Chutiya- Nagpur, on the other hand, though shut in by the hills, contain so much culturable land, that tribes finding a secure home within their precincts were able to establish permanent cultivation, and so to develop their" natural tendencies towards this form or that of village organisation. Thus we can observe in the plateau lands, relics of early agricultural customs which we should seek in vain in the forest-clad hills of the other Vindhyan ranges, and these, under the circumstances, we may believe to be really 1 ' The central table-land on which the tribes rallied is admirably adapted for defence. The approaches to it are from the north, north- west, east and south, and are exceedingly precipitous, the paths winding up defiles which a handful of resolute men could hold against hosts of invaders.' (Dalton's Ethnography of Bengal, Calcutta, 1872, pp. 150-2o-5). See also an interesting article on ' Chota-Nagpur : its People and Re- sources ' in the Asiatic Quarterly Revieiu for April 1887. 48 THE INDIAN Vri.LAGE COMMUNITY ancient, since there was no external influence (at least till quite recent times) to destroy tliem. It is not, of course, claimed that geographical features ex- plain everything ; hill ranges which have proved barriers to the Aryan advance may not have always been equally impervious to other tribes coming, perhaps, from other quarters and moving very gradually, in small sections and under wholly different con- ditions. But the features above described had a very clear con- nection ■with the facts of the Aryan advance, the occupation of the Indus Valley, the early Aryan connection with Upper Western India by that route, and the subjugation of the Ganges Valley or Plain, as well as with the fact that no extensive Aryan movement south of the Vindliyas took place. We cannot, however, derive any definite information from such features when we try to account for the first origia of the ancient Dravidian races ; and how it is that we find people with more or less distinctively Dravidian elements in their language at once north and south' of the Vindhyas, on the border of Biluchistan, and throughout the J\Iadras territory.' Section II. — Physical axd Climatic Features bearing on THE Forms of Agriccltdral Settlemext (1) General liemarks The gi-eat diversity in abundance of rainfall and general moisture which now exists must at all times have been experi- enced in different parts of India, and the striking differences in soil, climate, and vegetation which follow from these differences will naturally have had a great deal to do with the permanent location of groups of settlers and their customs of land-holding. ' The question whence the Dravidian races came is so purely a matter of speculation that it would be altogether foreign to my purpose to touch on the subject. It may only be suggested that if they ever came from the west, following the indication afforded by Dravidian elements in Biluchistan, they would naturally have taken the Indus Valley route and gone first to Western India and Southern India, where they would have multiplied and remained comparatively pure and unmixed ; while those of the races who gradually extended to Upper India, would be largely influenced by the stream of Kolarian and Tibeto-Burman races from the north-east, to say nothing of other possible northern tribes. GEOGEAPHICAL AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF INDIA 49 Such climatic variations are accompanied by differences in the crops which it is possible to raise, and in the sort of treatment necessary to the proper utilisation of the soil. Different tribes may also prefer different climates ; and if they happen to have markedly diverse customs we may find peculiar tenures in one place which do not occur in another. It has been observed in the Panjab that the location of Muhammadan village-communities usually follows the river lowlands, where cultivation is less troublesome, and a crop more secure, though the climate is less healthy. The Jats and hardier agricultural races, on the other hand, follow the higher lands, where the soil is good but the labour of raising a full crop is more considerable ; the climate, however, is drier and much healthier. The customs of these villages are not, in fact, markedly different, Yet, if there had chanced to be some striking contrast, we should have had tlie spectacle of customs changing with the contour lines of the map. I cannot help thinking that it is the peculiarity of Indian climatic conditions that has prevented the early agricultural tribes from following certain methods of co-aration and other customs which seem to be always found among the • early Celtic and Teutonic tribes of Europe. In Wales, for example, in a moist and cool climate, the ground is covered with short grass suitable at all times more or less for tribal grazing — and this we know to have been the principal resource ; the tribes were more pastoral and predatory than agri- cultural. What land they actually wanted for the yield of bread-corn, they could easily reclaim every year by simply ploughing it up. Every tribesman had cattle which he brought to the work ; strips representing a day's ploughing — or some similar area — -were arranged ; and the harvest was divided with, reference to the number of strips which fell to each tribesman's share. The harvest over, the short grass and herbage would again take possession of the fields, and if the tribe moved its home, or required new ploughlands, nothing would be easier than to settle on a new site for the purpose. Anything of the kind would be impossible under any of ihe ordinary climatic conditions of Indian provinces. Hence we never hear of tribal co-aration. Small holdings may be worked by people each of whom has only one bullock, so that E 50 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COLAIUNITY they must combine forces. And in some ijlaces local customs will be found of gathering together a number of ploughs to treat a large area, and giving a feast to all the helpers.' But that is not co-aration such as we see in ancient Europe. We have also instances of jointly-worked village-colonies, where no permanent allotment of the fields was made, appai-ently for a long period : the village heads determined each year what land each CO sharer should take in hand ; but that again is not co-aration. The fact is that no system of the kind would in most cases work. In all the numerous places where dense forest has to be contended with, the fields, once laboriously cleared, must be Icept clear, or the work would be undone in a few weeks or months ; ^ ^ E.g. the atari custom in the Akola district of Berar (Gazetteer, p. 65). ^ It may be not quite useless to explain to English readers that the work of clearing land and keeping it safe from the encroachment of the jimgle is in many parts of India a task quite beyond the experiences of European agriculture. The following passage, relatmg to the clearing of jungle country in the remotest parts of the Central Provinces {Gazetteer, Introduction, p. xxi), gives a graphic sketch of the ancient difficul- ties of ' first clearing.' Of course the nature of the difficulty varies from district to district ; in one place the contention is only with a hard soil, for which irrigation has to be laboriously provided ; iu another, it is with rank deeply-rooted grass of the Saccliarum and otlaer species, which springs again if a vestige of root be left, and soon chokes the ground with great tufts of leaves and taU flower-stalks twelve feet high ; m another, it is deep-rooted jungle of Proso^is and other dry species. "Wherever there is ' semi-tropical ' forest and imdergrowth, as in the country described, the labour, as well as the risk of fever, is great. The vnriter of the extract which follows speaks of the life of a settler, even in modern times, being ' a constant battle against tigers and malaria.' ■ At present,' he says, ' it is almost incredible how quickly the ground which the hand of man has patiently gained, inch by inch, is swaUowed up again by the jungle, when the pressure of regular occupation is for a moment inter- mitted. Sir W. Sleeman, writing in 1826, records how a few days' ill-judged zeal on the part of a mere underling threw a flourishing tract of country out of cultivation for years. . . . There had been a bad season, and yet the collection of the revenue had been pressed on, in one of the wilder subdivisions of the Narsinghpur district, without allowance or con- sideration, by an over-zealous coUector. The hiU cultivators . . . deserted in a body ; when better times came it was found impossible to repopulate the deserted villages, for they had been so grown over by jungle in a year or two, that the very village-sites needed clearing, and GEOGRArrilCAL AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF INDIA 51 find this not only invites the separate demarcation of fields and develops the sense of a strong claim to what has been so laboriously won, but it almost naturally produces a union of families in villages ; for people cling together when they not only need the help of one another in the fields, but when they are liable to be harassed by wild animals, and subject to much sick- ness — at least till a lai-ge open space has been cleared and good drinking-water obtained — and where the demons of the woods and the spirits of the solitudes have to be propitiated, beings who excite in the minds of the primitive tribes au amount of superstitious dread which it is hard for us moderns to i-ealise. In other places the village lands require irrigation of various kinds ; this is obviously opposed to easily shifted cultivation ; it also requires fixed fields and a determination of shares in the water. We shall afterwards notice that among the earliest allusions to agriculture in the Vedas we find the water-course mentioned, and also the field measured with a reed and separated by a balk or lince from the neighbouring fields. In the dry plains of the Panjab and the Ganges Doab, early cultivation was probably confined to the immediate vicinity of the rivers, where the soil was moist, and where wells, if used at all for watering the land, would have been, as they are now, mere pits in the soft soil. It must have been some time before the people learnt to cut canals inland from the rivers, or to sink deeper wells, and raise the water by some mechanical device. Here, then, we see no of)portunities for co-aration and the indeterminate occupation, by whole clans, of lai'ge areas of land. In the Hill Country and intra-montane valleys of the North Country, again, the nature of the soil would require the perma- nent terracing of the hillsides, the establishment of small irriga- tion works along the hillside — or else the permanent utilisation of all such level alluvial deposits as naturally become the sites of rice-fields. Or, again, just below the hills, we find cultivation often carried on solely by aid of occasionally flowing, or permanently tigers had so readily occupied the new coverts thus made for tliem that even travellers shunned the couatrj'.' This state of things would be reproduced even more easily in well-watered and tropical parts of the country, in East Bengal, Burma, &c. E 2 52 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITr flowing, streams, whicli are made, by very easy and primitive devices, to water the land. There is little opportunity for chang- ing the fields, which, moreover, are usually terraced or embanked with some labour. But the most serious and general obstacle to easily moved agricultural settlement in the plains is the labour of clearing the soil already alluded to. Nothing suggests the open-field system of shifting settlements and the co-aration of the whole. To be sure, the extensive use of fallows is an earlj'- resource of primitive agriculture ; and in the drier climates land is easily exhausted ; but here it will generally be found that each holding is large enough to include an area that is fallow while a small portion of it is under cultivation ; they do not sliift the entire village or the entire tribal group of cultivated holdings from one location to another. Temporary cultivation is practised on alluvial lands, which are unstable, and on certain soils where either there is only occasionally sufficient moisture or some local peculiarity. And this generally occurs where the herbaceous vegetation dries up after the rains and can be removed by burning. There is, however, one general method of temporary cultiva- tion which is still extensively practised in the remote districts and among the less advanced tribes. It is confined, however, to the forest-clad hill country in parts of the Eastern, Cen- tral, and Southern Provinces of India. It will be worth while to devote some attention to it, for it is connected with the customs of locating tribes and the allotment of territory ; and while, on the one hand, it seems to render the idea of fixed ownership of land more or less impossible, on the other hand it initiates various customs of united labour, of responsibility for keeping fire away from the clearings, and of the establishment of small family groups, as well as larger clan-settlements, in their defined boundaries. Ultimately we see how it gradually becomes modified into a permanent right in the soil. (2) Shifting or Temporary HiU-cultivation The essential element is the existence of hills with a con- venient slope and a sufficiently dense covering of vegetation to yield an amount of ash which will suitably manure the ground. GEOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF INDIA 53 It involves also the distribution of certain beats or areas which can be taken uf) in rotation ; and this gives the first idea of right over a considerable territory onl}" a limited portion of which is under treatment at any one time.' The first point is, as I have said, to select out of the wooded area the slopes that have a suitably thick clothing of vegetation and are sufficiently gentle. This latter is important, since if the slopes are too -steep, the ' monsoon ' rain, descending on the surface bared of its tree- shelter, would erode the soil and wash away the seed. On the selected area, the working members of the families, armed with their heavy knives (of the type of the Burmese cte), cut down all the smaller vegetation, bamboos, grass, and small trees, which are then gathered in heaps to dry in the sun ; in some cases the larger trees are not cut, but ringed or ' girdled ' and left to die standing. At the end of the hot season, and just before the summer rainy-season begins, the dry raaterial is set on fire ; and when all is reduced to ashes, these are raked over the soft forest humus soil, and seed (millet, hill-rice, and some- times cotton), being mixed with the ashes, is dibbled into the oTound with a hoe. As soon as the rain falls the seed O germinates, and the family labour after that consists in repeated weeding and in guarding against the attacks of wild animals.^ 1 This form of cultivation is known by various names. It is jfim in Bengal, Tcumri (or l-umarT) in South India, yd or (in the HiUs) taung-ya in Burma ; in the Central Provinces and neighbourhood it is dadnyd or dahyd, the enclosed cleared fields being called bemar. It was kno-wn in the outer ranges of the Himalaya, within the last century or still more recently, under various local names, cil, kordli, &c. It was by no means unknown in Europe. In Styria it is still practised under the name of ' Brand wirthsehaft.' The French ' sartage ' is, however, not the same thing : that is a method of lightly burning over the soil to manure and improve it; it answers more to the rdb cultivation of Western India, where the permanently cultivated rice fields are lightly covered with leaves, bamboos, small branches, &c., and burnt, partly for the salce of the ash manure, but stiU more, I am told, for the benefit to the surface- soil by the slight calcining action of the fire. There is an account of the lii.mri cultivation on the West Coast, in Bombay Gazetteer, xv. (part ii.), 188, 189, and South Kdnara D. M. i. 209. - Which latter is sometimes a very formidable business. For example, in the Central Provinces Gazetteer, an account of the cultiva- tion as practised by the Baiga tribe is given. There they seem to rely 54 THE INDIAN VILLAGE CO.AI.MUNITY Wlientlie crop is reaped, the soil maybe considered sufficiently fertile for another year's cultivation ; but it is soon exhausted, and then a move has to be made to a greater or less distance according to locality. It depends on the extent of suitable slopes with sufficiently dense vegetation, and the relative numbers of the tribes, whether the same place is returned to after many years (20-40), or after the minimum number (5-7), in which a sufficient growth will cover the land and afford material for the next burning. In scantily populated ranges, no care is taken ; and the fire applied to each cleared area is allowed to spread over the adjoining forest, many square miles being annually burned. But where the area is move restricted, the ' villages ' have a well- understood system whereby the fire from the prepared blocks must be prevented, by cleared lines, &c., from spreading to neighbouring blocks ; and a system of fines and compensations would be enforced in case of neglect. To a great extent the allotment of these tribal areas is regu- lated by Nature. There may or may not have been a conflict of interests and fighting before a peaceable location is effected ; but the natural barriers of river, ridge, and valley appear usually to be followed as intimating the limits of clan-territory and its sub-divisions. It is extremely interesting to be able to trace the stages by on burning the large wood as well as the smaller stuff ; sufficient being cut ' to cover pretty closely the whole of the area. ... In May and June, just before the setting in of the rains, the wood and the brush- wood in which it has fallen is set fire to ; and almost before the fire is out the Baigas may be seen raking up the ashes and spreading them over the surface of their field. This is done with a bundle of thorns or long bamboos, until there is a superstratum of about an inch of ashes spread over the ground.' The grain sown consists of mUlets and Eodo {Pasiya- lum sp.) and a poor hill rice. ' "When so'wn, the field is fenced round very roughly and strongly ; small trees are felled so as to fall one on to the other ; the interstices are fiUed in with bamboos, and the boughs are carefully interlaced so that the smallest kind of deer cannot effect an entrance.' "Where bison or buffaloes are feared, which would biust through an ordinary fence, they bury a line of broad-bladed spears (diiiisa) at about the spot where the animals would land if they jumped the fence. "Watching an opportunity, they frighten the wild cattle, in- ducing them to rush the fence, when some of them are sure to be wounded and perhaps one or two killed ; and the herd never visit the field again. GEOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF IXDIA 55 which this nomad cultivation begins to change into permanent allotment of holdings and to the fixation of villages. Such a process has been observed in parts of Burma, where the Karen population has come to press on the land and is unable or un- willing to jmove elsewhere. The rich soil at the bottom of the valleys first becomes permanently cultivated, and the slopes above, still cultivated by burning the vegetation, are nevertheless divided out, and worked in a strict rotation, under severe penal- ties and well-enforced responsibility in the case of fire being allowed to spread to the areas not yet ready for cultivation. Sir D. Brandis has given an interesting account of the Karen tribes in the hills between the Sittang and Salween Elvers ' who had attained this stage of progress. ' These Karens,' he says, ' have two classes of cultivation : along the valleys and ravines are extensive gardens of betel-palms, with oranges and other fruit trees carefully irrigated and admirably kept. These gardens are strictly private property ; they are bought and sold, and on the death of the proprietor are divided in equal shares among his children.' He then describes how on the drier slopes above, taungyd cutting is practised ; but the limited area available and the necessity for carefully fostering the vegetable growth- which yields the ashes necessary for sowing the hill-rice renders special arrangements necessary. And he continues : ' The whole of the taungya grounds of one village are divided into a number of plots, each plot being owned by one of the proprietors of the village. Well-to-do people own from twenty to thirty plots situated in different parts of the village area.' The boundaries of each village are most distinctly defined, and jealously guarded against encroachment. The boundaries of the plots also are defined. ' These plots are sold and bought . . . and when a proprietor dies his taungya, groiinds, with his gardens, are divided in equal shares ^ Quoted at length in my Land Systems of BritisJi India, iii. 506 ff. Sir D. Brandis was familiar with these tribes as Conservator of Forests, and again visited them twenty years later, when he was Inspector-General of Forests to the Government of India. ^ The vegetation that springs up after a season of shifting cultivation is interesting botanically, and is very different from the original forest. In the Karen HiUs, the vegetation for burning is chiefly a tail reed-grass (Arundo sp.) interspersed with old gnarled trees, which are poUarded so that the leaves and branches may be burned on the ground. 56 THE INDIAN VU.LAGE COMMUNITY among his child ren.' ... 'I have here spoken of the people as the proprietors of their taunr/yd grounds. Tiiey claim, however, only a kind of imperfect proprietary right. They hold their plots as against each other, but they recognise that the State has a superior right in the land.' So far Sir D. Brandis : for my own part, I may suggest that this may be a relic of the feeling that, as waste land belongs to the State, as of old it belonged to the tribe indefinitely, so land which is yet, so to speak, in a stage between waste and cultivation, has not yet completely become private property. It will be observed, however, that the plots are rented, bought, and sold ; this implies that the State right is after all of a limited kind ; or more probably, perhaps, that the native mind does not regard the concurrent existence of two kinds of right as at all antagonistic. In some places we may observe the change which has led tribes, without deserting the hill country, to take to the terraced cultivation wliich is so commonly observed in hill districts ; in the Himalaya, for example.' There is usually some level ground at the bottom of the valleys, and perhaps some alluvial level area formed by the gradual accretion of mud and detritus from the mountain torrents ; and this is suitable for rice-land. With this valuable area of permanent cultivation, the desire grows to re- main in the same vicinity ; and so, gradually, the best spots on the slopes above are selected and terraced or banked up with the stones picked oiit of the fields ; if rice can be grown here, it is soon found possible to conduct the water of a hill rivulet to the spot by means of a contour channel along the hillside. These are sometimes contrived with considerable skill. I do not know whether it should be considered a relic of the old forest-burning method of cultivation, or whether it is merely due to a prejudiced clinging to an early method of man- uring, that it is still a feature of the West Coast holdings, in Coorg, Kanara, &c. (and I have noticed the same thing in Chutiya-Nagpur on the east side), that every cultivated farm holding has allotted to it a certain portion of grass and jungle ' I have been shown places in the Simla Hills and elsewhere where the peculiar vegetation of the slopes indicates that they had once been treated by the process of shifting cultivation perhaps no more than fifty or sixty j-ears ago. GEOGRAPHIC AL AND PHYSICAL FEATUEES OF INDIA 57 land, not only to supply grazing for cattle, but more especially to yield branches and stuff to burn on tlie rice fields. This is irrespective of any general grazing area or forest that is avail- able in common. (3) Instances where Village Ch-oups are not found The first case to be noticed is that of the British Himalayan districts. It is not difficult to understand that where there is only a limited area of flat land in a narrow valley, and occasional patches of good soil with not too steep a slope on the hillside, single homesteads, or very small groups of two or three families together, must take the place of the villages of the plains. The consequences of this from a tenure point of view are, perhaps, not immediately perceptible ; but in reality there can hardly be any doubt that the peculiar natural dispositions of culturable soil and waste have had a great effect : (1) on the arrangements made when Rajput conquering chiefs assumed local dominion, and (2) on the modem system under our own Land- Revenue Settlements. But still more interesting (3) are some ancient customs still traceable, which largely depended on the physical •conditions, but maj- also be due to peculiarity of racial custom. It happened that the Kangra district became British ter- ritory (now under the Panjab Government) in 1846. The Kumaon and Garhwal districts, farther east, also came under the North-West Provinces administration in 1815. And we have good information about both, especially in the interesting reports on Kangra, with its outlying dependencies, by Mr. Barnes, and later by Mr. (now Sir James B.) Lyall. It will be necessary to pre- mise ' that both these districts were probably inhabited from early times by people who belonged to the North-Eastern or Tibeto- Burman stock, races now much altered and blended with Hindus (Aryans), who came later. It must have been a comparatively easy task for a chief of superior race and with a small hardy troop of followers to establish a local rulership in these hills ; for the isolated holdings were too scattered to combine for defence, and the petty independent chiefs had no cohesion. We find the Rajput Rajas claiming all the land as conquerors. But ' Further detail will be given in Chapter IV., dealing with Land Customs. 58 THE INDIAN VILLACxE COMMUNITY they did not iuterfere much with these existing holdings, nor as a rule tax them exorbitantly for rent. The waste and the forest became the Raja's ; and, in Kangra at any rate, he enforced the claim strictly. The State officers soon an-anged the scattered farms and hamlets into circles for rent-collecting and other Government purposes.' These circles afterwards were treated as ' villages ' when the districts came under the British Revenue Settlement. In the Kangra Hills, separate homesteads are found (l/brh, la/rlii, bdsa), or where it is possible small villages or hamlets are built together and called grdon. As all the waste and forest belonged to the Raja, the cultivators only claimed to have the customary use of the hillside and grass-land for grazing their cattle. But sometimes the waste and the cultivated fields were so intermingled that the whole group together seemed to constitute some different form of ' village ' tenure. This, however, is not really the case, as Sir J. Lyall points out.^ I have alluded to this detail, not that there is any necessity for explaining it, but because the remarks on the siibject made in the Re^Dort were the occasion of introducing a vivid picture of the agricultural settlements in the hills, as thej' occur under the different conditions which the gentler slopes and occasional open vallej'S afford. This I cannot do better than quote : — A glance at the outward aspect of these mauza ' [writes Sir J. Lyall] will, I think, make it clear that this degree of difference of tenure in the waste has mainly arisen from physical causes. Take first a mauza in the irrigated villages. The low and tolerably level parts of the area, which can be conveniently flooded from the water- channels, form the lidr or open expanse of rice-fields. This land is too valuable and too swampy to be lived upon ; the houses of the landholders are seen closely scattered along the comparatively high and dry ridges or rising ground. Each family has a ga rden, orchard, or small field or two round the house or houses in which it lives (Idrhi-bdsi) j the rest of its holding is made up of fields scattered ' Locally called in Kangra. Tcothi, liakvmi, magdal, &c., and by other names elsewhere. " Kangra S. B. (1874), § 17, pp. 14 ff. ^ Mauza, is the Eevenue-o£6ce term for a village as defined in a map ; the term was doubtless purposely used in the Report because of the artificial nature of the groups adopted for Settlement purposes. GEOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSICAL FEATUEES OF IIS'DIA 59 here and there in the Itdr. Near the houses are long strips of grass like village greens, on which the cattle graze in common. jSTow, in a village of this kind it is evident that the idea of boundary in the waste between family and family has not the chance of arising. . . • iNext take a mauza in a country where there is no irrigation, but where the features of the landscape are bold — that is, where open arable slopes and plains alternate with steep unculturable hills. Here the houses of the landholders will be seen scattered over the surface of the arable land, the fields of each family lying with few exceptions compactly round the houses of the family. . . . The general grazing grounds are the hill sides which surround the arable land. Here, again, there has been no opportunity for the growth of a feeling of boundary between family and family in the waste as a whole. Thirdly, take a mauza in an unirrigated country . . composed of a mass of low steep hills intei-sected by hundreds of narrow valleys or ravines. . . . There is little culturable land, and what there is is scattered here and there along the tops of the ridges and edges of the ravines. Culturable and unculturable lands are everywhere intermixed in about the same proportion. . . . Each group of houses is surrounded by waste sprinkled with fields. Each family, as it has grown from its ancestor the first settler, has brought under the plough all the culturable land within its reach, but has still within the orbits of its fields much waste — enough, or nearly enough for the requirements in the way of grazing.' Here naturally nothing would tempt anj'one else to make nse of the included waste, and equally naturally in time it would become regarded as belonging to the group within whose ' orbit ' it lies, though not actually its ' property.' These little groups of separate farms were all held from the Eaja as superior landlord ; they had, as I have already said, to be further organised in circles for rent-collecting purposes ; but the effect this produced on the soil interests cannot be classed under the head we are now considei-ing. Similarly, the applica- tion of a particular Eevenue system in modern days, and the ' The length of the extract that would be necessary prevents my adding some interesting remarks (p. 16) on the smaUness of the hamlets in narrow and malarious ' irrigated ' rice valleys. ' Not only in Kangra but in Gurdaspur and in other districts,' says the writer, ' I have noticed an extraordinary difference in the growth of families in irrigated and un- irrigated estates. In one case the pedigree table expands hardly at aU ; in the other it soon shows a list of descendants almost constituting a clan.' 60 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COJLMUXITY formation of ' estates,' which go to swell the total of villages in the official returns, is a purely artificial arrangement. It would be impossible to pass by the Valley of Kashmir, for which a Revenue Settlement has recently been made, and under which it is hoped an altogether new era of prosperity has dawned for the long-suffering population, ilr. Walter Lawrence, who made this Settlement, has given us a charming account of the valley.' In the more completely mountain country of Kashmir, in such localities as the Kishnganga Valley, and the hills on the confines of Hazara, as well as about Kishtwar, Badrawar, and on the borders of Chamba, all of which I myself have visited, the villages are formed of little groups of chalets wherever the site is sheltered and there is water and sufficient space for the houses. The cnltivaiion is on terraced fields forming separate holdings grouped together as far as circumstances permit, just as in Kulu or Chamba. In the ' Valley ' itself, where there is more space, larger villages seem to be formed ; and in one case Mr. Lawrence speaks of a village with a normal population of 165 families, and the usual village menials and artisans appear ; mdeed, the Mughal rulers seem to have introduced a village system. But I cannot find any trace of a community holding an area of land in common, even where the extent of country would permit such a thing. No allusion occurs in Mr. Lawrence's account to any tenures. I pre- sume that it was impossible to trace any early forms of land allot- ' Tlie Valley of Kashmir, by Walter Lawrence. London: Henry Frowde, 1895. These hiUs and valleys seem to have been early inhabited by Aryan clans who at that tmie could not have developed easte and other later Hindu institutions. It seems also the Naga or serpent- worshipping races were there also. It is remarkable that tlie Kashmir dialect more nearly resembles Sindhi (Lawrence, p. 454) than other Prakrit derivations. And Sindh niust liave been originally occupied by Aryans in the same stage of progress as those of Kashmir. After- wards Buddhism prevailed, and we have a long list of Hindu kings, who had, evidently, mucli connnunication with India, and became ' regtdar ' Hindus as time went on. In the seventeentli century the Mnghals conquered tlae valley ; and after them Pathfins and Sikhs exer- cised, in turn, a cruel rule. All rights have been set at naught for generations past, until now when, thanks to the enlightenment of the Council of Regency, a proper Settlement has been made. The theory, I presume, still is that the State is the owner of the soil ; but the peasantry •niU at least have a secure hereditarj' possessory title. GEOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF INDIA 61 ment, and that for generations past the Rajas' ownership, and the official oppression to which the people were accustomed, must have left at best only a certain hereditary occupancy as the ostensible tenure. Speaking of the villages in the Valley, Mr. Lawrence remarks that each house has some space around it : ' in- stead of the ineffable dreary and unvillage-like look of the Indian hamlet, we have in Kashmir the picturesque homesteads dotted about here and there. All have their little gardens and court- yards.' In this courtyard is the wooden granary, like a sentiy- box ; and hei'e, too, the women sit to husk rice and separate the maize from the cobs. ' Most villages,' adds Mr. Lawrence, ' have a delightful brook, on which is a quaint-looking bathing-house, where the villager leisurely performs his ablutions. One of the prettiest objects in the village is the graveyard shaded by the Geltis australis trees, and bright with iris — purple, white, and yellow — which the people plant over their departed relations.' ' The hill districts of KumIon and GARHWALlie more towards the centre of the outer Himalayan Range ; they show very much the same features as have been noticed in Kangra.^ The ' villages ' of the plains are replaced by • detached hamlets scattered along the sides and bases of the mountains wherever facilities for cul- tivation are afforded.' ' I do not find any special form of land allotment noticed ; but the assumption of the soil ownership by ' Quoted from a paper in Journal of tlie Society of Arts, xliv. 492. " Reports on Ktiniaon and Garhwiil, by TraiU and Batten, collected in the Agra reprint (1851). There is also a ' Statistical Account of Kumilon ' in the Gazetteer, and much information for those who care to dig it out of the buUvj- Report by Sir H. Ramsay on the Kumaon Revised Settlement of 1873. Unfortunately, at the early date when the first Reports were ^Titten, it was not yet the fashion to inquire into the ancient customs in detail. The Repoi-ts are also much spoiled by a feature which might seriously mislead an unwary reader. The Board of Revenue had prescribed by Cii'cular Order a general mode of recording and describing village-tenures under the tasual terms Zammdari, Pattl- ddrl, and hhai'ichdrd, about which we shall hear in the sequel, and which only suited the villages of the plains. Accordingly, both Messrs. Traill and Batten thought it necessary to attempt to use these official terms, and sometimes have to apologise for the hiU-tenures, that really they iL-ill not, as doubtless they ought, fit into the frames provided by the Board of Revenue ! ' SJietch of Kumdon in the Collected Reports, p. 11. 62 TI[E INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUXTTY the conquering Rajas led. to the separate homesteads and small hamlets being regarded as ' Crown' tenancies; and. just as in other States, the rent collections were managed by forming ' circles ' of hamlets under officers locally known as Kamln and TJioMctr or Siydna. These agents, again, selected a headman {padlidn) in each hamlet or group of hamlets to collect the rents of the individual farmers. Thus a more or less artificial appearance of ' villages ' arose. And in Kumaon, apparently much more generally than in Kangra, the Raja made grants or assignments of his superior right in the land ; and the resulting title was called thO.t (or hot if the grant was for the support of the relatives of a soldier slain in battle). All sorts of persons, astrologers, Brahmans, courtiers, dependents, and even the royal cooks, got such grants. At first they were ' freehold,' since the royal revenue due on them was either remitted or was taken by the grantee for the service on account of which the grant was made. In course of time the revenue remission was rescinded, but the ' proprietary ' title remained. The grantee ' proprietor ' was entitled to take into his personal possession, and use, one-third of the land. Here, acain, was another source of artificial villages. For when the heirs of the grantees succeeded jointly, some semblance of a joint-village estate arose, and, under the North-West Pro- vinces Revenue system, the estates were treated as mcaiza, or villages, and shown as such in the statistical returns. Xot- withstanding these grants, however, a large proportion of the hamlets in Kumaon, and especially inGarhwal,' remained as in- dependent groups of cultivators, and are only aggi-egated for administrative pui-poses. In another widely different part of India — along the West Coast — we have another instance of the absence of villages. This country comprises the districts of North Kanara, South Kanara, and Malabar. It may be described generally as con- sisting of a strip of uneven but fertile land between the sea and the Western Ghat mountains. Many spurs run down from the hills beyond, and the level country is constantly inter- sected by rivers and estuaries, and by ravines which widen towards the coast and are filled with rice cultivation; while ' S. B. Garhiai'il, in the Collected Eeports, p. 129. GEOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF INDIA 63 the whole country is studded with orchards and luxuriant pahii- groves.^ In North Kanaka, as the country approaches the districts of Belgaum and Dharwar, and above the Western Ghat or Sahiyadri Hills, something like villages are formed, and there are some ap- pearances of a staff of village ofScers and menials. In Kanara generally, the house of a cultivating family stands, separately, in the neighbourhood of the fields held by them. The single holding is North Kanara is called sthal. The aggregates of these hold- ings formed for official and administrative purposes throughout Kanara appear to have been variously arranged at different periods, and especially by the Mysore Sultans or other sovereigns who introduced the Perso-Arabic revenue terms. A small group of two or three holdings (having, I suppose, some con- nection among themselves) is called majare, which is a local form of the Arabic mazrd, (H.) tnajra. The more natural aggre- gate is called grama, which also is a group of a few holdings. I think I am right in supposing that the grdnui was the original subdivision of the nadu, of which we shall hear much in the sequel. Where there happens to be a somewhat larger aggregate of residences it is called Tnauje, which is the (A.) mauza. Whether this is regarded as distinct from the grama I am not informed. For administrative purposes several (5 or 6) grama are again aggregated into a mdgaiie.^ The houses are mostly built of laterite, which is a material locally abundant, soft when first cut, but hardening on exposure to the weather. Or else laterite pillars are built, and the walls are of mud. A large proportion of the ordinary peasant houses are thatched ; but that is not from poverty, but from the ancient custom which confined the use of tiles to temples and the houses of the Brahmans and the ruling classes. ^ North Kimara is under the Bombay Government, and is described in the BoTnhay Gazetteer, xv. 411-15. South Kanara is La Madras ; there is a pleasing account of the country in the South Kanara D. M. i. 8. ^ Bombay Gazetteer, xv. 412. The old Mysore Government made use of a larger aggregate, called hobali. I understand that this is now disused. Of. South Kanara D. M. ii. 6. I presume that the figures at p. 8 refer to the population in a mdgane. 64 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY The system of land-liolding here, wl}icli depends on the past history of the country, has no reference to village aggregates whatever ; and we shall hereafter see that the ivarg, or superior holding, often consists of several plots which are not necessarily in the same inagane even. In Malabar the general facts are similar. Here, among the upper classes of landholders, the single house is often a hand- some structure standing in the midst of a square enclosed orchard, approached by a castellated gateway, and solidly built. It con- tains several connected families, for the joint-family idea is strong among them.' Here also we have the grouping of a number of holdings into grama, tara, &c., and these again, for adminis- trative purposes, into amisham (amsJiom of the books).^ More will appear on this subject when we speak of the land- holding customs ; and we shall then see how far the state of things depends on Dravidian custom, modified by caste and the Hindu law ; but it is clear that the isolation of the holdings is in the first instance caused by the physical features of the country- — the broken ground, the frequent ravines and valleys, at the bottom of which the rice lands lie. It is interesting to observe that in the fourteenth century Ibn-Batuta noticed these features: he says that the whole coast-line afibrded one long journey under trees, and that the people had all of them separate houses in the midst of their land.^ One more example of the absence of village aggregates, and that entirely due to physical circumstances, may be taken from the SoCTH Paxjab — a country presenting about as complete a ' I.e. among Nayar and Brahman families. Logan, Malabar D. M. i. 89, 131, 133, 153. Tlie feeling for separate households is sho-svn by the numerous words in Malay illam for houses of different kinds ; the cottage, the ordinary house, the mansion, the menial's hut, the Baja's palace, the chiefs house, &c., are aU distinguished. - The aggregate known as desa/m is of a different character ; it was an eai'lv aggregation made solely for military purposes, each group havmg to provide so many soldiers. = Quoted D. M. Malabar, i. 86, where there is also a pleasing account of the ajrangements of a higher caste dwelling in the midst of its orchard and surrounded with a high bank of earth and an inter- laced hedge. It is too long to quote, and would be spoiled by condensa- tion. GEOGRAPHICAL A>7D PHYSICAL FEATURES OF INDIA 65 contrast to that last described as can well be imagined. In the districts below Multan, and part of Dera Ghazi K]ian, the country is so rainless that anything like permanent cultivation is only possible either along the banks of a river, or by aid of small canal cuts taken off from the river, or by the aid of wells, which again can only be sunk tip to a certain distance inland — i.e. away from the river. The ' well ' (i.e. the area protected, or at least partly watered, by the well) becomes the unit of pro- perty throughout the tract that lies next beyond the river- moistened belt. Thus, in the Multan district, ilr. Roe writes : ' ' In the tracts near the rivers, tlie lands generally belong to Jat tribes, and here we find regular village com- munities. . . . Away from the rivers the villages are generally merely a collection of ' wells ' which have been sunk in the neighbourhood of a canal, or in more favourable spots in the high land. In these there never has been any community of interest ; in very many cases there is not even a common village- site : each settler has obtained his grant direct from the State, sunk his well, and erected his homestead upon it. Under our Settlements, the waste land between these wells has been recorded, as a matter of course, shamilat-dih (common of the village) ; but originally the well-owners had no claim to it whatever.' (4) Physical Features wliicli invite Village Formation Having described some of the physical causes which tend to ■prevent the formation of villages, there remain to be noticed, on the other hand, those features of Indian climate and physical condition which would have directly encouraged the aggregation of groups of cultivators, even if tribal ties or a strong sense of family life had not already predisposed them to settle together. These causes have, in fact, operated universally, and are suffi- ciently obvious when stated ; they are calculated, however, to invite aggregation of some kind, but do not go further in producing any particular form of that aggregation. Wherever they have operated, ' villages ' are a feature on the map, irre- spective of the internal structure of the groups, whether as aggregates of independent households or as co-sharing bodies. ' S. B. MuUiin (1883), chap. ii. § 69. It is just the same in jDarts of Dera Ghazi Khan, Fryer's 8. E. 1874, § 216. F 66 THE I]SiDIAN VILLAGE COMMUmTY I need hardlj- repeat what has been said about the difficulty of first clearing the jungle-clad, black-soiled districts of many of the central and southern parts of India, or in the dense forests of the eastern districts. No single family could settle alone. A fair-sized clearing must be made as soon as possible, for the sake of health ; and the need of co-operation for defence against wild animals injurious to crops and even to human life, for carrying out the cottage-building, tank-digging, forest-clearing, and other initial works, is obvious. Even in dry open districts the help of a number of hands would be needed before cultivation could be fairly started. In very dry countries, where cultivation is impossible unless a well or canal-cut can be provided, circumstances may, as we have seen, tend to the establishment of separate farms or land- holdings with reference to the well or other irrigation source ; there may also be conditions which admit of cultivating groups, but at the same time limit their size. In the Bannu and other frontier districts of the Panjab, where there are low hills furrowed by many torrent beds which for the most part have water only during the short rainy season, there are well-established cus- toms of sharing the water, by means of a system of channels and temporary dams, whereby the water is led on to certain groups of terraced fields. The customary rules provide that each dam must be removed after a certain number of hours ; or that it can only be raised to a certain height, so that when the flood reaches that level the surplus water may pass on to the fields of another right-holder. The point here is, that the size of the village mav be largely determined by the number of fields which the available water-supply will reach. In the same way, wherever there are but limited ■' tanks ' for irrigation {e.g. Ajmer and Central India), the size of the cultivating group must naturally regulate itself accordingly.' ' The word ' tank ' is said to be of Marathi or Gujarilti origin. Wilson's Glossary gives UiTikeil (M.) and tunyh (Gu.) ; it has no refer-,-' ence to our English word of the same form. The irrigation-tank is sometimes a depression in the soil, or the head of a valley dammed up artificially, and so situated as to ooUect the rain running off the high land all romid. Some ' tanks ' are vast sheets of water never completely dry. GEOGEAPHICAL AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF INDIA 67 Defence against enemies is another obvious reason for aggre- gation. In unsettled times, cultivation is hardly possible except within reach of some chiefs fortress ' or other place of refuge ; and in those provinces where the open level country has allowed of ' village ' settlements, the families keep together for mutual help. Each group has to be prepared to defend itself against sudden attack. Accordingly, in many parts of India the village dwelling-place has been built with mud walls and stout gates, within which, the cattle may be secured and the cultivators find refuge against a foray .^ In later times, too, oppressive revenue ofiBcers had often to be resisted. This allusion to the dwelling site of the village reminds me that, though the aggregation of houses in the centre of the hold- ings is a very common feature, it is by no means universal. This difference often depends on physical conditions ; but in for- mer times it must have depended also on the state of the country as regards peace : homesteads or small hamlets scattered about the village area would have to be abandoned (and were so fre- quently) during the wars and invasions that so constantly occurred. It is mentioned in one of the Lahore Settlement Reports that the villagers used to come and ask the Government Settlement Superintendent for permission to have their homestead outside the regular village site, as if this were an exceptional measure which formerly would have been dangerous.^ This may be a convenient opportunity to pass in review the several provinces, as regards the form of village residences, whether they are compact groups of bouses (either walled and • We shall meet with an example of this in the hilly table-land of the Dakhan districts. ^ Grant Dufif mentions that Sivilji, the founder of the Maratha rule, fearing to encourage 'the village and district authorities to resist his government as they frequently did that of Bijapur,' . . . ' destroyed all village walls, and allowed no fortification in his territory that was not occupied by his own troops.' — History of the Mahrattas, i. 197. ' Possibly, however, the application was made because the petitioner expected to be allowed a sufficient area for his house, to be made free of revenue : this he could have got in the db'idl or central site, the area of which is, in the Panjab, always unassessed, but he might not be able to secure a remission on part of his fields. f2 08 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY gated or open), or whether small groups of houses (hamlets) are the prevalent form. In the Madras Manuals I have not found any general account of the subject, although it is evident that, putting aside the special conditions of the west coast districts, the plain countrj^ in general appears to present similar characteristics. So much I gather, that the flat-roofed houses characteristic of the Dakhan are not in use, but that mud-built cottages thatched with palmyra palm (Borassus sp.) are common. It seems also to be a general feature, and one apparently derived from the original Dravidian village customs, that each house had its ' croft,' or garden and yard, and that the menials of the village were aggregated in a sort of suburb (eerl') just outside the village.' Madras villages in general (I gather from various scattered indications) are compact groups, and, as usual in Dravidian countries, the whole social organisation is complete — the hereditary headman with his ex-officio hereditary holding of land, the village accountant, and the regular staff of village artisans and menials paid by grain fees as we have already noticed.^ As to Bombay, I have not yet seen a general account of the Dakhan,^ but from scattered notices in the district reports, I gather that the villages are generally compact, and that flat- roofed houses are common, the poorest sort of huts being thatched. The general use of sun-dried bricks or of mud walls compacted together, or of burnt brick with mud cement, not only in this part of the country but in India generally, is not only to be ascribed to its cheapness. There is no doubt that thick mud walls are much cooler than brick. The cir- cumstances of life in the Dakhan districts seem to make compact villages necessary. It would appear that at one time families of superior race had established their lordship over the villages, and they probably held control from the gadh, or forts, built on the eminences with which the irregular table- • Macleane's Manual, i. 100 ; Godnvari D. M. p. 87. ^ Ante, pp. 16, 17. ' Vol. i. of the Gazetteer, which may be expected to contain a general sketch of the physical features, population, and social conditions of the Dakhan districts, has not yet appeared. GEOGRArUICAL AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF INDIA 69 land abounds ; as such ' barons ' would have constant feuda among themselves, compact villages would be a necessity for self- protection.' In the richer districts of Gujarat — a province which has often and not unjustly been described as the Garden of India — the villages seem well to do, and furnish an excellent specimen of what village-building can attain to. The account deserves to be quoted : ^ The whole population ... (a practice which doubtless dates from old times of insecurity) Uve together in the village itself, which is generally situated near the centre of the area. There are some- times hamlets subsidiary to large villages. . . . The villao-e, con- taining from 100 or less to 2,000 or 3,000 inhabitants, is always built beside a tank or large embanked pond shaded by noble trees, among which is the temple of the local god. On one side of the tank, and in front of the village, is an open space where the cattle assemble to be watered morning and evening ; and here is usually a deep-chambered well with a long flight of stone steps leading to the water. . . Here also at nightfall, on ea,rthen seats round the stem of an aged tree, the village elders assemble to smoke the huqqa and talk over their simple topics. The village itself is occasionally sur- rounded by an earthen wall, but more commonly by a thick cactus hedge {Opuntia sp. ), and even this defence is now often wanting. At the entrance are the huts of the sweepers, one of whose duties is to guide travellers ; and on the outskirts of the village live, each in their separate quarters, the different classes of low-caste labourers. Their huts are sometimes wretched enough, yet often, and increas- ingly so of late years, they inhabit decent cottages of one story, built of unbaked brick and tile. In the middle of the village live the . . . owners and cultivators of the lands. Their houses, with walls of brick and tiled roofs, are usually built two and even three stories high, round courtyards opening with a gate into the street. . . • Often three or more houses have one yard in common. They front on the court, and the doors, windows, and balconies are generally ornamented with the delicate wood-carving for which Gujarat is famous. The sides or ends towards the street present a blank wall often covered with stucco and adorned with frescoes, barbarous, indeed, in design, but brilliantly coloured and not wanting in spirit. ' Compare the note on Nasik District, Bombay Gazetteer, xvi. -IT, and for Ahmadnagar District, xvii. 48. - Bombay Gazetteer, iv. 45, 46, 70 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY' This represents the type of village in a rich country, and is above the general standard. In the Bharoch district, also in Gujarat, the absence of the ^af-roofed house is noticed. The Gazetteer describes how the villages are surrounded by trees : — ' Occupying a perfectly level country, these clumps of trees, at an average distance of about three miles apart, indicate the site of these scattered communities, each having its proportion of wells and tanks.' ' An average would give 134 houses and 509 inhabitants to each village in the district. Formerly, it is added, ' many of the villages were surrounded by walls of mud or of burnt bricks as a shelter against the attacks of free- booters,' but now only traces of such defences remain. As a specimen of one of the coast districts I may take Ratnagiri. Here villages seem to be compact, built in streets (paved roadways made with blocks of laterite are in use). All are shaded with belts of cocoa-nut plantation. As usual in Dra vidian countries, the low-caste people are kept in an adjacent, but distinct, suburb. On the whole, it would appear that villages containing 200 to 1,000 inhabitants are the commonest.^ No general account of villages is given in the Central Provinces, except that of the total number, more than half are aggregates of houses not exceeding 200 inhabitants, and many more do not go beyond 500. The province is made up of districts variously situated as regards their physical conditions. But in general compact villages seem to be the rule, and in many, the family garhl or residence of the Patel is more or less con- spicuous in the middle. For the North-West Provinces there are more abundant materials. Compact, occasionally very large, villages are found, but sometimes the tendency is to a number of hamlets scattered about through the area of the ' village.' This depends partly on the nature of the soil, partly on other causes. In some cases it marks the gradual expansion and fission of the family groups ; some branch of a large family will arrange to start a new hamlet (majril, &c.),' which will in time become an 1 Bombay Gazetteer, ii. 380. ^ Ibid. x. 13C. " Majrd is the Hindi form of the Arabic mazru, which means a plot of land prepared for sowing. GEOGEAPI-IIOAL AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF INDIA 71 independent village. For example, in Banda, one of the south- east districts of the North- West Provinces, towards the Vindhya country, I find the Settlement Officer remarking, that ' where the bulk of the soil is of naturally rich quality, large villages are the rule, and the population is found collected in a single site.' He adds, that in the Banda pargana there are as man}^ as eight large villages each with a population exceeding 2,000. Six of these, on rich black soil (locally known as rniir), have only one inhabited site; while in the two remaining villages, in which there is ' much light and broken soil,' there are, besides the chief centres, five additional hamlets in each. In one case (Klhaptiha, in the Pailani imrgaTia) there is a single village of fifteen square miles, with a population of 3,737 crowded into one central residence : while in a neighbouring estate, a much smaller population is found to have established nine villages and hamlets scattered over the area of the community. In the broken country adjoining the hills, ' the substitution of small hamlets for the single large village-site shows its fullest development.' ' The need of manure, and the desirability of being near the fields to keep watch against animals, also affects the multiplication of hamlets. In the OuDH Gazetteer (to take a very differently situated country) I find it noticed that ' the village in Oudh is not a single collection of houses. . . . The number of hamlets in any particular village varies with its area and the convenience its lands offer for building, from only one to sometimes as many as fifty [houses]. . . . The people are nowhere drawn together by the more complex wants of the civilisation with which we are familiar. Their simple huts can be run up in a few weeks on any spot which is sufficiently elevated above the rain floods, and their almost only object is to be as near as possible to the fields they cultivate. A new settler, especially if he be of high caste and rents a considerable tenement, will generally prefer to build a detached house close to his own fields. In the course of time his children and grandchildren will relieve the overcrowded 1 S. R. BdncUl. (Mr. Cadell's), 18S1, p. 30. Other large tribal areas of this kind will be described in Chapter VI. It is not often, in such eases, that the inhabitants are collected in one village-residence. 72 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY house by adding houses of their otrn, and those, with the hovels of the low-caste attendants, the camdr and the slave-ploughmen, will form a hamlet which, if of sufficient size, may eventually attract a blacksmith, a carpenter, a washerman, or a barber.' ' When we read in Sleemans Journey of the Oudh (Native) Government officials collecting revenue with the aid of troops and siege guns, this refers rather to the necessity of putting pressure on the Taluqdar and other landlords in then- curious forts or fortresses, which were often hemmed in with dense quick hedges of thorny bamboo, than to the villages of the peasantry. In the Paxj.ib, the varieties of climate and local situation produce corresponding differences in the villages and house- building. The mountain districts, like Kulu and Kangra, have their own styles of building, not at all unlike those seen in Switzerland. Wood and stone are the universally employed materials, and the roofs are covered with split slabs of wood, or, if available, great rough-hewn slates. In the plain districts compact villages, sometimes large, are the rule. But there are parts where the growth of the families has resulted in the es- tablishment of several subsidiary hamlets. This is noticeable in the districts across the Sutlej and in the south-east. Every- where the villages are flat-roofed, and built of mud bricks ; often they are walled and gated, or otherwise arranged, so as to be defensible at least against cattle- thieves. One feature deserves mention, which is seen even in the level country. The village appears raised u]d on an eminence, which gradually forms in this way : the earth for the walls, both of the village and the cottages, is obtained by digging out one or more ponds or tanks, which will become filled with rain water, or possibly a spring may be started. These ponds will be the drinking-place for the cattle, and here, too, the buffaloes wallow in the hot season. They become gradually deepened as more clay is required and is dug out. As mud-houses gradually fall down by age or during the heavy rains, and are frequently renewed, there is a perpetual tendency for the house-sites to rise in level. An old-established village will thus be considerably raised, and the site must be- ' Oudh Gazetteer, vol. i. Introduction, p. siv. GEOGRAPHICAL /VKD PHYSICAL FEATURES OF INDIA 73 come higher and higher in the course of years, independently of the fact that, for obvious reasons, the highest ground available was probably selected to begin with.' It is very common to find the headmen, and others of note, having better-built brick houses, for which they have acquired the best situations. There are many local accounts of villages in districts, which it would not be possible to quote without too great a sacrifice of space. ^ I may notice, in concluding the subject, some general statistics which appear from the Indian Census of 1891. The difficulty of fixing on anything like a unit for a ' village ' in some districts, and the fact that some enumerators may have taken the adminis- trative aggregate or circle, and others the single homestead as the unit, must of course vitiate the results to some extent ; but making due allowance for this, it appears that out of a total of ' In the Eamdl 8. JR. (1882), Mr. Ibbetson remarks (p. 120) : ' When a new village is founded, the first thing done is to dig out tanks to hold rain-water for cattle, washing, &c. The village is built on the spoil; and, as in com-se of time old houses fall down and new ones ai-e built, the village is raised higher above the surrounding plain, in some of the old Nardak villages as much as 150 or 200 feet. The space immediately around the village is called goira : here the cattle stand to be milked, weavers train their warp, fuel is stacked, dunghills made, ropes twisted, sugar-presses erected, and all the operations conducted for which free space is necessary. The viUage is generally surrounded by a mud waU and a ditch as a protection against thieves, and is entered by gates often of brick and containing side rooms in which the gossips sit when it grows hot under the huge bar or plpal tree {Ficus sp.) which generally stands outside. Main streets (gaU) run through from one gate to another, and in Bajput or other villages where the women are strictly secluded numerous blind alleys lead from them, each being occupied by the house of near relatives.' This is in the South-eastern Panjab, but is quoted as a good account of the form of Panjab villages in general ; details naturally vary in different parts. ' See, for example, Lahore S. B. (Saunders), § 208 ; Hushyarpur S.B., (Montgomery), §43; Sialkot Gazetteer, ^.ZZ; B. Pindi Gazetteer, pp. 51-52 ; Firozpur Gazetteer, p. 38. In Purser's Montgomery S. B. pp. 52, 53, there is a very pleasing account of the villages and types of house. As to frontier villages, aggregation depends on the peculiar tribal customs afterwards described. In the Bannu S. B. pp. 60 ff, are some particulars, but no direct notice of the point under immediate con- sideration — the aggregation of residences. In Peshawar, the villages are compact, sometimes furnished with towers of refuge (Captain Hastings' 74 THE IXDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY close upon 714,000 Tillages, nearly 223,000 contain a popula- tion of 200 and over, while about o-t3,000 have under 200. Those exceeding 500 are, in round numbers, 98,000.' These notes on the physical conditions may be concluded with a brief remark on the origin of the vernacular words for ' village.' I do not know of one that has direct reference to the grouping or aggregation of land. Tiie Sanskrit grama may originally have had reference to a tribal grouping of a limited number of families, as the dictionarj- gives ' clan,' ' community ' or 'host,' ' aggregate,' as among the meanings.- But in the Veda the word seems chiefly to indicate the sort of fort or protected resi- dence site into which the cattle could be driven at night or to escape attack.^ The Hindi c/dnw, gam, &c. (Panjabi grdnw, giraM, &c.) are dialectic forms of gvuma. The Arabic maiiza', adopted into general revenue language more or less all over India, is derived in Johnson's Dictionary from the form waza', with the meaning of ' founding,' ' laying down.' The Persian dih is not explained. On the Panjab frontier the village is often called Jdiel, which is simplj^ a subsection of a clan and the considerable area of land allotted to it. I cannot speak from personal knowledge of the southern dialects, but on the west coast tara has only the meaning of ' foundation,' ' quarter,' ' street,' and not anything to do with the aggregate of lands. The common Dravidian word for village is Ur, which enters into so many names, as Xellore (Nal-iir), Vellore (Vel-iir), Tanjore (Tanja[vjur), to say nothing of Indore (Ind-ur), Gwalior (Gwali- iS. R. p. 20). In parts of Dera Ismail Khiln, aggregate sites again appear for the reasons given (Tucker's S. B. § 18). For the South- eastern Panjab, see Purser and Fanshawe's account of the large villages of Bohtak (average 2,044 acres vith 1,076 persons), S.B., pp. 9, 10; and some curious particulars in Channmg's Gurgdon S. B. (1882), § 70, p. 59. ' Census Beport (Parliamentary Blue Book), p. 48. The large number of \Tllages with small populations is increased by the inclusion of smaE groups in the hiUs, &o. Mr. Baines remarks that the landlord system of Bengal has tended to break up villages and settle the tenants on their holdings ; aijid also that, life and property being generally secure, there is a tendency to form smaU groups of houses on the spot, otherwise the holders would have to go far from home to reach their holdings. - Vide Macdonell, Sansh-it Dictionary, s.v. grama. '■ See Zimmer, p. 142, as to the Vedic grama or vrjana. GEOGEAPHICAL AND PIIYSICAI. FEATURES OF INDIA / ur), &c., further north.' The terms uparirdmam and kuppam, in the South, refer to hamlets or offshoots of villages, as dkok and inajrd do in North India. ' Ur probably referred to a fortified place or even town ; indeed, the origin of the word may have gone back to the early time when some place of refuge would have been the natural centre of each ' village ' group. However that may be, we find quite a group of compound words indicating village features, such, e.g., as Urdalrivm-a (Karn.), the village- servants ; Urkcivaliga (Ka.rn.), the viUage-watchman ; Uruceruvu (Tel.), tjrhola (Karn.), the viUage-tank ; Urnu'miyam (Tamil), free-lands for re- muneration of the village-servants, Urugaudii (Karn.), the village head- man. 76 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY CHAPTER III ETHNOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS If, as we have reason to believe, the agricultural settlement of India began, not with the Aryan, but with pre-existing races ; and if, further, we find that the Aryans, and also the Jat, Gnjar, and other immigrant tribes produced the joint or landlord form of village as the result of their domination or conquest— since these villages occur chiefly in the countries subject to that con- quest — it becomes important to make a general survey of the provinces, and take note of the chief elements which are found in the population of each. We shall observe in each a pre- Aryan, or at least a non- Aryan element, a mixed race, and ah upper class of purer Aryan caste, which, together with some families of later origin, represents the dominant or ruling race. A very brief examination of the subject will be sufficient; we shall not only confine ourselves to what has some bearing on land-holding and the agricultural population, but we shall also avoid all uncertain ethnological questions. These latter are so numerous in India that a prejudice may arise against any kind of ethnographic survey as affording but a doubtful basis for reasonable conclusions. But though such a suspicion may justly exist, it is possible to let it go too far, and land us in the error of supposing that nothing is really known about the origin of the people at all. There are certain well-ascertained facts of Indian ethnography, and there are inferences to be justly drawn from them ; and it would be as wrong on the one hand to ignore either, as it would be to build up an argument on the more speculative elements. There is no reasonable doubt, in the first place, about the main ethnical elements with which we are here concerned.' The ' And thus, if primitive communal ownership of land is a &ot, we have a number of distinct fields of observation, in one or more of which ETHNOGKAPmCAL CONSIDERATIONS 77 long-continued fusion of races which has been going on for many centuries has naturally resulted in obscuring the origin of many castes or tribes, and has left it doubtful at the present day whether any particular people or tribe should be assigned to one ethnic group or the other ; nevertheless, the existence of certain distinct groups cannot be questioned. Thus, beginning with the north-east, Assam was certainly peopled by races con- veniently described as Tibeto-Bueman. Similar tribes to some extent occupied the north-east parts of Bengal ; and they ad- vanced along the outer ranges of the Himalayan Mountains and furnished the basis of the more or less mixed ' castes ' which form the cultivating population of the hill districts as far at least as Kashmir. There is equally no doubt that another people, coming from the same quarter, and conveniently distin- guished as KoLAElAN, were once numerous at the eastern end of India. Nor is it of importance for our purpose whether the name is a good one, and whether these people are of an entirely separate stock. It is, at any rate, convenient to separate them, for we have something of interest to learn from the Santal people and from the Ho and Munda tribes surviving in Chutiya- Nagpur, where they are found actually alongside of Dravidian races.' Then, again, we have the often almost unmixed and widely spread Dravidian population of the South. It is, no doubt, a difficult problem to account for the existence of Dra- vidian elements in Upper India before the Aryans came ; but that does not in the least affect the observations we are able to make on tribes admittedly of this group, in their present location, whether nearly pure as in the South, or more mixed in the Dakhan and Central India. Then we have the Aryan popula- tion, and with it many mixed races or castes claiming Aryan origin. Lastly, we have the Jat, Gujar, and other races who followed their steps, but only to a limited distance beyond ■\\e ought to find at least traces of such a system. If we find it neither among Tibeto-Burmans, Kolarians, Dravidians, nor Aryans, the belief must be held to be more than ever doubtful as far as India is concerned. ' The distinction is also e\ident in the Central Pro^Tnces, where we have the meeting ground of the Aryan introduced into the northern part, the Gond or Dravidian element, and also the Kolarian — all localised. (See Central Provinces Gazetteer, Introduction, pp. ev-oviii., and cxxv.) 78 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY the Panjab ; and we have the Moslem tribes, the result of the Pathan and Mughal conquests. We have noticed already how the physical features of mountain range, desert, and open country affected the introduction and movements of the various invading races ; and how in consequence, Upper India — the country between the Himalaya and the Vindhya (from the Panjab to Bengal), the Western Indian Districts — with part of the Dakhan, and again Southern India, have all become marked ethnographical divisions ; and these we will follow in a brief series of sections. But before describing the population of each, there is one general question which, as it affects the entire range of subsequent history, had better be dealt with at once. It is almost impossible to describe the population of any single province without reference to it. I allude to the nature of the Aryan advance — partly by conquest, partly by policy and conciliation — and to the question of the probable number of the Aryans and their relations with the population they en- countered. Section I. — The Aryan Immigration The Aryans ' entered India at its north-west corner, and first established themselves in the hill country among the ' seven confluents of the Indus ' {Sa.pta-sindhavali), between the outer and inner Himalayan ranges.- Prom this country the tribes ^ It is quite unimportant for our purposes whether the name ' Aryan ' is a good one or not ; or whether it implies a greater degree of unity than ever really existed. It serves, at any rate, to distinguish the people, or connected peoples, who gave us the Vedic hymns, and who afterwards, m one part or section of their race, developed the system of law and philo- soph5', of statecraft and religion, which we familiarly associate with the name of ' Hindu,' and which we find described in the Sanskrit classics. ' Among other authorities, see Lassen, i. 617. It is usually assumed that the Aryans occupied ' the Panjab.' Thus, to select one passage out of several that would do equally well, Zimmer, p. 1, commences : 'The main body of the Vedic-Aryan tribes settled, in ancient days. on the banis of the Indus and in the districts Ijing eastward of it, through which numerous streams, great and small, find their way as tributaries to the main river: it was the country of the Sapta-sindhava, the Panjab of modern times.' But I submit that the description, perfectlv just in itself, does not answer to ' the Panjab of modem times ' at all. No ETHNOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 79 eventually moved forward towards the plain country of Upper India. A certain number, no doubt, occupied the lower Indus Valley and Sindh. Tradition is clear on the point, and ascribes the occupation to the Yddiivd tribe. It is certain that Sans- kritic speech had reached the mouths of the Indus in very early times.' Thence they extended to Western India — to the portion which Was open, as already explained. Another portion may have remained in the hill districts ; and some may have settled in the Panjab plains, either below the hills or close to the rivers, where settlement alone could have been possible. The rest moved eastward across the plains. The Vedic hymns, no doubt, contain specific allusions to the Panjab plains, and to battles fought in traversing them ; but they afford no certain evidence of settlement in the Panjab plain country. The important point is, however, not whether colonies did exist or were nume- rous, but what influence could they have had, even if we prefer to accept their existence. For when we hear of the ' Aryan colonisation ' of the Panjab in general, it is almost always with the meaning that it was by tribes possessing the characteristic ' Hindu ' caste and religious ideas. And on a hasty view of the subject, coupled with the reflection that the ' Panjabi ' dialects are classed as Sanskritic,^ it is easily concluded that the Panjab one who is familiar with the locality from long residence would speak of tlie dry mountains and occasionally fertile vaUevs of the Upper Indus country — the countrj' of the Swat, the Kabul, and the Kunar rivers, and, lower do^vn, of the Kuram — as ' the Panjab.' The confusion perhaps arises from forgetting that the rivers Indus, Kiibul, Jihlam, Eavi, Sutlej, &c., have a long course through the Himalayan hill-country under the same names, or partially so, that tliey bear when, more than a hundred miles south, some of them form the dividing streams of the real Panjab. ' Burton remarked that the Sindhi language contained many Sanskrit words, both pure and corrupted, which are now uninteUigible to the unlearned in other parts. Dr. E. Trumpp says that tlie Sindhi is much nearer to the old Prakrit than the Panjabi, MarSthi, Hindi, and Bengali of our days (Hughes, Gazetteer of Sindh, p. 88). - The Sanskrit element in the language is not at all conclusive of an early influence; even supposing the Sanskrit words are always the originals, and not themselves derived from local speecli. We shall again have occasion to notice the Hmdu elements in tlie Marathi language and in that of Orissa, where it is practically certain that it was an influence of inuch later times, long after the Puranic religion and the caste system had been fully developed. 80 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY village communities are specially Aryan or ' Hindu.' This is not the case. There is no doubt that at an early date something of the nature of a split or schism must have taken place among the tribes, and that the eastward march to the Saraswati and the Jamna rivers was not a mere question of united movement. It was only after the separation, and among the tribes settled east of the Jamna, that the rigid caste rules and other specially Hindu institutions and ideas were established : those who remained behind, in the Panjab or Sindh, could have had no share in them. Merely for the sake of distinction, I call the latter the ' non- Brahmanic ' Aryans. The ' Brahmanic ' tribes not only moved away and made the Saraswati — ^then an important stream, but now very much diminished — their boundary, but evidently re- garded the ' Panjab ' with so much aversion that still in the days of the epic poems, the country was declared impure — ' Let no Aryan dwell there even for two days.' The reason of the ' impurity ' was the neglect or rejection of what were called the ' Vedic ceremonies,' and probably also the first rules of tribal separation : ' they do not conduct themselves according to the Brahmanic ordinances ' (ncir-hi-hrdhmacaryam-caranti) ; that is the root of the whole matter.' It can only mean that the Aryans of the Indus Valley, and such as remained in the Panjab, did not adopt the strict rules and ordinances which afterwards led up to developed Hinduism, and consequently that they would naturally have had little or no ' caste ' objection to mix with other races ; so their separate ethnic traces would have disappeared as they have, in fact, done. We may speak, then, of early Aryan in- fluence in the Panjab and the Indus Valley and Western India, ' See Muir's A. S. T. ii. 482 ; MaMbh'tratd, part vlii. ; Karna- ])arva, v. 2063-2068. ' In this region, \vhere the five rivers flow after issuing from the mountains, dwell the BaJukd, called Aratta; the water of it (tad-jalam) is called Bdhlhii. There dwell degraded Bralimans contemporary with Prajdpati [?]. They have no Veda or "S'edio ceremony. The Prasthalil, Madrd, and the Gandhlrd, &c., dwell there.' Dr. Muir puts the note of interrogation about the Brahmans ; the words are not clear in the original. May they not allude to some of the earlier bards and sacrificers — already in Vedic times beginning to be called Brahmans — who, not caring to maintain the exclusireness of the Arj-an stock, were left behind and regarded as ' degraded ' and unworthy scions of the race ? See Zimmer, p. 189, and Lassen, i. 616. ETFIXOGKAPIIICAL COXSIDERATIOXS 81 but it would have been one thing in these countries and quite another in the kingdoms of Oudh, the Ganges Plain, and Bengal. To an admixture of Aryan blood is very likely due the improve- ment of some of the early races — the AIm-, the Kimbi, the Mardtlid of Western India, and others in the north who could not be specified with any certainty. Aryans may also have intro- duced ideas of monarchy and chiefship (already known in Vedic times), but probably not the ' caste ' and other customs which belong to the later ' Hindu ' development. The eastward-going tribes established their new home near the sacred Saraswati and called it BrdhmarwiiJ. ; but when they advanced further east, they acknowledged a wider region — Anjavartd ; ultimately they passed these limirs altogether, extending to Bihar, Bengal, and Western Assam, till, having reached the mouths of the Ganges they sent expeditions to Orissa, to Burma, to Oeylon (Selam ; [S.] Lanka), and even to Java, where their co-sharing (landlord) villages long re- mained in evidence. Even among the ' Brahmanic ' tribes, caste prohibitions utterly failed either to prevent a rival religion to the Brahmanic, in the form of Buddhism and its modification Jainism, or to keep the Aryan tribes from forming regular (or irregular) marriages with the people, whether aboriginal or other immigrant races. The Aryan ' high-caste ' people remained everywhere as a dominant race, establishing kingdoms and local lordships, and giving rise to many village estates of a landlord character, as we shall afterwards see. Here we pass on to another question. (2) The Numbers of the Aryan Tribes atid tJieir Relations ivith tlie JExisti'iui Races The idea, as regards Upper India generally, that the Aryan races came in a vast' swarm, and that they met with some unimportant, if occasionally numerous, savage races — black, snub-nosed, and illiterate, who after some more or less bloody resistance fled northward to the Himalayan or southward to the Vindhyan ranges, or to the security of the plateaux of South- western Bengal and Orissa, and left the Gangetic plain to be mainly peopled and cultivated by the rank and file of the Aryan G 82 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMilUNITY clansmen, under the domination of their own princes and priests — such an idea is probabh- no longer entertained, as it once was, even by the least enterprising of readers. The inferences which must almost inevitably be drawn from a number of facts show that the existing population was by no means scanty, though it was probably localised, and settlements were separated by great stretches of uninhabited forest. Some of the tribes, too, were of a somewhat barbarous type, small of stature and black in colour, while others must certainly have been agriculturists and much more advanced. Indeed, the literary allusions to the subject are really consistent with this view, making due allowance for the contempt which Brahmanic writers would feel for the non- Aryan people in general. While swarthy and uncouth tribes might be met with in the hill country and its confines, the superior agricultural tribes would have been found in the most fertile and level places in the vicinity of rivers, and would often be isolated. It would not be difficult to collect examples of cases where cultivation and the appliances of ancient civilisation have existed within an hour's journey of the wilderness. In the ancient kingdom of Magadha (the modern Gaya district in Bengal), with all its importance, and a suzerainty extending far and wide, we have reason to believe that in the third century B.C. the country immediately to the south, and beginning only a few miles beyond the great Buddhist city of Gaya, was a dense forest only scantily inhabited by nomad tribes.' It is hardly possible to suppose that the Aryan armies ' See the admirable monograph called Notes on the GayCi District by G. Grierson, B.C.S. (Calcutta, 1893), pp. 3, 4. The whole subject is also well illustrated by Mr. F. E. Pargiter's careful paper on the Geo- graphy of the Bamityana (■/. B. A. S. April 1894, p. 231). Here we have the account of the wanderings of an exile prince, who is driven by the loss of his wife — abducted by a demon enemy — to the very southernmost parts of India. The account, though highly poetical and legendary, is based, it would seem, on at least a substantial amount of geographical fact. And we find, besides the mention of non-Aryan kingdoms near the .Jamna, the mention of the vast tracts of forest beyond the Vindhya. The plan of the poem would not admit of any specific notice of the southern {Pandyii) kingdom ; but incidental mention is made of the fine architecture and good government of Ceylon. ETIIXOGRAPHIOAL CONSIDERATIONS S3 could have been supported, and cities built, unless there were locally well-established civilisation, and people able to serve and aid the ruling race ; and the Dravidians of Upper India, were certainly builders and also acquainted with the structure of ' tanks ' for irrigation. It is true that the Vedic literature suggests, at any rate ou a cursory view of it, that the chief opponents of the Aryans were the dasyu, or ' enemies,' who are described in contemptuous and unprepossessing terms. It is often, however, forgotten that the Vedas only refer to the earliest stages of Aryan advance, locally speaking, and even the later Atharvan Veda only sees them at the Ganges.' We have also to make large allowance in such poetic literature for much imaginative exaggeration, and for a bardic licence that confused together in one detested mass enemies of very different kinds. All that is probable is that some of the characteristics which excited so much abusive eloquence may be true of the races first met with. And as we know how widely the primitive races of the same stock were extended, it is likely enough that these characteristics were sufficiently prominent. Thus it may easily be supposed that the enemies met with in the hills, and possibly elsewhere, were of smaller stature than the Aryan and Northern tribes. It is also more than probable that longer residence in India would have made them generally blacker than the more recently arrived Northerners.^ The hill-people, Dom, and the lower orders of Khasd for instance, were almost certainly of this character ; and we notice the same again among the Bhil tribes of Malwa. And one other feature appears really general among the primitive races. The Dravidians, or at least the Northern groups of them, whom some would separate ethnically, were more or less flat-nosed : this is evidently the trait indicated by the Vedic epithet andsu, and this feature is traceable among their descendants to this day.^ > See Lassen, i. 644, 870-72. - See Zimmer, p. 113. ' Mr. Risley, TJie Tribes amd Castes of Bengal, vol. i. (Ethnographic Glossary and Introductory Essay), remarks : ' If we take a series of castes in Bengal, Bihilr, and the North-West Pro-sinces and arrange them in the order of the average nasal index, so that the caste with the finest nose shaU be at the top, and that with the coarsest at the bottom, it wiU be a 2 84 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY But it by no means follows that even in Vedic times all the people met with were indiscriminately clasyu. In one place these latter are expressly mentioned separately from the race called Qvmyii ; ' we hear also of the Kilmta, of the Qa/mha/ra (who had forts), and of the Nishada.^ These are all non-Aryan triljes. Others might be mentioned, bnt they are not undisputed. Then there are allusions to the ' serpent ' races, some of whom were Northerners, who could not have answered to the description of the swarthy clasyu. That some of these tribes were wealthy there can be no doubt. M. V. de St. Martin calls attention to at least one place where the 'gold ornaments and rich jewels ' of the enemy are mentioned.^ And in the epics the wealth of non- Aryan tribes is frequently instanced. We may therefore accept it as established by a number of separate considerations, the cumulative weight of which is con- siderable, that the Aryans were numerous enough to be rulers and to have armies, bat not more ; that the indigenous people were partly barbarous and partly not ; that they were localised, and that the existing settlements occupied the best parts of the country, leaving great stretches of forest and of hilly jungle-clad country either waste or inhabited only by nomad tribes. The case has been well summed up by Sir W. Hunter when, speaking of certain features of the later Aryan conquest of Orissa, he says that the history ' unfolds the Aryan colonisation of India in a new and rational light. It discloses no trace of the universal and absolute conquest by which the primitive Aiyan fomid that the order substantially corresponds with the accepted order of social precedence.' And he goes on to instance as grades in a scale the relics of early tribes like the Minidd, So, &c., who are non-Aryan, and the higher mixed races like the Kurml (or Kunhi), and then the trading Khatr'i and higlaer castes. ' Thus,' he continues, ' it is scarcely a paradox to lay down as a law of caste organisation in Eastern India that a man's social status varies in inverse ratio to tbe -width of liis nose.' Thi=. it will be remarked, applies to Upper India. 1 Rgveda, 1. 100. 18. See Zimmer, pp. 118, 143. " Zimmer, pp. 31, 143. See G. Oppert, pp. 578, 579. In Puranic writings the term Nishdda is applied to non-Aryans generally. In :he Efimilyana there is a king of the Nishada, mentioned by name, f.nd he has a fleet of boats and an army (J. B. A. S. App. 94, p. 257). ^ Etude sur la Geogrwphie, ttc, p. 108; and again in Egveda. 3. 34. 9 ; Zimmer, pp. 50, 116 ; G. Oppert, pp. 12, 13. ETHNOGRAPHICAL CONSIDEEATIONS 85 settlers iu Northern Hindustan are assumed to have subdued the whole continent to their sway. On the contrary, it dissipates the mist which has toned down the multiform migrations into a homogeneous advance ; and exhibits the natural compromises by which a small but gifted people effected their entrance among vastly more numerous races, sometimes, indeed, by force of arms, but generally by an amalgamation winch the vanitj' of later ages has more or less disguised.' ^ This general conclusion is curiously illustrated by one circumstance which has not, perhaps, received the notice it deserves. If it were really the case that the Aryan tribes over- whelmed and practically supplanted the original population, how is it that at the period when the Greek and later geographers began to gather their evidence about India we do not find a much gi'eater uniformity of population and territorial rule than, commencing with Megasthenes and the Macedonian period, we actually do find ? ^ The geographers all speak of India as a series of separate countries and of separately named peoples ; and this is the more remarkable because we find some of them imagining that the Indian people never received any foreign immigration.^ And it is not merely a question of different states or dynasties, for that the familiar organisation of limited Hindu kingdoms would lead us to expect ; but entirely different tribes and people are named. Some of the names are still identifiable ; some very doubtfully so ; others resist all attempts at explanation.'' When we come down to the journals 1 Orissa, i. 242. The particular advance in question, though ancient, occurred long after the first Aryan arrival in India, and only by the time that Aryan princes had reached Eastern Bengal and the Ganges mouths. ^ And see also pp. 104-5, where allusion is made to the Brahmanic account. ^ For example, Megasthenes says : ' It is said that India, being of enormous size, when taken as a whole, is peopled by races both numerous and diverse, of which not even one was originally of foreign descent, but all were evidently indigenous ; and, moreover, that India neither received a colony from abroad nor^si^t out a colony to any other nation.' McCrindle, Ancient IndiS": Megasthenes and Arrian, p. 35. * This is hardly to be wondered at when we recollect that the name had first to be ' translated ' into Greek writing by hearers who probably 8G THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY of Hwen Tlisang in the seventh century, it is the same ; indeed, this writer furnishes us with still more distinct notices of the variety of peoples and languages. If we turn to the older Sanskrit writei-s, to the Lmvs of Mamo for instance, we find (in the tenth chapter) a whole passage devoted to ' mixed ' — i.e. partly or wholly non- Aryan — races. Among them figure the people of Mithild and Magadlul; and, according to the usual Brahmanie mode, the author also treats as Kshatriya who have lost caste, the Odra (of Orissa), the Dravira (people of the South), the Kamblioja, Yavaiui, Pdradd, Pahlavd, and Qalxl (or Scythian), Gind, Kirdtd, Baradd, and Khasd.^ A number of these are admittedly mixed races ; others are foreign races strong enough to have established local kingdoms, and to have made themselves more or less respected by adopting Hindu caste and religious customs. Such a work could hardly, perhaps, be expected to make any mention of the ' lower orders ' ; but there is no doubt that in many parts of Upper India the great mass of the humbler classes, though Hinduised, are of chiefly non-Aryan derivation. It is, in fact, exactly consistent with this view of a general fusion of races, which left only the ruling castes (besides Brahmans) fairly pure, that the existing distinction between high and low castes and outcastes is what it is everywhere observed to be. It should be borne in mind that besides the confessedly mixed or aboriginal but converted races received into caste and called Qiulrd, there are a number of doubtful castes of good physique and superior character. Such, for instance, are the Bhuinhdr or Bdbhan, who gained possessions in 'Azimgarh and the districts of had little acquaintance with the native dialects, and did not catch tlie correct sound, nor render it scientifically into Greek. Then, too, we have to allow for the mistakes of copjHists, and for the still further changes that would creep in, as the old works were quoted by the later writers, in whose books they alone survive. For a good specimen of the tribal lists, see McCrindle's Megasthenes and Arria/n, p. 129 ff, or his Ptolemy for a later list, second century a.d. * See Manu, chap. x. verse 44. There are some variations in the text as to these names : Biihler reads Coda instead of Odra, e.g. Verses 42 69, and 72 are especially noteworthy. Verse 72 relates to a possible rise in rank of the mixed offspring after many generations. Of. also chap. ix. verses 23, 24, 149. ETHNOGEAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 87 Bihar adjoining the eastern end of the North-West Provinces, and there formed a rather numerous caste, with a sort of inferior Rajput rank. Some believe in a Brahman origin for them.' The Rajput clans have at all times permitted alliances, if not regular marriages, with women of other races ; and the families resulting have sometimes formed separate castes. Colonel Tod mentions a class called Ooll or Basel in Rajputana, originating in this way.^ In Naipal the late Mr. Brian Hodgson has given an interesting account of the formation of a caste — with Kshatriya privileges — from the union of Brahmans with indigenous women.^ Some of these mixed races are of superior pretensions, and would not consent to rank as Qudra.* If other instances of superior but evidently mixed races are needed, I may refer to the Western Himalayan States, where races like the Thakkar and Bathl are well known, and many of them are of distinctly good physique ; they are certainly mixed races of Tibetan origin with a strain of Aryan blood. To these I may add the caste called Kaiiet. The Girth (or Ghirath) are probably more largely aboriginal.^ ' A good account of the Bdhlian will be found in Eisley's T. and 0. of Bengal, i. (Glossary), 28 ff. ^ Tod, i. 159-160. Malcolm {Memoirs of Central India, ii. 126) mentions a class called Sondi of the same kind. It is hardly neces- sary to recall the fact that in ancient literature and traditions we have repeated allusions to patriarchal sages and others who married daughters of non-Aryan race. And where concubinage was so general, mixed famihes would everywhere be numerous. ' Essays on the Language, do., of NaipCtl (London: Trilbner, 1874,) part ii. p. 37 ff. * See the remarks in Elliott's Glossary, i. 167 ff. ^ It is curious that in general, where there is a considerable preponder- ance of the aboriginal or non-Aryan strain, the caste is an agricultural one. For a good account of the Himalayan races, see Ibbetson's Pamjah Ethnography, §§ 458, 487 ; and regarding the Girth, § 489. The Khasiya form a considerable part of the Kumaon population. In the Kangra HiUs the Kanet are numerous, and they are in two divisions, one called Khasiya and the other Bdo. Ibbetson (Pamjab Ethnography, § 488, quoting LyaU on Kulu) says that the division is traditionally ascribed to a former Bilja, of Kulu, who desired to make the people more attentive to Hindu religious observances. The Khasiya obeyed and received the janeo, or sacred string. Brahmans who gathered round the Raja's Court were always striving to make the Hill people more orthodox Hindus and less 88 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COJMJNIUNITY 111 a widely different part of the country the Ndyar caste of the West Coast affords another example of a superior mixed race. They are partly Dravidian, but with perhaps a considerable infusion of Northern — possibly Aryan — blood. At anj^ rate, the mixture must now be considerable on account of the tribal custom of taking temporary Brahman husbands for their female relatives, and giving the inheritance to the sister's son. These proud caste-men are reckoned in Brahmanical books as Qudra, yet no caste has greater pretensions to rank and ceremonial purity.' All indications that can be gathered from the present ethnical dMa of the provinces, as well as all that can be gained from local traditions, combine to convince us that the Aryan (and perhaps other later Northern) races have left us an upper stratum of originally very superior quality — families of good physique, of lighter colour and with a genius for military organisation and for some of the arts ; while their priestly families had a taste for the most refined philosophic speculation, as well as for religious contemplation. Thej" originated, in fact, a religion which, including every kind of worship and esoteric doctrine in a hundred schools and sects, is more a social system made a matter of religious import by means of its ceremonial connection than anything else ; and this was eagerly accepted, as it improved the social position without hindering local cults and the worship of favourite divinities. Prom this limited refining element also arose a not inconsiderable number of races, mixed indeed, but still distinctljr superior ; and then we have the great mass of the agricultural and farm -labouring population, that becomes more and more connected with the ' aboriginal ' races the further we descend in the social scale. The importance of this from the point of view of the student of land-customs is that it comports with the facts of the land tenure in general — namely, that whatever customs regarding devoted to the local divinities. The lower division resisted these eflforts to a much greater extent. ' Thus Dr. Day {Ooclwn : Its Past and Present, p. 316) says : ' Should a Cliogan or a Mahnd or one of the lower caste dare to pollute a JVatr (Noyan) hy approaching nearer than the prescribed distance, he was formerly at liberty to cut him down.' Cf. Lassen, iv. 270. ETHNOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 89 land are of Aryan origin, thej' are the customs of a conquering race, or at least of a race whicli took the superior position in everything. "/" The tenures that arose from their State arrange- ments and their locations of Chiefs — whether they now appear as larger landlord estates or as co-shared villages — -were all essentially overlord, or at least landlord, tenures. That is quite true in spite of the fact that some ' Aryan ' clans remained without any aristocratic pretensions, or developing any system of Raja or other titled chiefs, and that they formed land-holding communities based on a peculiar method of equal-sharing. The equality was among themselves only ; they would consider them- selves altogether superior to their tenants, or to the lower castes generally. (3) Present State of Inferior Races It remains only to add a few words regarding the present^ state of various tribes or races which may be such as to suggest ', erroneous conclusions regarding their former history. We have | to bear in mind the fact that paucity of number, present poverty, i and often social depression in rank, afford no ground for positive ' inference regarding the original status and importance of the races, or as to the degi-ee of prosperity and material civUisatioij that they had anciently attained, under wholly different circum- stances. Especially is it necessary to bear in mind the effect of. the introduction of caste rules, and the artificial constitution of ^ society in grades. Nothing is more striking than the way in which we again and again come across traces of former im- portance among races now only found in scattered families, or perhaps still numerous but in the lowest grades of the caste or social scale. Low-caste people will be found in some cases to retain certain curious privileges, which can only be accounted for on the supposition that once a higher rank was held.' In one country we hear of high-caste Hindu princes receiving the [, tila^, or mark of investiture, from Bliil or Mlom trihesmen.- ' See G. Oppert, pp. 53, 73, and the exceUect remarks quoted from WaUiouse (Indian Antiqua/ry), iii. 191, in a note at p. 84. ^ As to the Bliil, see Imperial Gazetteer, ii. 387 ; and see Edjpii- UcnTi Gazetteer, i. 73. The Mind, a tribe having as many as 146 got or septs, though now in a reduced condition, are spoken of as the ' hereditary 90 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY - Wlien once it became a mark of respectability to be in ' Hindu ' caste, the highest families, as we so constantly find, would employ Brahman family-priests and become strict observers of caste rules. Their ruling chiefs take Hindu names, and in time, their real origin being long forgotten, they are received into ' Rajput ' rank, and after a few generations they are allowed to marry into the best houses.' Mythical heroic ancestors are easily provided for them by Court bards ; and everything is traced back to some Hindu deity, or some miraculous occurrence in Puranic books. The mass of the peaceable agricultural people, on the other hand, received Brahmanic teaching, and found in the end- less gradations of even the fom'th caste, a position sufficiently high above the equally endless divisions of low-caste or no-caste beneath them to satisfy their aspirations. The defeated races, the irreconcilables, and those (pei-haps hill) tribes who had not reached the same stage of elementarj- culture as the plain dwellers, did not share in the rise : they took refuge in the woods and the remoter ranges of hills, and the cu'cumstances of such a life would not only prevent any more civilised development, but would rapidly establish nomadic and perhaps predatory habits as well as the deterioration of physique and the loss of any ideas of settled life that may once have been possessed. If the real characteristics of some of the ' aboriginal ' races are examined, it will often be found that they are by no means guards of the States' Chief,' and ' on every succession a Mtna performs the ceremony of investiture.' The author adds that the same custom prevails in several other parts of India. It was a BJuil who invested Goha, founder of the Gahlot Eajputs, with a UlaJc made by the blood of a young Bhil tribesman (Tod, i. 184). This custom is still observed, and the persistence of it is all the more remarkable that the touch of BMl blood is deiilement to the Hindu Eaja, and on the other hand the Bhll tradition is that the person from whose arm the drop of blood is taken is likely to die within the year. ' Cf. Introduction to Central Provinces Gazetteer, p. Ixvii, for some excellent remarks from a competent witness. The Chutiya-Nitgpur Eajils alluded to are, however, not Mundd but of the TJrdon (Dra vidian) stock : this makes no difference to the general argument. We sometimes hear of princes placing themselves ceremonially inside cows made of brass — in one ease, if I remember rightly, of gold, which was afterwards cut up and given to the Brahmans. By going tlirough this form they indicate their new birth into Hinduism. ETHNOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 91 so despicable. I shall only here mention the case of the Kluliul tribe, whose customs will attract our attention hereafter, and who represent a primitive tribe, but one whose ' barbarous ' character was almost solely inferred from their retention of periodical human sacrifices. The Bhll, again, though driven to the hills, and for generations treated by their neighbours as out- laws,' have shown very valuable material in their nature ; and the efforts made by Sir J. Outram and others for their reclama- tion have had a good measure of success. Many other out- caste people, when once freed from oppression and placed under good government, have shown themselves in a very satisfactory light.- This fact must not be forgotten ; nor can the relative civilisation of all races be denied because of some undoubted instances where the scattered remnant is so decidedly ' barbarous ' that we are obliged to infer either that they never rose above the nomadic stage, or that exceptionally unfavourable circum- stances have hastened their decadence to a condition below the normal. When, therefore, authors casually attach the epithet ' bar- barous ' or ' uncivilised ' to the older races, we may treat their language as chiefly conventional, and seldom resting on any basis of ascertained fact or even probability. At any rate, we may be on our guard against looking at everything through Aryan or Brahmanic spectacles. The intellectual superiority of this race gave them, so to speak, the entire command of litera- ture ; so that almost everything that has passed into written form has been cast in an Aryan mould. For real history the Brahmanic writers never cared anything : early events and family origins invariably assume a mythic guise, and everything about non-Aryan races is either omitted or only noticed to glorify the conquest of the ' twice born ' over the ' demons ' and ' barbarians.' It is then only by a careful comparative study, by regarding the relics of original speech in the local dialects, by comparing ethnological data and local customs, and by co- ordinating local legends and traditions, that we can derive any ' The cruelty with which both Muhammadan and Maratha Governors treated the Bh'il tribes may be seen in Forbes's Bus Mdld, and in Maloohn's Central India. ^ See, for instance, G. Oppert, p. 75. 92 TIIE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY reasonable knowledge of the past. But with these aids it is possible to form conclusions which are probable, and even to extract some reliable elements out of the old Puranic and bardic fables in which gods and men, real events and impossible fictions, are mixed together in picturesque confusion, It seems to me that just as in literature, so in discussing the origins of land-tenure there is a natural but unfortunate ten- dency to allow certain tribes or races to become so prominent as to exclude all care for any others. In literature it was very natural that the Aryans, with their polished Sanskrit language, their epic and dramatic poetry, their elaborate philosophy and their curiously intertwined legal, religious, and social ideas, should have been, the most extensively studied. The tendency was doubtless favoured by the belief that the Aryans really had reduced or annihilated all other races, and formed the bulk of the existing population ; and indeed this belief in its turn was largely due to the prominent position occupied hj their litera- ture." The one has reacted on the other. It is now time to turn to Western and Southern India, and to the local traditions of non-Aryan races in India generally. The literature and folk- lore of the South naturally offer the greatest promise ; and we may come to find that the Aryans owe much more than we have hitherto supposed to the indigenous races. At any rate, in- creased light will be thrown on the remarkable conditions under which the original Vedic religion exhibited such a kaleidoscopic transformation into that of the Purana. Nor is it only the southern and western regions of India that have to be studied ; the tribes of Assam and North-eastern Bengal have some institu- tions not unworthy of investigation ; ^ and the people we call ' The tendency has always been marked to discover a Sanskrit deriva- tion or meaning for everj-thing. A familiar instance is in the Indian names of certain valuable products which occur in the Books of Kings and Chronicles. In the time of Solomon, circ. 1000 B.C., there is very little reason to suppose that Sanskrit words were much, if at all, in use in the south and on the western coast. Dr. G. Oppert has shown that DraviMan words are reaUy the more probable originals. In Mr. J. A. Baines's Census Report of 1891, Pari. Blue Booh, there are some excellent remarks on this subject, p. 126. ° We have only very slight acquaintance with details of agriculture and village life among the Gdro, Khasiyu, and other hill tribes of Assam and the north-east frontier. ETHNOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 93 Kolariun also, though the distinctive traces of them are fast disappearing. One consequence of the almost exclusive attention to the Arjj^an element is that the landlord and other higher caste proprietary-tenures have attracted attention to the almost total exclusion of others. Hence ' the village community ' — meaning the jointly-owned village, i.e. one specialised form of village land-holding — has come to be spoken of as if it were the sole phenomenon of Indian agricultural life, and from that posi- tion it is almost inevitable to slide into the conclusion that this village-form must necessarily be primitive and universal. Whatever the truth on this subject may be, it is my hope that the considerations advanced in these pages as to the distribution of the different land-holding tribes and communities may help us to follow more easily the evidence that will be collected in the sequel as to the origin and growth of the existing village forms. Section II. — The Population of Upper India (1) The Panjab At the present day the Panjab contains a variety of races, sometimes distinct in language, but oftener speaking various dialects of ' Panjabi ' and Hindi. The hill districts, the sub-mon- tane districts, the Salt Range country, the central plains, the south country of Multan, and the south-eastern districts beyond the Sutlej, are all distinguishable by their people and forms of speech. In general a Panjab Census Table shows the names of many castes and clans not found further east, and some that go as far as the Ganges Doab ; while the Rajputs (]\Iilitary Aryan caste) are comparatively few and localised, and belong to later times. Whatever early Aryans stayed in the Panjab must have fused completelji- with the population, leaving at best some faint traces.' The Panjab bore the full brunt of the so-called Indo- ^ It is true the Panjabi is classed as ' Sanskritic ' ; but the Sanskrit element is not necessarily due to the earliest Aryans, if any number of tliem settled there, which is doubtful. On the frontier Pashtu is spoken, and lower doMii on the west, Biliichi. Beyond the Sutlej and in the south- east the dialects are more completely ' Hindi.' 94 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY Scjtliic irruptions, and was naturally afterwards much affected bj'^ the Pathan and Mughal conquests ; indeed, Moslem tribes settled on the north-western frontier present us with an almost unique example of tribal customs of land-holding, which will occupy a large share of our subsequent attention. The population of the hill country must not detain us. The upper classes are of later Aryan (Rajput) origin ; and the bulk of the agriculturist tribes are mixed races, Khasiyd, Kmiet, Ghirath, Rdthi, &c., on which some observations have been made in the last section. As to the original elements of the agricultural population of the Plains or Panjab Proper, where the joint or co-shared village, both tribal and of individual origin, is so universal, we have definite evidence as to certain tribes met vnth at the time of Alexander's invasion, 327 B.C. And there is also proof of other northern incursions later than the Aryan ; one, at any rate, of con- siderable importance before the Macedonian adventure, and one at least after it — in the two centuries immediately preceding the Christian era. The climate and soil of the Panjab plains are such that no very large or generally extended population could have maintained itself, except in a few districts where the rainfall is greater, or along the banks of the rivers. Any great extension of the inhabited area must have been accompanied by the invention of canals for irrigation, and by the use of wells, with some means of raising the water.' Alexander found some apparently non-Aryan tribes in the Panjab ; and especially in the north, one race who wor- shipped the Sun and the Serpent. Of races with an evidently Aryan connection, there is only the tribe led by Porus. A part of the population in Macedonian times seems to have already been so long established that General Cunningham was led to the conclusion that it was also pre-Aryan.^ For serpent- 1 In the Central Panjab and some distance nortli, south, and east as far as the Sutlej, the ' Persian- wheel ' is used. This appears to be a foreign introduction, but I cannot suggest a possible date for its becoming known. " See the question stated in iJe^j. ArcJi. Survey of India, 1862-5, ii. 3 flf. Lassen also held the same opinion (i. 128). ' The Panjab,' he says, ' as a country divided mto separate states, appears equally in the ETHNOGriAPIIICAL COXSIUERATIONS 95 worshippers, as described bj- the Greeks, are also mentioned in the Veda ; where we find them as hostile to, or at least outside the pale of, the Aryan tribes.' In Rgveda, 5. 31. 4, to quote a single instance, there is mention made of a tribe ' strengthened to smite down the snakes {alii).' Later on, we find many allusions to the Nagup- The serpent-worshipping tribe which Alexander's historians allude to was the TciIm, who had their capital at Taxila (TalMshila, or in Sanskrit Tahshclgila,^ which is now proved to have been in oldest Indian tradition and in the earliest competent descriptions of Western historians. Alexander found smaU kingdoms under their own princes in the north-west portion ; and in the south-easterly parts free tribes with an almost repubUcan constitution.' ' EejJ. Arch. Survey, ii. 9. ^ ' They [the Ndga] held a very prominent position in Indian folklore, where they generally appear in human shape; and ancient writings abound with allusions to them as a people. But in the allegorical de- scriptions of later writers they become supernatural beings or actual serpents. . . .' See the whole article on ' Serpent Worship in India ' by Surgeon-Major 0. F. Oldham, J. B. A. S. July 1891. There can be hardly any doubt that ' serpent worship ' is coimected with the North, though it spread oyer the whole of India in the course of time. It became associated with Buddhism, as most of the serpent- worshipping tribes of the North adopted that rehgion ; and sculptured images of Buddha are often found representing the saint seated under a serpent with his hood expanded like a canopy. Even in the South, it is remarkable that snake-worship is most traceable where Jaina religious relics remain (Jainism being only a modified offshoot of Buddhism). Whatever may be its real origin, snake-worship is found in various parts of India. It was carried by the Talaing into Burma (Phayre's History of Burma, pp. 21, 22, 33). As to its existence in Madras, see Macleane, Ethnbl. p. 82, and Sturrock, South Canara D. M. i. 84, 140. And in the Central Provinces, see the curious account (from personal testi- mony by Mr. Hewitt) of the solemn and secret worship of the serpent (Journ. Soc. Arts, May 1887, p. 618), and see J. B. A. S. xx. part 3, 339. A curious notice of a temple with no idol in it but a snake-image, in one of the Chattlsgarh districts is given in the Central Provinces Gazetteer, Introduction, p. Ixv. As usual, the Puranic Hindu rehgion adopted the Niigd deity, and the Nag-pancaml is now a regular and very popular Hindu festival (Monier WiUiams's Beligious Life in India, pp. 323, 340. ' See Bep. Arch. Sur. ii. 10. It is often stated that Taksliaka in Sanskrit means a snake { = Ndgd).- The word has no such meaning. I reoret to have fallen into this error in my Lamd Systems of British 96 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY the modern Rawalpindi district. They were then a numei'ous and powerful people. Their chief city is deseribed as the first of all the cities between the Indus and the Jihlam rivers, and as possessed of great wealth.' We hear of them also in Sindh.^ The same race is mentioned in history as late as a.d. 900, when ' Talcades ' was a province of the Kashmir king SanJcaror-varma, and relics of them still exist in the Gujrat district of the Panjab and in the outer hills of the Jamu territory — localities which would be most naturally, at one time, included in a territory of which the capital was in the modern Rawalpindi district. Their non-Aryan customs of worshipping the Nclga and various other snake gods, Bdsiikdevl, &c., as well as the sun-symbol, are <3etailedby Dr. Oldliam in the article already referred to. ^ They introduced the written character still widely used in village shop- books, and known as the La-iuJ^ or Takri.* As this is rudely cognate with the Ndgari character, it shows either that they had learnt it from ancient Aryan connection, or, more probably that the loiter literary Sanskrit character developed out of a ruder Northern script. There are some other races in the Panjab, now small and localised, who are also believed to have a very remote antiquity. Such are the Bond, Saddn, Med, and Sati ■ but the question of their origin is too uncertain to permit further notice. When we try to discover what tribes, if any, the Aiyan inva- sion itself brought, we are at a loss to discover any distinct trace ; this would indeed be a natural result if the early Vedic Aryans remained undeveloped as to their caste ideas. They may have India, ii. 612. Probably the Sanskrit is a mere linguistic adapta- tion of TdJc, Takd, or Tdkhya ; and it is purely an accident that there is a Sanskrit word tdksha, which means ' cutter or cleaver.' 1 See McCrindle's Ptolemy, pp. 118, 119. ^ Bep. Arch. Sv/r. ii. 8. ' For some further evidence see iJe^;. Arch. Sur. ii. 10, where General Cunningham speaks of coins with a serpent-emblem, and of his belief that all Kashmir was once peopled with Naga. There is also valu- able information in Elliott's Glossary, i. 113. Especially important is it to note that in some ancient Tibetan (trilingual) records lately dis- covered and held to be of great value historically, 'Takshal-a' appears in the list of the Ndgd Idngs. See J. S. A. S. January 1894, p. 91. * Bep. Arch. Sur. ii. 9. ETIINOGEAPHICAL CONSIDEllATIONS 97 fused with and improved some of the existing Panjab castes whose origin is now unknown. The Hindu tradition based on Vedic allusions, is that the Tadava (sons of Yadu) occupied Sindh, and the Anava (sons of Anu) settled in the Panjab.' The former tradition is no doubt confirmed as regards Sindh and Western India, but the latter is doubtful. Puranic tradition, however, suggests some early return of Yadava (Bhati) chiefs from Sindh, and some other settlements in the Northern Panjab and in the Jalandhar Doab.^ It would seem that even in Alexander's time such a reflex movement had already begun, and that an Aryan prince with his followers, returning from the East country, had formed a petty kingdom in the North-western Panjab ; for ' Porus ' is a name which it seems most natural to connect with ' Paurava,' or one of the race of Puru, a clan which we first hear of settled near the Jamna. The Panjab, however, owes a great deal, from an ethno- graphical point of view, to the Northern or ' Indo-Scythiau ' incursions already mentioned. The invasion of circa 515 B.C., in the time of Darius Hystaspes, was the important one which, according to Cunningham brought the tribes of Kdthi (Kathsei of the Greek writers), the Ohalcar (still found in the North-western Panjab), as well as the Bald. It is also quite possible that some of the Jat races may have come in with an earlier (pre-Macedonian) invasion, although the bulk of their settlements are attributed rather to the later incursions — connected with the names of 1 It is clear that General Ctumingham's suggestion about the existing Awan clans as possibly representing the Anava is difficult to accept. See Thomson, Jildam S. B. 1883, p. 29 ; D. Ibbetson, Ethnography of the Panjab, § 454. It has been also suggested that the Janjhitd or JhanjuO- (the spelling is uncertain) are Yadus. But this also is hardly tenable. They are Rajputs no doubt, but claim to be of the Bahtor clan from Mewar. For some details as to the Puianic stories see Bep. Arch. 8ur. u. 14-16, 20 ; and see further p. 129, post. 2 It may be asked how, if the Panjab was ' impure,' Aryan chiefs of high caste, and afterwards Brahmans, would settle there. But such a prohibition would become forgotten in the course of time : the Brahmans were great wanderers and everywhere sought to extend their influence, while soldiers of fortune would hardly seriously regard the existence of such a ceremonial obstacle. H 98 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMJEUNITY Kadpliises, Kanerki, and tlie rest. The existence of such early Jat settlements is suggested by the mentiou of Alexander's meeting with tribes which had a government by councils of elders. But it is quite possible that various early ' Scythic ' races may have had similar characteristics.' The Kathi have left their descendants, still holding villages in the Panjab; and they extended to Upper Western India, where the province, now divided into a large number of petty chiefships, called Kdthlawwr, derives its name from them. They have now merged into the Eajput race generally, owing to long contact with the Aryan races from Malwa and the neigh- bourhood ; but their strikingly non- Aryan customs are described by Colonel Tod.^ They were numerous enough in Alexander's time to resist the joint armies of Porus and ' Abisares ' — the latter being reasonably identified as the ruler of Ahhisdra, the then Grhakar dominion (modern Hazara district).'' This introduces the GhaJicir, of whom it may be mentioned that they still hold a number of villages with much pride of origin, in the Northern Panjab.^ In the Southern Panjab the Greek historians mention the Malli and Oxydrakse (Sudrakse of Curtius), who also ajjpear in the Mahabharata as the Kslvudraka — Mallava (coupled together).* These tribes seem also connected with the northern invasions, since the Malli, who had their capital at or near Multan ' See Historical Besearches into the Politics ''/0/-7and the Ceru.^ ' I wiU not attempt to discuss the question whether the Bhar is con- nected with the Bluirata of Sanskrit writers. Dr. G. Ojipert thinks the identity highly probable (see the story of the race in his book, The Original Inhabitants of India, p. 587 ff.). The Bhdrata are first mentioned in the Veda {Rgveda, 3. 53. 13 and 7. 33. 6) : they are a people who ' come from afar ' ; tliey figlit the Trtsu tribe under Vasishtha : being defeated, they return eastward across the Bias and Sutlej rivers. Vicwamitra, the priest and bard attached to this tribe, is himself probably an Aryan, as he is the author of one of the hymns of the Rgveda. He is represented as the son of KugiTca (p. 590-1), and the tribe called by this name are in close relationship with the Bhdrata (Zimmer, p. 128). He is also leader of the people, and his gaydtri, or hymn, secures their well-being. It is this people who afterwards establish a kingdom in Magadhil. Vicivawdtra is at first in favour with the Trtsu and their king Sudds, to whom, for a time, he acts as bard and priest ; but a bitter quarrel ensues, and he withdraws with the Bhdrata, and the end is the battle above aUuded to. If the Bhdrata were of non-Aryan origin they probably early adopted many Aryan customs. ' Being very numerous,' the Harivamsa says, ' they acquired great 'influence.' It is noteworthy that in Rgveda, 7. 33. 6, they are ETHN0C41^AI'inCAl. CONSIDERATIONS 109 I have not space to say anything of the less prominent races such as the /1/ar,' the Gaui% and the TJiafera. In the Hardoi district of Oudh and elsewhere, I find mention of a tribe called Pa,si, who are stated to have owned in former days an extensive domain, and who are still numerous in the district. The Ceru mentioned above were a very important people further east. They dominated Bengal ; and as late as the time of the Bengal sovereign Sher Shah (^^'^^^ 1537 a.d.) we find that monarch rejoicing that his general had defeated the Ge)-u chief of Bihar.2 The Gerv belong, indeed, more to Bihar than to Oudh and the North-West Provinces, and the mention of them naturally carries us further east. Here (Upper Bengal) the population seems to have less and less of the Aryan element ; the greater part of the described by the epithet arhhakdsdh, which Muir (A. 8. T. i. 320) translates ' contemptible.' Zimmer (p. 128) uses the more equivocal term ' win- zigen.' Professor Macdonell informs me that tlio word in Sanskrit means ' puny, small.' Whether this can be taken in a literal sense to describe a stature different from that of the Aryan tribes, or is merely a term applied by victors to a conquered enemy, I cannot pretend to determine. As usual, in the later Epics, tradition found for them an Aryan origin. Bhdrata is now a king, and the son of Vicwamitra^s daughter Sakuntalu. Vicwamitra himself, is, however, curiously con- nected with the aboriginal, or mixed, races by the legend that makes his sons, o^mig to a cm-se, the progenitors of the mixed or non-Aryan races Andhra, Piimdra, Sahara, Pulinda, and Mutiha (Aitareya Brahmana, quoted by G. Oppert, pp. 592, 593). The MaMbJuiratd represents King Blidrata as conqueror of all the races oi Kirdia, Huna, Ydvama, Andhra, Khacd and Salca — all these including northern, mixed, and non-Aryan ■ tribes (see Lassen, ii. App. xxiv.). 1 The Ahlr seem to have a wide distribution. They occur in the South-eastern Panjab, and in the North-West Provinces in the districts of Buditon and Mm-adabad {S.B. Murdddbdd, pp. 8, 9). In Mainpuri {Gazetteer, North-West Provinces, iv. 558) they are so numerous as to form 16-8 per cent, of the population. They are found again ia the Central Provinces, which make it possible they were the Ahhlra of Sanslait books, and connected with the Abhiria country of Ptolemy, on the western side of India (McCrindle's Ptolemy, p. 140). They are divided into Ah'ir and Alier, and into many minor subdivisions, some claiming, as usual, Eitjput and sometimes Brahman, connection. Others assert a ' Yadu ' origin, which is likely enotigh if their original home was Upper Western India. - Beames' Elliot's Glossary, i. 59, s.v. Ceru ; G. Oppert, p. 39. 110 THE IXDIAN VILLAGE CO.MiAIUNITY peasant class is, in fact, almost purely ' aboriginal.' In the north-east of Bengal the tribes are probably much connected with the Tibetan stock and with some of those branches of it that peopled Assam. The Kiweli (or Koeli) have left a relic of their existence in the name of the Native State Kuch-Bihar. In the eastern districts, up to the sea-board, the Macjli tribes, probably indicated by the Macco-Kalingae of the geographers, gave their name to the kingdom or country of Magadha.' These facts tend to show how small an element numerically the Aryan really was ; but it was the ruling power. It is evi- dent that while the mass of the existing population is largely aboriginal in its character, nevertheless the whole of Bengal came under the dominion of Aryan princes. Indeed, in the course s£ time, these became sufficiently powerful, and by means of their command of the Ganges mouths, to send out expeditions by sea, as I have already mentioned. The country of Ohutiya-Nagpur, in South-western Bengal, is full of interest ethnologically ; and so is the hill country of Orissa, with the adjoining Tributary States • for here is the refuge ground of both Kolarian and Dravidian tribes. In Chutiya-Nagpur the plateau land is culturable and adapted to fixed village settle- ments ; ^ so here we can still find the original form of village in survival. The non-Aryan races are represented by the Urdon, who overcame the (Kolarian) Ho and Muiula tribes, and who gave their name to Orissa long before the conquests of the Hindu Gajapati kings.* ' In the Laws ofManu, ' Magadha, ' is one of the mixed races mentioned in Chapter X. This countrj', afterwards so celebrated, was very early the seat of an Ai-yan kingdom or overlordsliip. The old accounts are not easy to reconcile. Some relate that a kingdom was founded by the (Solar) Kucika, descendants of Kuca ; the Mahilbharata speaks of a Lunar origin, or Yiidcma, if they are to be reckoned as separate, and has much to say of King Jitrasandhil, who is probably a real person. Possibly, as tradition also gives Solar princes to the first kingdoms of Mithila, and Vaiciili in this neighbourhood, there may have been some early Solar prince overthrown by the other race. Certainly Magadha became a centre of Buddhism and was the kingdom of Candragupta, the Sandra- cottus of the Western historians. - See ante, p. 47. ^ The distinctness of the Urdoii from the Mundtl, &c., is recognised by Dalton (G-. Oppert, p. 122). See also Eisley, T. and C. of Bengal, ii. Glossary, ETHNOGRAPHICAL CONSIDER ATIOXS 111 Section in. — India South ok the Vindhyax Ranges (1) Tlie Popdation of Upper Western and Central hidia It will be remembered that in speaking of the Vindhyan Hills as a barrier between Upper India and the South, we noticed how, at the western end, the upper barrier ceased, and through the second or south range also a route was open, so that access could be had to the plains of Gujarat, and thence easilj- to the Narbada and Tapti Valleys and to Berar. There can be no doubt that this route was used in early immigrations from the Indus Valley and the west frontier, just as it was afterwards when Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni swept down on Somnath. The popula- tion of Upper Western India, Berar, and part of the Central Provinces exhibits a considerable mixture with Aryan or other Northern races which afifected both physical appearance and lan- guage. Owing to this admixture, the people of the West are very different from the more purely Dravidian races of the South ; and it is, therefore, a matter of convenience to give them a brief separate consideration. Moreover, it is to be remembered that, access being from the Indus Valley by the desert and Kacch, the immigration was very probably sustained by Northern or ' Scythic ' races like the Kathi, as well as by tribes who had the religion and language of the Vedas. And while one at least of the tribes named in the Vedas (the Yaclava) is prominent in the traditions both in Sindh and in the West of India, it is remembered that they belonged to the ' non-Brahmanical ' section.' Brahmanic caste and religious ideas were not introduced till long after the 138. As to the Dravidian element in the language of Orissa, though it has been much obscured by the Sanskritie element, it is distinctly trace- able (see Caldwell, p. 40 and Appendix). The history of Orissa before the Aryan rule is an absolute blank ; for the earliest writers of the temple records were Brahmans, and they, of course, would not care to preserve the memory of real ancient historic events, stiU less to notice a non-Aryan people, even if the materials then existed. Neither the Hindus nor the Moslems, nor later still the Marathics, reaUy had any hold on Orissa beyond the level rice-plains which could jdeld a revenue. > Ante, pp. 80-1. 112 THE INDIAX VILLAGE COMMUNITY Aryan settlements east of the Janina were in an advanced stage of development.' In nearly every case tradition ascribes the Western ruling castes (that have evidently resulted from a mixture of races) either to Yo.dava origin or to some evidently ' Scythian ' or Northern serpent-worshipping stock. Most of the princely houses that conquered and ruled in these parts in the earlier days are connected with the name of Yaxht,. The Sama- who reigned in Sindh, the Jhareja (or Jacl^a) and their kindred the Bliatl (who afterwards made a settlement in the Panjab, where they are called BJudti), are all Jddun (to use the dialectic form). To this day many Maratha chiefs claim descent from ' Jachi.' The IlaAhaya (or Haibansi), who are among the very earliest of so-called Aryan rulers in the iSTarbada Valley, are said to belong to this race.^ It is impossible to find any more definite traces of the early non-Brahmanic Aryans. It is highly probable that a number of the best races — e.g. those collectively called ' Mardthd ' were the result of a fusion of Aryan and Dravidian blood. And the same may be true of the Kunhi caste, and the Ahlr, as will presently ^ And so the Marathi language was probablj' not developed in its present form till later times, as it is said to be ' particularly Brahmanio in all its elements and connected with later Sanskrit (Indian Census of 1891, Parliamentary Beport, J. A. Baines, p. 141). The Maratha Brahmans are a class apart — just as the Dravira Brahmans or the Gaur Brahmans are elsewhere — aU missionary immigrants from Upper India. It is curious, as noted by Grant Duff (History of the Mahrattas, i. 25), that while the Maratha people have great veneration for the hermit and the ascetic, they have very little for the Brahmans as a class. The limits of the Sanskritic speech, as judged by linguistic evidence, are given in some detail by Professor Christian Lassen (i. 423). But it must be borne in mind that this includes the results of the later Brahmanie influence. Along the west coast, southward, an Aryan element in the speech is discerned as far as Gokarna in North Kanaril; while for the inland Marathii country, a line drawn from Puna eastwards up to the Central Provinces, and including aU the northern part of Bombay, with Gujarat, Malwa, &c., would generally mark the limits. Below Piina, the dialect varies somewhat, showing a distinct trace of the non-Aryan or original element. '■' See Tod, i. 36, 78 : if they were not really Turanian or Northern tribesmen, which is just as likely. Mr. J. F. Hewitt connects them directly with the ' Ndgbansi ' houses. Sleeman wTOte a long article on the Hailtaya princes of Garlui-Mandld in /. A. See. Bengal, vi. part ii. 623. ETHNOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 113 appear. But the population of Western India owes as much to Northern (non-Aryan) races as to any otlier. Thus one part of the country was anciently called Saurashtra, after the Saurd, or Cdwardj a tribe called ' Rajput,' but neither ' Solar' nor ' Lunar.' ' Indeed, it is curious that the whole of this region is connected with the royal houses of '■Agnihuld' descent — Solanlchi (Gdlukyd), Cauhdn^ Pramard, &c. — tribes which so often adopted Buddhism and whose traditional birth shows that they were later and probably foreign additions to the true Kshatriya Aryans.^ Other confessedly early Northern tribes established their rule in these districts, though the later conquests of Eaj put houses have done much to fuse the races together. Thus, the country still called Kathiawar owes its name to the Kathi. These exhibit Northern customs, such as the worship of the Sun and of Weapons.^ The Bala, another Northern tribe, appear also in the West ; how far they may be connected with the princely house that founded Balabhipur I will not attempt to discuss.* Before the eighth century we have no real history, but vague traditions of kingdoms and chiefships which disappeared, first before the incursions of later Rajputs from Malwa and the vicinity, and finally under the effects of the early ^loslem conquests. It is very probably to these early Aryan and Northern races that we owe the presence of an element in Western and Central Indian races which distinguishes them from the Dravidians of the South. As might be expected, in Western and Central India there are still many remnants of the non-Aiyan races in the hill ' Forbes, RdsmaUi, p. 27. ^ The tradition was that the ancestors of foiu- tribes sprang from the sacrificial fire (Agni), at Mount Abii ; and that they were miraculously born in aid of the Brahmanic cause. This the tribes did not always after- wards maintain. The Pramilra, for instance, founded a Buddhist kingdom in Millwa. ; and Ghandragupta and Asoka, of the Maurya, house, were notoriously Buddhist (Central Provinces Gazetteer, art. Nimar, p. 377). ^ See Tod (i. 101 £f) for an account of the customs of the Kilthi, and see also the whole passage at p. 60 ff, which is curious. Colonel Tod was by no means critical or reliable as to points of date and history ; but on matters of custom and legend where his own personal knowledge and experience are placed on record, his authority is as good as can be deshed. " See G. Oppert, p. 78. I 114 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY country ; and some tribes who are perhaps Dravidian slightly mixed with a Northern element. The Kol^ tribes of the Vin- dhyan Hills (not to be confused with the Eastern Ho and Miviukl tribes called ' Kol ') need hardly more than a bare mention. The Bliil have already been alluded to, and it may here be added that they have a sort of upper class called Bliildh., whose persistent tradition is that they have a share of ' Rajput ' blood.' In the Bombay Dakhan, scattered families of Mahur or }[hdr are still found — the relics of a once numerous people — now chiefly acting as hereditary guardians of village boundaries. This circumstance has led Mr. J. F. Hewitt to suggest that the position is due to their once being associated with the land as its owners. Dr. G. Opi^ert says that the MaJulr claim to have been once the ruling race in ' Mahdraslitra.^ ^ More towards the centre of the conti- nent there are groups of non-Ar\-an tribes, often represented partly by humble agriculturist castes in the plains, or by primi- tive hill-dwellers, who have either lapsed into, or never emerged from, a half savage state. Among them are found the Goiul races, who gave their name to Gmuhcdna of the ancient maps. They occupied the whole of the central districts up to Chutiya-Nagpur, and Orissa, to the east, and part of Haidarabad to the south.^ The original Gond population can bardlj-, I think, be doubted to have had some early Northern connection. It is worth while to ' Within historical times powerful local chieftains of this class were met with. The Puranic literature even has a legend to account for the origin of the BhU. (See Central Provinces Gazetteer, art. Nimar.) ^ And if this author's identification can be accepted, it will unite this race, locally called also Parvdr'i, with the Maid, and Malli, who appear so widely in India, and with the Paraiyar (Pariah) of the South (G. Oppert, pp. 21, 22, 31). The Paraiyar are called Midd (vandlu) in Telngu (CaldweU, Appendix, p. 543). G. Oppert quotes Dr. J. "Wilson as connecting them with the Poruaroi of Ptolemy. The Sanskrit writers called the ^yestern Dakhan Mdhlrdshtra, and some have suggested that the name is from mah'r = great ; sc. ' magna regie' But there seems no reason for such a designation, wliile ' country of the Mahdr ' would be in every way intelligible.' The name now commonly used, Gond, or rather Gaud or Gaunr, is apparently not recognised by the existing relics of the people, who call themselves Koitur. As a class the Gonds, in the Central Provinces, are divided into Enj-Gond,w\iQ claim to be connected with the former ruling families, and Dhur-Gond, who were the plebeian section. ETHNOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIOXS 115 note that we have no definite tradition even, of Gonds as rulers till quite modern times. But when the Bhonsla Marathas attacked Central India, Gond princes were in power. The Maratlia Raja seized the Gond Raja's demesne (Nagpur, &c.), but left the less valuable and outljring districts in the hands of the original subor- dinate chiefs ; it is, in fact, the descendants of these chiefs who still hold the land, some of the greater ones being regarded as Feudatory chiefs, and the minor ones having been recognised as ' Zamindars,' or landlords of estates. Besides the Gond we have also some local traditions of Gauli rulers in the central districts, and of AMr chiefs, a people whose name we have already met with, and who, from the places in which notices of them are found, must have extended from the Indus mouths to the Chambal River and beyond.' Of the modern population it is not necessary to say much. The northern part of the country has received many Hindu emigrants from Malwa and the north, but only in comparatively late times.^ The rest is still largely populated by the ' Maratha ' races.^ I have already suggested that these are really of mixed Dra vidian and Aryan origin, and their superior families may be more Aryan than the rest. The originators of the modem Marathas completely disappear from history ; and the race only reappears towards the close of the seventeenth century under Sivaji. This chief himself belonged to the caste or race, also widely distributed, called Kunbi or Kurmi. They are noted agriculturists, and as such have wandered far and wide — to Oudh, and Bengal even, in search of land-holdings. They have now no distinctive language ; they are called Kunbi in Marathi, Kunabi in the South Maratha. country, Kumbhl and Kurmi among the people of Hindustan. ' See also at p. 109, ante, as to the wide distribution of this people. ^ Ante, pp. 44-5. ' As to the name of this people or tribe, I have preferred the form above employed to the common term Mahratta — i.e. Marhattd — which latter is not recognised by the people themselves, and means in Hindi ' robber,' being an opprobrious epithet applied by the Mughal soldiers. (See also Tod, ii. 420). At one time these races seem to have been called (for instance, in Firishta's History of the Nizdm-Shlhi Kings) by the name of Bargi, or Bhargi. (See Grant Duff's History of the Mahrattas, i. 69). I 2 116 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY (2) The Population of Southern India Except for the openings at the western end, and to a lesser extent at the eastern end also, the Vindhyan Range served as a complete barrier confining the bulk of the Aryan conquerors, or colonists, to Upper India ; it opposed any further advance to the south, at least as regards any considerable number of clans bent on conquest. It was only at a much later time, when the Aryans of Northern India had spread as far as the Ganges mouths, that adventurous princes with their armies made expe- ditions to Orissa and the northern part of the Telugu country. When we come to the real South — to the Madras Presidency — we are brought face to face with the genuine representa- tives of an almost purely Dravidian population. At the same time we find the Brahmanic religion and caste well established, and the languages to some extent — very much less than in the North, affected by Sanskritic additions. The earliest traditions show no sign of any general immi- gration of Aryan clans. As Dr. Macleane ' has justly observed, ' The view of the Aryans marching in bodies in this direction or that is supported by no facts of any sort in the case of the country south of the Vindhyans.' It is, as I have remarked, only in the north-eastern districts that there could have been any communication of a general character with the Aryanised people of Upper India, and that, at such a distance from the Aryan centre, could only have been with people of very mixed blood. The sovereigns of Magadha at one time extended their suzerainty further south, and other dynas- ties may have claimed or exercised sway in the north-west of Madras, but that is no proof of any large importation of an Aryan population.^ ' Manual (History), p. 53. See also Lassen, i. 116, confirming this statement, which is, however, quite indisputable. ' From early times, the Upper or Telugu country seems to have been partly peopled or occupied by a race called by a name which Western geographers turned into Kalinga. The Greek geographers speak of a threefold division of this people — the Kalinga, Makko-Kalinga, and the Gangarid-Kalinga. Those living inland were connected with the name Andhra, which occurs in Mann, and stUl earlier, e.g. in the Aita/reyd ETTTN'OGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 117 The effects actually produced upon the Southern people and the introduction of caste and religion must have been the result of a gradual intercourse, which had nothing to do with tribal conquest or with a general settlement of the Aryan people. It was effected by the individual, but repeated and cumulative, efforts of the Brahmans. In no field is their peculiar genius better displayed than in this new kind of conquest. They used no force, they did not even displace the local deities ; they wove all cults into one general scheme, and made their ideals accept- able to the people, so that in time it became a mark of respecta- bility or superiority to become ' Hindu ' and to be ' in caste.' The causes which led to so ready an acceptance of the philo- sophical and religious teaching, but more especially of the social and ceremonial system which is the essence of Hinduism, are beyond our province : we must be content with saying that this change was effected mainly by the efforts of hermit missionaries but was also furthered by the admission of Brahman advisers to the Courts of indigenous princes, and possibly by the occasional reception of military (Aryan) chiefs, who were welcomed as organisers of local armies and the like, and would soon establish themselves as lords of estates and territorial chiefships. Such adventurers would naturally have won their way to local rank by the romance attaching to their long adventurous journey so far south, by the mystery of their distant northern home, and by their general prowess and superiority. Evei-ything in the Madras country points to the existence, from the most ancient times, of numerous, and, considering the age, civilized, groups of non- Aryan races who occupied the more fertile and level portions of the country, leaving, no doubt, wide Brahmana. (See Caldwell, Introduction, p. 30.) The Makko-Kalinga were coast people, and probably represent the Magh of Eastern Bengal and Ghittagong. The Manryan kings of Magadha,, deriving origin from one of the Agnikuld houses of the royal Rajput stock as reckoned by the bards, nominally ruled as far as Ganjam, since Asoka's edicts are found there In inscriptions. And a later offshoot of this dynasty founded the Andhra kingdom during the first centuries of our era. This, however, was a military occiipation only. Macleane (History), p. 132 ; and see Cunningham's Ancient Geography, p. 529, for Hwen Thsang's account of the Telugu country. 118 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY stretclies of jungle and forest which spread over the north, and covered the hills of the centre and south. Among the jungle- clad hills, tribes, still nomad, would continue to wander, being cut off from the civilising influences to which the people of the arable plains were accessible. Early legends speak of Agastya — ^the Tamir-Tmmi, or sage of the Tamulians — coming as a hermit across the Vindhyan Ranges, and by his power commanding them to bow down till his return. As he never did return (according to the Southern version), the ranges continued to be lower than other mountains to this day.' The names for Brahmans — -4//i/dr (fathers) and Farjxlr (overseers) — go some way to indicate the position they held as missionaries and founders of a new order.^ When the Brahmanic teaching at last spread widely, a large part of the population adopted Hindu forms, and were of course classed by their teachers as Qudra — the only possible .caste on the developed Brahmanic theory ; ^ while the bulk of the humbler ' For the story of Agastya, see G. Oppert, p. 24. " It is remarkable at how early a date the natural genius of the Brahman caste for a hermit life, for the discovery of places of pilgrimage, and for tlie location of shrines at all points of natural scenic beauty or physical peculiarity, led them to wander all over India. In the Eama- yana we have a highly coloured picture of the hermits settled in the southern forest beyond the Narbadil Eiver, and of the interruptions they suffered from the forest tribes. ' These base-born wretches implicate the hermits in impure practices and perpetrate the grossest outrages. Changing their shapes and hiding in the thickets adjoining the hermit- ages, these frightful beings delight in terrifying the devotees. They cast away the sacrificial ladles and vessels, they pollute the cooked oblations, and utterly defile the offerings with blood. These faithless creatures inject frightful sotmds into the ears of the faithful and austere eremites. At the times of sacrifice they snatch away the jars, the flowers, the fuel and the sacred grass of these sober-minded men ' (Rtimayana, iii. 1, 15, in Muir's A. 8. T. part ii. chapter iii. section iv. p. 427). When at last such hermits reached the inhabited parts, their message must have been received with something like awe from the mystery of their origin. Even to the present day, the crowds that any new Jogi, or mysterious ascetic, will draw are quite wonderful. ' It is curious to note that in the South the ' Sudra ■ is spoken of as indicating a somewhat proud superiority, in contradistinction to the ' Pariah,' &c., a feeling quite out of keeping with the degraded position theoretically assigned to the Cudra in Manu. Thus, I remember reading ETIINOGIIAPHIOAL CONSIDERATIONS 119 classes and the remoter tribes were rouglil}' classecil as out-caste races — Pa/raiyar and the like. This original isolation of the Southern people, and the mode of their subsequent conversion to Hinduism, are reflected in the local languages, and in the additions that have been made to the vocabulary. The whole of Southern India, as is well known, is di^dded between the Telugu-speaking races in the upper part, with Kanarese (language of Karnata) in the north-west ; Tuluva and ilalayalam in the west, and Tamil in the south. The Tamil, Telugu, Kanarese, Tuluva, and Malayalam are all defined lan- guages originating as branches from a common stock. Tamil in particular has a long history ; it has for centuries been divided into a classical and a colloquial dialect, and has both ancient and modern written chai'acters. The extant literature probably does not go back beyond the ninth century of our era ; but the facts about the language and its dialects show its antiquity and in- dicate a considerable degree of civilisation of an archaic type. The Sanskrit had no part in the earlier language, and only added its terms and forms in comparatively later times. The further we go back with the Tamil language, the freer from Sanskrit words we find it.' As to the stage of civilisation anciently at- tained by the Dravidians, Dr. Caldwell has collected evidence, from the existence of pure Tamil names, as to what they were acquainted with. It does not follow that nothing else was known, but certainly agriculture was well understood ; and some arts — e.g. pottery — had reached a considerable degree of excellence.^ From many parts of the country there come indications that at least some of the tribes had a settled monarchical govern- in some old missionary report the complaint that only ' the Sudras ' could make themselves heard by the officials ; the humbler classes could get no redress, &c. The distinction may frequently be met with. ' All these facts are stated in detail in the Inti-oduction to CaldweU's Dravidian Grammar. Dr. Macleane in his Mamoal {{.Ethnology, 33-55 and notes) has collected a mass of information. See also Morris's D. M. of the Goddvari District, p. 165 ft'. ' Caldwell's Introduction, p. 117 ff. And it is to be remembered that such proof is by no means exhaustive ; for words may once have existed but become lost or superseded by Sanskrit words in the course of time. 120 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMJMUNITY ment. This will be farther remarked on in speaking of Di-avidiau customs in the next chapter.' In the remote past there is evidence that some of the now lowly-esteemed Dravidian races were once powerful peoples, divided into numeroiis clans or divisions each with its own ioisignia ; and this alone shows some degree of wealth and even luxury to have existed among them.^ ' They still cherish,' re- marks Dr. G. Oppert, ' as the Bhar and Mhdr do, the memory of former greatness, and regard themselves as the original owners of the soil.' Thej retain also some curious religious privileges.' Their priests, the Valluvar, are ' probably the representatives of the ruling class of ancient times. ' * It would serve no useful purpose to enter into any detail about the different races of the South. What special characteris- tics some of them had will be noticed when we come to describe the surviving Dravidian customs affecting land. It is here sufficient to observe that the South owes little or nothing to the Aryan element in the matter of land-holding customs. Agri- cultural villages organised on a distinct plan must have long existed,* and there is eveiy reason to believe that the form of villages in wliich the several families each constitute a separate land-holding unit, but having certain bonds of local union, and kept together under the rule of an hereditary village-chief, was , the original Dravidian type, and one which is most nearly and obviously related to a still existing form (of unquestionably ' Dr. Maoleane (Mamual [History], p. 113), states that 'the Dravidians were a practical people with considerable resources ; in matters of Government they were — unless in the very earliest stages — under the monarchical system, with defined areas of country for the exercise of rule.' - As to this, see G. Oppert, pp. 50-57. The note at p. 57 enumerates these tribal emblems ; some of them, such as bells of victory, white chauri (fly-flaps), white horse, ivory palankeen, golden pot, &c., indicate wealth and some degree of state. ' Cf. cmte, p. 89, and G. Oppert, p. 54. * Oppert, p. 69. A Valhiva hon, or chief, presided at the ancient assemblies of Malabar when a Pa/rwmal or sovereign was elected for the country (the election was then periodical). ' Extensive kingdoms, with Courts, and armies, and cities, could hardly go on, or even come into existence, without an efficient provision for the regular cultivation of the soil. And we shall see village customs in Dravidian tribes evidently of great antiquity. ETI1X0G1^\PHICAL CONSIDEKATIOXS 121 Dravidian origin), which has actually survived unchanged in the fastnesses of the Chutiya-Nagpur plateaux and in the hills of Orissa. This, however, is a matter the discussion of which be- longs to a later stage. Section IV. — The Present Location of Aryan (Rajpct) Land-holding Communities There is one other subject which it is necessary to deal with before directly inquiring into the different forms of village. That the Arj-an communities of land-holders should be confined to Upper India, and should especially be prominent in the Central CTauges Plain, as far as Bihar, is very natural ; but it is not so easih' understood that the village groups and landlord estates of the Rajput domination or of Brahman possession do not occur in the sites in which the ancient settlements took place according to tradition and literature. Here and there the local belief suggests a settlement which has been more or less undis- turbed, but it is rare ; and in general the existing tribal and in- dividual villages are the result of later movements — most of them dating back to the Mughal or to the earlier Pathan conquests. From the earliest times the Aryan clans were subject to internecine feuds and wars, and the spread of Buddhism cer- tainly tended to promote such quarrels. However much these two creeds may have existed side by side, religious differences formed at least the pretext of dynastic wars, and to these we must ascribe that repeated devastation and abandonment of the local kingdoms, and the reversion of cultivated tracts to jungle which is so noticeable a feature in the early legendary history of Upper India. And then came the Moslem invasions from the eleventh century and onwards. At no period did the Aryan princes make really common cause against the invaders; bnt in general, if they did combine for a time, it was only to break out into hostility again, as soon as the immediate cause of danger passed by. Various tribes were then dispersed, and, driven from the domains directly occupied by the Moslems, they sought new homes in the further parts of Rajputana.' Others took service ^ The sort of dispersion that followed these local wars and invasions is well pictured by the author of the Rajputdna Gazetteer (i. 39), where /" 122 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY' under the Emperors, and were encouraged or allowed to return in more scattered parties to the provinces where Aryan kingdoms had once flourished. The Himalayan districts, too, afforded a refuge ; for the original petty chiefs of those localities, unable to combine and oppose the Eajput leaders, soon fell before their attack. The following local quotations, selected out of many, will better illustrate the subject than any further general observations. Take, for example, the Unao district of OuDH.' ' Previous to the dawn of authentic history,' says the writer, ' we find a trace of Eajput dominion. . . . But the Bisen alone appear to have had any actual colonies, for they alone have left a distinct trace of the estates tliey held ; the others appear to have merely ex- erted a nominal sovereignty over the aborigines.' The real colonisers, the writer goes on to say, were the Rajputs, who fled across the Ganges on their defeat by the Muhammadan Ghori kings (end of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries), and afterwards, those who, having entered the service of the Delhi Emperors, received grants of land, or took possession as adven- turers. In the northern part of Oudh (Bahraich and Gouda) we have the location of one of the great Buddhist centres. But the cities of Si-avasti, Kapilanagara, and others, perished. When, in a.d. 410, Fa Hian, the Chinese pilgrim, visited the country, Sravasti he describes how the Bujput elans, ejected from the more fertile homes they had first selected, were pushed into the drier and less valuable parts of the present Eajput States, and into the hilly country around Malwa. above alluded to. ' ^^Tien the dominant families of a clan lost their dominions in the fertile regions of the North-west, one part of the clan seems to have remained in the conquered country — here obtaining service and the landlordship of scattered -sTllages — while another part, probably the defeated chiefs, kiasmen, and followers, went off westward and carved out another, though much poorer, dominion. . . . Having there made a settlement and built a city of refuge, each clan started on an interminable course of feuds and forays, striving to enlarge its borders at the cost of its neighbour. When the land grew too strait for the support of the chiefs family or of the increased clan, a band would assemble under some new leader and go forth to plant itself elsewhere.' ' Oudh Gazetteer, iii. 452. ETHNOGKAPIUCAL COKSIUERATIOKS 123 was in ruins and the country desolate ; and when Hwen Thsang came (640 a.d.), it had still more hopelessly relapsed into forest. Bhar and Tharu tribes ' resumed possession ; and there is some historical evidence that in the eleventh century Sayyad Salar overthrew the Bhar chief Suhildeo.^ In a.d. 1226 we find a Moslem chief ' overthrowing the accursed Bhartuh ' ; and it is not till 1340-1450 that we find CMtri leaders again establishing, their colonies in the country. In the Gonda district, if early Aryans had ever established themselves, they must have disappeared. Ptolemy, writing in the second century,^ names the inhabitants Tanganoi, who are apparently the Tancjana of the Mahabharata, where they are mentioned as a tribe bringing a tribute of gold and horses to the King of Hastinapura. A king, apparently Brahmanical, named Vikramaditya, was then reigning at Sra- vasti. I have already mentioned how, two centuries later, Sravasti was in ruins. Some attempt was made — traditionally by Sombansi Rajputs — to colonise, but the cultivation of the district dates fi-om the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.* Mr. P. Carnegy, whose long residence in Oudh gave him ample opportunities of knowing the facts, has stated not only that the Bhar tribes held all the land in a great part of the cultivated districts, but that even the existing Aryan land-hold- ' The Thdru here appear as one of the aboriginal tribes ; but I should like to call attention to the suggestion (G-orakhpur District North- West Provinces Gazetteer, vi. 357), that the Tharu may be reaUy relics of an early Aryan clan, who were cut off when their brethren were expelled. If so, they must have become a very mixed race. Cf p. 105 ante. ^ The detail is given in Oudh Gazetteer, i. 111. ' McCrindle's Ptolemy, p. 210. It is supposed that the Tangana may survive in the Tonk Bajputs, and in certain other clans. '' And, summing up the history of North Oudh, Mr. Benett writes (8. B. Gondd, § 17, p. 6) : ' Here, as in the South, the internecine wars waged by the neighbouring Chatri clans, and, perhaps still more, the bloody rivalry of the Brahman and the Buddhist, had resulted in the complete collapse of the old Hindu power, and, here as there, the forest gained on the cultivated plain ; a scanty population was ruled by the representatives of the aboriginal stocks ; the country fell an easy prey to the Muhammadans, and the Hindu system only revived at the commencement of the four- teenth century with an immigration of Chatrls from the South-west.' 124 TIIE IXDIAN VILLAGE COIMTMUNITY ing families are of mixed descent.' Speaking of the absence of any marks of a continuous Aryan occupation dating back from ancient times, he says : ' I can refer to the histories of many now land-holding Eajput clans . . . but none of these declare the arrival of an army of clansmen and colonisation by the victors, with their families and kin. . . The Oudh clans, who claim an extra-provincial origin, trace their descent to single GhatrTs and not to troops of invaders. Such are the Bais of Baiswara ^ and the Rdjkumdr.' After enumerating some other locally well- known clans, he shows how their origin is lost, or is traditionally attributed to mothers of the AMr and BJiar (non- Aryan) race. ' Here,' he concludes, speaking of the Pulwar clan, ' we have a Hindu-Bhar origin freely admitted.' Throughout the North-West Provinces similar testimony can be collected^- The Eajput settlements now known are almost all the result of later movements of small bodies or clans ; and frequently originated in individual adventure and in royal grants to settlers in available waste tracts. Indeed, it is worthy of remark that in so many of the districts of the North-^Yest Provinces the Rajput proprietary bodies are locally called, not Rajput, but ' Thclhur ' (lord or baron), implying that their original position was that of local lords. Throughout the districts we find that Rajput clans or single adventurers came to the place when driven from other provinces by the Muhammadan conquest. The great movement appears to have followed the overthrow of the Hindu kingdoms of Delhi, Ajmer, and Kanauj, in the twelfth century. As a somewhat curious instance I will refer to Mr. Wilton Oldham's account of the Ghazipur district.^ After remarking on the non-appearance of any general ancient or primeval settle- ment of Aryan tribes, and that the present higher caste tenures (villages held by co-sliariug families) are of comparatively modern origin, Mr. Wilton Oldham goes on to say : ' With re- ' In a paper in the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society, xlv. 300- 302, as quoted in G. Oppert, p. 45. - The Bais are descendents of Bslja Tilokchand ; there are other castes of this designation, but not so descended. ^ Memoirs of the Gluizipiir District, p. 67 ff. This is one of the districts of the old Benares Province. ETHNOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 125 gard to the manner in which the Hindus supplanted the " abori- gines," the traditions are entitled to some credit, because they often partake of the nature of evidence against interest, or, as it is sometimes called, self-disserving evidence. Tradition gene- rally represents the " Hindu " as coming first a solitary adven- turer, and taking service with an aboriginal chief, as gradually increasing in influence, and gathering round him his kindred and other adherents, till at last, on the evidence of some real or fancied indignity, he throws off the yoke of dependence, murders his employer, and makes himself master of his " estates." There is nothing to be proud of in such a method of acquiring property, and the Rajput and BhulnJidr tribes are often chary of making known their traditions till interrogated by some one who has heard them from some other source. . . .' Here we have not only a case of individual foundation of estates, but also the late date is implied: no signs of any original Aryan invasion en inasse appear. In another part of the country — the Banda district — where the Rajputs are called Thakur, I find it mentioned that at the time of the first British Settlement as much as two-thirds of the district was in the hands of Thakurs, and one-fifth in that of Brahmans. The Settlement officer's remark that ' the land was in possession of the tribes which had occupied it for cen- turies ' merely means ' for perhaps six hundred years,' when the Chandela clan were overthrown by the Chauhan.' I must specially allude to the case of the Farukhabad dis- trict, because in this, the ancient city of Kanauj was an impor- tant centre — apparently for long periods, if not always — of the Brahmanic Hindus.^ Here we find one of the exceptional cases in which, at least in the northern part of the district, old Aryan settlers, possibly never removed, are found. 1 S. B. BandTi (1881), p. 31, and see p. 61 as to the earlier Thakur clans. See also S. B. Fatihpur (1878), pp. 9, 10 ; 8. B. Allaluihad (1878), p. 49, for similar accounts of Eajput re-settlement in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. ^ Kanauj, on the Ganges, was stiU a great city in Hwen Thsang's time, and was stiU such at the date of the Ghaznevide invasions, 1018 a.d. Pa- Hian mentions (fifth century) that the whole country from Mathura up to the Panjilb was then Brahmanical; and we know that a Gupta dynasty lasted in Kanauj from 315 b.c. to 275 a,d. 126 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY Further north, in the Doab districts, the location of the Aryan villages has been a good deal interfered with by the invasion of -Jat and Gujar tribes.' To conclude with some of the Rohilkhand districts, Shahjahan- pur ^ affords a typical instance. The Thakur clans are strong, especially in Pargana Jalalabad. Here no less than fifty-four clans are found ; the Report specifies seventeen of the principal, of which I will only mention the Gauhdri, with 8,555 members, Candeld about 6,000, and the smaller bodies, e.g. the Tumdr, numbering only 728. But none date back beyond the fourteenth century ; and there was a settlement of the Katheriyd tribe as late as the sixteenth.' It is also remarked that though, until comparatively recently, the Thakurs were the principal land- owners, ' they were the dominant class, but never formed the bulk of the population.' I shall conclude these observations with an extract regarding the Bareli district, bordering on Oudh, as it contains a quotation which suitably summarises what I have been attempting to explain.'' In this district Mr. Moens gives an account of each of the Rajput tribes, beginning with the Rahtor, who came to the northern parga'iias, as clearers of the jungle, some ten genera- tions back. All of them are, in fact, comparatively late historic arrivals. ' Thus,' he says, ' all the chief tribes in eveiy part of the district of Bareli concur in stating that on theii* arrival they found no Rajput tribes. The previous occupants are always 1 There is a good account of the matter, which is too long to quote, in CadeU's 8. B., Muzaffarnagar District (Ganges Canal Tract), p. 24. - S. B. Shdhjahanjpur (1874), § 45, p. 24. There arealso some good re- marks about the effect of marriage alliances in bringing about a dispersion of small groups of different clans, because aU were exogamous, and husbands of another clan must be sought for all the daughters. ' The Katheriyd were a powerful clan, who first established them- selves in the twelfth century in this part of the country, so that it was called ' Katlier.' There is a full account of their traditions in S. B. Bareli (1874), p. 23 ff. In the thirteenth century we find them in conflict with the Moslems ; but they were not thoroughly defeated till the reign of Akbar. The most probable account seems to be that they were a mixed race, possibly connected mth the original Aryan rulers of the Solar line in Oudh. ^ S. B. Bareli (1874), pp. 20, 21. BTIINOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 127 either AMr, Bhulnhdr, or Bhll, or else the land is unoccupied jungle. . . .' ' He concludes hy quoting Mr. (now Sir 0. A.) Elliott's Chronicles of VtuLo, an Oudh district, in a passage which he says is ' exactly supported by the state of things in Bareli ' : ' When the Aryan * race invaded the Gangetic Valley and the Solar chiefs settled in Ayodhya, the natural resource for the aborigines would be to fly to the hills and find refuge in the im- penetrable fastnesses girded about with the deadly Tarai, the malarious country at the foot of the hills. ... It has been before remarked that the mythic legends leave no impression of a large subject population existing in Oudh, but rather of a vast solitude inhabited by a scanty race employed in pasturing cattle. The scene before us at the fall of the historic curtain is an uninhabited forest country and a large colony of Surajbansi occupying Ayodhya as their capital. When the curtain rises again, we find Ayodhya destroyed, the Surajbansi utterly vanished and a great extent of country ruled over by aborigines called Ceru in the far East, Bhar in the Centre, and Bdj-Pasl in the West. This great revolution seems to be satisfactorily explained by the conjecture that the Bhar, Ceru, "jab, we are prepared to find hardly any definite traces of an ancient Aryan ETIINOCIRAPIIICAL CONSIDERATIONS 129 domination.' No doubt some of the older races maj' be derived from a mixed Aryan stock, and this may be true in spite of the present profession of Islam and the consequent tendency to assert descent from Muhammadan ancestors. So, too, the line between Rajput and Jat is here exceptionally difficult to draw ; but still there are admittedly Rajput communities ; I hardly, however, know of one in the plains that does not itself assert a comparatively late location. Around Delhi, for instance, the Rajputs are connected with the Tumdr (or Tuiiivar) and Gauhdn ; both of whom are ' Agnikula ' clans, and confessedly long subse- quent to the original invasion. The Bludtl (this is the Panjab form of the name, which is Bhdti in Rajputana) now trace their settlement to a body which emigrated to Pindi-Bhattiaii (Guj- ranwala district) from an earlier home in Bhattiana or Bhatner. Near the Salt Range, Janjhud settlements are found — possibly the relics of a local dominion ; but the tradition they themselves have is that they are of Bahtor origin, coming originally from Rajputana. In the Western plains, the SiM are a late arrival ; they claim to be Pumodr Rajputs who moved westwards to the Jhang district, and formerly to Sialkot, which derives its name from them, during the first half of the eighteenth century. Almost the only traditionally anciffiit Aryan relics are to be found in the Kangra Hills, and possibly in the Salt Range tract of the North Panjab. ' There are in the Kangra, Hills some families of Katocli chiefs who are really ancient, and assert that they are older than either the Solar or Limar princes. It is quite possible that they may be vestiges of the earlier Aryan movements. In the North-western Panjab, the Cib- Rajputs, who still retain a number of villages (Gujriit district) claim a similar antiquity, and are beheved to be a branch of the Katoch. See as to the Puranic tradition p. 97, ante. 130 THE INDIAN VILLAGE OOJEMUNITY CHAPTER IV CUSTOMS REGARDING LAND-HOLDING OBSERVED AMONG THE NON-ARYAN RACES Section I. — The Tibeto-Burman Group In this group we naturally include the population of Burma, and in that province we are at no loss to trace characteristic customs. But in India the tribes referable to the same group seem to have been confined to the province of Assam, and to the north-eastern part of Bengal ; and the customs affecting land which can be more or less distinctively ascribed to them are but few. While the Tibetan element is thus limited in the plains, it has extended more widely in the hill and sub-montane country. It has certainly formed the basis of the agricultural population, all along the outer Himalayan districts, from Darjee- ling as far as Kashmir. How far these are immigrant people com- ing from the north-east end of the range, and slowly advancing westward, and how far they have filtered, so to speak, directly through the hills from the Tibet plateau, it is impossible to say. Travellers will remember that beyond the Hills of Chamba and the Upper Sutlej Valley, and beyond the British districts of Kangra and Kulu, they come to Ladakh, Spiti, and other districts with a distinctly Tibetan population ; and it is quite likely that Tibetan chiefs and Tibetan tribes may have formerly extended their rule through the hill districts, apart from any north-eastern immigration. Certain it is that the Khasa or Khasiya people found all along the range are of Tibetan origin,' and that other mixed races, improved by a strain of Aryan blood, ' See pp. 39, 87, ante. The central districts about Kumtton were for- merly called ' Khasdes ' from this feature. NON- ARYAN CUSTOM— TIBETO-BURM AN 131 have much the same origin. Probably other races than Aryan may have made conquests in these hills. Nevertheless, we have some traditions and customs which seem to be indigenous and belong, at least, to non- Aryan tribes. In the first place, there is a tradition (both in Kumaon and Kangra) that the Hindu Rajas were preceded by petty local chiefs (evidently Tibetan) who had no centralized government, and so fell an easy prey to the Rajput chieftains.' Speaking first of the hill districts, the absence of village- communities and the artificial formation of estates and villages, have already been alluded to ; but the fact, justly as I think it may be ascribed to the physical conditions of settlement, is not entirely independent of other causes. It is a matter of racial custom that joint holding is not recognised. In Kumaon, as in Kangra, all the family holdings are separate and independent. A few holdings may be grouped together, but that is not the same thing as a ' village community.' - The case is just the same with the Simla Hill States (under their Hindu chiefs), where no artificial village groups have been formed. ' There are ' See the Kimmon Collected Reports, p. 164, and cf. Lyall's Kdngnl S. B. § 79, pp. 106, 107. I have ahready noticed the Katoch chiefs, who may really be relics of some previous early Aryan settlement. The same is true of the Katora, chiefs in Kumaon. In this latter case there is a definite tradition that the early conquerors were again defeated by local princes ; but finally the local rule was destroyed by the Rajput princes of the Chand line, whose success is held to date from about the twelfth century. In general the Rajput chiefs date from the time when the Moslem invasions disturbed the Hindu kingdoms of the plains. Through- out these hills, it is quite possible that there may have been an early and local domination by Aryan chiefs, who after a time disappeared, and who were only at the date of the Moslem conquest replaced by more com- pletely Hindu successors of the same race. ^ For the Kumaon tenures see Collected Beports, pp. 129, 130, 132, 283, 329. See also Lyall's Kangra S. B. p. 62, which also contains some interesting tables showing how far the foreign element is repre- sented among the land-holding classes. Thus we find Brahmans represent 18 per cent, of the land-holders ; pure Rajputs only 6 per cent. ; Rajputs of the second grade {i.e. partly mixed), 15 per cent. ; the more completely mixed races — superior Qudras, Thakar, Rathi, and Kanet— 37 per cent. ; inferior Qudra, 19 per cent. ; tribes outside caste altogether, 2 per cent. All who have become Hindus adopt the joint succession, so that each farm win often be shared between relatives (average two shares to a holding). K 2 132 TILE INDIAN VILLAGE COMJIUNITY no village communities,' writes Colonel Wace ; ' each squatter held direct of the State. ... To this day a land-holder (zamvndar — the terra is used only in the literal sense) will speak of holding his ■patta, i.e. grant or lease from the Raja. The holdings are aggregated in circuits called hliy mainly for revenue and ad-, ministrative purposes.' ' In the inner ranges of the Kangra district we have, however, an interesting survival which has apparently come down un- changed, in that remote locality, from old times. In certain Kothls (old administrative divisions) of Bangahal, the dwellings are in clusters on the hill-side wherever there is space enough, and shelter, and a supply of water. The cultivation is provided for by taking up such patches or larger areas in the vicinity as can be terraced or made into fields. Each such area is called tf}-, and every household has a holding called 'its vand ; this implies a right to an equal portion in every sir attached to the group. But these several plots are not, therefore, divided into as many fields as there are households. To ensure equality, each valid is held to consist of ' several small plots situated in every comer of the sh:' When any patch of cultivation is destroyed by a landslip or other mountain accident, the custom is to redivide by lot what remains.^ These vand were not ancestral shares of a family, for the households in the hamlet were independent, and not even of the same stock. Possibly, however, in ancient times they may have had something of the character of clan or tribal allotments. On the death of the holder, the vaiid was not divided among his sous : the youngest son stayed at home to succeed his father ; the eldest and other sons went to the chief's army or to service, or started new households and obtained their vaiid else- where. In the Kulu subdivision a very similar custom is still noticeable. I must add also Sir J. B. Lyall's own comment on this custom.^ ' Such a tenure,' he says, ' I believe to have prevailed from very ancient times in the countries far back in the Himalayas which border Tibet, or have at one time or another been included in that » Wace's Simla S. B. 1883, § 8. " Lyall's Kangra S. B. p. 35. The lots are cast (jihofflu) with dried goats' -droppings duly marked. ' Ibid. p. 1-20 ff. NON- ARYAN CUSTOM— TIBETO-BURM AN 133 empire. Every family or householder had its holding or share of one ; but such holding is not in the shape of an ancestral or custom- ary ' share of the fields round the hamlet, but rather in the shape of an arbitraryallotment from the arable land of the whole country. . . , All the arable lands seem to have been divided into lots, each lot being of presumably equal value, and calculated to be sufficient to provide subsistence for one household.' After mentioning that in the course of time lots became un- equal, and new plots were added on from the reclaimed waste, and by sales, &c., the author continues : ' The original of it seems to be that each head of a household was entitled in return for rent, tax, or service due from him to the State or Commonwealth [might we not say as a member of the tribe or clan — in the stage probably then prevalent ?] to a lot or share of arable land sufficient to support one household. No man wanted more land than this, as, shut in by these high mountains, land was a means of subsistence, not a source of wealth. The lot being calcu- lated to support only one family was not meant to be divided, and, with the house to which it was originally attached, was handed down unchanged from generation to generation. If a holder had several sons, those who wished to marry and live apart would have to look out for separate lots, and the paternal house and land would pass to one son only. ' ^ When the earliest Rajas established their rule in Kulu, they superimposed on this system one that recalls the arrange- ' In making this reference to ' ancestral ' and ' customary ' shares, the author is thinking of the principles which are found to govern the sharing in the joint-villages of the plains. It wiU be noticed that he refers to Kulii as probably at one time belonging to Tibet, just as some of the inner districts do to this day. This would of course give a more directly Tibetan origin to custom than the mere fact of the ethnic connection of the Khasiya and other hiU people with the Tibetan ethnic stock, which is what I have chiefly relied on. - A very similar custom prevailed in Kulu. In this vaDey, as else- where, the right in the soil having been assumed by the Rajas, the private right or idea of hereditary ownership is now centred in the family house ; and the Kulii saying Is ' zamln Bed let, gJiar hdi Til ' (' The land is the Raja's, the house is the father's ') (S. B. p. 120). The adoption of the Persian word zamm in this proverb shows that it only dates back to times when the Moslem languages had to a certain extent influenced the speech of India and penetrated to the hills. 134 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COiLMUNITV ments we shall describe in Assam. The system was known as jeold-havdi, and consisted in dividing the agricultural population into classes — one that was liable to military service and the other to menial service. The holder of land in the former class was allowed a portion of his land free of taxes (harto-jeolu) in retm-n for his service ; while for the rest he paid revenue (hdnsili-jeold). The menial holdings were known as cati, and paid no revenue, except the labour or services required. At present we have no other information about Himalayan tenures. Naipal would be doubtless an interesting sphere of inquiry, but it is not a very accessible one ; and I have found no specific information about the small portion of British terri- tory around Darjeeling. Leaving the Himalayan districts, we next turn to Assam, where we find some races of Tibeto-Bui-man stock almost unchanged, especially in the hill country; while the valley population, originally of the same ethnical character, has become much mixed and subject to Hindu religious and other influences. The Hindu system of caste and religion, in fact, completely dis- placed the earlier Buddhism, which itself must have been a foreign importation. The local dialect, Assamese, is a comparatively recent modification of Bengali. Local traditions, and even written records, exist. Prom time to time the names of kings are capable of verification. R.-om the remains of ancient temples, and still more ancient fortified cities of great extent, it is evident that traditional history is so far correct in asserting the existence of organised States from a remote period. And then came a time when Aryan or semi-Ai-yan chiefs had extended their dominion from the Ganges VaUey as far as the western portion of Assam. The Aryan names, Kamrup, Brahmaputra, and others similar, are relics of this contact. It is fairly certain that Assam was anciently divided into several, or many, small kingdoms, and that after the time of Buddha, the Western kings adopted the Buddhist faith.' As might be expected, the western districts ' This is doubtless referred to when the Annals (-^vritten by Brahman authors) speak of the kings as Asura or Dilnava, terms applied to ' heretics.' A good account of ancient Assam wiU be found in the Calcutta Review, xlv. 510, reprinted in 1884. This is followed by a further article about the ancient religion, which is more speculative in NON-xiRYAN CUSTOM— TIBETO-BURM AN 135 are often found united under one ruler, whose sway extended as far westwards as Bihar or even Gorakhpur on the confines of Oudh. These Buddhist princes felt the effect of the Brahmanic struggle for ascendency and were ultimately overthrown.' A distinction appears to have been early recognised between the west (Kwrnmcp) and the north and north-eastern part of the valley (Uttarkol). It was the latter that was most thoroughly Tibeto-Burman as regards its population. One of the most important immigrations was that of the Boro (or Bctda) tribe,^ which had several subdivisions. A Boro kingdom existed near the modern Sadiya. The Mec and Kclcdri tribes, who will presently be mentioned, are probabh' branches of this race. The name ' Assam ' (Asdm) is most probably traceable to (the Boro) i3a-com= the low or level country ; while the Boro word for water (dai or di) has remained in the names of rivers — e.g. Bai-hang (the Dihong of the maps). Under the Boro rule ' tradition states that the country was thickly populated, and reached a high state of civilisation. It was divided for the purposes of Government administration into numerous districts ; and the executive consisted of a body politic, selected from the most wealthy and respected men in each division. The King exercised but a nominal control over the deliberative assemblies.' * character, and the chronology is confusing. The name of King Bhagadatta, well known in literature, figures largely; he was a Buddhist, but his successors became Hindus in the ninth century. ' It is curious to observe how the traditions represent the oppressed Buddhists as seeking refuge through the hills as far west as Kashmir ; and, at least at one time, we hear of a prince ruling over Kashmir leading an army into Assam. There are scattered remnants of these once ruling houses still existing under the name of the Kulta or KuUtd caste. A certain number, now Hindus, are in the Assam Valley. But two small colonies made their way to South-western Bengal, which has been a refuge ground to several tribes. One is now in the Native State of Bonaigarh, tlie other in the Sambalpur district of the Central Provinces. The name KuUtd is supposed by some to mean hula, (family), itd (gone or lost) ; but these Sanskritic derivations are open to not a little suspicion. ' In Bengal and Assam the ' 6 ' is generally the result of the dialectic pronunciation of the ' a ' in the Sanskritic alphabets. Thxis Bhagadatta is pronounced Bhogodott, and accordingly so written by some authors. * Quoted from the article referred to above. Perhaps we might put it in a little less ' modern ' administrative form if we said that the country 13 6 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COiLVUNITY It seems characteristic of Tibeto-Burman races that they liave a number of separate local chiefs, who in many cases have no cohesion aad no centralised control, so that in the course of time they fall under the dominion of some conquering prince. And even then the sovereign seems always to act in concert with a council of the chiefs. Thus in Naipal to the present day there is a State Council of twelve nobles.' The old Burman State had also its Hhd-daw or council of chiefs, and we may well suppose its origin in a tribal form of government.^ Nor was the rule of these north-eastern tribes confined only to the upper part of Assam, for as late as the fourteenth century, when the last of the Hindu dynasties was overthrown before the Muhammadan King of Gaur (Bengal), we find a Mec tribe ruling in Goalpara, and also tribes of Koc or Kile. Their rule was destroyed in the end of the fifteenth century. The memory of it still survives in the little State of Kuc-biMr, in North- eastern Bengal. The Kue still form the chief constituent in the population of the Western Dwar districts, though at the time of the British occupation of that country they had fallen under the oppression of their neighbours, the Bhutiyd. The Mec tribe also musters strongly in the district of Goalpara. Of the Kclcdri we shall hear subsequently. But while these tribes were still ruling, an energetic race — as it must once have been — the Aluvm or Aho-m,^ was making rapid progress. They established was, as so often observed, divided into districts or areas, probably con- nected with the clan-divisions or clan-chiefs' jurisdictions, and that the elders and wealthier men formed councils for the control of internal affairs, while a king or head chief had a general supremacy. ' The Gorkha rulers of Naipal were Aryan (or semi- Aryan) conquerors. They would doubtless, however, find it politic to adopt local or indigenous forms of administration. ^ At one time in the early Assam history we hear of a rulership of the Bara-lhuiya, which ma/y only mean ' twelve chiefs,' during a time when the suprenaaey of a king had been destroyed by war. Others have sup- posed the term to refer to the temporary rule of a race called BJiuinyrl — one of the many Dravidian races, reUcs of which, with this name, are stiU found in some parts of Eastern India. The matter is, however, too uncertain to call for further notice. ' It is sometimes said that Assam (Asdm) derives its name from ' Aham ; ' but the derivation is unlikely ; though the local dialect would easily soften an s into an h, it is held that the contrary change here NON- ARYAN CUSTOM— TIBETO-BURM AN 137 themselves at first in the extreme north-east; but it is im- possible to fix a date for their arrival, which indeed was probably- gradual. They ultimately extended their rule over the whole valley, and about the thirteenth century we begin to have some- thing like an historic record. The Aham princes were able to withstand the Muhammadan power : their rule, in fact, lasted down to our own times.' The race was completely non- Aryan, but their princes ended by adopting Hinduism ; not, however, till the close of the sixteenth century. The Aham still number some 180,000, though now mingled with other castes.^ From an early time they had a ting, and a number of ' nobles ' who bore distinctive titles. It is stated in most of the accounts of Assam that I have seen, that the Raja as conqueror assumed the right in the soil of his dominions ; but this does not appear to me necessarily to be inferred fi'om the facts. The King had, however, other and far more curious pretensions, which seem characteristic of Tibeto-Burmans. He organised the whole of the subject-population into groups, so that he might exact military service, labour, and supplies, from all, rather than demand an over-lord rent from the soil, which, as cultivation was extremely sparse, would have been less profitable.' The gi'ouping was carried out in this way. Eveiy male above sixteen years of age was designated a pail;. Each gi'oup of three paik formed a cjot — observe the adopted Aryan term for a requisite, would be dialectically impossible. Altogether, the Boro name given above (p. 185) is more probable. ' As usual with such dynasties, the end was brought about by intestine decay and family feuds. The interference of the Burman sovereign was invoked by one of the rivals, and the Burman rule, one of great cruelty, was for a short time estabhshed. As it is graphically expressed in a peti- tion presented by cert-ain inhabitants to the British Government, ' the country fell into the hands of the Burmans, and the people into twelve kinds of fire ' (Mill's Report on Assaiii). The Burmans were driven out by the British m 1824. - The whole population consists of Aham, Kuc, Mec, Kacdri, Cutiya, and a considerable admixture of Hindus from the west. Sir W. Hunter observes that the ' Assamese ' are by no means strict in caste ideas, and that intermarriages are common. ^ Not that he took no revenue from the land ; only it was not the chief thing as it was elsewhere. 138 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY family or minor clan. One person in each jot-dar is the head of the little community and is looked up to as the master over all : it is he who manages the affairs of the whole jot, lets out the lands to his under-tenants, and retains what he chooses for his special use. His word is law ; he is, in fact, a little patriarch living in the midst of his family and dependents, whose influence for good or evil is felt by every member of the society.' The whole country is dotted over with these separate homesteads. 1 Calcutta Eeview, vol. slviii. (January 1869). The two portions forming the Eastern and Western Dwars (or Duiirs) have been attached respectively to Bengal and to Assam. The Eastern Dwars form part of the Jalpaiguri district ; the Western, of Goalpilril. NON- ARYAN CUSTOM— TIBETO-BUr.MAX 143 I am not aware of any local peculiarity which would dis- courage the ' village ' formation ; but apparently it is not here in the nature of the people. It often happens that one man owns more than one jot : in this case he lives on one, and lets the others out either to some substantial tenants {cnkawclMr, or mulandwr), who agree with him for a yearly rental in cash, or to poorer people (called par/a or raiyaf), v/ho, in fact, somewhat re- semble metayers, receiving plough and oxen from the jotddr and giving him one-half or even two-thirds of the produce in kind. It would be impossible to leave the description of Assam without some allusion to the hill tribes, who from their remote situation have been much left alone, and probably retain the customs of their ethnic group much unchanged. In the northern hills are the Alcd, Baplild, Mm, and Ahar tribes, at the western end, and the Mishml at the eastern. In the central ranges south of the valley proper, are the Gdro, Khdsi. and Naga. In the hills on the south-east are the Kuhi or Lushed tribes. We have but little definite information about their land-customs ; but this is owing partly to the nature of the countrj', which lends itself chiefly to shifting cultivation ; ' but there is evidence of some method of tribal allotment by which the various clan groups have their own ' beats,' doubtless indicated by natural limits of valley, ridge, and stream. I have been told by persons of local experience that within the last thirty years the men of one group in the Garo Hills would turn out in war array to resent any encroachment on their land or pasture ground. It will be borne in mind that the origins of these ti-ibes are in some cases very doubtful. In the central hills, for instance, there are tribes whose language is not to be classified in the general group ; and it would seem that some considerable tribes uncon- nected with the rest of the group found refuge in these hills.- In general there is a very loose cohesion ; separate chiefs of territories are recognised, some with very little authority over the minor or local chiefs of villages or ultimate clan-groups. Under such a state of things there must always be a natural ' See ante, p. 52. - See Census Beport, 1891 {Payliamentary Blue Book), Tp. 137. 144 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY tendency for the cliiefship to remain in certain families, and for a chief of energy to enlarge his pretensions and become a sort of E,aja over a number of others. Or, on the other hand, it is not difficult for some neighbouring foreign chief to compel a number of his neighbours to submit to his suzerainty. We should like to know for certain on what principle the groups forming villages are separated. Fixed hereditary ownership of land is hardly possible, at least until the clan begins to adopt some customary principle modifying the shifting cultivation, or jilm. Sometimes the village groups are placed so as to crown the tops of separate hills, and each is securely stockaded. The frequency of clan feuds and the malarious character of the valleys would combine to account for this. The Ndgd clans, for instance, live in stockaded villages : they acknowledge a sort of chief over a clan or group of villages ; but he is not hereditary, and apparently his authority is not strong. But in the north, I find it noted that among the Mlri (a branch of the same stock as the Daphla, Aba/r, and Aka) the chiefs are hereditary ; and it sometimes happens that one of them acquires sufficient influence to establish a kind of lordship over a considerable area. In the southern hills, the Liisliai (or KuM) are said ' markedly to differ ' * from the others, inasmuch as the clan chiefs are not only hereditary but are all taken from a certain ' royal stock.' Captain Shakespear, who read to the Society of Arts the interest- ing paper referred to in the footnote, has described how the chiefs are selected from one or two families in different parts of the country. Each village has its own chief also, and is located independently on the top of a hill. Some groups are large enough to have 200 to 800 cottages. An incompetent village chief is removable by the voice of the villagers ; or rather the villagers will desert the chief and build a new village (the bamboo structures are easily replaced) on another site. Each chief (I am not sure if this refers to village chiefs) is advised by one or two men called by a local term signifying ' old man,' ^ or by the borrowed (Hindi) term hdrbdri. Property, Captain Shakespear informs us, belongs to the family, not to the indi- ' See Imperial Gazetteer (2nd ed.), xiii. 530, and Journal Soc. Arts (January 1895), xliii. 167 £f. ^ Cf . the siyima ( = wise man) already mentioned. NOX-AKVAX CUSTOM— TIBETO-BUBMAN 145 vidual members ; and the family ' lot ' for jiim cultivation (hill rice being the chief crop) is worked by all the capable members together. Without this co-operation such cultivation would be impossible. Fixed fields seem to be unknown. In some parts, however (as among the Chin tribes), Captain Shake- spear notes that the village-site is located not on the hill-top, but on the slope, so that a local stream can be laid on to fields terraced for rice cultivation. Here we have the beginnings of permanent land-owning. The central hills (Gdro and Khdsi) have this difference, that the inhabitants have more intercourse with the level country both to the north and south ; and in the Kh.dsi Hills we have a strange tribe, settled as alreadj^ noted. We are not surprised to find that the chiefs ruling over a group of villages sometimes adopt the title of Raja. But the Raja's authority is small, as everything is decided in the village assembly under the village chief; and contiguous villages will cause their chiefs to assem- ble to discuss a matter that interests several of them in common. I have come across an interesting article on the KJulsi Hills.' The author states that these hills were divided into twenty-three petty ' States,' each having its own ' Raja.' This chief, however, has but little authority, except in administering justice ; he receives a small revenue or tribute in kind from traders and others, and has something from fines ; there is no regular land- revenue, as there is but little permanent cultivation. As usual. public business is decided at a meeting called in the name of the Raja; and in each village any matter of local dispute is decided by such an assembly in the village.^ The proceedings ' Calcutta Beview (Reprint of 1884), vol. xxvii. September 1850. ^ See article alluded to, p. 24. ' The village is assetabled by warning given the previous evening. The crier goes out at an hour when the people are likely to have returned home, and, placing himself at some suitable spot where he is likely to be heard, he attracts attention by a prolonged unearthly yell, and then dehvers himself of his errand : " Kaw t Thou a fellow- villager, thou a fellow-creature, thou an old man, thou who art grown up, &c., thou who art great, thou who art httle ! Hei ! in his own village, in his own place ! Hei ! there is a quarrel ! Hei ! because there is a contest ! Hei ! to come to sit together ! Hei ! to come to deliberate together ! Hei ! ye are forbidden ! Hei ! ye are stopped to draw water then, to cut firewood then ! No Hei ! to go to work then ! iNo Hei ! to L 146 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY are opened by the village priest, and witnesses are heard. The chief at the end states what he thinks about the matter in dispute — 'making at the same time a hearty appeal to the assembled villagers — " Is it not so, my young, energetic ones ? " ' To which they respond unitedly, ' Yes, it is so, young energetic ones, ' and the matter is thus settled. It will not fail to be noticed how prominent the idea of assemblies is in all the races of this group. We shall, however, find similar assemblies, both local and tribal, to be a feature of Vedic life among the early Aryans. It is to be hoped that, with regard to these tribes and the Shan and Karens in Burma, we may have more definite informa- tion as to how the tribal, or clan, and village, areas for cultivation and for general occupation, are determined on. So much only can at present be said, that some such allotment is apparent, and that the tribal stage, with the feeling of equal right to a share for each household or family or individual, as the case may be, is recognised. Community in property, except for the necessary co-operation of all hands in a famUy or household for forest-clearing, can hardly be looked for. We may now turn to Burma, where we expect to find the most characteristic exhibition of the customs of the group we are considering. The population is, as a whole, scanty. It is only, in fact, in certain districts in the rice- plains or valleys of the great rivers that the cultivation is continuous in area and the people fairly numerous. There are no jointly-owned villages on the Indian model ; but ^^llages of the other type are every- where found, and there is a tendency, I am told, for families of the same descent to settle together. In Burma it is quite pos- sible that elements of custom of diverse origin may be found ; there is of course the Mongol element (Sai or Shan) strongly represented; but there is reason to believe that some tribes, known as Talaing, were Dravidian and came from the South of India. They call themselves Mun or Mu-un. There was also a small Aryan element. descend to the valley then ! Hei ! now come forth Hei ! the hearing is to be all in company ! Hei ! the listening attentively then is to be all together ! Hei ! for his own king ! Hei ! for his own master ! lest destruction come, lest piercing overtake us ! Kaw ! come forth now, fellow-men ! " ' NON-ARYAN CUSTOM— TIBETO-BURMAN 147 In early times, but at a much later date than the Burman annalists place it. ' some Kshatriya prince and his followers made their way, by Manipur, into the upper part of the Irawadi Valley, and founded a kingdom at Tagong, on the Irawadi, and afterwards one near Prome {Thare hlietara)? Another group appears to have entered Arakan, which was not diiSScult when once Aryan influence had extended as far as Eastern Bengal and Ohittagong. That such adventurers would be pure Aryan is, however, very unlikely. The Aryan element was Buddhist not Hindu, and its Pali language affected both names of places and the language generally ; but the Aryan people readily fused with the Mongoloid.' As to the Mtin or Talaing, their chronicles have been so largely destroyed that little is known beyond the fact that the Irawadi delta and Martaban were anciently colonised from the East Coast of India. Talaing is apparently connected with TiliTiga. The race is now represented (in a distinctive form) in Siam better than it is in Burma.^ The various Tai or Shan irruptions mentioned by Phayre need not occupy our attention. The overthrow of the Aryan dynasties was probably due to them. It is only needful to remark that there is nothing to show that there were no Mongoloid inhabitants in Burma previously ; or that Aryans, or Talaings, were the first settlers of all. The Indian element, whether Dravidian or Aryan, can only have been comparatively small. It is not possible to trace any Burmese custom to either source. The Burman kings had ' Royal lands,' i.e. lands specially set apart to furnish an income to the Court ; but this, though a Dravidian institution, ' See Lassen, ii. 1047 ff, and Phayre's History of Burma (Trubner : Oriental Series), p. 3. ^ This name Lassen thinks a modification of the Sanskrit Sri Tchetra. See Phayre, pp. 10, 11, note. ' ' The Indian settlers,' says Phayre, ' gave to them (the indigenous Mongoloid people) and adopted themselves, the name of Brahmvillage, we shall discuss the kind of tribal feeling which gives rise to a sense of joint-ownership in some form or degree ; and we shall consider the nature and effects of the joint-inherit- ance as producing what is called common ownership in the joint- family of the original over-lord. It will be sufficient to notice here that the purer Aryan clans exhibit both principles ; they had a strong sense of union in the clan, and of the right of all the clan members to share alike in the common acquisition of territory ; they also had the joint-family. As to the earliest ideas of land-holding among the Aryans, 204 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY i a the state of movement and constant warfare which the Vedic hymns represent, we do not find any direct or even covert allu- sion to any system of shnring the land conquered or occupied.' If anything of the kind had existed, it is hardly possible that it should have escaped all mention. What, however, is still more to the purpose, is that there is no mention in the much later Laws of Mann, of anything like a joint-village or an area of land held ' in common.' This is the more remarkable because the joint-inheritance principle is fully asserted ; and so it would follow that if a father became the owner of a whole village, and was succeeded, say, by four sons and six grandsons (representing two other sons deceased), the whole village would naturally be held by a ' community ' of ten co- sharers. But the ' village ' as a form of tenure depending on a co-sharing constitution, such as is now observed in Upper India, is nowhere mentioned by the author or authors.^ The grd/mam. ' Zimmer once or twice speaks of the ' Dorfgemeinde,' but this is rather by way of using a current form of speech ; for there is no A'^edic evidence that ' communities ' were formed by ' village ' bodies in any sense at all, far less as coimected with land-owning. In the passage above quoted from the Rgveda (p. 194, arofe), giving the different divisions of the tribe, we find mention of the Verwandtscliaft =janman. Zimmer (p. 160) remarks that this is ' e^ddently ' {deutlich), a village, because the inhabitants of the village were originally of a single family or kindred. I submit there is nothing ' evident ' about it ; the statement about the village is derived from the conventional beUef on the subject and is based on no evidence whatever. All that the term {jcmman) impUes is that there was a group of connected single famihes held together by some tie of descent, so as to be recognised as one of the groups into which a tribe was sub- divided, possibly having a central residence or fortress. As to commu- nity of property or of land-holding, nothing of the kind is so much as hinted at. ^ Although it is again and again represented by our books that the ' village commTUiity,' meaning one with a collective ownership, was known to Manu. I have more than once gone carefully over the latest and best translation (Dr. G. Biihler's) without being able to discover the smallest trace of any such allusion. M. de Laveleye's statement {Propriete primitive, p. 66), that ' the mention of the " commimautes " in Manu did not suffice to enlighten the Enghsh lawyers ' as to the joint-village, is perhaps thus explainable! The fact is that until 1795 (when the Benares province was to be settled) English administrators had no opportunity of coming across any jointly owned villages at aU; and the significance and ai;yan ideas of properti' in land 20-5 or village, is referred to ; and, as it must have then been a well- known, if not alread}- ancient, institution, it is perhaps not to be expected that any description should be given. The code contemplates the king as receiving his revenue-share in kind from each village ; and there are district officers in several grades having jurisdiction over ten or twenty, or one hundred, villages ; and there is the plan of granting to such officers an assignment of the land-revenue share on one or two or more ' ploughs ' as an official remuneration. The village thus referred to is that which corresponds to our raiyatwdrl form, with its hereditary chief or headman ; the latter, as I have remarked,' being the characteristic feature in which the joint-village is naturally wanting. Moreover, we shall see presently that the M&naca idea of right in land is apparently confined to a primitive and ■ natural one based on the feeling that labour expended on the firsts clearing of the virgin waste gives a claim to the continued enjoyment of the ' lot ' ; and this comports rather with the raiyatwdrl idea of village holdings. Nothing is said of the ownersliip of a "whole village" in" shafes, or of the general lord- ship of a whole village being granted by the king. Possiblv the time had not yet come when such grants (to cadets of the Royal house, or to persons deserving of a reward) were common. More probably, to my mind, in the author's time, such grantees or other over-lords were not yet regarded as owners of the soil, or their heirs as forming a body of village co-proprietors ; they were still merely the assignees of the royal revenue and per- quisites — ' lords of the manor' and nothing more; in other words, the position of the superior family had not j-et developed into that of a ' village community,' with an acknowledged ownership in the soil in any shape, but was an over-lord right not regarded as in itself inconsistent with the still subsistiug, permanent, and original, right of the village-cultivators as clearers of the soil. As regards a general idea of title to the soil, or property in land, I am not aware of any direct declaration on the subjecr earlier than the mention of it in the Lavs of Manv, ; and this. peculiar nature of them was not realised till 1803-1820, when the adminis- tration extended to the North-West Provinces, the home of this form of village. ' -Ante, p. 10. 206 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY again, appears to be consistent with very early tribal ideas in India.' We do not, of coiu-se, expect to meet in Sanskrit literature with any juristic analysis of owiiershipj or of the theory of ' possession,' or a 'just title,' or of the nature of the rights and enjoyments which cluster round ownership ; these are refinements of Western jurisprudence. But the writer in the ' Laws ' plainly refers, not to his own ideas, but to what he understands to be the ancient opinion, when he says that ' sages who know the past call this earth (jjrthirl) even the wife of Prthu ; they declare a field to belong to him who cut away the wood, or who cleared and tilled it, and a deer to him who owned the arrow which first struck it.' ^ Certain attributes of ' private ' Colonel Tod. for example, records the sajdng of the soil cultivator in the ancient State of Mewar, that he had so close a connection with the soil that he was hke the aklidi dhubd — the dhub grass that could not be eradicated ; and he asserted his right in the oft-repeated saying — ^hogrd dhan-iSaj hu, Bhamrd dhan-i-inajh Mi. ' The Eevenue share (hJiog) is the king's property [or wealth = d^are] ; the soil is my property.' — Tod, i. 424. Something of the same idea is perhaps expressed by the Kashmir proverb (right acquired by labour and skill bestowed), ' Yus harihgonglu sui karih hrdo' — ' He who has ploughed the land shall reap the crop,' a rule, alas ! for centuries overridden by despotic rulers in that valley. (See "Walter Lawrence's Kashmir, or his shorter and charming paper in Journal Soc. Arts, AprU 1896, xliv. 491.) ' Laws, chapter ix. v. 44. The Glossary of KitUSld Bhattd explains ' eradicatiag the stumps ' by the addition ' who cleared and tiUed the land.' The text is : — Prtlwr-ajylma/m prihivim bhdrydm purvd vidoviduh Sthdn-ucclied asya heddra/mdhuh calyavatorrvrigam,' where Jceddra/J7i is a field or cultivated land in general. I observe that in one of the reprints in Professor Ashley's series of Economic Classics, Eichard Jones, in Ms Essay on Rents (App. vi.) falls upon this passage and ridicules Colonel Tod for applying it to Mewar {ut supra. Tod, i. 424), or taking it as a declaration of fact when it is 'mere allegory.' But Jones (writing before 1830) had very little in- formation, even at HaUeybury, about Indian tenures, and he was com- pletely taken up with the idea that land had at all times been regarded as State property in India ; so this assertion of private right was a stumbling-block to him. It may be well, therefore, to mention that the passage in Manu is quite reliable. It occurs, it is true, casually, in con- ARYAN IDEAS OF PKOPEllTY IX LAND 20 < ownership,' as we sliould sa\-, are also alluded to — for example, the sale of land by a formal process ; and an imprecation is denounced on one man who should wrongfully sow seed in the field of another ; rules for settling boundaries are given, and the fencing of fields is alluded to.' There is no reason to suppose that in the time (whatever the true date may be) represented by the Lcuvs of Manu, the claim of the ting to be owner of all land was as yet asserted. Nothing of the kind is mentioned in the Code or in any other ancient text. But the fact of the king having a share in the produce naturally put him in a position to exercise a degree of control, the limits of which, in fact, depended on his own sense of what nection with an argument about the right to a child begotten on a woman by a man other than her husband ; and the writer, no doubt, merely introduces his statement about land as an illustration or argument from analogy. But the whole point of his case would obviously be lost if the illustration itself were not a statement of fact, and one which his readers would recognise as such. There is nothing whatever metaphorical or fanciful about the text ; it is a plain statement of a principle of ownership and obviously the ancient commentator also treats it as such. It is con- sistent with all we know, in other ways, of early Indian land-owning ; it is consistent with everything else that Manu says about the subject. There is, of course, no regular chapter or formal section on land-ownership in Manu ; such a thing could not be looked for. ' The right by ' first clearing ' appears in various guises in India. Indeed, in early times, when cultivators were scarce in proportion to the arable land, any reasonable ruler must have discovered the import- ance of fostering and extending cultivation and attaching the cultivators to their holdings. The same principle (right of the first clearer), Colonel Vans Kennedy informs us, is admitted by all the Muhammadan jurists (see, for example, the Hiddyd, written about a.d. 1152, Hamilton's Translation, 4 vols. 1791, book xlv. ; referred to in L. S. B. I. i. 229). Even at the present day nothing is commoner in Northern India than to hear tenants claim occupancy rights on the ground that they are hutdmdr, or took part in the hutd-shigdfi, as the popular phrase is — i.e. in clearing the jungle. Here, from the general growth of over-lord claims, the cultivators are very often in the tenant class, but the sense of permanent right on the basis of first preparation of the soil is the same. It will also be observed that in places where the periodic redistribu- tion of allotments was customary, it always ceased to apply, or. never applied in the locality at all, where the holdings were irrigated, or were made culturable by some exceptional expenditure of labour or capital on the part of the holder. 208 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY was right. It is not surprising that, as a matter of history, the claims of the Raja, or the State-right, if we prefer so to call it, soon became consolidated and intelligible. We have seen how the MewskT Rajas spoke of their An, lUln, lain ; and it became a recognised attribute of the ruling power that, as a matter of custom, it had the combined right to the share of the produce, the right to the waste, and the right to tolls and transit dues. This aggregate of rights was from early Muhammadan times spoken of as the Zmmnddrl. Later on in history, when the continued invasions and local wars brought about a frequent succession of new conquering princes and marauding chiefs, and when, at the break up of the Mughal Empire, the deputies over the great provinces assumed independence, the temptation to increase the share demanded from the husbandmen, and to enlarge the pretensions of the ruler generally, was irresistible. The old State-right, or ' Zamindari,' was magnified into a general superior ownership of the entire domain.' This natural preten- sion of conquering princes received a further impulse from the Moslem invaders, who not only had all the ideas of superiority natural to conquerors, but added to them the religious zeal which supposed that the faithful were the natural ■' inheritors ' of the wealth of infidels. All over India, the rulers, whether Moslem or Rajput, had thus no lack either of motive or opportunity for establishing their virtual ownership of the soil of their territory. But in practice, it is only just to remember, the better class of even foreign conquerors never conceived of their rights as ' The earliest notice I can find is about 312 B.C., where Megasthenes is describing a land tribute as well as the lomd-revenue share, which Chandragupta, King of Magadha, made the people pay because ' all India is the property of the Crown and no private person is permitted to own land.' This may have been merely an erroneous inference from the particular local obligation to pay ' land tribute.' And Chandragupta was a conqueror of alien race. Lassen (ii. 726) also remarks that Megasthenes was in error. This must certainly be held to be the case as regards any general assertion of the Raja's right in land at so early a date. It was at a much later time, possibly when the Buddhistic princes had been gene- rally defeated, that the Brahmanic writers invented the story of Parasu Rama having conquered the whole earth and presented it to the Sage Kasyapa {i.e. to the Brahmans), who allowed the Kshatriyi'i ruling chiefs to manage it for them. ARYAN IDEAS OF PROPERTY IN LAND 209 necessarily antagonistic to the concurrent, hereditary, permanent , and long-established right of the older cultivators of the soil.' Whatever may have been the precise date to which the right of the State to be considered superior owner of the soil may be carried back, it is certain that no ancient Hindu authority can be quoted for it ; nor is it consistent with the genuine principles of the Muhammadan law. On the other hand, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, and in some cases of conquest long before that, all the rulers of the Muhammadan States, and all the local Rajas who were conquerors and mostly foreigners, were found tfe foAito to claim the superior ownership of every acre of their dominions. And this right is asserted by the Native States to the present day. It is often stated in books that ' the Hindu law ' recognises the State ownership of the land ; but it will invariably be found that the only authority for this is an implied, and occasionally an express, reference to what the author apparently did not know to be a purely modern Hindu law digest known as Jagannatha's.* The compiler of this work, who collects and comments on really ' The feeling in favour of the protection of the husbandman seems to have been noticed in early times. It is reflected in the Statement of Megasthenes as epitomised by Diodorus (MeCrindle's Megastlienes, &c., p. 41), that husbandmen were exempted from fighting and ' devote their whole time to tillage ; nor would an enemy coming upon a husbandman at work on his land do him any harm.' And again (p. 33) : ' Among the Indians ... by whom husbandmen are regarded as a class that is sacred and inviolable, the tUlers of the soil, even when battle is raging in their neighbourhood, are undisturbed by any sense of danger.' He adds also that the land is not ravaged with fire nor the trees cut down. The fact is that all settled rulers, not mere marauders under the neces- sity of plundering while they could, have recognised that security to the cultivator means in the long run the best revenue. Even the Marathas did not altogether forget this. The harshness of native rule is usually inferred from the heavy revenue demand, or the excessive share of the produce ; but it is forgotten that the demand was not enforced except in the most elastic manner, and that pressure was relaxed at once in a bad season. The European principle is a low rent and punctual, inexorable, payment. The Oriental rule is the largest possible claim and only take what you can for the season. ^ The Digest of Pandit Jaga/nnatha Tarkapancdnana, translated by H. T. Colebrooke, 3 vols. (Calcutta, reprinted London ISOl). The work P 210 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY ancient texts sometimes with great skill, is, in this matter of asserting State ownership, reduced to writing some remarks of his OWE, while he does 'iwt attempt to quote a single aricient text in support of them. He was probably aware of the fact that the soil in Bengal and other States had, at the date of his writing, long been de facto subject to the claim of the State ; and, although he had no authorities to give in sui^port of such a claim, he thought it necessary to conform his opinion to the actually existing practice.' When once the Raja attained to a superior lordship of the whole soil, all grantees and others deriving their title from him would naturally have their pretensions enlarged ; and these they could the more easily realise, because they were in closer managing connection with the land than the Raja at his capital, acting only through his officials, could ever be. Hence we soon find the ancient ' right by first-clearing ' in many cases put aside or overshadowed by a new claim of conquering tribes- men, or adventurous settlers and grantees, who spoke of their conquest right or over-lordship as their wdrisi or mirdsl right or as their wirasat.^ There is frequently good reason to desire was compiled towards the end of the last century at the suggestion of Sir "W. Jones. ^ He attempts to gel out of the difficulty (i. 460) by alluding to the myth of Parasu Rama and his gift, and saying that the land became the ' protective property ' (whatever that may be), successively held by ' power- ful conquerors ' and not by ' subjects cultivating the soil.' The oompUer allows that the ' subject ' acquires an ' annual property ' (!) on payment of the land revenue, and that the king may not give the land to anyone else for that year. He seems to think that, imless there is a special agreement otherwise, the king niai) turn out any owner from a field if anyone else offers to pay him a higher revenue. The whole passage is, however, so vague that it is hopeless to extract any reasonable meaning. ^ All being connected with the Arabic wirs, wirsa = inheritance. It is curious to notice how these Arabic terms have become general. Among the Panjab frontier tribes, of course, the use of the term wirdsat lor right in the soil is naiural because the tribes are Moslem. But in the Dakhan and Southern India mirdsi became everywhere used for the landlord or superior right in or over a village. The term came in with the Land Settlements and carefcd assessments of Malik 'Aiiibar and other ministers under the Muhammadan kings of the Dakhan. It was the policy of these kings to confirm or resuscitate the families that had obtained over- ARYAN IDEAS OF PROPERTY IN LAND 211 some euphemistic term to account for the successful acquisition of a village or other estate ; and when the title has actually descended to later generations, it is spoken of proudly as ' the inheritance.' It will invariably be found that, wherever we have this term applied, it is always in connection either with some originally over-lord right (which has in time ripened into a pro- prietorship in the hands of a joint body of heirs), or with some special privileged ownership or permanent superior title. The clans who were agriculturists as well as conquerors, like the Jats, do not use the term so much ; perhaps because they combine in themselves both the right resulting from fii-st establishment of cultivation and also the right of conquest or successful acquisition. Moreover, a large number of existing Jat communities were peaceable settlers. There is one aspect of the changes resulting from Aryan over-lordship which is worthy of special remark. This is true not only of Aryan clans but equally of the Muhammadans, Marathas, Sikhs, and sometimes Jats. I allude to the fact that wherever some royal grant has issued, or some other special interest in land has been created or assumed by conquest, we are not unfrequently presented with the spectacle of a series of lord rights in the villages of their dominions, and make the Revenue Settlement with them for the whole vUlage. Whenever a man speaks of land as his mirds, he means that he has a superior sort of right as being descended from one of the old over-lord families, or as having purchased such a title in past days. But as the Revenue Administration of the Mughal emperors and also of the Muhammadan kings of the Dakhan was the only business-hke, tolerably systematic administration known, its principles were generally copied ; and the Perso-Arabic terms employed became generally diffused even in Maratha and Hindu States. The only place where I have seen tvarisl adopted by Hindus and used of a secondary kind of right, is in the hiUs of Kangra and Simla, where the Rajas were themselves the superior owners, but where they respected the permanent, hereditary, and, to a limited extent, ahenable right of the land-holders, and called it wdrisi. Here perhaps the meaning is that the holding is hereditary, just as the modified form maurusi is applied to what we should call the ' occupancy tenant ' classes. This seems the more likely because in the level (outer) Talukas of Kangra, where regular villages were formed, the title of the proprietary families is described by the term mCdikl, or ownership, not as ivarist. See Lyall, Kcingrd S. E. § 17, p. 20 ; and Barnes, S. B. Kangra, § 133 ff. p 2 212 THE INDIAN MLLAGE COMMUNITY rights or interests superimposed one on the other. In parts of tlie Panjab, for instance, we may find villages with three such interests. There is an original body — possibly once independent settlers and first-clearers of the soil. They have now so com- pletelj"- acquiesced in the ' tenant ' rank that there is no further question of any possible change. Over them will be found the general co-sharing body, who represent the ' proprietary^ ' interest in the village ; only, in the cases alluded to, they are not quite free, they are called a/lna mdliJc, or owners in the second degree ; for over them another co-sharing family has obtained the over- lord position as ^ald mdlil; or superior proprietors. Now, under the regime of British law, all these interests have been preserved and defined, and stopped from going any further; so that in all probability the adna mdlilc are the virtual owners, and the superiors are only entitled to some fees or rent-charges, or to have the benefit of the waste, &c. But had things gone on without interference, the time would probably have come when the ' actual proprietors ' would have also been completely reduced to the grade of tenant, and the ' superiors ' would have claimed the entire landlord-right. The same sort of thing is often seen in the greater landlord estates, where every shade of right, from a mere claim to a nominal manorial due or fee up to a complete managing right over the land, can be observed. Even at the risk of seeming to wander away from my direct subject, I may pause to explain how it was that these complicated rights could be in practice given effect to, and how they could exist together-withoJit interminable confusion. They grew up under a social stage in which an extremely vague notion "prevailed as to owner sliip' in the soil, although a feeling of ' right,' in some sense, existed, and the utmost attachment to an old family location was evinced. Up till quite late historical times, the most complicated interests would be dealt with in terms of sharing the actual produce. The old Oudh kingdoms afford a good illustration. And in the case of Gonda we have once more the benefit of an exceptionally good account by Mr. W. C. Benett.' ' The produce,' he writes, ' is the common property of ' Gondii S. B. p. 48. ARYAN IDEAS OF PROPERTY IN LAND 213 every class in the agricultural commuBity from the Raja to the slave. No one is absolute owner any more than the others ; but each has his permanent and definite interest.' ' And again : ' The basis of the whole society is the grain-heap, in which each constituent rank had its definite interest. There is as yet no trace of private property, whether individual or communal ; the rights which bear the nearest resemblance to it being the essen- tially State-rights of the Raja.' ^ I have quoted the words as they stand ; but thej^ must be understood in connection with the context and all that is further said about the independent hereditary right to the separate family holdings. The words do not really imply that there was any ignoring of a specific interest of each holder in his hereditary land. What is meant is that no one conceived of his hereditary right as setting up an exclusive title to the enjoyment of the whole of the produce of the land tilled. It comes to this, that a claim to a certain share of the produce is the tangible element and apparent symbol of right rather than any theory of soil ownership, whether individual or collective. It will not be supposed, e.g.,- that all the grain from all holdings was thrown into one common heap, and that, after first deducting the dues of the headman, the watch- man, the 'patwa/rl, the carpenter and so forth, the rest was formed into two heaps, of which the Raja took one and the rest was equally allotted among the cultivators — share and share alike. Every holding collected its own grain-produce, and after setting apart the share of village officers and artisans, and then the Raja's share, the rest went entirely to the several land-holders. The cultivating holder's share was not, therefore, in any way in- dependent of the extent and advantages of the particular holding or the amount of labour and skill expended on it. ' It is interesting to notice that in Basti, a district once forming part of Oudh, where the grain distribution was found still in fuU force, the grain heap is actually spolcen of as 'pdncon-mCil ( = the property of five : i.e. that in which an indeterminate number of people have an interest). See Hooper's Basil S. B. 1891, p. 39, where there are curious details about the grain division. ' Referring to the fact that around the Raja's right to his share in the produce there clustered a number of other rights which were recognised and had the character of permanent property at a very early stage, see p. 208, cmte. 214 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY From quite another part of tlie country I may quote an actual instance wtich came under my notice judicially, and wbicb. shows how complicated interests can be settled in terms of sharing the produce — interests which would be the despair of the jurist attempting to define them scientifically, in terms of laiided right. The case occurred in a village near the Jihlam River, North Panjab. There was first an old cultivating group — possibly representing the original clearers and settlers, who may once have had independent rights. But long ago another superior-caste family (whether by a Raja's grant or by some forgotten act of conquest or usurpatioa, it is now impos- sible to say) had acquired the ownership and formed the village community as a co-sharing body ; they claimed the whole estate, and the first group were unmistabeably their tenants with whatever privileges. So far we have the ordinary type of a joint- or landlord-village — in this instance apparently grown up over an earlier cultivating group. But in Sikh times some enterpi'ising person with the necessary capital observed that, if a canal-cut were made in the alluvial soil, from the river, it would bring water to the village and greatly enhance the productiveness of tie land as well as render it secure against failure of wells or of the monsoon rains. This person applied to the local governor and obtained a grant to carry out his work, he being given an assignment of a portion of the Government revenue share. As the work largely increased the harvest out- turn, no one felt the charge very much ; the extra share was, in fact, paid without diminishing the Government heap from what it had been before. But the capitalist had thus acquired a per- manent interest of some kind in the entire village. But there was yet another interest : it happened that a shrine of some sanctity existed within the village area ; and some religious mendicant or other similar applicant besought another assign- ment of produce to enable him to provide for the up-keep of the shrine and worship thereat. His request was granted, and thus another permanent interest — called a mu'&fi — was grafted on the village estate. Practically the whole of these various interests were provided for by dividing the grain heap. Before the canal-maker came the produce was divided between the owners, the cultivators, and the Sikh governor. When the canal grant AllYAN IDEAS OF PROPERTY IN LAND 215 was made, and later on the nm'afl, do not suppose that the grantees would simply get a part of the share which the governor's officers were carting away. The grantees were both of them regarded as having some kind of permanent interest in the whole village ; and both of them would go to the official headman, and the grain shares of all would be adjusted by bargain and com- promise. Doubtless, if things had continued as they were, under Sikh administration, one or other of the 'over-lords,' as I may call them, would have got the upper hand, and made all the rest his ' tenants ' ; but the British rule came, crystallising the rights into recorded forms, and preventing further aggressions and decaj'S and changes, and all the four interests of tenant, joint- owner, canal-grantee, and religious-grantee, became stereotyped and defined as best they might. One other instance I will quote from the Kangra Hills, where we have already noticed the assumption of soil ownership by the Rajas and the consequent position of the actual land-holders as what we may call ' Crown-tenants.' Such land- holders often have tenants, some of a permanent character called opdhu, under them ; the opdhu, in fact, probably represent an older stratum of cultivating right, and belong to families over whom, in some cases, the warisl was established. This gradation of right from the Raja to the cultivating tenant is, as usual, expressed in terms of a division of the produce. The opahu tenant accordingly de- scribes his position thus : ' My superior, the wdris, is the owner (indlih) of the lord's share or first half of the grain (sat), and he has the (thikd) duty of paying the Raja's revenue ; I am owner of the cultivating holder's share {h-af) or remaining half, as well as of the (Icdsht) business of cultivation.' ^ ' Ownership ' is not in the soil, but in the shares of the produce, and in the ' business ' of cultivation or of paying the revenue. Section IV. — The ' Indo-Scythic ' or Northern Tribes : THE Mussulmans Long after the Aryan kingdoms had been founded, other tribes, as we have seen, from time to time followed the steps of the first invaders, and established themselves sometimes as rulers, '■ Lyall's Kangra S. B. p. 62. 216 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY sometimes as colonists, in Upper India. The most important of these races, from an agricultural point of view, are the Jats and Gujars. They, too, are among the most prominent of the founders of villages and of villages in the joint-foi-m. It is not surprising, then, what with Rajput clans, Jats, Gujars, and other more or less closely connected races, all of whom had pretensions to superiority, and many of whom had the most complete tribal organisation, there should be varieties of joint-villages, whether tribal, ' democratic,' or held by the joint descendants of ' aristocratic ' founders, as the prevailing tenure from the Indus to Benares. The Jat and Gujar are especially largely represented, by original village foundations over extensive tracts, in the Panjab. The Gujar were more pastoral, and perhaps for a long time continued to feed their cattle in the great prairie and jnngle areas of the Panjab Doabs before they took to settled agriculture. We find the Jat village settlements to be among the most strongly constituted ; often there is a considerable clan feeling, and not unfrequently much pride of descent from some noted ancestor, to be found among them; and there is always a co-sharing or joint-claim to the whole village area. Sometimes we find Jat settlements on areas much larger than the ' normal ' village. As a matter of fact, it is highly probable that the Jat villages represent both the clan settlements or settlement of ' democratic ' colonising groups, and also the estates of dignified leadei-s or chiefs, very likely of half Rajput origin, whose descendants form the existing communities. The internal constitution of the Jat and other tribal villages is, in fact, very much the same as that of the Rajput. But I am rather inclined to believe that the true bhaidcJidrd, or method of equally-valuated holdings, is a Jat, or at least not a Rajput, principle. I could not, however, say this with any confidence ; and in the sequel we can without difficulty describe the dif- ferent kinds of joint- village without separating Rajput from Jat or other owners. Whatever religion these Northern races may originally have had, they are now either nominally Hindu or Mussulman ; except, indeed, where some of the finest clans have swelled the i-anks of the Sikh confederacy. It may be conveni- ently here mentioned, that while the tribes are nominally Hindu EFFECTS OF THE JAT AND MOSLEM SETTLEMENTS 217 or Mussulman, they have, in the Panjab at any rate, adhered to a customary law of their own. Their rules of inheritance, their customs of adoption and other kindred matters, differ consider- ably from the Hindu law of the text-books ; nevertheless, the customs are such as tend to keep up the idea of the joint-famih/ property ; and hence it is that their forms of joint-villafje are so similar. In fact, Jat custom recognises the ' joint-familj^ '' quite as strongly as the Hindu law does, though in a less elaborate form. There are many great and lesser clans of Jats whose custom is not entirely uniform ; but all agree in the feel- ing that ancestral land belongs to the whole famih". I cannot venture on a detailed examination of the customary rules ; ' but I may mention that the idea of joint-right to ancestral land is indicated by the customary limitation of the ' house-father's ' power of alienating it. Concurrently with this, the power of defeating the expectation of collateral agnates, in the case of a son- less owner of land, by making an ' adoption,' is much restricted. The succession is strictly agnatic, and females take no share.^ There is one subject, however, which I have hitherto purposely kept in the background in order that it might not seem to complicate the discussion of the really important elements of joint-village origin, the Aryan and the Jat custom. I refer to the Moslem conquests and to the effect they may have had on village tenures and on ideas of land-holding generally. The strange thing is that they had so little direct effect. Their dominion, of course, introduced many grantees and other superior holders of estates, whose descendants remain to this day. It was to the Mughal supremacy that the country owed the introduction of something like a regular system of ' Nor is this necessary after the work of Mr. C. L. Tupper, who has collected in his Panjab Customary La/w a number of the tribal codes, to which he has prefixed valuable introductory essays. Still more recently, a small but excellent book, giving the judicially decided points of customary law as far as they relate to ancestral land, has been brought out at Lahore by Mr. Justice Boe and Mr. H. A. B. Battigan {Tribal Lam in the Panjab. Lahore : Civil am,d Military Gazette Press, 1896). This also contains a good preliminary essay on the subject of the customary law m. general. (See Asiatic Qua/rt. Rev. July 1896.) '^ The widow is allowed to retain land, on a life tenure only, as repre- senting her husband, when there are no sons. "AIS THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY land-revenue administration ; and with that system a number of new and sometimes convenient terms for tenm-es and other matters connected with land-lioldiug became current. But the very fact that a conquest, or rather series of conquests, which occupies such a prominent place in Indian history, and which developed the land-administration so extensively, should have had so little effect on the land-holdings, at least in the villages, is in itself somewhat remarkable, and makes it all the more necessary to explain why it was so. The chief features of the Moslem conquest are easily remembered. We may pass by the Arab invasion of the eighth century of our era, which only affected a part of Sindh and the immediate neighbourhood. As far as India is concerned, we have first the series of Pathan dominations, and then the Mughal. The Pathan period commenced with mere raids or plundering expeditions. Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni was in fact a knight- errant, actuated partly by religious zeal, partly by love of adventure and plunder. For more than a century the princes of his House had no wider dominion in India than the Panjab, or rather the western part of it. But with the twelfth century invasions began to have more lasting results under the successful efforts of the Ghori kings. Prom that time successive colonies of Turki, Pathan, and early Mughal families were introduced into India ; but they were mosth" soldiers, and when they did settle here and there in agricultural villages, they seem to have adopted the habits of their neighbours, or observed their own purely tribal methods of dividing the lands occupied. In most cases there is little to distinguish their villages from settle- ments of other adventurous or conquering tribesmen ; but one series of settlements on the Panjab frontier will furnish us with interesting material for future consideration. The chief result of the success of the first or pre-Mughal emperors (1152—1525 a.d.) was to establish, besides the central kingdom of Delhi, other independent Muhammadan States in Upper India, of which Gaur, or Bengal, is perhaps the most prominent.' Further south, the Muhammadan kingdoms of the ' It is curious to observe that the geographical features which influenced the first Aryan movements also aflected the Moslem invasions. Some of them, taking the Indus Valley line, were directed to Gujarat and EFFECTS OF THE JAT AXD MOSLEM SETTLEMENTS 219 Dakhan arose out of the disorders at Delhi after the time of 'Alau-d-din Khilji. A successful general (Zafr Khan), in the usual Indian fashion, set up as an independent prince ; and though the single kingdom afterwards split up into five, the period of dominion was not an unhappy one for the country (a.d. 1489-1688). The full estabUshment of the Mughal empire of Northern India may be dated from the reign of Aibar in 1556. The Revenue Settlement of this emperor, effected under the direction of Raja Todar Mai, has become famous. It will be observed that though the Settlement was, locally at any rate, accompanied by something like a survey, or rather a rough chain-measure- ment of holdings, it had nothing to do with any inquiry into landed rights, or with securing titles, as the British Revenue Settlements undertook to do. It propounded no State policy or new theory of rights in land. It settled the amount of revenue, with reference to the crop and kind of soil : the amount was collected village by village, and there was no tendency to interfere with the existing tenures, either by definition or . modification. Akbar's dominion was extended southward to Ajmer and to the northern part of Bombay known as Gujarat ; but the Muhammadan kingdoms of the Dakhan beyond were not interfered with till the evil genius of Aurangzeb, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, moved him to seek their destruc- tion — and his own. The Maratha power, in fact, rose upon the ruins of both, and would have probably removed every vestige of Moslem rule south of the Vindhyas if the State of Haidarabad, which as usual originated in a governorship or dependency of the empire,' had not been preserved by the events of the French and English struggles for supremacy. From the land-holding point of view, the Mussulman element in India is represented first by a number of colonies of early Moslems, the relics of the Pathan empire ; and these had very the Western Dakhan, the Vmdhyan Hills not opposing an advance (p. 43, ante). The later invasions proceeded from the passes more to the North- West ; and Upper India — including Bengal — was the chief scene of their success. When the Mughals attacked the South, it was by means of the passes through the Viadhyan barrier, at a comparatively late period. ' Whence the title the Nizam ( = Nawab-Ndzim of Haidarilbiid.) 1/ 220 THE IXDIAX VILLAGE COMMUNITY little sympathy with the later arrivals in the train of Humayun and his successors. As the result of both empires, but chiefly the later one, many individual Sayyad and other dignified Moslem families (some with pretensions to religious sanctity) rose to local influence and obtained estates or received grants of villages. Thus we have a number of landlord estates, and over-lord estates, and some village-communities of Moslem tribes, as I have already stated. By far the strongest Mussulman element in the agricultural population consists of tribes and families already settled — Jat, Gujar, Rajput, and others, who adopted the Moslem creed. But neither the original Muham- madan invaders (and with them we may for this purpose include our Panjab frontier tribes) nor the local converts, though often fiercely religious, had any knowledge of the Muhammadau law ; nor, indeed, if they had, would they have been likely, as land- holders, to follow it accuratelv. The Muhammadan law of inherit- ance, which is the branch that would most nearly concern land-holding families and communities, evidently had its origin among a people whose chief wealth was in camels and merchan- dise, or even houses in towns : it is ill adapted for those whose attention is before all things concentrated on their ancestral land. As a matter of fact, the Moslem land-holding villages and tribes in Northern India very generally follow what I may fairly call the general agricultural custom of family land-holding,' more or less modified by features derived from the Muhammadan law — such as allowing shares to daughters (until marriage). In other words, the joint-family system is observed ; there is an equal inheritance of all sons and grandsons, &c. (agnates), in their grade of descent ; the same degree of restriction is placed on the alienation of ancestral property, and even more objection is felt to adoption, by a sonless landowner, of anyone who is not either a near agnate (with consent of the rest) or a resident son-in-law.^ ' It is only the greater families, chiefs, and persons of religious preten- tions, that attempt to follow the «7iara', with its comphcated rules of sharing and its exclusion of one grade of descent by another, and its allowance of shares to females. The villagers usually follow their own custom and imagine that it is ' the Muhammadan law.' ' The ' resident son-in-law,' Ithuna-damdd (P.); ghar-ja/wtd (H.), is EFFECTS OF THE .TAT AND MOSLEM SETTLEMENTS 221 No wonder, then, that Muhammadan joint-villages are not very different from Hindu or Sikh villages of the joint type, and that where they are purely tribal villages their mode of settlement and sharing the land still assimilate them in class to the ordinary joint community type. The indirect influence of the Muhammadan systems of admin- istration has, however, been not inconsiderable. In the first place may be mentioned the general introduction of names and terms connected with land tenures, which have had a gradual tendency to fix ideas and crystallise forms, although in them- selves these words and terms rarely imported any new ideas. The Moslem governments, in fact, everywhere adopted the customs they found ready, and the old things were called by new names. For example, the royal rights — to the revenue share, to the waste land, and to other levies and taxes — were collectively called the Zamiiiddri ; the royal demesne — itself derived from the old clan ideas of territorial division — was called Khdlsa. Hereditary rights (of the superior families) were called mirdsi, but no change was implied in the nature of the right. The revenue system was simply the old indigenous system, not really affected by Muhammadan law theories of the tax or Jchirdj imposed on the conquered, though the name is made use of. The change introduced by Akbar from payment in kind to payment in money was one which was inevitable ; it was made by Hindu States as well. Indirectly the change affected village life a good deal. As long as the old grain-share system lasted, the manage- ment was necessarily very much what we may call raiyatwdri, and the teniu-e of the village lands was secure, since the head- man and the whole body of cultivators managed the business together ; and the concern of the tax-gatherer was not with the nature of the holdings nor who held them, but with the quantity of grain he might (on one or other of the methods of estimating- it in use) successfully demand as the generally known total virtually a form of adoption. A sonless land-owner will take into his family a child, or a youth, and if he gives satisfaction wiU marry him to his daughter on the understanding that he is to succeed as heir to the land. Sometimes the marriage takes place at once ; oftener the ' son-in-law ' is taken as a child, and the father defers the formal acknowledgment and betrothal tUl he sees how the boy will turn out. 222 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COJLMUNITY produce of the village. The grain was brought to the village threshing-floor, and was divided, as we have seen, so much to the menials and artisans, so much to the king, and the balance to the cultivator. But the cash revenue not only demanded a survey and record of holdings, but it led to a calculated total demand from the village, which had to be realised without much regard to individual rights. Especially was this the case when revenue-farming became a general practice. It was out of this system that the fabric of 'the Bengal landlords' estates grew,' at the expense of the old village constitution; and where farming went more by single villages, the control of the manager seemed to convert itself into virtual ownership, with equal facility — always supposing the decadence of the Central Govern- ment and the consequent relaxation of detailed local control. The farmers, once established, left their families to inherit and to share the village lands among themselves. In the south country, the system of farming — though adopted by the Marathas, did not lead to the general establishment of land- lordships, because it was efEciently, and indeed mercilessly, controlled by its adopters. But of all the varieties of tenure that grew up locally, fewest of all are due to the operation of the Moslem systems of land-administration. In Madras, the Moslem power was never really established, except as regards the short-lived dominion of the Mysore Sultans in the West, and of the Nawabs of the Carnatic (and Karnul) — dependencies of the Haidarabad State. These in- secure and tyrannical Governments destroyed much in the case of individual rights, but created nothing in the way of new tenures. The occasional joint-villages that have survived, or that once existed, south^of the Vindhyas, do not owe their origin to Moslem rule. ' Though it must not be forgotten that the landlords were not all originally mere Eevenue farmers. A number of local hereditary Hindu Eajas of the old regime had been subdued and converted into tributaries, and were regarded by the emperors as the ' Zamindars ' or managers of their estates. It was very probably the example set by the management of these territories that suggested the appointment of capitalists and others to farm the revenues of large tracts, and so to found landlord- estates, where there were no hereditary Riljils. EFFECTS OF TIIE .TAT AND MOSLEM SETTLEMENTS 223 It may also be said to be one of tlie indirect effects of Moslem conquest that Hindu Eajas fled into the hill country, and there produced the changes that we have mentioned ; also that Rajput chiefs and Rajas, and sometimes whole clans, were removed and dispersed, and set upon new adventures, and often owe their over-lordship in new homes to the encouragement or the grant of the emperors. But it will be remembered that the dispersion was almost as much the result of feuds and internecine quarrels among the Rajput clans themselves as it was of the imperial victories. From the end of the twelfth century, the inability of the clans to unite ensured the defeat of the Tumar, Rahtor. Chauhan, and other leading Hindu powers of the day. One other effect on tenures, though it is a more doubtful instance, may be stated. The principle that the conquering ruler became the owner of all land, and that the local cultivators became only his raiyats, or subject-tenants, may perhaps be said to have originated with the Muhammadan invaders. At any rate, the claim received a great impulse from the Moslem theory that the property of ' infidels ' became the right of the conqueror. The theory, it is true, was in strict law largely modified by texts which virtually secured the property of all who submitted and lived in peace and obedience ; but conquerors were apt to seize the principle and forget its Uniitations. It may be justly said, however, that we ha%e some evidence of Hindu conquerors adopting the same pretensions before Moslem times ; and at least it is uncertain whether the Hindu Rajas of the Hill States, for instance, were influenced by ideas learned from the Moslems in establishing their claims to the land, which their successors adopt to this day. The embarrassment of the British Government on succeeding to a de facto but not cle jure claim to all land, and the existing theory of State ownership in all Native States, may, on the whole, be fairly regarded as a legacy of the Moslem conquest. If I were dealing with the history of the revenue administra- tion, it would be necessary to take notice of the Maratha administration, at least in the districts where it was firmly established. But from the point of view of village-tenures it requires little or no attention. Whatever effect it had was to 224 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY break dowa individual rights, and to charge with imposts tenures that had before been free. As a rule, the Marathas were far too keen financiers to allow their revenue-farmers to remain long enough vx possession to establish themselves as owners. That result happened either when there was no control, or when, as in the first days of British rule, the position of village co-sharers was misunderstood. As a matter of fact, the KJiot estates in one or two of the Bombay coast-districts are almost the only ' estates ' that have arisen out of Maratha revenue-farming. 225 CHAPTER VI THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE Section I. — Preliminary Observations A CHAPTER on tlie relation of the tribe to the village will hardly need any preliminary justification. If physical circumstances invite the grouping of cultivators into more or less compact bodies, and cause them to arrange their cultivated fields and grazing grounds in a ring fence, it is also true that there must be something more, which determines what households shall thus settle or keep together ; if there are limits other than those of available space in the contem- plated village, we ask what are the limits of relationship which determine the several gro,ups ? Next, it is evident that if we are right in believing that pre-Aryan races had established villages and permanent cultivation in very ancient times, it is a necessary conclusion that such settlements took place under purely and primitively tribal conditions of life. Indeed, as we reviewed in Chapters IV. and V., the whole series of races — the TIBETO-BURMAN, KOLARIAN, DrAVIDIAN, ArYAN, LATER Northern, including our latest arrivals of Moslem tribes on THE Punjab frontier, continual reference to their tribal con- dition was made. The evidence, in the case of the earliest tribes — now long mingled with the general ' Hindu ' or ' Muham- madan ' population — is naturally scanty. We see, however, certain survivals and remnants, all of which point to the earliest village settlements having been formed as subdivisions of some wider dcm-a/rea. Indeed, in some cases the clan-territory is much more definite than the village. The Kolarian villages of Chutiya-Nagpur, including those of the Santdls, the Dra vidian villages in the same neighbourhood, the Kandh villages of Orissa, Q 226 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY — all are on a tribal basis. When we come to the Aryan and later tribes, we still have much evidence of tribal life. As might be expected, however, we soon begin to find a stage of more rapid progress, and with it inevitable diversity ; we cannot expect to find that all the villages resulting from Aryan, Jat, and other later races are connected with the tribe. For one thing, it was only a limited number of the Aryan clans who never developed monarchical ideas, and who settled without Rajas or chiefs of territories. Most others seem to have become monarchical very readily. It is true that at one time the monarchy itself was constructed on clan lines. But many kingdoms were ruled by individual princes, and in them clan institutions tended to become modified and gradually to disappear. The development of the Hindu State was, in fact, one great though indirect cause of a large number of non-tribal villages. It will be remembered, then, that while tribal-villages are sufficiently numerous and important to demand a separate chapter, we shall also have to devote another chapter to an almost equally large class of non-tribal villages. Speaking first of the villages connected with clan-settlements and arising as subdivisions of distinct clan-territories, one thing strikes us, and that is that the earliest settlers seem to be con- nected with a form of village in which there is no joint-owner- ship, but only the aggregation of individual or household possessions, the title to which is based on the labour expended in clearing the land and making it fit for the plough. The later clans, on the other hand, appear always to have some stronger cohesion, some sense of superiority and conquest, which produced at least the appearance of collective ownership in their settlements. Those who have a strong a irriori inclination to believe in the universal existence of collective-ownership among early tribes may be disposed to doubt the possibility of the raiyahvdri or separate-holding village emerging from tribal conditions of life ; and no doubt the matter will call for our further considera- tion hereafter. Meanwhile, the fact remains that the raiyatiodri form of village prevails over the districts occupied by non- Aryan tribes and clans, and that it was the Aryan and later tribes — who may be called ' superior ' — that developed villages in the THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 227 joint form. I shall here be pardoned for repeating the warning that ' the joint form ' does not imply one single principle or cause of collectivity. The 'jointness' of clan or tribal villages is something practically distinct from the ' jointness ' of villages the owners of which are co-heirs and descendants of a single founder or grantee. And these again are distinct from villages united by association, or aggregated in some other way — neither tribal, nor by descent from the individual. The mention of the raiyatwdri village as in origin tribal, and of some of the joint^villages as also tribal, may seem to produce some kind of cross-classification of villages in general. But a short table in the footnote will make the matter clear.' For, revertiQg for a moment to our initial distiuction between raiyahvdn and joint villages, the real fact is that of joint- villages only a certain portion are connected with the tribe ; while of tribally-originating villages, only a portion exhibit features of joint ownership. The table in the footnote also enables me to call attention to a distinction which it is desirable to make in the ' tribal ' section of our joiut-village class. It is easy to understand the fact that, when an area of country is found to be occupied by a clan or a tribe, that result may have come about in either of two ways — (1) the whole clan or tribe, already existing in sufficient numbers, may have conquered or occupied the site and proceeded to divide it among themselves ; (2) or the clan may have gradually grown up on the spot, the first occupation of a considerable area having been by a single family (with its dependents and followers), and these, having multiplied in the course of many generations, have now formed /Raiyatwari village. Tribal origin Non-tribal origin Joint-village, division. Joint-village, division. f [N.B. — Modern villages in this form I may of course occin: apart from istri 2nd , 1. 2. any tribal connection.] Established by clan already formed and numerous. EstabKshed by clan gradually growing up on the spot. Arising out of the joint inheri- tance in succession to individual founder. Some form of volimtary associa- tion. a 2 228 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY a clan, and to some extent retained the clan connection. Some- times it is not certain which of these two things really happened. But in most cases we shall see that the ' clan-expansion ' areas have certain features of their own. However that may be, it is not difficult to discern the marks of a clan-connection which can be distinguished from that of the mere family ; and where that is so, we are justified in treating the village, for the purposes of study at any rate, as in the ' tribal ' class. Before proceeding further to inquire into the structure of the tribe, and how this structure affects the possession of land and the formation of villages, I should like to allude to the manner in which this question of ' the tribe and the village ' has been dealt with in some of our more valuable books of reference. In his excellent volumes on ' Panjab Customary Law,' Mr. C. L. Tupper has called attention to the difference between the explanation of origin of the village (regarded as a group of families with an aggregate land allotment) suggested by il. de Laveleye and by Sir H. S. Maine respectively.' M. de Laveleye thought that the tribe or clan, regarded as already grown up from the single family in which it necessarily originated, began with a sort of indefinite common ownership of the whole territory occupied by it. This was probably when the clan was in a pastoral stage, during which agriculture was only beginning to be adopted : it then sufficed to apportion the lands destined to cultivation, in lots that were only temporarily assigned to the different households. In the course of time the regularly culti- vated land was more permanently divided into parcels ; but even in this stage the land is regarded as the ' collective property ' of the clan, because ' it returns ' to the clan ' from time to time, so that a new partition may be effected.' ^ Sir H. S. Maine, on the other hand, considered that the village groups were either bodies of actual kinsmen, or groups in which time and circumstances had caused the relationship to be forgotten, so that ' the merest shadow of consanguinitv sur- vives ' and ' the assemblage of cultivators is held together solely ' See the dissertation (p. 7) prefixed to vol. ii. of Panjah Customary Law. - Quoted from Primitive Property (Trans.), p. 4, as cited by Mr. Tupper. THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 229 by the land which they till in common.' ' In short, the joint family begins the process ; and this expands, fii-st into the larger family — such as the house communion — and finally into the ' village-group.' The remarks already made will have suggested that there is no occasion to make any choice between these two opinions or to regard them as in any need of reconciliation. Both contain a good deal of the truth ; and they are not opposed, for the simple reason that, perhaps unconsciously, each writer is describing a different kind or division of the 'joint- village.' Given the whole clan settling ready made, as on the Panjab frontier, or a small family expanding on the same spot into a clan — e.g. the ' cultivating fraternities ' of Jats, which we shall presently describe in the Mathura district — and still acting on tribal principles, M. de Laveleye's description is perfectly correct, except that his idea of ' collective ownership ' may be somewhat different from that which we may finally prefer to accept. Given, on the other hand, the joint-village arising out of the multiplication of kindred of one individual founder, and not on any directly tribal principles, then we have the village as described in the passage from Sir H. S. Maine. That, I am convinced, is the real explanation of the difference; and it will be remembered that both authors were under the unfor- tunate impression that all villages in India were in essen- tial features the same; and they did not think of the broad and fundamental distinctions, such as the little table in the note to p. 227 calls to mind. It will be observed that neither in their suggestions regard- ing origin, nor, as far as I can discover, in any other connection, does either of the eminent authors afford any solution to the question how the divisions of clans, and of families under the joint constitution, are regulated, or how they originated. The illustrations which are collected in the sequel bring into prominence the existence of such divisions ; and they are evidently on a uniform principle. Where we have the earliest tribes to deal with, it is not surprising that we have only limited traces of such details, and that further study is almost impossible. But when we come to ' Early History of Institutions, pp. 77-82. 230 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY the Ai-yan, Jat, and otlier clan-settlements of later times, the divisions of clan and family are most prominent, and we may reasonably hope to discover the principle on which they pi'oceed. We have also to consider what is the connection which the clan and its divisions have with the land ; how far do they own it collectively, or individually, or ' own ' it at all ? Before dealing with these two questions, it will be well to call attention to the existence of certain territorial divisions which can be traced in almost all the provinces, and which indicate the location of clans and tribes. By this means we are provided with a certain unit area connected with clan life, as a sort of starting-point from which our further inquiries may proceed. 1. It is certainly a noticeable feature that in almost all parts of inhabited India we can trace the existence of distinct terri- torial areas or jurisdictions, indicating the primary or secondary divisions of a tract of country occupied by a clan or tribe. As the feature is equally noticeable in the southern districts, where the raiyatu-dri form of village prevails, the fact, reinforced by other direct evidence, compels us, as I have already remarked, to include the raiyatwdri village as properly belonging to the tribal class. Each such separate area seems to mark the location of a separate clan, possibly itself a section of a larger tribe. It must be added that the most early clans appear to have been toteini-ftic, or at least to have had distinguishing marks or insignia.' The boundaries of these clan-areas were fixed, even when internal divisions were imperfectly defined ; and respect for them would always be enforced. Among the Kolarians we have noticed the parhd, or union of villages, probably the earliest example of tribal areas. It is rarely safe to trust to mere similarities of sound, but it has been suggested that some old word (resembling park or pir) may be the origin of the official ' I have noticed this among the Kolarians and Santals as well as the Dravidians (pp. 120, 155, ante). Among the Aryans also distinctive banners and symbols were well known. Possibly some of the ' monograms ' on old coins may have some connection with the clan symbols. The Ndghahsi famiUes formerly marked the serpent lunette on their seals ; and the use of the sun, the hon, the liatCir or dagger, fish, &c., employed as royal or as tribal emblems, is well known. \' THE TMBE AND THE VILLAGE 231 pm'gana division adopted by the Mughal Government.' All over the South of India we have traces ol' the nddu (cf. also the muttlia among the Kandh tribes), which was oft-en a sort of ' county ' ; and in some places there is a clearly surviving tradition of the purpose of this division. Thus in part of Madras known anciently as the Tondaimandalam we find first a number of Jcuttam — the name probably indicating the ' fort ' which was the seat of the territorial chief ; each of these primitive territories was afterwards reorganised into nitdu, and each nddu contained a number of villages (called riattam, i.e. the village site). The chief of the Tiddu was called NdWidn. In Malabar we have evidence of how these Tiadu divisions were governed by the TiMdr-lcuttam, or assembly of representative elders out of the family groups, or tara, of the ruling class, in each nddv. ; these ' have been already described.^ A AH over Northern India, again, we have clear indications of clan-areas, under the names of taluqa, Hldqa, and tappa, or thapd. Local illustrations of this peculiarity will occur repeatedly in the sequel. Here my object is to call attention to the fact that, such divisions being the natural consequence of tribal-life, they appear all over India and among all tribes, the oldest and most primitive as well as the latest and more advanced ; and they have often lasted after the tribal stage had passed away. X For this survival there are two reasons : first, when the clans themselves adopted the monarchical form of government, or were conquered by territorial chiefs, these clan- divisions everywhere became the natural landmarks for defining the jurisdiction of kingdoms and of chiefships such as those ^ It is curious (see p. 152, cmte) that among the Bhil a similar term — pwrrah, as Malcolm writes it, is used for the little cluster of separate home- steads or the hamlet, and not apparently for any larger aggregate of these hamlets. A somewhat similar term appears again among the Biluchi tribes (p. 2i5, post). ^ See y. no, ante. The "word, huttam {Wilson's Glossary) aiea.nshoth an ' assembly ' and also a ' fortified place or group of houses.' So that we find it applied both to the division of territory protected, so to speai, bj' the chiefs fort or capital, and also to the assembly of the representatives of the families in the nddu. Some account of Tondaimandalam wUl be given in a subsequent chapter. The first hiUtam division was due to the Pallava tribes; that into nddu and also villages was effected by then- successors, the VeUalar colonists. 232 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY of the pdlegdra, who assumed dominion over nodus in the South. In many cases (as, e.g., the Panjab frontier and the cultiva- ting fraternities of the North- West Provinces and the Panjab plains) the Hldqa or ta.ppa is still occupied by a number of villages all of the same clan, and has been utilised as the basis of modem surveys and records of rights. We may also find occasional instances of similar areas which at one time became a Raja's territory, but which ultimately formed a kind of clan-estate or community of cultivators composed of the descendants of the once ruling house whose power had been broken.' In nearly all cases it will be found that old clan- areas, whether or not they became Raja's territories, have ultimately formed the basis of the administrative and land- revenue subdivisions of districts ; and that is why the 'parga-na,' the ' taluqa,' and other such ancient subdivisions are remem- bered to the present day. 2. But clan-territories clearly indicate the existence of clans ; and all we can discover of the earliest clans leads us to believe that they were not unorganised hordes, or collections of individuals ; they were invariably organised on some principle. It is evident, in the first place, that every large clan has certain primary and secondary main divisions, to one or other of which every existing family belongs. Even in the village which originates in a single family we may remember to have noticed divisions called pi&tti, tliok, &c., which are in fact groups based on the same principle as the clan divisions. In either case distinctive names are attached to these divisions, but not to any others ; because they represent the first branches, or degrees of descent, from the founder of the clan, or of the individual village, as the case may be. And there is something which makes these main divisions proceed up to a certain point and then stop ; so that subsequent families belonging to one or other of the established groups do not again form further groups under new designations. It is a matter of principle which, I think, will readily be ' More commorJy the individual members, remnants of such houses have formed separate village estates; but there are cases of what now appear as clan-areas of village proprietors, formed in this way. TI-IE TEIBE AND THE VILLAGE 233 accepted, that tliere is a certain aggregation of descents from an ancestor or founder which constitutes (up to a known limit of blood relationship) a ' family ' ; there is a further connection allowed to subsist between the different ' families ' — less direct than -family union, but extending much wider — which is in fact the lien of the ' minor-clan.' These ties seem to depend on natural feelings common to human nature, and therefore to be found in all tribes. The survival of the clan-stage in India is certainly marked by (a) a limited but practical union of the whole clan settled in one place ; (p) the recognition of a ' wider- kindred ' forming a ' minor-clan ' or something similar ; (c) a ' close-kindred ' forming the ' family.' What determines the limits of these groups ? We may pass over the fission of a great tribe into separately named clans. Such a fission must necessarily take place when numbers increase very greatly. And it is a matter of accident, and of circumstances of location, whether a generic designation for the whole tribe is kept up, or whether the several clans have in fact become separate tribes. But inside the clan there is almost everywhere observed a further grouping into what I may call minor-dans or septs. Perhaps there is more than one such subdivision ; finally, the last of such acknowledged groups is made up of the single famdlies or households. Now let us take, merely for the purpose of comparison and illustration, such a standard as the Welsh tribe, which has re- cently been examined by Dr. Seebohm.' Speaking first of the grouping of the people, not of their mode of ownership, we find (1) a close-kindred or gi'oup of immediate relations recognised, and also (2) a ' wider-kindred.' The former answers to the family, the latter veiy much to the minor-clan. Outside that, again, is the general group of the clan, still held together by the common lien of loyalty to the chief and of obligation to general ' The opportunity for studying the Welsh tribe was almost unique, for it happened that shortly after the Conquest the Normans completed extenta, or surveys for revenue purposes, and these display in several cases the tribal constitution of the people. These ' extents ' can in turn be com- pared with statements of the Welsh codes and other documents ; and thus the conclusions drawn will be tested independently by both authorities. 234 THE INDIAN VILLAGK COMMUNITY service and defence, as well as by certain customs of co-aration and common pasturage. In Wales the close-kindred was called a wele, or gively ; it consisted of the purely natural group of the individual clansman, and his father, grandfather, and great- grandfather ; direct inheritance went no further. And this group of close-kindred would naturally also suggest a wider group ; but I will quote Dr. Seebohm's own words. ' The eldest living ancestor, as chief of the household occupying the principal homestead or tyddyn, and seated by the ancestral hearth, might well live to see growing up around it a family-gi'oup extending to gi'eat-grandchildi-en. On the other hand, looking backwai-d to his own childhood, he might well recollect his own great- grandfather sitting as head of the household at the same hearth, just as his great-grandchildren would some day hereafter remember him. Thus the extreme natural reach of the know- ledge of the head of the household might cover seven generations. Finally, if family tradition went back two stages further than actual memory, thus it would embrace the larger kindred to the ninth degree of descent.' ' In fact, the kindred to the seventh degree came to be a recognised limit of natural direct connec- tion ; and this was reckoned as the ' wider-kindred,' while for certain purposes only, in Wales, it was extended to the ninth degree. Now, whether the precise number of degrees is the same or not in all cases, the idea of the thing is perfectly natural. Dr. Seebohm has justly pointed out that in another tribe, as widely different as that of ancient Israel, exactly the same thing was recognised. This is apparent from the narrative in the Book of Numbei's regarding the trespass of Achan. The perpetrator was discovered by casting lots and successively narrowing down the area of choice : first the whole clan of Judah ^ was taken ; then the minor-clan of the Zarhites, the ancestor of which, Zarah son of Judah, was of course long dead — ' Tribal System in Wales, p. 84. " We commonly hear of the 'twelve tribes,' perhaps because they were the great-grandsons of Abraham, and thus on the death of their father (and all before him) they divided and began afresh ; and as they were established in anew country, where there were no pre-existing areas already named after the first generation, each of the twelve began a new oucos — a new close-kindred which would expand again in the same way. THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 235 this was the ' wider kindred.' Tlien the close-kindred or ' house ' was indicated. And here for the first time an individual name appears ; Zabdi is mentioned personally as probably the oldest living, or, at all events, personally remembered, head. He is not •called a son of Zarah ; for all we know there may have been more than one degree between him and the founder of the whole minor-clan called ' Zarhite.' Zabdi's son is Carmi, and he is taken ; and finally Carmi's son Achan, whose own sons are still children. Zabdi, in fact, is the great-grandfather and head of the ' wele.' A precisely similar state of things is observed in the account of the selection of Saul son of Kish to be king (1 Samuel x. 21). The tribe or clan of Benjamin comes first ; then the minor-clan of Matrites, and then the family of which Saul is the adult son. Moreover, from chapter ix. we gather that the ' Matrites ' included seven degrees back to great-grandfather's great-grandfather — Kish, Abiel, Zeror, Becorath, Aphiah, and an unnamed ' Benjamite, a mighty man of valour,' probably Matri himself. And these are not the only indications we possess of these features of clan, wide-kindred, and close-kindred, for which I have claimed universality, and which explain to some extent the divisions of the clan-territories, as well as of some of the village groups in India. Mr. Hugh E. Seebohm has followed up his father's inquiries in Wales by an examination of the Greek tribal system,' and he shows not only that the same basis of connection and separation existed in ancient Greece, but he has also drawn illustrations, with great care, from the ' Laws of Manu,' as showing the same ideas among the Brahmanic Aryans. With them, the sacrificial cake and the libation of water being essential funeral ceremonies in the family, we find the degrees of kindred measured by the right to offer the one or the other. The text of the ' Laws ' ^ prescribes that the cake is to be offered to three ancestors and the water to three ; the fourth in descent is the offerer, and the fifth has no concern with the obla- tions. That is to say, three ancestors — i.e. to the great-grand- 1 On the Structure of Greek Tribal Society : an Essay (MacmiUan, 1895). ' Chap. ix. 186, compared with v. 60 and iii. 5. See H. E. Seebohm, 023. cit. pp. 51, 52. 236 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY father upwards from the surviving householder who offers the gift — receive the cake ; and three, ujjward again — i.e. to great- grandfather's great-grandfather — receive the usater libation. So that the existing householder offers the cake to his deceased father, grandfather, and gi-eat-grandfather. But then the house- holder may live to see his son, gi-andson, and great-grandson, who can also join with him iu offering the cake ; so we read in the fifth chapter that the relation of the sapinda ceases ^vith the seventh person ; and it is within this degree also that a man of the twice-born classes is debarred from marrying a woman of the family. The water libation degree (icim-anodalccC) is stated to extend as far back as there is community of familj^-name or recollection of descent. In Wales this was held not to exist beyond //it/i cousins, and that seems practically to have been the, limit meant by the ' Laws ' in the passage of the sixth chapter, where the fifth degree is mentioned as relating to the water offering as well as the cake.' All are sapinde, who offer to the same ancestors, so that a large circle of relatives is included ; while the immediate family extends in each group to the great- grandfather. This at once suggests the household (oIkos) and the related kindred {cv^yifTTsLa) of the Greeks, or the Welsh wele, and the wider-kindred, and also the Israelite arrangement of kindred. When in such widely different regions we come across this same distinction, we are justified in believing it to be universal and springing out of a feeling common to all early tribes, and founded in human nature itself. The same pi-inciple of division appears also in the rules re- garding the marriage relation. It will be remembered that, while ' Mr. Seebohm used Bumell's translation. G. BiiMer's is the same. It is plain that the groups would be moving downwards with the death of •each grade, and, as Mr. Seebohm says, ' at no time would more than four generations have a share in the same cake offered to the three nearest ancestors of the head of the family.' The same idea of the three degrees is emphasised in a text of the MitdJtshara {VivahZira MidndJiain, Miitrika XXXII.), as quoted by EUis in his Memoir on the South Indian villages. The text speaks of the enjoyment of property by direct ancestral descent, and the Commentary adds : ' . . . descent from three direct ancestors, namely, the father and the rest [grandfather and great-grandfather], is termed direct ancestral descent. And the reason of this is, as Kdtyayana, says, that memory does not extend beyond this degree.' THE TUIBE AND THE VILLAGE 237 all Indian tribes are endogamous to some extent, so that, for regular raarriage, a Rajput or a Jat always ctooses a Rajput or a Jat and so on, yet also the clans are mostly exogamous, for a man of one got must choose a wife out of another clan or got.^ Now, it appears that as long as a real, not merely a remote or traditional, common ancestor is remembered, the man and the women are not regarded as in groups sufficiently distinct to intermarry.^ If we apply these principles of division to the clan, we see how they explain to a large extent such groups as we observe, for instance, among the Panjab fi'ontier tribes. We find a whole tribe (or small nation) occupying a country called generically its 'ildqa. Each clan is represented by a tappa area. And the clan is again subdivided into large groups, which I may call incidental, as they are due to the fission per stirpes — sons of an elder wife being distinguished from sons of a younger, or of a concubine. These sections are called by personal names, and often have the syllable -zai added. They are not distinguished by any generic name ; for convenience I will call them sub-tappd. Within each ' svib-tappa ' we find a number of (still large) groups called khel. In some cases the Ichel itself is subdivided into a series — viz. into kcmdl and finally into thai. Within these final subdivisions come all the existing ' houses ' or ' families.' These acknowledged divisions seem to me essentially, and allowing for local and minor variations, to depend on the universal three grades of original descent. The whole tappd represents the common great-graiulfather of the original family ; the sub- tappd, his sons, or in some cases grandsons raised to the rank of ' The Mughal and other Moslem tribes form an exception to this rule. " See some good remarks in Ibbetson's Karndl S. B. § 186 ff, and compare the oases noted in the Bohtak 8. B. p. 21. Thus, for example, in the Eohtak district the Jat minor-clans — Ahlan of Dighal, Auli Thoh 1 Thole .... Father Son : .§1 £3 60 ■iS O s - .ITild Tula ■ 1 ■ A 1 a 1 - fl tH 3 bo vTep O O a, &c., now existing father and sons. 1^ After the tula, the main divisions (the original ' family ') go no further. The sons, grandsons, &c., of the tuldddr (head or progenitor of the Mid) are the existing close-kindred ; and only if they were to move off and found a new estate somewhere else ^ Cf. the case of Ephraim and Manasseh, Genesis xlviii. " It is exactly the same if we apply the Pathan names to the Israelite. The whole tribe or nation is Israel, and its Hldqa Palestine ; but the actual units are the tappd Judah, Benjamin, &c. ; and, in the case above quoted, the sTih-tappd or -zwi division is the Zarhites ; the khel Zabdi ; and the kandi Carmi, whose son Achan and his wife and children, beginning a new series, represent one of the existing households in the hrnidi. THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 239 might we have the eldei- commencing a new group as founder, and his sons furnishing the patti division, and so on.' Referring to Chapter I.,* it will be observed that the same thing occurs in the hhaidchdrd, or equal-sharing fraternity, often occupying an area much larger than an ordinary village. This estate is divided into groups as above according to the members of the origiTial family in three descents. After that, the fifth and subsequent degrees all take equal shares or lots according to their actual requirement. In the ancestral-share form (jiatti- dart), the fifth and subsequent degrees still adhere to the proper fractions according to the law of inheritance. And it is this difference that marks the two kinds of village. 3. We have now to connect these groups of kindred with the land on which they are settled. It has already been re- marked that in tribal settlements ' villages ' are not always formed. In every case there is the division of the territory ; sometimes, if the tribe is large, into clan territories and other large primary allotments. In the case of the raiyatwdri districts, we know that clan areas were formed, and these appear divided further into compact villages, though we cannot explain how. We have already found reason to iuclude all the later tribes — Aryan, Jat, Moslem, &c., as alike forming village groups with a joint constitution ; and it is certainly true that we can discern a strong tribal union which has enabled the Land-Eevenue Ad- ministration to treat the villages (or whatever forms anything like a village) as jointly responsible for the revenue. How, then, is it possible that tribal custom can comport both with purely individual (raiyatwari) holdings, and also with such ap- parently joint-holding customs as the frontier tribes, for example, exhibit ? It will be seen from the examples presently given that, in reality, the joint-holding of these tribal groups is of a limited and peculiar kind. Indeed, at first sight we might be tempted to deny the existence of any real common-holding, and so to do away with the distinction. It is quite true that there is no case on record in which a whole tribe possesses a large area really held in common ; nor, indeed, does any considerable section of ^ As to the different local names for the divisions, see p. 81, note. ■' P. 32, ante. 240 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY the clan so hold. Sometimes we find large primarj- divisions made on the ground, such as I have above enumerated. In other cases such divisions do not appear, or have long been completely forgotten, and the whole area is divided out directly into household shares — so many ' ploughlands,' or something of the kind, to each. In the case of the clan growing up on the spot from a small initial group, there may or may not be primary divisions ; if there are, the division was made while the family was stiU small ; in any case, all the family holdings are allotted ; very often they have been added on, one by one, as the numbers grew. Where, then, it may be asked, does the holding ' in com- mon ' or jointly come in ? In the first place, the smaller groups constituting in some sense a large ' family,' often hold jointly among themselves, being relatives within a certain limit, acknowledging a rule of joint-inheritance and the institution which we call ' the joint-family.' And there is in these joint tribal villages a wider species of union over and above that ; of it I wUl speak immediately. These features produce a real distinction between the raiyatwdri and the later tribal villages ; and the difference appears to me essentially to depend on the different constitution of the family as regards its right over the land held. Ownership of property does not depend on universal senti- ments like those which produce the liens of close or wider kindred. It is true that the sense of right to a thing in virtue of labour, time, and wealth expended on producing it is, if not a purely natural, at any rate a very widespread sentiment, and it may be accompanied or reinforced by a sense, also natural, of right as member of a tribe, to share with the others what all have to- gether acquired, and perhaps fought for. But further develop- ment of custom depends on the condition.^ of life ; and we see cases where the land is hardly regarded at all, but the irrigation water is the real object of customary right, or where rights are centred in the grain-heap at harvest. Let me once more refer, for illustration, to the case of the Welsh tribe and its family group, ovv:eh. As long as the head of the group lived, the property in the homestead, and all other rights, vested in him. ^Vhatever partition took place was informal and for convenience only : the various adult members of the family would, indeed, enjoy their THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 241 several homesteads and crofts and their cattle; but no new theoretically separate ' properties ' or ' estates ' were formed till the final separation after the completion of the course of descent and the commencement of new ' iveles.' ' It was owing to the circumstances of the situation that separate landrshares were not allotted on the ground, and that co-aration and the division of the harvest was the custom.^ If the Welsh family had been m the habit of taking and managing a separate holding of the tribal land, it would have been very like the raiyatwari family as it appears in early India. Sufficient attention is hardly perhaps paid to the fact that all ' families ' are not, in ancient tribes, constituted on the model of the Hindu joint-family ; and not only so, but that early Dra- vidian and other non- Aryan tribes do not, even in India, appear to have known the joint-family, at any rate before they became ' Hindus.' The early Kdvdh tribes, to take a definite instance, show a form of family in which the fatria potestas is complete, and in which the head of the family is the sole owner during his life ; there is nothing of that inchoate right of the sons as soon as born, and of the inability of the father to alienate ancestral property without consent of the family, and so on, which mark the ' Hindu family ' not only in the theory of law-books, but in the actual custom of certain local tribes.' It appears to me that the joint-family, with its limitation of the power of the head, who, in fact, only takes the place of a sort oiprimms inter pares, is a later elaboration — however old in itself — of a time when, after long settlement and regular govern- ment, the law has developed and the tribal stage is passing, or has passed, away. Perhaps the sense of clan-union, which must long have lingered among the ' twice-born ' classes, found its echo in this joint-family. Moreover, Hindu law, and the custom ■• of ' Seebohm, Tribal System in Wales, pp. 89, 95. 2 Ante, p. 50. ' Dr. Seebohm notices this distinction. See Tribal System in Wales p. 95. I venture to think that an examination of the older Sanskrit law- texts would show that the limitation of the power of the house-father was much less in early times than it afterwards became, when the joint inheri- tance law was elaborated, and so much affected the idea of the family constitution. ■• Ante, p. 210. E 2i2 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY the Northern conquering and energetic tribes, both proceed from people who have much pride of race and strong ideas of rights ' by inheritance,' and of equally representiiui a iiohle or heroic ancestor who was the foufuLer of their fortunes and the object of their wor- ship. It is quite possible that the absence of joint ownership in the family marked a condition of tribal society in which no strong sense of union was evoked by the conditions of life. Probably the first settlers found but few human enemies to contend with, or were not subjected to any circumstances that tended to superr sede the purely patriarchal rule. More it would not be justi- fiable to say; but at least it is a geographical fact that the raiyatifdri form of village survives most completely where the settlement (in any numbers) of Aryan, Jat, Gujar, Moslem, and other conquering and ' superior ' tribes took effect least. The joint-village is, in fact, conterminous with the range of Aryan and later conquests, or with races which have developed the joint-family. Wherever we find such joint or shared villages, either surviving or once existing, in the South, it is always in connection with some explainable circumstances of local over-, lordship, or special colonising privilege. In thus endeavouring to account for the raiyatwdri form of village as arising under early tribal conditions, I should like to repeat that it is quite possible that originally the villages may have been held by subdivisions of clans — real groups of kindred — and that a feeling of tribal union may have once existed which now cannot be traced. If we were to take away from a frontier village in the Panjab the sense of tribal union, the actual tenure would be hardly distinguishable from the raiyatwdri. If it is true that the head of the non- Aryan family was sole owner of the holding, the fact would have tended to concentrate and fix the sentiment of ownership as arising out of the original occupa- tion and laborious clearing of the soil. It may be added that this also may help to account for the absence of any idea of a joint proprietary claim to a certain area of the waste ad- joining each village. The villages being widely scattered through a great area of waste generally subject to the clan, the land not cleared and merely grazed over was regarded as ' comnion ' — merely in the same sense that the air, or the water THE TRIBE AND THE VILI^GE ■ 243 of a river or lake is common.' The idea of 'property' did not attacli to ' unwrought,' uncleared land. Accordingly, when the looser tribal government gave way to the rule of a liaja, whether by conquest or by commendation, it became an easily established custom for the Raja to dispose of the waste as he pleased. It is well, too, to remind ourselves that all this is not a mere ques- tion of theoretic possibility ; it is based on some actual survivals, which, though local, almost necessarily indicate a more general custom in early times. It is only necessary to refer to such well- preserved indications of early village forms as those of the Kandli tribes, or the Kolarian and Dravidiau settlements in Chutiya- Nagpur. We there have evidence not only of the tribal con- stitution of agricultural society and of the formation of village- groups, but also of the absence of collective ownership. There is no 'joint-family,' there is no co-aration, nor any holding ' in common.' True, there is equal division among the sons of a deceased owner, but that is not the ' joint-family ' ; it is only one feature which perhaps marks the beginning of such an institution. We have not now much evidence that the families in the Western or Southern raiyativari villages are connected by clan ties, or that groups of villages of the same clan are found contiguously.^ It is the different idea of the ' family ' that is at the root of the distinction between the non- Aryan villages and those of the later tribes. But, besides the joint-family, the later tribes also exhibit a kind of union beyond the circle of the immediate co-sharing relatives, which in the nature of things we can hardly hope to find evidence of among the scanty relics of the older Kolarian and Dravidian tribes that alone survive. All the Northern tribes • as well as the Aryans evidently had a strong sense of general unity and cohesion ; there was then a feeling that when a territory was occupied it was the acquisition of the whole bod}', so that all were equally entitled to share in it, and that its main- tenance and defence was the common concern of all. It was this feeling perhaps, among the frontier tribes, e.g., that causes ' See ante, pp. 10, H. * It wiU be remembered, however, that this question has not been studied. On this subject, and on the causes of the miscellaneous nature of rairjatwdri holdings, see pp. 18, 19. 244 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY tlie i)er-cajpita principle of sharing to be so mucli commoner than the rule of allotment according to the varying shares of the law or custom of inheritance. And this sense of equality also doubt- less led to ready acquiescence in the tribal custom of allotting the holdings for a term of years only, so that they might be ex- changed, and each group get its turn at the good or bad — the moi'e or less advantageous and convenient farms. I do not see how this feeling can be said to imply a ' common owniership ' in the face of the always separately assigned holding and the definite shai-e which is understood to exist. In the same way, the reten- tion of the waste area undivided is a matter of convenience only, as I have more than once explained. Whenever any portion of tribal land that would under ordinary circumstances be divided out is not so, it is always under exceptional and explainable circum- stances ; and even then the definite shares are well known. But the conditions of tribal security also demand that the various groups and sections shall acknowledge a union for the purposes of defence, and this includes a joint liability for taxes or other charges which have to be met. For example, the frontier tribal villages would find it quite natural to accept the joint liability for the Government land-revenue, under the North- West Pro- vincial system ; and it is largely owing to this fact, and to the consequent adoption, for these villages, of the nomenclature and forms of record employed by the revenue system in question, that they have been identified with the 'joint- villages ' of another kind— those in which the co-sharers are really heirs of one man. Section II. — -Tribal Custom as exhibited in the Panjab Fbontiek Districts. In the frontier districts of the Panjab a number of Pathan and Biluchl tribes, professing the Muhammadan faith,' have established themselves, and remained more or less undisturbed, all within known historical times — some within the last two or three hundred years, others even as late as the last 1 To which they were converts under the various Khilhfs. See Bellew, The Baces of Afghanistan (Calcutta, 1880) ; also D. Ibbetson, Panjab Ethnog. § 390-3 for Pathiin, and § 377-9 for Biluchi. THE TRIBE AIvT) THE VILLAGE 245 century. They are all fighting tribes : they found, however, only a limited opposition from human enemies, and a large part of the country was virgin soil when they occupied it. The arable land is mostly dry and open, both hilly and level, but with no tropical jungle to contend with. Sometimes, but locally, the soil is fertile ; more often it requires artificial irri- gation before it is cultivable at all, except in seasons of unusual rainfall. The tribes are wholly non-monarchical, and if they have submitted in general to the suzerainty of some neighbouring State, or some greater local chief has succeeded in making him- self a territorial ruler, that does not alter their internal consti- tution. We see clearly the clan, with its greater chief; minor clans, with their chiefs ; and again smaller groups, each with its own head. Blocks of laiid smaller than the MeZ, and such as we should call ' villages,' are by no means always found ; among the Biluchi especially, the family shares are so many portions of the general (and still considerable) Miel territory, and a few families live together in small hamlets. And in most cases the smallest group that has a name indicating a recognised sub- division of a clan seems too large to call a ' village.' The chiefs, as a rule, have no pretensions to be owners or even governors of the whole territory, as the Hindu Rajas were. They had no territorial ' revenue,' only their own share of the tribal possession ; though it appears that in some cases, at any rate, a special share of the land was reserved for the superior chief (or Khcln).^ And generally there must have been some provision for the support of the patriarchal position. Mr. Ibbetson, in the work cited in a preceding note, has fully gone into the history of the Patlian and Biluchi tribes. It is only necessary here to say that the Biluchi tribe is called Tumdn, and its chief TumCinddr. It is divided into clans (jjara ; cf, the Kolarian and Dravidian parlid), the clan chief being called Muqaddam. The minor-clans are pJialll. The clans are all descended from one ancestor ; and the subdivision or minor- clan is the ' wider kindred ' from the same head. The Pathan tribe is said to be more homogeneous than the Biluchi. The Pathan and the Biluchi, however, both recognise the custom of hamsuya — the ' neighbour ' (of some other race) ' See, for instance, the Peshiiu-ar S. E. § 5S9. 246 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY taken under tlie tribal ' shadow ' or protection. Thus the non- tribal artisans and menials of the hamlets speak of themselves as belonging to the tribe which protects them. Among the Biluchi, whole sections of foreign clans have been adopted as clans of the tribes, under the "custom of Jiamsdya ; ' but the custom is not carried to such lengths among the Pathans. The Pathan tribe usually, but not always, has a Khan — the head of the Jxhiln-Wiel, or eldest house of the eldest branch ; and each clan and minor- clan has its iiudik, or head. 'The chief,' says Mr. Ibbetson, ' is seldom more than their leader in war and their agent in dealings with others ; he possesses influence rather than power, and the real authority rests with the jirga, a democratic council composed of all the maliks. It is needless to say that all the districts are found to be divided into 'ilaqa and twppd — the distinct areas and sub- areas of each clan and minor-clan. It is a misfortune that the tribal areas have all come under, not only the revenue administration of the North- Western system — which is quite capable of being worked to suit them admirably — but under its forms of record, and especiall}- under a vicious nomenclature entirely unsuited to them, and invented really for villages of another character. It is simply misleading to classify the frontier-villages in a mass under such headings as zamindan, fattidarl, or bhaidchdrd, unless of course where some area has become the property of one man, or of his heirs jointly (zaminddri mushtayrka), or where some portion is really divided throughout on fractional shares, as among descen- dants of one original owner (jpattiddri). Shaidchdrd they all are, in the sense that they are governed by the 'custom of the tribal group or brotherhood ' ; but unfortunately the word hhaidclidrd has got so misused in the Panjab as to have lost its distinctive meaning.^ An example taken from the Peshawar district will at once ' See, for example, the cases reported by Ibbetson, § 380. - This use or misuse of ofi&cial terms is the subject of an appendix to Chapter "VIII. I wiU only here say that any village, no matter of what form, so long as it is shared on some plan other than the ancestral system, or is held in severalty, is called ihaiachard, depriving the term of all meaning except the negative one that it is Tioipattiddr'i. THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 247 serve to show tlie way iu whicli the clans are divided. The Yusufzai country had become the ' heritage ' of four sons of one Mandanr.' If we accept the first genealogy, it would be supposed that these four sons would be the heads of four clans. But as a matter of tribal arrangement, the clans actually recog- nised are five, as we perceive from there being five tappa, or clan-territories. No twppd is called after Manno, the eldest son, but no less than four of the tappa are allotted to his four grand- sons (the sons of Utman and Usman), while only one tappd is called after Razr, and that represents not only Razr but also his two brothers. It is curious that the supposed son Manno should be effaced entirely by a number of grandsons ; and that there should be only one clan-area among the remaining three sons together. I feel sure that the real origin of this was the different mothers, and the probable disparity of their rank. In » Pesluaaar S. li. §§ 199 and 226 ff. The ' tree ' is given thus :— Mandanr 1 Makno 1 1 Eaze 1 1 Khize 1 1 Mahmud 1 1 Utman 1 Usman 1 1 1 four sons 1 four sons i 1 three sons 1 all in one tappd (5) 1 Utman Tappa (1) 1 1 Sado Kamal r. (2) T. (3) J Amin Another genealogy, which seems much hetter to justify the actual territorial allotment to the several branches, is also referred to (S. E. note to p. 92). Mandanr By a regular marriage I I UTM.iN Usman L L_ By a slave-gu'l Eazr Khizr Mahmdd and two others put down as Utman Sado Kamal Amfin (by 1st (by 2nd | wife) wife) Ako, &c. sons sons sons of Razr in the above table Tappd Tappd Tappd Tappd ■(1) '(2) ■ (3) '(4) all in one (5) tappd 248 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY this tribe, too, the custom of parunai-vesh prevails — i.e. that all the sons of one wife, however many, share with those of another, who may be fewer, per stirpes. There is also the possibility that in some cases the grandson was more distinguished in war or otherwise, and so may have supplanted the father. Thus the two sons of Utman, besides being separated (owing to the different mothers), are each given the dignit}' of a whole tappd, whereas normally they would have shared one between them. However that may be, the tappd divisions actually stand : — 1. TappaUtmanzui 1 gons of Utman 1 These two are grandsons •2. „ Sadozai^ ) \ (or more probably sons) 4. ;; xZ."Si}so"«ofUsMANj of the founder 5. „ Bazr Baze and other sons of founder (together) Thus the whole 'ilaqa is first divided into tappd. Next, some of the tappd are divided into intermediate areas for which no distinctive designation is provided ; they are spoken of as dxiftar, which means any group of lands in general, but the local name still ends with -zdi, as if the}- were ' sah-tappd.' This intermediate division is due to the separation of the groups of offspring from different wives — e.q. Tappd Kamdkdi is so divided : the terms Mishr-rdnuai and Kishr-runlzdi merely mean ' of the elder (Mishr') queen (rdiii) ' and ' of the younger or lesser (Kishr).' The Razr division is a very large one, and is subdivided for another reason, because it includes several brothers of Razr (or perhaps they are his sons.) ' \ diagram will make this plain ; it of course has no preten- sions to represent any geographical fact, or the relative size of the different divisions ; it is literally a diagram. The word, or rather termination, ~zdi is derived from the Pashtu -zoe and means ' son ' ; while Mel is the Arabic word meaning ' group ' or ' company.' It is said that these terms are used ' indifferently for the larger and smaller divisions.' ^ ' These are also marked by the termination -ziii. In one case it appears to be -Wiel, but I am not sure that the personal name was not AlioJihel. ' Tribal Laio in the Panjab (Roe and Eattigan . Lahore 1895), p. 4. THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 249 diagiia:mmatic illusteation of the "ILAQAofMANDANR Descendants of UTMAN " " of USMAN •f n of XV^Zxi \ and his brothers j N. B. — Each of the divisions shown above is again divided into Vhel : e.g. T. Utmanzai is divided into forty-one such, of which four are occu- pied by hamsiiya (colonies of other tribes). 250 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY But I venture to think that though in practice this may be so to a considerable extent, there is more properly a difference, and that -zai indicates the larger groups from one of the ' sons,' or first main branches in the table of descent, and Tfhel the secondary branches. If that is so, then the 'ildqa may be indicated as the tribal area ; the tappa marks the greater clan ; the ' sub- tappd ' (or territory with the name-termination -zai) also marks an intermediate division large enough to be called a sub- clan ; ' while Miel is the still considerable group, the minor- clan or ' wider-kindred.' For the examples seem to indicate that the Me/ is too large to consist of only the immediate relatives within seven degrees (or some similar limit) ; the sab-sections of the Miel correspond better to the ' close- kindred.' As regards sharing the land, the tribal or clan authorities appear to have effected only the main (or primary and secondary) allotments of territories and sub-territories. Apparently the hhel groups arranged themselves as they pleased. But about this I am doubtful. However the hhek may have been allotted, it is usually the case that each has a considerable area; and it depends on circumstances whether there is one village-group, with its one residence for all its households, or whether separate hamlets are formed, or both. In any case, the principal temtorial areas were made large enouorh to accommodate all the then existing descendants — i.e. to give everyone a sJiare on one or other of two principles, (a) that of counting every head (man, woman, and child), and giving to each existing household the number of equal shares it con- tained, without respect to gradation ; or (b) that of regarding the table of descent, and giving larger or smaller shares, according to the number and degree of the existing kindred ; - though whether this sharing according to grade is carried out all through is not so clear. It very often happens that the individual shares are made up of separate specimen strips of each kind of soil, scattered through the whole tappd or dafta/r of a subdivision group. In ' And often separated because of the difference of mothers — first wife and second wife, or perhaps legitimate wife and inferior. - Cf. H. E. Seebohm, Tribal Society in Greece, pp. 65, 66. THE TRIBE AND THE TILLAGE 251 that case compact areas for further subdivisions of the bodjr are impossible. The collections of families that cohere from some general rule of wider-kindred form the hhel ; and many tappds are at once divided (on j;he ground) into a correaponding number of M^l areas. As these are large and contain much waste, when the families expand, new hamlets are started, more land is broken up, and in time the hamlets gi-ow into independ- ence ; and thus a MeZ splits up into a series of what are more like ordinary ' mauza.' In some cases no subordinate divisions of the land en bloc occur, but the whole ta^rpcl (or even the whole 'ildqa) is at once allotted into a great number of single or household shares. In others, on the contrary, there are so many sub-sub-divisions (if I may so say) that the Kevenue authorities are obliged to club several together to get a manageable unit of assessment and general control. The materials for illustrating these frontier tribal settle- ments have been in part collected, and accompanied by interest- ing remarks, by Mr. C. L. Tupper.' And there are also some further Settlement Eeports now in print and available for direct quotation. I shall select typical instances from the frontier districts of Hazara, Peshawar, Kohat and Bannii, and the more westerly districts (which also extend further southwards) of Dera-Ismail-Khan and Dera-Ghazi-Khan. In none of these do we find that the definition of small or limited village-areas, as such, is part of the tribal procedure of location or allotment ; where they have come to exist, it is under later influences. We find that procedure essentially confined to the major-groups and sub-groups ; and then attention is paid to the actual unit shares. Everywhere the people exhibit their sense of the natural aggrega- tion, up to a certain limit, of kindreds ; they also show the strong influence of the feeling that the superior right of the clan or clan- division to the whole area is unquestionable ; and that every mem- ber of the clan has aright to his due share of the territory won by ^ Pavjith Customary Law. Especially in voL ii. ; and as regards the custom of redistributing periodically the several shares, in part ii. of vol. iii. But some Settlement Eeports have since been printed. It is only necessary to remark that Mr. Tupper throughout uses the term bJiaiacliara in its official sense, including all kinds of villages which are not on the pattiddr't principle, or held by sole landlords. 252 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY the common exertions of the group. The shares are, as a rule, divided out from the very first ; only the grazing land or the waste is left in common. More rarely, part of the arable land is also left undivided, though thq shares are known. The custom of exchanging holdings (where it was applied) must have tended to keep up the feeling of a sort of general clan ownership, which, however, was not inconsistent with inde- pendent right to the household share. The exchange was, in fact, evidently invented to secure equality. Tlie joint respon- sibility for taxes, &c., is accepted by the whole lihel, but not, so far as I know, by any larger group united. The Hazara district is occupied by clans who for the most part do not date back, in their present location, beyond the eighteenth century ; they drove out or subordinated the weaker families whom they found in the country. ' The right thus asserted or acquired,' writes the late Colonel Wace, ' by the strong over the weak was popularly termed wirdsat or vnrsa ; and its possessor was called wdris (Angl. heir). In fact, as stated by Major J. Abbott in some notes left by him, the wdris is the last conqueror.' ' In the centre of the district are four Hldqa — (a) Mangal, which was the joint holding of two clans or groups, Mansur and Hasazai ; (h) Nawashahr was the holding of the Mansur alone ; (c) Dhamtaur of the Hasazai alone ; (d) Eajoya of the Salar. All were subdivided into groups which afterwards served to form villages. The status was much dis- turbed under the Sikh rule, and several of the villages have fallen into the hands of ' a motley gathering of occupants of all classes.' A periodical redistribution of shares was formerly the custom. But the Peshawar district much more completely illustrates our point. ' The main divisions or tribes ^ have each a separate tract of country generally known by the name of the tribe 1 See ante, p. 210, as to the use of these terms of Arabic origin. Among the frontier tribes, being Moslem, the use is not surprising. Mr. Tapper compares the Geer/few (inhabitants of the village) under the old Germanic law and the Hrfgenamnen in the Saxon provinces of the Low Countries, who were the people in the ' mark ' who possessed a whare or share in the tribal ' inheritance.' « Captain Hasting's S. B. 1874, p. 84 fE. THE TRJBE AND THE TILLAGE 253 now or originally occupying it ; for instance, . . . the tapjjcl Mohmand. ... In each main tribe there are groups of families or branches of the tribe which, owing to their numbers or close coherence, have become distinct subdivisions.' ' The traditionary origin of the territorial position is simple. A certain chief — Shekh Mali — made a taqsim, or partition of the whole country, which commenced with the counting up of the requisite number of shares to provide one for every separate man, woman, and child in the tribe. According to the total numbers so obtained for each main subdivision, suitable areas were marked out. The allotments of general territory were apparently only roughly discriminative of soil qualities. Thus in the Yusufzai country the main divisions were for the branches of Mandanr's de- scendants (they were a Yusufzai tribe) : ^ each got part of its territory in the hill country, part in the level. As a matter of fact, the people themselves afterwards altered this, and the Mandanr branches came to hold the whole of the plain country. The areas were taken by drawing lots. The chiefs partition went no further than the main divisions or subdivisions ; ^ nothing was said about ' villages ' or Idiel inside the territories. I have, already discussed the formation of the first great divisions ; now we shall see how the further division comes about. An actual case will best illustrate what was done. The Yusufzai country is dependent on rainfall for its tillage, and a special internal allotment of the tapija was adopted. The people themselves divided the tappds into M,el. From the records I notice that many of the Ichel areas contain each a more central group with its site for residence, and also several sub- sidiary (separately named) hamlets. Some ' hamlets ' consist of a group of holdings on some peculiar kind of soil, as they are distinguished by the description sJwlgira (=rice growing) or inalra (ordinary dry loam). In the Muhammadzai tappa in the neighbouring Hashtnagar tract, there is a regular subdivision into eight large lihel, each having a central residence group and several hamlets. ' See p. 237, am.te. The allusion is to the sub-tappd, or intermediat-e division of the first great blocks. ' This is the 'ildqa of which a diagram is given, ' As in the diagram on p. 249. 254: THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY Another mode of division appears among the Gigiani clan or tribe. They first of all made their wJwle area into thirty-six allotments called haiidi (the word we shall meet with again but not necessarily in the same sense). Each handi is a mere local area adopted for division purposes, and doubtless for distinguish- ing the different kinds of soil. Each should contain one hundred individual and equal shares. Then the khel groups of families were provided for, either by their taking one or more whole kandiia the extent of the number of single shares their counting demanded, or else taking the due number of shares scattered through several Icandi. Next as to the internal arrangements of the M,els inside the tappd. It will be observed that, whatever the size of the M.el and the number of households composing it, the group may again have some further subdivision. Regarded as a group of families, it is subdivided into handi (all households in the lamdi have the same patronymic),' and sometimes the Icaiidi are divided once more into thai, before we come to the (perhaps numerous) single households. Just as the Msl group has a chief called Tnalik,^ so each ka-ndi has its malik. And the Immdi tend to set up separate residence-sites, each with its own little prayer-mosque, and its hujra, or guest house, in which, by the way, all the unmarried youth of the section sleep together. The land of the handi or of the thai group always includes as many bdkhrd, or hrdJchd ( = shares), as there are hidividuals in it.^ If the arable land to be allotted into shares is variable in ^ This, I presume, malies the handi a ' close-kindred,' like the Welsh wele ; and if it happens to be very large, or for some special convenience, it may be again divided into thai (Captain Hastings writes tal), just as the wele might be divided into gavell. ^ The clan-chief is Khan, sometimes with the Arabic title of Arbah. The next major-division chief is also Khan. ' The individual share is sometimes locally pacha, and not hCMira. The S. H. does not explain what the difference is. But, referring to the Tfhel of the Muhammadzai tappd in Hashtnagar above alluded to, I notice that the four northern hhel are divided into 6,000 pucha, while the other four are composed of 480 bdJchrd. It must be remembered that with these final shares the numbers are counted often to suit the clumsy methods of division where any system of vulgar or other fractions is unknown. THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 2 5 5 quality, the clan authorities will arrange a number of circles or series, called vand, consisting of the ' good,' ' middling,' ' indiffer- ent ' soils, or distinguished in some other way. Then the gi'oups of sharers will have to take their lands partly out of each series. Where the land depends on irrigation, this scattering of holdings over several soil-divisions is not observed. But in any case, in spite of the soil-classification, inequality in the holdings is not altogether eliminated. So a system of periodical exchange or redistribution (vesli) was long followed. Indeed, at first, the entire tappd divisions were exchanged. But this general ex- change must have proved so inconvenient that it was naturally the first to fall into disuse.' The exchange of single holdings also gradually ceased when the effects of years of individual labour and cultivating skill began to tell, and individuals became at- tached to their fields; and when, moreover, a long period of peace made settled possession more natural. The ' village ' areas, regarded as smaller groups within the MeZ, are thus brought about by the gradual action of circumstances ; but the tribal- grouping of families and the recognition of different degrees of kindred is really what originates it. The Ithel groups are sufficiently distinct to attract to them- selves the usual local staff" of village hereditary servants and menials,^ or more than one according to size and subdivision. The Peshawar S, R. notices the weaver, potter, carpenter, black- smith, cotton-cleaner, sweeper and grave-digger, barber, ballad singer (BUm),^ and a Hindu dlui'i-wai, or grain-weighman. There is always an imam, or priest, for the mosque, and some menials still called ghuldm, or ' slave,' descendants of former captives in war or of purchased slaves in old days. These menial and artisan classes always intermarry with their own caste ; they ' trace no origin, nor are they able to call themselves of any tribe or clan.' * They are often remunerated by small holdings of rent-free land.* Eveiy hhel has it jirgx, or council of elders ' S. jB. §§ 201, 202. ^ Cf. p. 16, ante. ' S. iJ. § 29. May it be that this Diim caste indicates by its name an origin from the Dom — one of the ' aboriginal ' hiU tribes ? •* Ibid. §§ 211, 212. = In Yusufzai there are some 75,000 Gujar herdsmen, whom the late THE TEIBE AND THE VILLAGE 255 qualit}-, the clan authorities will an-ange a number of circles or series, called vaTuL, consisting of the ' good,' ' middling,' ' indiffer- ent ' soils, or distinguished in some other way. Then the groups of sharers will have to take their lands partly out of each series. Where the land depends on irrigation, this scattering of holdings over several soil-divisions is not observed. But in any case, in spite of the soil-classification, inequality in the holdings is not altogether eliminated. So a system of periodical exchange or redistribution (vesli) was long followed. Indeed, at first, the entire tappd divisions were exchanged. But this general ex- change must have proved so inconvenient that it was naturally the first to fall into disuse.' The exchange of single holdings also gradually ceased when the effects of years of individual labour and cultivating skill began to tell, and individuals became at- tached to their fields j and when, moreover, a long period of peace made settled possession more natural. The ' village ' areas, regarded as smaller groups within the MeZ. are thus brought about by the gradual action of circumstances ; but the tribal- grouping of families and the recognition of different degrees of kindred is really what originates it. The Wbel groups are sufficiently distinct to attract to them- selves the usual local staff of village hereditary servants and menials,^ or more than one according to size and subdivision. The PesliCiwar 8. R. notices the weaver, potter, carpenter, black- smith, cotton-cleaner, sweeper and grave-digger, barber, ballad singer (DUm)^ and a Hindu dha/nodi, or grain-weighman. There is always an imam, or priest, for the mosque, and some menials still called (fhula/m, or ' slave,' descendants of former captives in war or of purchased slaves in old days. These menial and artisan classes always intermarry with their own caste ; they ' trace no origin, nor are they able to call themselves of any tribe or clan.' * They are often remunerated by small holdings of rent-free land.^ Every Tdiel has it jirgx,, or council of elders ' S. B. §§ 201, 202. " Cf. p. 16, ante. ' 5. iJ. § 29. May it be that this Dum caste indicates by its name an origin from the Dom — one of the ' aboriginal ' hill tribes ? * Ibid. §§ 211, 212. ' In Yusufzai there are some 75,000 Gujar herdsmen, whom the late THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 257 change was also customary. The word vesh is here, as often elsewhere, applied both to the process of the exchange itself and to the recognised series of areas of different soil-character ac- cording to which the holdings are made up. The exchange is here mthin the Miel only ; first one entire sub-section exchanges with another, and then the families within the sab-section exchange among themselves. But the most important point to notice is, that lots or household-holdings are not here assigned, as they are in Peshawar, by Jchuldvesh, or counting up every head in the clan or in the Ichel ; at least, that rule only applies to some parts. Here a standard, number of shares for each section and sub-section is maintained, whether the actual households are, afterwards, more or less.' The custom of periodic exchange lasted here for a long time, and is not yet entirely extinct. In Upper Miranzai it was not possible, on this account, at the first Revenue Settlement, to make field maps for the villages ; but the Report of the last Settlement notes that the desire of the holders to reap the benefits of their own labour and improvements has tended to put an end to the custom. In this district, too, there was a custom of having certain qahza (=possession) lands which were 1 Kohat S. B. § 183. The principle of ancestral shares, as com- pared with the yhulavesh, or equal shares ^er capita, is easily illustrated. Suppose a Tta/niU, or sub-section of a hhel, called after an ancestor X. His three sons, A, B, C, represent the thai, and a, b, c, d, e, f are the individual sharers. X ABC I \ _L T I \ ^1 i I a bed e f Let us suppose that the kandi owns a standard number (sixty) of the shares as originally constituted. Each thai would then have twenty shares. On the death of A, his one son a would inherit the whole twenty ; the three sons of B would get B's twenty shares between them, or six and two-third shares each. If after the death of A, B, and a redistribution were made on the hhuldvesh system, a would not get the whole twenty shares of A, and so on ; each one of the sharers a — •/, would have an equal proportion of the whole — i.e. ten shares each. S 258 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY held permanently, on what grounds is not stated, and excluded from the lands subject to the customary periodical exchange.' Both in Peshawar and in Kohat there are special rules for sharing the water of streams used for irrigation. Space prevents me &om going into the details, but the rules serve to emphasise the way in which the lands are grouped, and show clearly the division of Miel into handi and thai. There is a water channel for the whole Mei, and this branches but into distributories for . each Tcandi, and then again into channels for. each thai. Within the thai, the i fields, or plots ridged to retain the water, are made . of the same number as the hdkhrd, or individual shares included in the thai. It will . ;be observed that this system of fixed fractional-shares of a given total, which is adhered to all through the grades of descent, is in principle very like the pattiddriy of which the typical foriii occurs in the case of the village; derived from an individual founder. And the. system was further maintained by the' fact that, the irrigated land being alone regarded, and being of equal value throughout, the shares of the Government revenue; were, without injustice, fractions corresponding to the water-share fraction. In former days, if anyone casually cultivated some of the unirrigated land, there being no map, notice was not taken of it; payment was made according to, the strictly kept shares in the ciM or irrigated land. But under ;more modern arrangements this area of appropriated unirrigated land comes undfer ^ measurement, and it is then discovered that one sharer holds, and has perhaps made profitable, a good deal more land than another; under these circumstances, an adjustment will probably be called for, and payment distributed according to the acreage actually held. In; the district of Bannu there are four distinct clans. We will ' notice that called the Bannuchi, who settled about five hundred years ago. Here we see that, as so often observable, the ancestral division of the clan guides the distribution of the land-shares up to a certain point only — i.e. the termination of the ■ original close^kindred. The clan is divided into main . ' This seems to resemble the hooland of the Anglo-Saxon tenures — land held by some special title outside the usual or old customary folk- tenure. See Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 81, and the reference to Lodge's Essays on Anglo-Saxon Lom) in the note. THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 259 sections, and tliese into sub-sections, all families in the latter having a common patronymic' ' The traditional accounts of the Bannuchi,' says the Settlement Officer, ' respecting the original division of the country among themselves on ancestral shares, and the sub-sectional apportionment of land and water within the limits of each main sliare, in proportion to the amount of canal excavation work done, are in all probability true.' Here, as a rule, there is no vesh or exchange : it would not suit a state of things where each holding is permanently created by means of its channel for watering. It is interesting to notice that another clan, the Niazai, came to their location (in the 'Isakhel Tahsil or sub-district) in alliance with some Jat clan, and that on apportioning the territory they gave the Jats an Hldqa, such as they had for themselves. Both clans made their main division on ancestral lines ; here the first division of the Hldqa is tal, or thai) ; that is again subdivided into darra, and that into single shares or lich. Among the Waziri it is worth while noting how some of their territories are said, euphemistically, to have be«n ' acquired by purchase.' ^ They have no general custom of exchange ; but in certain families the entire holding is redistributed, not after fixed periods, bat occasionally — perhaps on the death of some leading member or head of a household, by means of a temporary partition.' In the Marwat country we have another example in the Marwat clan (a branch of the Niazai, but coming to the district at a later period), where the periodical redistribution is either still practised or has only recently been given up. Here the rule of providing a share per capita throughout the clan prevails.* 1 Bannu 8. B. § 128, p. 123. ^ Ibid. § 129. ' The fiction of sale seems to have been invented at some time after the seizure of the land in order to save the honour of the weaker side, and enable spoiler and spoiled to live together in peace.' ' This, it wiU be remembered, was the custom of the Welsh tribes ; the final partition was only made among the second cousins of the wele group when the father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all dead. * S. B. § 13G. This is spoken of as a ' commimal ' or collective form of tenure because of the periodic reallotment; and in Panji'ib Customary Lcm, ii. 22, Mr. Tupper speaks of the tribe holding its s 2 :^60 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY In the Uera Ismail Khan district, along the West frontier, we find quite a notable variety of tribes with somewhat different customs ; most of which tend to show how little the village, as a separately defined group of land-holdings, still less as any kind of unit of property, has to do with the organisation of the tribal stage. The country, too, is physically diversified ; there is a wide tract on the edge of the Western hills (Damdii),^ where the cultivation is carried on in terraced and embanked fields moistened by the mountain streams or springs. There is also the light-soiled, open country of low hills between Shekh-Budin and the Indus River, partly cultivated by aid of hill streams, partly depending on rainfall. There is also some flat alluvial land along the river ; and, lastly, the inland tract of dry land par- taking of the desert character of the South Panjab. In this district, too, we find instances of villages where a landlord family {'aid mdlilc) has obtained the superiority over the actual soil- owners (acbia mdlilc). This is, however, beyond our immediate object. Among the instances of claiis occupying distinct tracts, we have the interesting case of a large area in the Daman, some forty miles long by twelve to sixteen broad, colonised within the present century by a tribe of Bhitani.^ The clan has divided into three main territorial groups. It is here noted that the residence-sites are small clusters of mean cottages and huts, hidden away in hollows ; and that caves in the rock are often used as dwellings. The cluster of such dwellings is called kirn ; in the level country a Mr>-i will contain the dwellings of 'ilaqa 'jointly.' I am unable to see here or elsewhere any real 'com- mtmal ' ownership. Nor do I know of the smallest piece of evidence of a frontier tribe holding jointly for a time even. The whole plan seems to consist ia an immediate several allotment of major and minor shares. "Where these depend on the individual labour and expense of providing canal irrigation, the allotment is permanent ; otherwise it is first made as equal as possible, and a redistribution is provided for with the evident object of quieting jealousies, and preventing the stereotyping of inequalities in the holdings. ' Mr. H. St.-G. Tucker always writes the word with the final a long ; I imagine the word to be the Persian daman, meaning ' skirt ' of the hills. Perhaps this is a dialectic variation. I have followed the printed Report. 2 S. B. D. I. Khan, 1884, § 250. THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 261 families belonging to different share groups. Each clan-territoiy is here divided into a large number of (usually compact) plots, called nala. Each ndla is held by a 'number of families generally closely connected by birth.' • Within the Tiala, each individual family or household seems to have no defined or allotted share, but each took what land its numbers or means of tillage suggested ; and some land usually remained undivided for future occupation when required, and meanwhile for the common grazing. When there is water for irrigation, there is a rude arrangement about ' turns ' in taking the water. Still within the Daman region, the Gumal Valley tenures only call for notice on the point that here the rice-lands are cultivated jointly ; but the practice has nothing whatever to do with any idea of common ownership ; it is merely for convenience, first, because the money is thus raised to pay the autumn (kharif) instalment of the land-revenue ; and next, because this ' strengthens ' or prepares the land for the spring crop, which is managed entirely by the separate owners. The Kundi tribe, also in the Daman, demands a passing notice. Its land is held in two large ' villages,' and lies in two portions, north and south of a stream, and distinguished as the Nikanni and Pradu lands respectively. In the Nikanni the whole area is divided perr capita — i.e. into a number of equal (single) shares or daddl, one being allowed for every man, woman, and child ; the hold- ing of them was formerly subject to periodical exchange ; and the last occurred, among the Amakhel division, in 1852.^ The Pradu lands seem either never to have been so treated, or to have been variously acquired by purchase ' or otherwise ' in separate holdings. But the most interesting tribes are those of Pathan origin in the northern part of the Tahsils, D. I. Khan, and Kulaiichi. ' It is worth while noting, as showing how admrnistrative arrange- ments may affect forms of tenure, that at the ' summary ' or preliminarv Settlement every ndla was treated as a separate mcmza, or survey village. But this proved inconvenient ; for the ndla are sometimes small, as might be expected from the variety of numbers in each ' close-kindred.' So now each entire clan area is treated as a single large tillage; and, as above noticed, they are three in number — Dhanna, Tatta, and Wraspiin. "- 8. S. § 267. 262 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY The Gundapur tribe occupy a territory, here called had ( = boun- dary), of 462 square miles. The tribe have associated strangers with themselves from time to time ; and now all are, by a fiction, supposed to be of the same descent. They are divided into six larger sections, or nala} In some luila, all the sharers have the same patronymic, in others there are several groups. Exchange of holdings once existed, but has died out. The original settle- ment of the tribe, then in a smaller number, was at a village called Rori, which, being dependent on irrigation from a permanent stream, was divided out for the first settlers into so many hasha (=water cuts).^ The shares are now 352 in number ; they have lost their original owners, having been gradually bought up by the Khans, or chiefs of major-sections. The rest of the tribal territory is watered by hill torrents.^ This is Thot divided into separate larger groups corresponding to the six tribal iidla, but at once into 36,000 daddl, or single shares. Each of the six tribal ndla above mentioned owns 6,000 of these ' The hereditary chiefship is properly ia the ndla called Brahimzai ; but, as this group suffered defeat some 200 years ago, the right was trans- ferred to the Hamranzai (S. B. § 275). ' It appears to me from the remarks in § 278 that originally the rights in the Bori irrigated portion were solely rights of water ; the soil seems hardly to have been allotted or regarded as property at all, except as far as each year's cultivation required ; for in order to allow of fahows the water was taken to one part one year and to another the next. Now that the shares have passed by sale into the hands of chiefs, the cultiva- tion is done by tenants ; and, the area to be cultivated as a whole for the year being arranged, the land is divided into strips for as many ' tenants ' as are counted, and a corresponding water supply is given to each. The owners distribute the whole of their rent-receipts from the entire area, according to the water-shares. ' This is called daga/r cultivation; the water, which ocoasionaUy rushes down the dry beds diuring the rainy season, is let on to the em- banked field and allowed to soak in. There is a good accoimt of it by Mr. Yates, M.I.C.E., in Joti/rn. 8oc. Arts, June 1895, xliii. 702. The embankment is raised from three to ten feet high, and is made by aid of bullocks and a short stout board ; as soon as one field is filled with water, the stream passes on to the next. Sometimes two soakings are given, but the soil, moistened by the gradual percolation of the mass of water, raises the crop. Kdldpdnl ( = black water) irrigation is from apermanent clear or dark stream, as opposed to the muddy silt-laden and purely tem- porary rush of the torrents formed by rain on the hillside (dagar). THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 263 sliai'es. And there may be recognised divisions holding, say, 2,000 shares, and then further subdivisions.' A large part of the territory was actually divided out ; but one part is not. This I regard as instructive, for it throws light on the question of the supposed prior ' joint-holding ' by clans and sections, and which appears to me to be more or less imaginary. On one occasion, the tribe was pressed for money (in a time of war with the neighbouring Mlankhel tribe). Ordinarily, whatever was needed was raised by a levy of so much per share or duddl held. Under the necessity for full and punctual payment, it was agreed to set apart a certain territory south of a certain stream, and called the Pradu tract, in which everyone who failed to pay should lose his shares aiul transfer them to the person who paid on his behalf. Thus many tribesmen, besides their proper shares in the other divided area, have acquired special numbers of shares in the Pradu. Whether owing to this cause or to some other, several ' large villages ' in the Pradu are still held un- divided ; so that the tribesmen are all entitled each to ■i^lt^ti share in them; and these undivided lands are called tivmmani (^tumdnl ?) or ' tribal ' lands. The report contains no informa- tion as to how these ' tribal ' lands are actually cultivated and enjoyed. There is no suggestion that the produce is thrown into a common stock and divided afterwards, or that the proceeds are taken to pay part of the land-revenue. Even if we can speak of this very exceptional area as held ' in common,' it is so under circumstances that can hardly entitle us to take it as a sample of an eanrlier andj general method of tribal-holding. But whatever the true facts may be, the landed rights of tribesmen must be somewhat complex. Thus a man may have his own divided share in his own nala ; also some share by transfer in the Pradu, some shares which have come to him by purchase or inheritance, and some share in the ' tribal ' land ; ^ As the Gundapur had no knowledge of ' vulgar fractions,' they had an awkward system of altering the shares, while always keeping the memory of the real number. If, for instance, a section with 2,000 daddl was grouped into 7 equal sub-sections, as the 2,000 will not divide exactly by 7, they altered it to 700 Tcaccu daddl, so as to give each 100, which were equal to 285f real shares. This detaO can, however, be further seen in § 278 of the S. B. 264 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY and as ' in each case the lands in which they acquire these com- plicated rights are scattered over a tract of country 400 square miles in extent, it may well be believed that it is almost impos- sible even for an intelligent Gundapur to grasp thoroughly the nature and extent of his proprietary rights.' ' The Miankhel tribe (with whom the Gundapur were men- tioned as having been at war) have two large clan-territories, called Draban and Musazai. They would require no particular notice here but for the fact that the tribesmen are not cultivat- ing possessors but landlords living in towns, and leaving the lands to be managed by Jat and other tenants, who form their own villages and groups, having nothing to do with the tribal arrangements of the owners. The Draban lands are either irri- gated (ndlrn) or 'dry' (manMt). The territory of the former kind is divided into 77 '■ water-shares,' called iiala — i.e. water- course ; the latter is divided into 80 shares, called ivMn. These shares occur as blocks scattered over the area as a whole ; and each clan-section may own several such. Every section will have some irrigated and some dry land, each dependent on its own principle of division. But once more we find certain lands (here called icaiida,) held as ' hocland ' outside the customary share system. The Musazai lands are somewhat similarly held, except that the irrigated la^ids are not divided ; the shares in the luater here form the basis of right. A certain area, fit to be cultivated, is selected for the year, and the parts of it to be taken up by each section or group of the water-sharers are settled by lot. The sections are called hillt, and each contains so many dharra, or single shares (water-shares). The last instance I can give is that of the comparatively civilised tribe of Babar. They can all read and write.^ Those living in the plains number about one thousand. ' They are very democratic, and exceedingly jealous of any member of the tribe trying to exercise authority over them.' They are divided into two main sections — Mahsand and Glim-dJchel. MaJisarid forms four sub-sections, and GhordJchel eight. The former hold four Mil, or sectional shares, and the latter eight nimaklia, or half-shares ; some of the land is dependent on rain, ' S. B. § 279. - Ibid. § 315. THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 265 and some on Icdlapdnl ' irrigation. But these shares will be subdivided differently, according as they refer to the land or to the irrigation water. Thus, as regards land, each bull and each pair of nimalcha, being half-shares and treated in pairs, are sub- divided into equal lots Qchuld) for every head in the tribe. But the same shares, treated in terms of water, are different ; the water-shares of each member, which are not necessarily equal are counted in ' rupees, a')ut,, and tat.' The Inlll, &c., regarded as a group of men, is subdivided into gundi, a term, I take it, cog- nate with the Jcandi above mentioned ; and the total numbers of lots, for the whole of the gundi of the several hull and nlmahlca, is at present 1,721 ; the number actually held in each section and sub-section varies. The land of each is not in one place, but scattered about. Some of the groups still hold their shares jointly among their own members, who are relatives. The water- shares are worked in complete independence of the land-shares ; the owners select each year the area which can be conveniently watered, just as if the kuid had no known owners or sharers at all ; the land-share is, in fact, in abeyance as long as the irri- gated cultivation lasts. The southernmost frontier district of Dera Ghazi Khan partakes more of the nature of the desert country in the South Panjab, and the physical conditions under which cultivation is possible affect the forms of tenure.^ In the Sindh lands (those near the river), and in the level plain, the tendency is to establish separate ' wells,' or homesteads irrigated by a small cut taken from the river ; and the right in land depends on the labour and money expended on making the area cultur- able. Here also we find that over-lord families Qald malik\ have won established rights over certain had, or areas of country, and take a variety of rents and dues from the cultivators and ' inferior proprietors ' ; with these matters we are not now con- cerned. In the Pachad country — a tract with light dry soil and low hilly contour, skirting the Sulaiman Range — we have once more the tribal system. Here, too, the cultivation is in embanked ' I have explained hrddpani in a note at p. 262, amte. " See p. 65, ante. 26G THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUXITY fields watered by occasionally flowing liill streams or torrents.' Tradition points to the tribal land having been originally divided out by the chief (twmdnjJo.r) of the tribe.- ' Each member has held his lands ever since in complete independence.' It is inter- esting to notice the indications of ideas of right in land, as enshrined in certain common local t«rms. Thus land held on the tribal-shares is called pat-cir ; and a share acquired by gift among a number who hare combined to provide irrigation for new land is called dak. In the country of wells, a plot acquired in virtue of sinking the well is called sil = brick — i.e. title derived from the structure. So we have the rather ominous tenure of gliasah, or land obtained by forcible seizure ; and there are some others. Section III. — Cla>-- Villages and ' Cultivating Prateknities' in Upper India The tribal-settlements just described are quite unique in their peculiarities. Nothing exactly like them is found else- where in India. Nevertheless, we can see that certain features of the tribal organisation — the separate areas of clan sand sec- tions, the desire for equality, and the general tendency to adopt a distribution of shares I'er capita, at least after certain main divisions based on the original ancestral descent are passed — these features reappear in all tribal and clan settlements as far as the h/nd, is concerned, though with local variations. The distinction also between the close-kindred and the wide, or more extended, kindred, as regards the groups forming villages or forming the clan-population of larger areas, is an equally universal feature of the tribal-stage. We have therefore to include within a general class of ' tribal- or clan-villages ' a great manj- more besides those specialised as the ' frontier clan- villages.' But we shall expect to find the best instances of such villages among the tribes of Upper India, in the plains of the Panjab, in the North-West Provinces, and in Oudh. As a matterof fact, we areable to gather a number of examples from the ' Fryer's 8. B. p. 77, and see note at p. 262, ante, regarding dagar cultivation. - Among Biliichis, Tuman is the tribe. THE TKIBE AND THE VILLAGE 267 less familiar tribes, Ghakar, Awan, and the like, in tlie Panjab ; and again, as connected with non-monarchical Aryan clans, and with Jats and Gujars, both in the Panjab and beyond it. In the first place we frequently come upon groups of villages (and some- times large areas which have only recently broken up into vil- lages) distinguished by bearing the designation of tappd, Hlcuja, &c., and we usually find them to be held by groups of families of one clan. But though some of these groups are not more than, say, two to five hundred years old, and others date back as far as that re-disti'ibution of Aryan settlements of which we have spoken,' many are still old enough to make it doubtful what was the original method of their formation. On the Panjab frontier we had no doubt about the settlement representing a clan already formed as such. In the cases which we are now to consider, some may doubtless be recognised as coming under the same head. But in the majority of cases it is evident, or at least is probable, that though now there is a clan occupying a contiguous area, the origin was in a small family — perhaps no more than one or two brothers with their sons and some followers, who, finding a wide area of land at their disposal, managed to retain possession of the whole, and have now filled it with the multi- plied families of their descendants, in such numbers, and retain- ing such a general connection, as to form a clan. In these cases it is very likely that the areas covered by the holdings were only called Hlaqa, tappd, &c., at a later period, and possibly for the first time by the Mughal Revenue-oflScers. I do not think it possible to separate the two cases completely ; and an incomplete attempt to separate them would be worse than frankly taking them together as they come, and leaving the reader to see which origin he thinks most probable in each instance. This difficulty is regrettable, becaiuse there may very probably be some difference between the manner in which a clan ready made, so to speak — having its branches and kindred already complete — will occupy and allot a conquered territory, and that in which the gradually growing houses and kindreds will spread over it. But in both cases there is one thing that separates such settlements from purely individual foundations, at least in the greater number of instances. They always exhibit some ^ Page 121, cmte. 268 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUXITV traces of clan union throughout the area, and rarely or never follow the pattlddri principle .of sharing: many of them also exhibit a peculiarity in the mode of allotting the land equally, and of valuing the several holdings for the equal dis- tribution of burdens and charges. In these cases we have no evidence of any custom of redistributing or periodically exchang- ing the holdings ; indeed, in the case of a clan gradually growing up on the spot, it would not be likely. We have a small settlement at first, and, as each new family grows up, the additional land requisite for its support is allotted, or perhaps is simply taken up out of the general area without any formal process whatever, and without reference to fractional rights, only to numbers and actual requirements. The whole area gradually becomes covered by the household holdings, within the original main divisions. Naturally, then, the later formed holdings would not be exchanged with the older. There is, indeed, one other case in which villages may appear to constitute a clan-settlement, when really there is nothing of clan-sentiment in the tenure. It is when a Rajput, ■or similar rulership, has gone to pieces, and the members of the defeated family and its relatives have managed to cling to a suflScient number of holdings, all pi-etty close together locally ; and so now, having multiplied into village groups, they may suggest a clan origin. Should such an origin be true in any case, however, ivhere the bhaidchdrd tenure, in the true sense, is also observed, there will certainly be very little harm done if it is included as virtually a clan-settlement. But where in such cases the several villages are composed of families holding on the ancestral fraction or pattlddrl tenure, then they will most properly be excluded from the present section. To summarise these remarks briefly : in all the cases in- cluded in this section we shall notice (1) not only the con- tiguity of a number of villages, all of one clan, and covering a considerable area, while in some cases the clan-area is not really divided into villages at all ; but (2) we shall find the same desire for equality, so that the customarj' method of sharing gives to each household whatever land is necessary for its actual numbers ; only it takes care that each holding shall contain a similar proportion of the good, bad, and indifferent soils, and THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 269 that a plan of equal sharing of burdens, in proportion to the holding, shall be followed. It is to groups of this character that the Settlement Officers of the North- West Provinces more especially apply the term ' old cultivating fraternities.' The ' collective ' ownership appears here also to consist in a sense of general union arising from the natural bond of kindred, leading to the acceptance of a joint responsibility for the Revenue- charge, in a sense of general clan- or family-right to the whole area, and to any undivided waste within it, and, most of all, in a feeling that every member has an equal right to share and share alike. The whole group of holdings is never, as far as my observation extends, held ' in common,' at any rate after the families have expanded beyond those first grades of descent which have fixed the major and secondary divisions of the whole area. The actual forms in which the allotment of the land is made are the following : — (1) The whole area is divided at once into separate single holdings. Major and minor groups of relations may exist, but are not indicated by divisions of the area. (2) The whole area is divided into large blocks (sons of founder), and these into secondary and tertiary divisions (grand- sons and great-grandsons). The later divisions often cannot be compact, by reason of the holdings being made up of plots dis- tributed over the different soil areas. After the last separately designated division, all the later and existing families appear to take per capita according to what they want, as long as any land remains available. (3) The whole area was retained undivided ; a central or parent village represents the cultivation of the original family. All round, new hamlets have been added on, which gradually ' ripen ' into separate villages till the whole area is taken up. In Nos. 1 and 2 ' villages ' gradually separate, but under accidental circumstances, and often under the influence of modern survey and revenue arrangements. (1) lU/ustrations from the Panjab Districts We proceed to jjass in review the various districts which give examples of this tenure, commencing with the Panjab and pro- ceeding eastwards. 270 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY The first occurs in the Jihlam district, along the banks of the river of that name. In one part are tribes of Ghakar, Awan, and Jhanjua ; the latter are Rajputs, and probably established a sort of territorial rule, and their villages are the usual result of the decadence of that dominion ; the further mention of them is therefore reserved to a later section. The Ghakar seem to have despised agriculture, and their settlements show the vil- lage residence of the tribesmen, and separate settlements of other cultivating castes, forming hamlets (dhole, cah, &c.) in the neighbourhood. There are several clans or branches, each with its own name, and the chief seats or mother- villages of each clan are generally called maiuLi. Of these there are now six generally recognised in the district.' In the Chakwal Tahsll of this district we have five 'ildqa of three tribes of doubtful origin — the Mair, Kasar, and Kahut. The first named possess two tracts, Haveli and Badshahani, in the centre ; the Kasar have two in the north, Bubyal and Chaupeda, and the remaining one is the Kahutani. Their tradition is that their forefathers came from Kashmir, or rather from Jamu, with the Emperor Babar, and that they received this, at the time uninhabited, country in grant. Still more remarkable is the case of the small tribes of Lilla, Phapra, and Jalap, believed to be allied to the Jat stock. They inhabit each ' a well-defined area in the plains below the Salt Ranffe. and none of them is ever found outside its own bounda- ries.' The territory of Lilla is described in the first Report (1864) - as forming one single ' village,' now broken up into four separate parts; and it appears that the whole area of 22,000 acres has been populated by a clan growing out of the household of a single ancestral settler.^ 1 Jililam S. JR. 1883, p. 28. ^ Quoted in Tapper, Cust. Law, ii. 29. 3 Unfortunately in neither of the excellent Jihlam 8. B. is any detail about Lilla to be found. No notice is taken of what the shares in land are, or how they were allotted. More information is also needed about the other great areas mentioned m the text — e.g. Lawii is an Awan settlement, with four or five rival caudhar't, or chiefs. It is marked by strong factions among the co-sharing clansmen, who certainly have all of them separate holdings. That this is a ' hona-fide single estate held by one joint and undivided body ' is simply incredible. Probably it merely THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 271 The Awan locations are even more in point. This tribe, consisting of peasant proprietors, is always reckoned as such, and not among the sahu, or ' gentry.' They occupy the whole of the Tallagang Tahsil, being distributed over large clan-areas. Lawa contains 135 square miles; Thoha-Mahram-Khan, 86 square miles ; and Kandowal, in the dry part, or thai, of Pind-Dadan- Khan, has 27 square miles. InLawa there is one chief residence site (abadi) containing 5,000 inhabitants ; but there are several 'hamlets'' also. This large village-site, as well as the great area maintained as a ' single estate,' is attributed to ' the homo- geneous farming population with a large share of democratic equality.' In fact, however, the ' estate ' is to some extent the result of physical conditions, for the land is dependent upon the rainfall, and the tables show that in the whole Tahsil only only about 2,600 acres of land are protected by wells. The country is ' upland, of broad, gentle undulations,' with light sandy soil on the crests and loam in the hollows. Under such conditions, the area of each holding is necessarily large, and is naturally uniform in advantages. The land ploughed up for spring crops is kept separate from that used for the liharif, or autumn crop ; and the latter also can only be worked part at a time, because the rest is exhausted (bvdhi), and must lie fallow. • Each ' ploughland ' is, therefore, allowed to consist of nineteen acres ; and the large combined area of separate individual household shares, each of so many ' ploughs,' is better suited to the sentiment of the people and the conditions of agriculture than a number of separate villages of the average size. The Awans must have been for a long time in occupation, since in the days of Abu-1-Fazl, one of the mahdls, or official divisions of the Sindh Sagar Doab Sirkar, was called the ' Mahal Awdndn.' - It is certainly a clan-settlement ; but the evidence leaves it doubt- means that the area was not divided into villages, and that, though the individual family holdings are enjoyed in severalty, the whole body did not object to be regarded, from the revenue administrative point of %'iew, as a single jointly responsible estate, owing to the general clan feeling which disposes the whole to unite against outsiders, however keen may be the feuds within. ' Jihlam S. B. Compare pp. 52, 90, and 106. '' Ayln-i-Ahhari, ii. 323 (Jarrett's Trans.). 272 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY ful whether it was occupied by a clan already formed, or whether the present numbers have resulted from gradual growth out of an original small group. In the next district of GUJRAT we have a Eajput dominion of a Raja and chiefs of the Ohib clan and a surviving group of village-estates. These do not belong to the present section. But the district at large shows signs of genuine tribal locations ; one portion of it being known as the Jatdtar and another as Gicjar.^ In the course of time there has been some admixture of Aiodn and other villages, but the general features of the tribally occupied tracts are still discernible. ' The Jats and Gujars are subdivided into a great number of families each called by its own name, which is generally that of some ancestor who became in his time so powerful, or other- wise noted, as to leave his name to his posterity. It would not appear, however, that any new divisions have been separated off from the main stock for the last one hundred or one hundred and twenty years. . . . Most of the clans number but few families, sometimes owning but a single village. But to this there are some notable exceptions among the Jats. The Varaich, Tdrar, and Go'iulal, clans are very strong and hold a superior status.' ^ In the neighbouring districts there is a still greater admix- ture of villages ; but clan-groups may still be discerned as colonies, of Bdjwd Jats in Sialkot, of Awdn clansmen in others. In Gujranwala there is a group of eighty-one villages of the Gdttd (Rajput) clan,^ all in this instance proceeding from the foundation of one original adventurer who had emi- grated from his home further East ; and there is a large group (106 villages) of the Bhatti tribe, around Phidi-bhatiidn as a centre. Leaving, however, this part of the country, and coming to ' In my L. S. B. I. ii. 670, there is a map showing the Gujar area coloured pinh and the Jat green ; I take it the district name Gnjrat is really ' Gujar-iitar,' like the term Jatiltar. ' The Gazetteer (2nd edition) of QujrCtt, p. 60, &c., gives a very good idea of the number of clans and their pretensions to descent from all sorts of grandees. - There is a more detailed account in L. S. B. I. ii. 672. THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 273 the region bebween the Bias and Sutlej rivers, we find in the Jalandhak district many Jat tribes divided into got, or clans, and al, or minor-clans. ' But,' writes the Settlement Officer,' ' largo tracts of country each occupied by villages of one got are not found here, as they are in other parts of the countrj''. The nearest approach to such a state of things is met with in the Philaur Tahsil, where there is a cluster of Siliotu villages about Kuletd (Barwpiv/d) itself a Yevj large estate belonging almost entirely to this clan.^ The Rajputs, of whom the Gliorewdha clan is the most numerous (nearly 9,000), are found in the tracts nearer the hills ; their villages are only partially aggre- gated. Here we have the tradition of a growth from a very small origin. Two brothers came from Rajputana on a pilgrimage to a sacred place in the lower hills (JaiudlamukJd). Meeting with the Pathan king Sliahdbu-d-dln Ghon, they presented him with a fine horse, and in return the monarch gave them a grant of as much land ' as each could ride round in a day.' Each brother selected one side of the river Sutlej ; one threw his spear (seZa) where the village of Selkidna now is, and the other his bracelet (kangan) at Kanganivdl, to mark the limit reached. The family gradually expanded,^ and the branches and sections were indicated by the terms chat, makdn, and muhi, which I have met with nowhere else.'' Mr. Purser points out the impossibility of the dates and other details of the tradition ; but its general circumstances, and the origin of the landlordship in a royal grant (growing into a set of villages jointly owned by groups of the clan), are very probable. There are other Rajput clans of the same kind. Passing over certain groups of Awan and Gujar, I will only mention that a tribe of Aram (or Rdln) make up about one-seventh of the agricultural population ; they are divided into fifteen got. They have many scattered 1 Purser's S. B. 1888, p. 73 ff. ^ The Sihotii Jats are 2,392 in number. Several clans are consider- ably more numerous, but they are found in scattered \'i]lages. * One brother returned to Udaipur, leaving the other in lordship of the whole estate. Mr. Purser suggests that the chat, of which there were nine, marked the shares or lordships of the leading men, and the makiin were inferior territories. * At least as regards the series of terms. The Chibs in Gujrat call their clans mai, or muhi. T 1374 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY villages, but in some parts there are also connected groups.' Their tradition is that they were once Hindu Rajputs, descend- ants of Rai Jaj, ruler of Sirsa, in the South-eastern Panjab, and that they became Moslems about the close of the twelfth century ; the name is said to be derived from the title ' Eai ' borne by their ancestor. Another numerous tribe, the Saint (14,000), also trace their origin to a few ancestors who came from their home in Mathura (North-West Provinces) in defence of the Hindus against the first Moslem invasions, and they multiplied in their new home. As regards the district generally, Mr. Purser remarks that the existing village bodies are not able to trace their descent very far; only 355 villages out of 1,324 are remembered to have been founded for twelve or more genera- tions.^ Crossing the Sutlej river, it will be sufficient to take three typical districts — Ludiana, Rohtak, and Karnal. Excellent reports of each exist, and the writers have gone fully into the tribal question. In the Ludiana S. Report, after some interesting remarks on the alteration of the Jat type caused by difference of mode of life, occupation, and location, Mr. Gordon Walker ' writes : ' To the east of the district, and especially in the Samrala Tahsil, the multitude of got (gentes) among the Hindu Jats is a very remarkable feature. Not only do adjoining villages belong to difierent got, but inside each village will generally be found two or three sections (patti) of distinct origin.' This is accounted for by the manner in which the country was colonised. In the history of each village it will be seen that the founders came in comparatively recent times from different parts of the country and belonged to different got ; they united merely for conveni- ence, the vague tie of belonging to the same general tribe being sufficient. In the south and west of the district, on the other hand, we do find that the Jats in some instances settled in larger homogeneous bodies. The reason for this apparently is that in the eastern parts the imperial authority was always strong enough to protect its subjects, who settled down in small village groups as they came ; while in the west it was less felt, • S. B. p. 82. » Ibid. p. 85. ' S. B. Ludiana, 1884, pp. 45 fif, 79 aeq^. THE TRIBE AND TlIE VILLAGE 2/0 and people of oue tribe had to collect in large contiguous villages for protection. For example, the GharewcU Jats had a group of fifty villages near the town of Ludiana.' The Gil Jats have a group of forty villages in the Jagraon Tahsll. They com- menced as a small body, some 200 or 300 years ago, coming on an uninhabited space (the Jangal 'ildqd). Among the smaller clans, the Bhandlier own ten or eleven villages in the Malavdh Hldqa, all grown out of the descendants of one settler, who left his home because he was regarded with disfavour by the family, owing to his being the oifspring of a mixed marriage. There are some old Rajput villages ; and they mostly keep up at least the form of the ' ancestral ' shares as descendants of one founder.^ The Jat and the other villages spoken of all show the sense of cIcki organisation ; there is aggregation for social comfort and for defence ; but there is no pretension to descent from some common ancestor or the maintenance of ancestral shares. The object is for all the families to have their equal share ; and the land is divided out in hal, or ' plough-lands,' a number being assigned to each family in proportion to its strength. The size of the Juol varies with the character of the soil, being, as usual, the area estimated to be ploughed by one pair of oxen.^ Nor are the holdings in one block, but (as usual in the genuine bhaidchdrd or clan-fraternity method) ' the original distribution is generally most elaborate, the whole area having been divided into blocks according to quality, and each sharer getting his portion in each block — i.e. the number of hal for each family consisted of specimens of each kind of soil, good, bad, and middling. These shares are observed in the division of any culturable waste, and in apportioning the omdba, or joint expenses, of the village community.'' They are not now made ' This got affords an instance of what has been stated about Jats (p. 99, ante) ; their tradition is that the founder was a Rujput prince — Buja Rikh, who lost caste by marrying a Jat woman. But from this ' royal ' descent the got is still regarded as superior among the sahu, or gentry. The Gil are similarly descended. - This will usually be found to be the case where the founder had some pretensions to territorial rank or nobility. ■* S. B. p. 80. * See p. 25. The fund to meet these common expenses is made up of certain rents and profits fi'om th-j waste area, from atrdfi, —a sort of house* T 2 276 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY use of ia paying the land -revenue, which is met by an appro- priate acreage rate on the area actually possessed by each. The RoHTAK district deserves mention, as it is in this part of the country that successive Settlement Officers, from Mr. (after- wards Lord) Lawrence in 1844 to Mr. Fansliawe in 1879, have noticed the perfect preservation of the ' village communities ' — i.e. in the co-sharing or joint form. There are 511 'estates' in this small district, and they are also compact geographical mauza. They owe their compactness to the fact that they are the result of the gradual fission of groups of close-kindreds as, one by one, they branched off from an original centre. Each starts a fresh hamlet, which ripens into a village, and is really held by a compact body of kinsmen. We have, in fact, the con- verse of what the frontier tribal-territories exhibit. Here we have the case of a clan expanding on the spot from a small centre, and so building up groups of close-kindred, whose hold- ings are defined one by one as they are taken up and naturalh' form villages ; tlim'e we have the clan already existing and dividing the land among the whole body, village groups being little thought of. Out of the 511 villages, Jats, forming 12 chief and 137 minor clans, own 366. Some Afghan settlers. Brahman grantees, and others, hold villages ; and the Ahir have 26 villages.' ' The most noticeable point,' says Mr. Fansliawe,^ ' is the grouping of the villages of each tribe or subdivision of a tribe in one spot. This is due in most cases to the surrounding villages having been separated off and founded from a central mother-village. . . .' Hindu Rajputs are found in the south- east of the Jhajjar Tahsil and the centre of the Rohtak Tahsil ; the Ahir are round Kosli, and so on. The Jats show the same features ; the Malik got is settled round Ahalana, Khanpur- Kalan, and Bhainswal-kalan, and so on. Village groups so constituted must have taken time to grow up, and we are not surprised to learn that they are of older foundation than usual. Jat tax on non-proprietors, artisans, &c., and dharaf, a fee on weighing grain sold in the village, and from anything else that comes in from a common source of profit. ' See p. 109, note. The Ahir figure considerabl3' across the Jamna, in the North-West Provinces. - S. B. part ii. p. 18, § 17. THE TPJBE AND THE VILLAGE 277 villages were established before Sultan jSIahmud's invasion early in the eleventh century. Here also the Jats profess Rajput origin, and to have come from the south.' The Report gives in detail the history of several such village centres. The Dahyd Jat, for example, have their villages along the north-eastern border of the Sampla Tahsil. Their ancestor is Manik Rai, a Rajput Cauhan clan who lost caste by marrying a Bhanlcar Jat woman. His son was Dahla, corrupted into the clan name Dahyd ; Dahla settled in Barona twenty-seven generations ago, and from his one original village all the others have branched off. I might repeat the same sort of story almost indefinitely for each of the other centres. The process of growth is that, as the family increases, the new households clear additional land out of the general area, and the hamlets are at first considered only parts of the mother-village, till at last they grow big enough to have entirely separate establishments ; and thus a whole ta^ppd of villages is acknowledged.^ As to the original consti- tution of the entire area, it does not seem to have been divided into anyprimary sections according to the divisions of the original ' It is, in fact, in this district that the tradition occurs which has mis- led some writers. The Malik Jats say they are Eajputs, and come, not from Ghazni, in Western Afghanistan (which is sometimes quoted as a proof of the western origin), but from ' Garh-Gajni,' somewhere on tlie Dakhan frontier. I may suggest merely that, as the proper name of these Jats is ' Ghatwal,' they may have derived the clan name from being originally Eajputs holding some frontier hiUy territory (ghat) in the region of the Mahi or Aravali hills, or some neighbouring locality in the Vindhyan country. - Mr. Fanshawe quotes some remarks of the late Sir G. Campbell in the Cobden Club Essays, where the author repeats the formiula, at that time unquestioned, about the tribe or the village body holding the land ' in common ' first of all. Mr. Fanshawe remarks that Kohtak exemplifies this. I venture to think that it directly contradicts anything of the kind. In eases like the Bohtak villages where we have a clan-expansion, the original founder is able to maintain a general hold over a large area, the gi-eater part of which he does not cultivate till it is wanted ; his claim is only manifested by the fact that if he has many cattle, he grazes them over it. Then, as each family grows up, there is land available which it takes up, perhaps by tacit consent ; this goes on tiU the whole area is filled up. There is no kind of ' common holding ' whatever, but only a sense of unity of origin, and the solidarity of elan interests which bind the vaiious daughter-villages together. 278 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY family; and there could, of course, have been no anticipatory division of the area into ' villages.' When each village- group has in time developed, it will have sections within itself resulting from the fact that what was at first a ' close-kindred ' has now expanded into a ' wider-kindred ' composed of several close-kindreds all derived from the same head ; and thus are formed pfZjwt and thull subdivisions, as they are here called. The individual holdings are hal or ' plough-lands ' ; and here, as so often observed, while the first or earlier degrees of descent from the founder naturally allowed the then few and simple share-portions to follow the ancestral gradation, as the numbers grew, the subsequent allotment within the main sec- tions, was 2^67- capita — everyone was provided for, alike, according to his requirements. For this reason, as some families increased, and others diminished in number, the holdings of land were occasionally readjusted.' As usual, at the Revenue Settlement the individual shares were treated as so many de foxto hold- ings, and were assessed at the proper acreage rate ; but inside the villages, the primary divisions of 'po.nd and thcdur were demarcated as blocks, and the eldest member of the eldest house in each poma was recognised as its official headman. The pancayat consists of the heads of paaid with the thv.lddwrs, or heads of the eldest households in the subdivisions. The pancaycd still controls all matters of interest to the body — the cultivation of undivided common lands, the realisation of gi-azing-fees and house-rates,^ the building of a village rest-house for guests, supervising the village watch, cleansing the common tank or pond, and settling any question of granting a rent-free plot to some pious person. I have not found any allusion in the Rohtak ' See S. B. p. 27. ' The local annals tell of half a dozen changes made at mtervals in the shares on which each estate was held.' Mr. Fanshawe thinks this may point to the existence of a general redis. tribution ; but this is not likely, for such a general periodic exchange is natural only where a clan already formed settles on land and each member is jealous of anyone getting a better lot than himself. There is no raisoii. d'etre for such a plan in the case of holdings added on, famUy by family, so to speak, to an original central village. - The house-rates or hearth-fees (here called kudJ-iamhil) are paid as usual by non- proprietors, artisans, &c., as an acknowledgment to the pro- prietors for their permission to reside. THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 279 Report to the feature, common in ' fraternities,' of making the holdings consist of specimen bits of each kind of soil. Here, perhaps, the land is too uniform to need such a device. In the Karnal district, bordering on the Jamna river, we fre- quently observe the same feature of a familj- expanding into a clan : the group of clan-villages begins, first, with the establish- ment of a central village (thllat), and then by the gradual accre- tion of hamlets (majrd, or garhl, as they are hero called), which in time become independent. But Mr. Ibbetson has noted a number of interesting details. We are near the country where the earliest Aryans began to settle (in Aryavarla) ; and we find many Rajput owners ; but the causes already mentioned prevent our tracing back the existiE>g groups to any such primitive settlement. There is also a local curious caste or tribe of Tagd which I must pass over. The areas occupied by the clans are called tappd, or thambd, and the Imperial revenue officers made use of these divisions for official purposes.' The villages are all held by groups of real blood relations, being the areas added one by one, as each new little group of households grew up and started additional cultivation on an adjoining site. The village names often bear the addition Ichurd, or hahln, not meaning ' small ' or ' great,' as the Persian words imply, but ' younger ' and ' elder.' The clan connection between the villages in the t.appd is kept up by the custom that ' when a headman dies all the villages in the tappd assemble to instal his heir, and the turban of the parent village is first tied on his head.' On ceremonial occasions — funerals, &c. (meljor) — the Brahmans of the parent village are fed first and receive double fees.^ Though the mdjra, or offshoot villages, are generally groups of the same descent, it should be added that sometimes relations of the wife's family (and theiefore of another clan) are admitted to a share, and may '^ S. a. § 185 ; the 'Amils, or Land Eevenue Officers, made use of the heads of kindreds and families, whom they called Caudharl, for collecting the revenue. ^ § 181. Mr. Ibbetson mentions the case of a village which desired to change its tappd — i.e. not to belong to the group which was its natural sphere — because there were so many Brahmans in it whom the village had to feed ! Of course it was held that a village might ignore or forget its origin, but could not change it. 280 TIIE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY possibly form oneof the separate 7n(t/ra; butthefictioaofacommon' descent is maintained, and the person taking a share of another, s land is said to be bhuln hluvi (land-brother). The fact is, that the theory of family property is kept up because the whole is really (in spite of occasional gifts and admissions) one large family in its various groups of kindred ; and, being all settled together, circumstances combine to maintain the memory of the fact. The interior divisions of the villages are here called panrul (the word meaning 'lot' — ^7a?wut r;!tw-)ici= to cast lots). The subdivisions are thzilu ; and the features of these divisions and of the pancayat, ave just like those described in Rohtak.' As usual, the first main divisions of the villages follow the an- cestral grades — when the descent was in its first stages. Thus the pamid will probably mark the 'lots' of the original sons of the leader of the newly founded extension, and the tliuld, the original grandsons ; after that, as the numbers increase within the groups all are provided for per capita. We have here also the careful attention to soil varieties that marks the real hliaidchdnl tenure. ' The land,' writes Mr. Ibbetson, ' was carefully divided according to quality, so that each should have his fair share ; ' aind ' the same rule was observed when a new cultivator was admitted to cultivate. The long dividing lines at right angles to the contours of the country which mark off the valuable rice land into minute plots,^ and the inferior sandy soil into long ' Under the empire the heads of pannu and tlutla acquired consider- able authority, because the 'Amil worked through them entirely ; the whole village was assessed at one sum, and these heads had to ap- portion the burden (S. B. § 233). It is worth while noticing that here the heads exempted themselves from duties of village watch and ward (thdh-Tcar) ; and each has a menial {camdr) as a personal attendant, the canulr getting a free midday meal in return, but nothing else. The village camdrs, as a body, are made to give a day's free labour in each headman's field, but are fed in return. - Special modes of division of valuable, but at the same time somewhat precarious, land on the banks of rivers and streams are sometimes observed ; the plan being usually to divide into long and very narrow strips running at right angles to the stream : and these are usually re- allotted every year. By this means everj-one gets an equal share of the danger of diluvion and the advantage of the successive degrees of moisture further from the river. Two instances, with a diagram, will be found in L. S. B. I. ii. 142, C40. Captain Dunlop-Smith has recently called my THE TIIIBE AND THE VILLAGE 281 narrow strips including a portion of each degree of quality, and the scattered nature of each man's holding, still show how care- fully this was done.' ' (2) Illusti-ations from tlie North-West Provinces When we cross the river Jamna from the Panjab into the North- West Provinces we still find some of the districts supply- ing instances of ' clan-settlements.' In some cases, there are aggregates of estates mostly of one clan which are merely the remnants of long-destroyed chiefships or petty kingdoms ex- hibiting no clan union ; but what our ofiBcial reports call ' old cultivating fraternities' are real clan-groups of the kind we are considering at present : they have the true hhaidelmru, form of allotting the land. Sometimes they are Jat settlements ; sometimes they are Rajputs of clans which took to cultivating or at least to land-owning, and had no Raja and no pretensions to territorial rule. The North- West Provinces districts are much more thickly populated than the Panjab, and they have been subject to such vicissitudes of war and changes of rule that it would not be surprising if such ' fraternities ' had become broken up and intermixed, beyond recognition, with other cultivat- ing village-communities. The usurpation or conquest of indi- vidual chiefs, the success of the revenue farmer and the auction purchaser, too, have altered the ' proprietary community ' of so many villages that we rather wonder to find any examples of the clan Hldqa and the tappd. Yet we do find them in parts ; mostly, I believe, as examples of the expansion of a small group into a clan. The most typical instances occur in the Mathuka (Muttra) district, bordering on the South-eastern Panjab and the Rajputana attention to the same custom in the Sialkot district north-east of Tahsil Baya, where it is called rassl hull, or baufl — i.e. division by ropes (these being used in marking out the long strips), varying from 25 to 800 hadam ( - 5^ feet) long and 1 to 10 Jiodam broad [bautd (H.), or in the feminine diminutive form bauf, means a slice, a piece]. This custom obtains among the Jat villages where they have a desire for good management and equal rights ; while in other similar estates where it is not followed the owners are Rajputs, ' whose local customs have always been in favour of the more powerful members of the different tribes.' (iS. B., Sidlkot, 1895, § 133.) 1 Earnal S. B. § 240, p. 96. 282 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY States. In the famous cities of Mathura and BinSraban we have the centres of the Krishna cult ; and although Jat settlers occupied much land, we are not surprised to find that through- out the district Brahman grantees figure largely among the proprietary communities holding village estates.' The district is naturally divided, by the river, into a Cis- Jamna and a Trans-Jamna portion. In the former, the villages are of a distinct type. Though often large, they are essentially unit estates, the result of grant, purchase, or other acquisition by a single owner whose descendants are now the co-sharing proprietary bodies, and they are held on ancestral shares. In the Trans-Jamna, on the other hand, we meet with ' villages ' of the kind under our present consideration. As a matter of fact, in these clan-areas, the ' villages ' are quite an afterthought, and are indeed the result of modern conditions or of accidental circum^ stances. The tnjjpcl Raya and twppa Aira-Khera ^ offer as characteristic examples as could be desired. The Jat shareholders of the Pacahrd clan are all (really or by association) the descendants of o'lie family who originated the estate on its existing area? ' As the descendants increased and the cultivation round the old site grew, so new colonies of shareholders planted themselves in hamlets near their fields, separating off their cultivation, but still retaining their share in the ancestral kherd.' Aira-Khera is a taiJixl covering nearly 18,000 acres, and it is now divided into 22 villages. Raya has 12,000 acres, now divided into 24 villages. 1 Whiteway's S. B. 1879, p. 25 ff. This Report is specially deserving of the notice of students of village-forms, as is also the Azimgarh 8. li, by Mr. J. B. Eeid. Mr. Whiteway notices also that Brahmans constantly accompanied the bodies of Jat settlers as their priests, and that they got a share, or perhaps a whole village, given them {S. B. p. 31). ■ We fhall often meet with this term Itlierd ; it means the parent vil. lage or original location when the clan was yet a family. ^ And the same is true of the settlements of Nohwar and Narwar Jats (S. B. p. 33). The origin was with two brothers — A, settled in Noh ; B in Narwar. A gave his Noh village to Brahmans, and founded two more for his own family. B founded Barauth in Narwar ; and now there is a group of offshoots all round, belonging to the descendants. There are various groups of Jats, some of only three or four villages ; but one, in Taluqa Sonk, contains as many as twenty-one villages. THE TRIBE A^"D THE VILLAGE 283 Aira-Khera was started by one man with four sons about 200 years ago. In the lifetime of the ancestor the area was divided into four large compact blocks locally called tai-f, one for each son ; a fifth area was added for the Kasba of Sonai, some kind of dependency, the exact history of which I do not know. The cultivation went on within each of the four larf according to an understood division of the soil, so that each holding was made up of a number of strips and fields, some in each variety of soil. Gradually each tarf was subdivided into a number — four or five in all — of secondary groups, each having its own cluster of residences and called ilioh.^ These have be- come the ' villages ' of the official records ; but the lands of the tholi being taken, part in each different soil-area, are scattered over the whole tarf. Then again the ' village ' groups (or iholc) are internally subdivided into naghl. ' Within each tarf,' says the Report, 'the land of each of the four or five villages con- tained in it are intermingled in a singular fashion, and the nagld in these villages in a similar manner. The essential principle being that each cak [standard measure of holding] should contain the same relative quantity of good, bad, and indifferent soil, the properties are of necessity constantly intermingled. In some tarfs almost every alternate field belongs to a different one of the'four or five thol: contained in it.' In other tarfs long strips of land for the cultivating possession of the different thoh were formed, and these areas were again subdivided, on the same principle, among the different nagld. ' And yet,' concludes Mr. Whiteway, ' with all this apparent intricacy I have hardly met with a dispiated field, and not one case which was not easily and readily disposed of by the pancayat, which, like other hhaidchdrd institutions, exists here in great perfection.' ^ As the tarf were compact blocks arranged to suit the wants and prospects of each main branch at the time when the numbers were few, it was not likely that each would contain exactly the same proportion of each class of soil, or that each '■ It will be observed that not only do names of divisions vary locally, but sometimes in different places the same words imply a different grade of division — e.g. thol; which often means a smaller division of a patli, here means the first di-i-ision within the tarf. ■' S. B. pp. 39, 40. 284 TILE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY would be equal in area ; but it was possible to have a standard area of a certain value, so that each division might be valued to' bear an equal proportion of revenue and other burdens or charges. And for this standard valuation they adopted a cak\ which contained about 300 of the hacca or locally used UgM, or area measures of the different soils,' each such artificial lot as nearly equal in character and value as possible. The proportion of each tor/" was as follows : — B. b. b. 1. Tar/ Inckraj 47 10 2. „ Eupal 94 13 16 3. „ Bharera 59 13 18 4. „ Sikam 72 15 6 5. Kasha Sonii 39 7 19 Total . . . 313 11 18^ The main divisions, as usual, followed the natural ancestral grades as far as the four sons (tarf) and the thok, presumably shares of sons' sons, i.e. grandsons of the ancestor, and the nacjld (great-grandsons) ; because at the time, the members being thus limited, it was quite natural to follow the divisions of the first or original close-kindred. But afterwards, as numbers increased, the holdings were allotted ]per capita, according to the actual requirements of each household as it grew up ; ^ but each could ' The normal higliTi is said to be pakhl = ripe or perfect ; the local measure (usually smaller) is said to be kaccd = crude or imperfect. The blglid is divided into twenty hiswa, and that into twenty hisivdhsl (B. b. b. above). - If we express the matter in fractions, it would come to this — that Inchraj represents about one and a half tenths, Bupal three tenths, Bharera two tenths, Sikam two and a half tenths, and Sonai one tenth. I do not know what the actual kaccd or local b'lglid is ; but suppose the entire area (arbitrarily) to be45,000 haccd h'lglui, and the (imaginary) assess- ment to be Es. 15,000; each Cak oi 300 kaccd 67^7t(7 would represent Es. 100 of revenue charge, and of this Sonili would be responsible for about Bs. 10, Eupal about Es. 30, and so on ; or, in total, Sonai would pay Rs. 1,500, Eupal Es. 4,500, and so on. ^ One of the reasons which in a clan-group of this sort tended to keep attention so much to the whole elan and so little to the actual family right, was the practice (8. B. pp. 32, 33) not only of kardo, or widow niai-riage, but also of allowing the children of any woman taken into the house {dharaicd) to have an inheritance. This was extended in some cases to the children of a widow by a former husband {lainrdrd). THE TRIBE AXD THE VILLAGE 285 "bear its proportionate share of the burdens. ' On the same principle,' says Mr. Whiteway, ' a similar partition subsequently took place between — i.e. within - each tarf or quarter. The ■paticobyat of each tm-f adopted a cak of whatever number of actual haccd hlgJids was best adapted to their circumstances, always taking care tliat the relative value of each cak was the same, and subdivided the whole tarf into the four or five villages (or thole) in each, which again subdivided themselves as population increased into naglu or imtti, on exactly the same principle.' ' We cannot expect to find such clan-settlements equally well represented in all the various districts ; the Eohilkhand country, for example, suffered too much from the Rohilla rule to have preserved such traces ; but we find them here and there. Some of the best examples occur towards the eastern end of the province. Thus, in Allahabad, although most of the villages originated with single owners, there are one or two large clan-areas, e.g. in parcjana Atharban, the Bisen, of whom we shall hear again, had a large community ; and there are some Muhammadan clans in Karari and Chail.^ In the Bundelkhand districts there are several good instances of clan-settlements. In the Hamirpur district there is a great tract called Kheraila-khas, covering 28^ square miles, nearly all culturable and divided up into major group-areas and family lots. Here we have the iliok also, which usually became the administrative village, and it is subdivided into fatti.^ Here also was the custom of the valuation by cak, or standard lots. Similar ' villages ' are the Patara area of 9,394 acres divided into twelve heliri, here the major-division or ' village ' ; and so in pargatia Jalalpur-Kheraila is a group of eleven ' villages ' with an avera/^e area of 8,294 acres, and one of thirty-four with an average of 5,111 acres. These were originally behrl of still larger clan-areas. In the Banda district, where the bhybardr, or custom of periodically adjusting the burdens to the actual relative value of the holdings, was once prevalent,* ' See Appendix to this section. 2 S. B. Porter, 1878, § 22 S. " NortJi-West Provinces Gazetteer, i. 179. * The bhejbarcir custom — which is not directly a question of tenure, 286 THE IXDIAX VILLAGE COMMUXITY I find mention of a great clan area, at Khaptiha-Kalan (Paihini panjarut), of fifteen square miles held by some 3,700 co-sharers who still occupy one large central residence. And there are other instances of areas in which the more usual plan is observed of a parent-village with offshoot hamlets, which ultimately become separate villages, although their lands might be at first much scattered about.* In the extreme East, the Ballia district shows examples where ' each clan has its well-defined location . . . which the forefathers conquered from the aborigines or reclaimed from the waste.' The Sehghar (Rajput) clan owned nearly the whole of the Lakhneswar parcjana, and held it as a ' single estate ' down to the time of the Permanent Settlement.^ There are now 134 villages, but some groups hold lands scattered through every one of this number. Of the Ghazipuk district I have already said something when describing the population. Mr. Oldham remarks that in Akbar's time the nineteen mahdl, or parganas, were all clan- estates of Brahmans, Rajputs, &c.^ They were not all compact estates, for the country was jungle, and it appears that the clan- groups selected the most easily cleared portions first, and gradually, as their numbers expanded, the whole pargana would be filled up, and one "■ estate ' become conterminous with the next. But very often it would happen that before one clan had covered a large and continuous area, another clan would occupy a portion of the same area; in that case the different areas formed separate tappd, and a pargana might contain several such^ The founders of these clan-settlements frequently cam« as adventurers in small numbers. Thus Mr. Oldham gives a tradition, for which there is some confirmatory evidence, that certain three Cdndel brothers came as servants to a Bhar Raja, though connected chiefly wiih the 'democratic' equal-holding or hliauicluird method — is described in L. 8. B. I. ii. 143. ' See S. R. Banda, 1881, p. 30. Mr. Cadell has explained how the tenures of this district were upset by early maladministration. - See Wilton Oldham, Memoir of Gluizipur District, v. 52. ' See the list in AyTn-i-Akbari (Jarrett), ii. 90, 162. Lakhnesar at that time had but 2,883 hlgJuis cultivated. THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 287 and that they conspired and slew him and founded an estate of their own.' Iq some of these cases there may have been the assumption of some kind of rulership, but not always, for Mr. Oldham expressly mentions that in many instances the ' land- holding fraternities ' had no Eaja or territorial chief; and he speaks of talUqas containing ' scores of villages, and some of them paying 25,000 rupees of annual revenue, held by hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of co-sharers." ^ In the Jaunpur district, clans have grown up often from small beginnings.^ The Rajputs shew Bdghubansi (15,000), Brighansi and Bais (of each 13,000) and Odndel (7,000). The RoUjJiuhahsi was something like a territorial chiefship, as the report speaks of their holding a bedlisl or territory of forty-two villages ; but they began with a village at Tilochan-Mahadeo, ' and spread over the imrgaTM from that place.' But as the clan recognised no primogeniture, the division of the territory went on as fast as the clan grew. The Bais colony came from Oudh and had been established for 700 years. (3) Illustrations from OudJi Among the twelve districts which form this province are to be fonnd various instances of clan-areas with their groups of villages ; and it is of no consequence, as far as this phenomenon is concerned, whether the villages have or have not since fallen under the power of a Taluqdar landlord. As might be expected, the clans are mostly Rajput, and some few are Muhammadans who came with the Mughal or earlier invasions. Evidently, the earliest clan-settlements of all must have been of Bhar, Ahir, or other non-Aryans ; but of such a state of things we have now no definite trace. Even the earlier Aryan kingdoms have all passed away ; and such Rajput settlements as now appear are only in a few cases so old as even probably to ^ Memoir, p. 48. The case is very curious, as 600 years after the alleged murder, a descendant of the Bhar Kaja came forward to claini back part of the land which he understood' was likely to be confiscated after the mutiny, owing to the proprietors ( Cdndels) having harboiued rebels. ^■Memoir, p. 41. ' North-West Provinces Gazetteer, iv. 35. 288 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUXITV go tack to any very early location. We are here concerned with those villages which the writer of the Gazetteer calls ' democratic, where the superior clansmen, though they may have established themselves as lords of the soil, had no monarchical organisation, and did not establish anything resembling a kingdom. But it will be understood that in Oudh we have examples both of clans connected with monarchical States, and of ' democratic clans ' : and when the rulership of the former has long been broken up, and the descendants have settled as peasant proprietors in villages (either independent, or under Taluqdar landlords), it is not always possible to discriminate exactly as regards the origin. It appears, however, that the distribution of the non-monarchical clans with which we are directly concerned is, to some extent, traceable geographically. Thus I find the districts of Hardoi, Sitapur, and Unao, grouped together ' as districts where some of the earliest settlements are found, and without any Rajas of their own. In Eastern Oudh, on the other hand, where war had to be waged against the Bhar chiefs, as well as afterwards with the Moslem forces of the neighbouring kingdom of Jaunpur, the Eajput clans seem more readily to have adopted the monarchical system, as better capable of organising attack and defence.* The first extensive clan-colony that claims attention was that of the Ealhwdr Rajputs,' which once extended for sixty miles along both banks of the Ghagra river, in the districts of Barabanki, Sitapur, Bahraich, and Kheri.'' Some traces of this still remain. In the Sultanpuu district is a considerable ]pa,rgana called Aldemau.''^ ' As far back as can be traced ' it was divided into ten tappa. Eight different clansmen are tradition- ally said to have acquired a footing, under the Bhar chiefs, in these territories ; in one place, a long-established group of Kurmi cultivators was found by the adventurers. The Oazetteerr traces ^ And I may add the Partabgarh and Lucknow districts. See Oudh Gazetteer, iiL 532. = Ibid. ii. 222. ' These are said to derive their name from a place in the Kashmir Valley from which they are traditionally said to have emigrated. * Gazetteer, i. 257. '- Ibid. i. 24. It was formerly included in Faizabud. The name of the place is derived from a Bhar chief called Aide. THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 289 the history of the clans which grew up and filled these tappds. One, Sakarwar, I will mention, because of a feature frequently observed. One of the grandsons of the ' founder ' became a convert to Islam, and two sections resulted, one for the Hindu sons bom to him before conversion, the other for those of the Moslem wife. These were distinguished as tarf; one contains sixteen, the other nine villages. Another group seems to have been later occupied by some of the Edjhuindr clan, claiming descent from Eaja Prithwi (a.d. 1193) of Delhi. One of the descendants (Bariyar Singh) had four sons, and these formed the heads of as many minor clans who established themselves in various places. One came to this pargana and ousted or absorbed a number of smaller family locations, ' partly by purchase, partly by force.' ' In the GoNDA district (already alluded to as affording an instance of a Eaja unconnected with any clan monarchy) there is a good example of the clan settlement, the GordJia-Bisen, ' which alone exemplified the pure democratic form, each mem- ber of the family (gens) being equal in position, and receiving an equal portion in the inheritance of the clan.' ^ This is one of the older clans ' who have no recollection of a departure from some distant home in the West,' and ' they are unable to con- nect their countless houses by any intelligible pedigree.' They established a number of villages belonging to the different closer kindreds, and they obtained the full right over the area by grant of the local Eaja.' In the neighbourhood, viz. in Kheri and Eai-Bareli, we have instances of the spread of descendants of a local Eaja, and there- fore these districts do not afford illustrations under the present head. But in the Hardoi district we have another case in point. To this day, the district is remarkable for its small independent proprietors and the absence of Eajas or chiefs.'' ' It almost seems,' says the writer of the Gazetteer account, ' as if, ^ Oudh Oazetteer, i. 30. = Ibid. i. 510, and see Gonda S. E. § 33, p. 15 and § 88, p. 51. ' See p. 300, post. * Gazetteer, ii. 40 ff. The remarks made on the causes of the absence of Kajas and of the aristocratic spirit in this district are interesting. 290 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY owing to the climate, a bolder, and more independent spirit animated the inhabitants of Unao, Hardol, Lucknow, and Southern Kheri, than in Eastern and Northern Oudh.' There were a number of separate clans settled, and owing to this and other causes powerful Rajas did not obtain dominions. ' But,' proceeds the writer, ' though these things account for large principalities never having flourished in Hai'dol (South-western Oudh), they do not account for large clans like the Nihambh, Gamdrgaur, Sakarwdr, and Pwwwar, never having elected a Raja. They show that even when a clan had mastered a compact estate the Raja was regarded as an ornamental appendage, which might or might not be added.' It appears, indeed, that none of these clans have any tradition of their having come in force under any leader ; and the writer adds : ' What took place was as follows : a single individual, or three brothers at most, settle in the country and prosper; theycommence in all cases by dividing the pro- pei'ty equally among all the sons, shewing that the idea of a Raj, one and indivisible, had not entered their minds ; they succeed by some process of natural selection or freak of fortune, other families give place to them, they multiply, and continue subdividing their property. If it happens that any call is made on the military prowess of the family (now become a clan), if they have constantly to fight for their property, it is not unlikely that their natural leader, the head of the elder branch, may be either nominated a Rilja by his clan, or be granted the title by superior authority.' The whole passage is interesting, but is too long to quote. It illustrates well how the monarchical organisa- tion grows out of circumstances. But it will not be supposed that among the clans which have not adopted it there is no sense of the old patriarchal authority. ' There are clans in Hardoi who have their untitled chiefs, to whom in all times of turmoil their obedience is absolute.' On the whole, both in Oudh, and the North- West Provinces, the instances of clan 'i7«^« (or taluqa) and tappa, which have been formed by Uie expansion of families from small beginnings, are the most frequent ; although we have a certain number of cases in which a clan has settled, when already formed. In the former case, it will be recollected that if the families have pretensions to nobility, it is quite likely that they will adopt a system of THE TRIBE AND THE VILLAGE 291 ancestral shares, as do the individual village estates when orio^inating in one more or less ' aristocratic ' founder. In the typical clan-settlements (whether of existing clans, or by subse- quent expansion), the equal sharing (hhaidclidra) method is the more characteristic. APPENDIX In connection with the bhaiddulrd method of dividing land, I can- not forbear alluding to a curious custom whicli is noted in the Basti S. R. (1891), §§ 93, 94 ; and Mr. Hooper informs me that it is found also in the Pllibhit district and perhaps elsewhere (near the tardi country at the foot of the hills). It illustrates how this sort of division is applied in practice, and also how a voluntary association may have the appearance of a clan-group. 1 allude to the halbandl custom, where the whole village is let out by the small non-agri- cultural proprietary body to tenants who form among themselves a united subordinate village body, and I suppose have a pancayat to make the allotments. But the tenants are numerous, and even more ignorant and jealous of one another than the proprietors. They all cultivate separately and take separate receipts, and are often of different status, some being occupancj' tenants, others tenants-at- will. In the old report of thirty years ago, Mr. Hooper tells me, these were considered as partnerships cultivating in common ; but if the scheme described was then also in force, I do not see where the feature of ' common holding ' can come in, unless it is meant only to imply that the body have adopted this method of securing equal returns. Except that any man may have an extra plot (ukhrd) or cultivate some of the proprietor's home farm as ukhrd — i.e. outside the tenant partnership — the entire lands are treated as forming so many ' ploughs ' (of from six to eicjht acres each). Thus, if the total rental is Rs. 800 and the p'lU'rhs are counted as 32, each plough will be answerable for Rs. 25. A man holds one plough or more or less, according to the cattle he possesses. But then the areas actually held must be made as equal in value as possible. For this purpose four ploughs will be grouped into a thok ; and with 32 ploughs there will be eight thok ; which practically means that there will be eight series of fields arranged all as alike as possible. Every separate quality of the village soil, the wheat land in the south, the more sandy lands in the north, 292 THE I^'DIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY the lands which are near a well or tank, the patch of potato or tobacco land near the village site, the flooded winter-crop land, the high and di"y land beyond, and the best part between the two, = North-West Provinces Gazetteer, v. 615. See Bareli S. B. (18741, p. 22. 304 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY the ignorance of the nature of the village-bodies that marked the first days of British rule ; when, as Holt Mackenzie said, ' the interest of the persons made responsible for the revenue is so naturally conceived to be that of absolute and exclusive pro- perty.' The sole proprietory right thus passed into the hands of one of the older co-sharers, or of some person who became re- sponsible for the revenue in the days when it was considered necessary that only one such person should be recognised. In Patihpur the history would prepare us to expect a large majority of villages held on the ancestral share principle ; but out of 2,145 village estates, we find that 1,555 have passed into the hands of ' sole proprietors ' of the farmer or auction-purchaser class.' I will only add that proprietors of this class were not by any means always chargeable with usurpation ; for in many cases they took charge of villages and became responsible for them when there was really no one else to do so ; former troubles had so depressed such cultivators as remained, that they were neither willing nor able to take responsibility as proprietors. Section II. — Village Estates aeising from the Disrup- tion OR Decadence of Kingdoms and Chiefships This head is perhaps the most largely illustrated of any, depending as it does on the existence at some former time of a local State, or chiefship, which has now disappeared, but has left its relics in the shape of villages and lands held by members of the once ruling families. In the Panjab we do not find so many instances of the class, because Rajput or Aryan rulerships that have left any such mark were quite local, and are chiefly found in the more northern districts near the Salt Eange. A' few traces of Caurasl groups^ and similar marks of a local rule may, however, be found in some other districts. But, as might be expected, they are very numerous in the North-West Provinces and Oudh,* which were once covered by a network of ' Fatihpur S. B. (1878), pp. 9, 15. ^ See p. 198, ante, where this term is explained. ^ It may be truly said of the whole body of joint-villages. in the North VILLAGES OF INDIVIDUAL FOUNDATION 305 such kingdoms and lordships. It may be advisable to add that when villages appear as the vestiges of some territorial rulership it is not necessary that there should ever have been a formally constituted ' Raj,' or regular territorial kingdom ; but there was always eitlier such a kingdom or at least some kind of local chiefship, or usurped over-lordship, easily distinguishable from the mere establishment of a cultivating family expanding into a large fraternity. And there is one other matter which perhaps had better be dealt with at once. The rule of primogeniture has a great effect in preventing the disruption of estates ; and its absence, of course, directly facilitates it. It is somewhat remarkable that in the ' Laws of Manu ' the right of the eldest is not connected with the royal title, or with succession to a chiefship. The eldest son is supposed to succeed to any famil3' estate if he is particularly eminent, capable, or virtuous, and the rest are not so. The vagueness of such a rule is enough to have ensured its not being a practical one. The ' Laws' indicate a desire to place the eldest son (generally) in the position of the head of the. family ; and even when he does not succeed alone, he is given a larger share.' There is also mention of a special share for the youngest as well. But for our purposes it is enough to say thai, in general the rule of the eldest has practically been maintained only among the royal and noble houses, of whatever I'ace, in India — in such higher families, in fact, as possessed some kind of title or dignity to succeed to, spoken of as the ijctMl (= royal cushion or throne). But it is not possible to specify anj- particular degree in the social scale at which the custom ceases. I have known legal disputes in India as to whether property ought West Provinces (putting aside those which are in reality artificial, as in Kumtlon, Jhansi, &c.) that they are derived — (i.) From descendants of the revenue farmers and managers ; (ii.) From old ' cultivating fraternities ' with a certain tribal connection ; (iii.) From relics of chiefships and local territorial over-lordships, and the grants connected with them. ' Sometimes spoken of a,s jethdnsl. Mr. H. E. Seebohm has collected the quotations from Manu at p. 97 ff of his Tribal Structure of Socielij in Greece; see also Sir H. S. Maine, Early Institutions, p. 197. As lo the honour shown to the eldest, cf. Manu, ii. 225 with iv. 180, 184, and ix. 104-119, &c. X 30G THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY or ought not to be deemed subject to a rule of primogeniture as a question of family custom. And in the case of some estates, CAf. those of Taluqdars in Oudh and in Bombay, special rules have been adopted and legally enacted on the subject. In former times the custom was very various ; and there are cases on record in v^hich even families having the title of Raja have divided the estate. In such cases, the tendency to split up the whole estate into a number of mere viUcujes held by the co-sharing descendants of the divided branches is obvious. Even where an estate is theoretically preserved from dismember- ment, it sometimes becomes so burdened with what are nomi- nally maintenances and rent-charges, but practically are divided portions held by charitable grantees or by widows and cadets, that the estate as a whole is hardly able to pay its way. In the Ahmadabad district of Bombay (Gujarat), there are a number of relics of local chiefships, now called ' Taluqdari ' estates, which survived the formal resumptions and deductions of the Muham- madau conquest and the more open exactions of the Marathas ; the rule of primogeaiture commonly prevails, but the chief is expected to share his rents, usually by whole villages or shares in villages, with every kind of relative ' and family dependent. And if voluntary, customary, partition causes a considerable estate to be dismembered into a number of joint-villages, still more does involuntary disruption, when the head of an old kingdom is defeated and slain, and members of the family man- age to cling to a few villages here and there, relics of the terri- tory they once ruled in independence. In such cases it is a question of circumstances, and of the degree to which dismem- berment and decay have gone, whether the old territorial ruler- ship still remains in the form of a considerable landlordship, or is marked br mere scattered villages or groups of villages. In many instances it is well known that the old territorial Raja, or other titular chief, submitted to the Mughal commander, and accepted a sanad or patent, agreeing to pass on a considerable ' Similar troubles have affected the chiefs estates in Ajmer as well as in North Bombay, and special legislative measures have had to be passed for their relief. See some good remarks in Mr. A. Eogers's paper on Bombay Tenures in Transactions of the East Indian Association for February 1882, xiv. 10. VILLAGES OF INDIVIDUAL FOUNDATION 307 share of his local revenue to the imperial treasury, or at least to hold his State as a tributary. Then he was favoured, or at least left alone, by the imperial Deputy, ^ho knew only too well that he must keep the provinces quiet, and that defeated chiefs, if not conciliated, would be always ready, on the slightest oppor- tunity, to give serious trouble. Thus we have, handed down to the days of British rule, all the varieties of Bengal Zamlnddr, Oudh Taluqdur, and similar estates such as have arisen under other conquests in the Central Provinces, or in Northern Bombay ; and we have also the Jannil of Maliibar and Muluiargdar of Kanara on the west coast, and Pdleridr in the south, as well as others whose existing landlord claims are derived in various ways from an earlier ruling or territorial position. With these ' landlord ' estates this book is not concerned ; but it is impossible to avoid mentioning the subject, because in the case of so many commu- nities descended from a once noble family or a ruling chief, the difFei'ence between the pattidarl village and the greater land- lord estate is one of rank and degree rather than of kind; and the unity of the larger estate needs always to be supported by the j)rimogeniture rule, or it tends to disintegrate. The immediate point, however, is that where the rulershijo was really broken up by misfortune and defeat, as it so often was, and the members of the family managed to cling to some separate fragments of the estate, they were brought close to the land, so to speak, in a manner that was never possible with a dignified chief living at his court or fortress at a distance. Thus driven to residence, and to taking part in the direct management, each family be- came virtual landlord of this oi' that village or group of villages — smaller or larger according to circumstances — and the multi- plying heirs have formed the ' village community.' After a certain number of generations, such villages will be ripe for inclusion under some theory as representing ' archaic communal- ownership.' It is curious to notice how completely, in the course of a few generations, the descendant of the former Raja, or Rao, is assimi- lated to the. peasant grade, even if he is still able to keep his hands from the defilement of the plough. But though to alien eyes he is a mere peasant-proprietor, or village co-sharer, in his own eyes and also in those of his neighbours, his high X 2 3()8 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY caste and descent are still his own ; and that makes all the difference. The popular saying of the Basti district ' shows ]io\v the idea of rank has come to be associated with the number of ' ploughs ' (i.e. plough lands) : — Bas hal 1m liilo, I'ltli lial A'7 B-'in-l Car hal h'l bard his'mrj ' Ten ploughs are the holding for a Eao [superior chief], eight for a Rana ; four are the holding of a considerable tenant-farmer, (1) Ilhistndions from tlic Pcmjilh In the JiHLAM district I have already alluded to the (Raj- put) Janjhua villages. These are interesting because of the speculation — which, I fear, is quite baseless — that they represent some relics of primitive Aryan chiefships. However, there is every appearance that there was here a local rulershvp founded by conquest or adventure, and that the present co-sharing Janjhua villages are the relics of it.^ A particularly good instance occurs in the neighbouring district of GujRAT. Here the Chib Rajputs formed a local kingdom (still spoken of as the Chibhal), of which the main features can be traced, as it lasted down to the Sikh times, and indeed seems to have been over- thrown by Maharaja Eanjit Singh.* Whether there was one ' North-West Provinces Gazetteer, •Account of the Basil District,' vi. 686. - As a siagle instance of how pride of descent may cling to a purely peasant class, I may mention the clan of Manliai in the Gujrat district, Panjab. They are really probably connected far off with some old Rajput stock by a mixed marriage — they say with Eam-Chandra of AjudhiyiT, which is much like being connected with ' Noah,' &c. ! The Jamviil Eaj- puts are their ' relatives,' and they came to the Panjab at a remote date. They have long been completely agriculturist, bnt still they call aU the eldest sons ' Raja ' and the younger ' Mu'tii,' and use the ' Jai ' or Rajput salutation {Gujrat Gazetteer, p. 65). ' There is in the S. E. (Thomson's), § 61, &c.. a very interesting account of Janjhua rule and its gradual ovei'throw. It is too long to quote, and does not admit of being condensed. * The older S. B. (Hector Mackenzie's), -n-hich gives fuU details, is no longer accessible, but it is quoted in the Gujrat Gazetteer (2nd edition), p. 64. What is specially interesting is that this elan professes to be of great antiquity and superiority, and has a curious custom of recognising VILLAGES OF INDIVIDUAL FOUNDATION o(Jl) llrya or priucipal chiet over the whole does not clearly appear; but it is probable, since there is still an existing ' head of the elan 'named Raja Sultan Klian, who has a considerable j'of/tr (or revenue-free grant) from Government. The acconnt given by Hector Mackenzie shows four major-territories, called numdl, each containing twenty-two villages (i.e. a caiihisi) and six minor divisions known as dher'i, containing twelve villages each. The chief of the nuc7uU bore the title of Edi ; the heads of the dherl were Thakl-ar (=nullnir). • The families in which the titles were formerly hereditary are known, but they retain none of their influence beyond their own villages.' As the clansmen would not cultivate the estate themselves, the best lands became occupied by others during the owners' absence in the petty wars of the period ; ' and when the Chibs finally took to agriculture they wei'e unable to dispossess these squatters.' (2) The North-West Provinces In these provinces, the instances of villages as relics of former kingdoms or chiefships are so numerous that I must make a limited selection taken from the characteristically differ- ent parts of the country. I have already remarked that the Rohilkhand districts have suffered much by various wars and invasions, and finally by the harsh rule of the Rohilla chiefs in the last century. When the districts came under the British Revenue-Settlement it was found that a large number of villages were virtually without owners, and the Reveniie agreement was necessarily made with comparatively new men, who restored the cultivation and became owners. Nevertheless, the traces are ^ abundant of former Rajput chiefships — sometimes constituting what may be called kingdoms, at other times being merely local over-lordships. It is worthy of notice that in these parts the Rajput clans are commonly called not Rajput but Thalinr, sons of the clan by cutting off a lock of their hair, left for the purpose, at the, ancestor''s tomb. (Compare H. E. Seebohm's Tribal Greece, p. 12.5.) They claim descent from the Katoch Eajiis of Kangra — a claim which is possibly confirmed by their calling their seven clan- divisions miii, or muhi. This term I cannot trace anywhere but in the JiOandhar Doab, to which anciently the early Kfingra Eiijiis' dominion extended. See p. 273, ante. 310 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY wliicli word means ' Baron' or 'Chief,' and indicates tliat they were originally established as over-lords. It has been remarked that this over-lordship was ii-eely accepted, and not infrequently invited, by local cultivating bodies; and it was doubtless a real protection in many instances. It seems to have been a common procedure, that whenever a chiefship was established at a given centre, members of the family would go forth and take the direct control of smaller estates in the siirrounding country. ' Among the Thakurs, succes- sive branches continually left the family residence and settled in their allotments of country.' ' This must Ijave facilitated the ultimate dissolution of the territoi-ial estate into small portions, often consisting of a single village. In this countiy (Shahjahanpl'R District) the Katherii//'' clan obtained such power that the name ' Kather ' was formerly given to it. The clan long resisted the Moslem arms, and was only suppressed in the days of the Mughal Empire ; but many villages held by Katheriyd still remain.- In one jKirfjoMa (Golri) of the Pa wain Tahsil the clan had been so weakened by the departure of cadet members of their houses to other settlements, that when their chief was slain in battle, his widow, who was of course of another clan — in this case a Gam-, sent for her kins- men to help. The Gaur leader came with his followers, but soon ousted all the remaining Kaiheriyu. A Gcmr Raja long retained his rule over the Pawain ti'act, but his family did not expand, so that we have a local landlord estate of some size, and not a number of separate villages. In another i?argaMa, on the contrary, the Raja of Khotar disappeared as far as terri- torial rule was concerned, but left a number of families of village proprietors, all of whom are ' Scotch cousins of the Raja's.'^ From the adjoining district of Bareli several examples might be given. One is that of the Ja/nghura, a branch of the TPJu'.dr (or Tumdr) clan, who seem to have been dispersed in the troubles which preceded the downfall of the Hindu monarchy of Delhi ; some went to Budaon, others to Shahjahanpur. I notice that this kindred was divided, owing to a very common cause, into two ; the Bhur, who are descendants of a regular marriage of ■ Shalijaluininir S. B. (1874), §. 26, p. 60. = Ibid. p. 131. ' S.E. ^ 16, ch. V. VILLAGES OF INDIVIDUAL FOUNDATION oil the ancestor, and the Tardi group, descendants of a second (and perhaps inferior) marriage. AVhen the Gauhcln, with their famous Raja Prithwi Chand, defeated the Tunulr, five brothers of the dispersion led separate parties; the youngest crossed the Ganges to Bulandshahr ; another, called Hemraj, had three sons ; one of these settled on the high land east of the Rani- ganga river, and from him the JBhur-Jcmghdrds are descended. Since this settlement some fourteen generations are asserted to have passed, and the chiefships thus formed are now found to survive in some 3,150 co-sharing descendants in many villages. It is, however, in the Doab districts that we have some of the best examples of the results of a decadence of territorial rulership — how it leaves behind it proprietary village-estates. The country near Kanauj, as I have before remarked, was always a strong centre of successive Hindu rulers. The Cawnpork district (in this vicinity) shows many traces of their rule, and Mr. Wright, in his Settlement Report, has given an account of the matter which is worth reading in extenso} He was fortunately able to procure a Vansavall or genealogical record of the Gdndel clan ; and, making allowance for much exaggeration and for legendary additions, it has still an evident foundation of fact. It seems that the Gaharivur sovereign of Kanauj had been weakened, and ultimately driven out of his kingdom, by the early Moslem invasions ; whereon a Gdndel chief, Sabliajit, was advised to take possession of the vacant State. For eight generations a single son succeeded to the dominion. At length came a group of three sons, who formed three main branches of the family; the eldest took the title of Bdj^d, the second of Rdivat, the third of Edo. The 'head of the first branch was removed to a new location in the Bithrir2ia?'<;cwia, under circum- stances which I need not detail ; the second became extinct ; the third, or Supahi, branch before long again divided ; the Rawatpur section retained forty-eight villages, apparently a hedlisl,^ and from this a cauh'isl was afterwards partitioned.' 1 1 S. B. (1878), ch. ii. p. 18. - Ante, p. 198. The groups caurdsl, healisi, &c., rarely keep to the exact number. ' One branch, having been leniently treated by the emperor (for their chief ship was no longer independent) in the matter of some arrears of .•)12 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COAIMUXITY cannot follow the estate through its whole history, but partitions ;ig;iiii and again occurred, till the entire territory was sj)lit up into quite a number of separate shares, and these, as usual, after- wards constituted a series of joint-village properties. In such cases some members of the leading houses may have a larger '•state than the rest, holding together a certain number of vil- lai'es as over-lords, and retaining a title of honour. In that case '■ach will be the landlord or ' Zamindar' of the group.' In the same way I might cite the case of one of the Gaharwdr clan, who was expelled, as I have above noticed, from Kanauj, and obtained a new local chiefship in the south of imrfjana Bilhaur. In another case, a Gamdrgaur chief named Pathardeo had seven sons. The father was murdered by a turbulent aboriginal tribe called Meo : in revenge, the sons attacked and defeated them, ;ind thus obtained a number of local dominions. But here, again, partition split up the estates ; and after various fortunes and many revenue sales at the beginning of the century, as well as subsequent losses during the mutiny, only a limited number of separate village-estates now remain.- I can only allude to one more case, a gens of comparatively late origin, called Gauiam, whose chief was first established at Argal, in the Fatihpur district.^ The family divided into groups with titles, liajd for the eldest, Bdo, Edna, and Rdwat for the others. So great were their territories, at one time, that they weie in a position to make large gi'ants of villages to chiefs of another clan — the Gdndel, to Brahmans, and to some Athya- Gautam, who pleased the Argal Raja by teaching him the game land-revenue, paid him the compliment of ever after wearing their coats opening on the loft side like JMussuhnans. • The poUcy of the early Settlements in the Korth-West Provinces was to encom-age the village bodies, and to get rid of over-lord proprietors if possible — in some cases compromising their half-grown claim to land- ordship by granting a ' Taluqdari allowance,' which was a sort of rent charge on the estate, ultimately fixed at about 10 per cent, on the Govern- ment revenue. This policy formed the subject of considerable controversy at the time. (See L. S. B. 1. ii. 157 ff.) ''■ The whole account is worth reading {Cawnpore S. B. ch. ii. §§ 25-35). '' See Beames' Elliot's Glossary, vol. i. (s.v. ' Gautam '). This clan is Btill numerous in Ghazipur, and in some parts of Fatihpur and Cawnpore. VILLAGES OF INDIVIDUAL FOUNDATION 313 of chess.' In all these cases the history was as usual : soldiers of fortune acquire territories; their chiefs build forts and rule from those centres ; in time they become possessors of many villages, both old and new; and tiltimateh', in later generations, appear sometimes with their principal member retaining a lavdlord estate over a number of villages, but the rest holding single villages, of which their descendants form the co-sharing communities. To complete the history of the Gautam of Argal, reference must be made to the Settlement Report.^ The clan espoused the losing side of the Pathan Moslems, ultimately defeated by Humayun and Akbar when the Mughal Empire was approaching its zenith. So they lost their possessions. The Argal Raja, though much respected by all the Thakurs (Rajputs), is now only the petty 'Zamindar' of two villages. But in Tappa Jas some of them continued to hold a caurdsi ; and many having become Muhammadans, they have still retained a considerable number of villages. I will only add that in the 'Azamgaeh district the Gautam chiefs were once so powerful as to rule nearly the whole, except the Mahul portion. This was largely, however, due to the rise of the chief Abhiman-sen, who, in the seventeenth century, became a Muhammadan, entei'ed the service of the Emperor Akbar, and grew rich ; so he purchased extensive estates about Daulatabad. ' His descendants, and those of his brothers, systematically plundered their neighbours, wresting their estates from them one by one,' till, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the i whole district was held by them as above stated. It is interest- ing to trace from the Settlement Report of Mr. J. R. Reid, ' Another large grant was the origin of the Bais possessions across the Ganges in Oudh. Bhao, a Bais chief, rescued the Argal EajiVs queen when, on a pilgrimage, she was attacked by the Mussulmans. BhAo received a suitable bride as his reward, and was told he could have the lordship over as many villages as his bride could name in one breath. This remarkably well-winded lady, so it is said, pronounced the names of 1,440 villages ! ^ Fatihpur S. B. (1878), p. 9. I have already noted how in this district revenue-farmers afterwards gained possession of so many vil. lages (ante, p. 304). 314 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY what has been the outcome of all this success.' First, let mo mention the reporter's observation - that the population is now poor and dense, but the facilities for agriculture ai-e considerable, and there has been a remarkable immunity from war and marauders. Many alien qw^its have been made, and many villages are held by descendants of the grantees. But in the greater part high caste proprietors are in possession ; these are, in fact, remnants of the old ruling chiefs' houses ; and therefore it is not surprising to find that the imitido.rl, or ' aristocratic ' system of village holdiug by ancestral shares, is in theory everywhere prevalent. Tlie whole of the land has been exces- sively subdivided. The Government Review of the ' Eeport ' notices that there are 5,532 villages (mav.za), varying in size from little blocks of 1^ to 5.500 acres in extent; the average being 248 acres. The groups of laud held under one united title (pnahal) are 3,4<46. As to the nature of the imii-ition, the principal feature to be noted is that the families are divided into patti, which seem to represent a sort of minor clan or wide- kindred of the same house ; each pattl is called by the name of the ancestral head. These pa^/7 consequently represent the division only as far as the first or main branches of the original family ; ^ for within the pattl, the component families and households often continue to hold undivided, the land being either rented to tenants (joarjas land), or being held by individual co-sharers as tenants of the body. In the majority of cases division began long ago, probably in the time when the heads of branches (pa^fl), or their immediate successors, were alive; most of the cultivated lands and the profitable waste were then divided ; but some still remained common to the whole major-group. Gradually the ^ffiif is were divided into smaller family subdivisions, and then into minute holdings. Where there is complete division it has been carried to great lengths ; on an average, there are nine fields to two acres.'' The division is oft-en made khet-hat ^ S.R. (1877). The Eeport describes the fourteen ^ai'g'anfis not perma. nently settled, which now alone form the district : this is the sixth settle- - ment. ' Ibid. sec. ix. p. 87, § 307. ' Ibid. Government Bevieiv, § 2. "* S. ii. § 309. And there are sixty-five tables given in the appendix to the Eeport of different kinds of fractions (starting from the riq^cc as VILLAGES OF INDIVIDUAL FOUNDATION )15 (as the phrase is) — i.e. the number of geographical villages that belong to one large group of families and households are not allotted compactly one, or half a one, to each patil («r whatever it is), but each paf^Z will have its lands scattered through a number of m«t(zas.' When the estate is divided into ancestral fractions it is said to be l-hmitdiil {= pattiduri), even though the shares held are not exactly correct to the scale. But it has oftea happened that the land proved so various in value that the fraction of the revenue and other burdens, which in theory ought to be identical with the land-fraction, became impossible, and the sharers converted their system into what is called IngJulddm ; ^ that means that each sharer was allowed to hold what he had, or to adjust his holding to what he could manage, but a really proportionate division of the land-revenue-charge was made to suit the holding. This de facto possession is sometimes recorded in acres, but sometimes it is noted in terms of the actual fraction of the whole that it represents. Doubtless, in time, it will be believed that this was the real ' ancestral ' fraction. ' For,' says the reporter,^ ' they never forget the descent from a common ancestor ; and there is a sentiment against adoption ' (i.e. the more or less artificial extension of the direct descent-table).'' It seems, further, that although the incidence of the revenue has been adjusted by the hlghddam arrangement, the profits of waste and other like dues (sa'ir), and jjossibly the share in the waste land, may still be regulated by the ancestral fractions ; and so V two scales come into use — imttiddn mdl and pattiddrl sdir. representing unity) used in the various divisions. (Cp. also Caivnpori S. E. § 107.) The following is No. Ixiii. in abstract : r.upee Ana Ganda Kauri Dant 1 Kant Rev Phm RiO 1 = 10 = 33U= i,:so= 19,2U0 = ; 283,000= (and so on x by 15 each time) 1 = 20 1=' 1 1= 15 ' 1 = ,15 1 = 15 1 1=15 i 1= lo ' This peculiarity is further described in the following chapter, p. 340. ^ A full description is given of how this came about (see S. R. p. 92, §§ 326-8). The term means' price or value per bigha.' ' 5. B. § 322 and note. * Which would defeat the expectations of collaterals when the direct line otherwise failed. olG THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY J All this is very different from the hlMidclMru, of the demo- cratic family and the clan- settlement. It marks the sense of individual lordship, as jealously maintained by right of descent from the particular head of the family, which has branched off from the stem of the once royal or princely ancestor. We mark also the influence of the developed joint-family system ; in fact, the tribal and clan institutions of a wider character have begun to fade.' Where a certain number of families still hold undivided, it is always because they are closely related, and it is easier or more profitable to share the rents and other income than to squabble over the minute division of fields into patches, which will be unworkable when they are declared ; or perhaps it is because the land is held by tenants, and there is no object in dividing ; while if there is any waste reserved for grazing, the utility of it would be destroyed by partition. It is not surprising to find, in this advanced stage of severalty, that the pancayat system ' exists only in theory,' and that the official headmen (laonharddr) have practically nothing to do, and receive no paqotra, or official allowance. I will conclude this series of illustrations of the North- W^est Provinces by only one more case in the Bundelkhand region, where we have not only the relics of the rulership, but also a definite memory of the loss of the princely title once enjoyed. In BiNDA, Mr. Cadell has described in detail the rise and fall of the Dikhit llajpnts.^ In the thirteenth century they had two capitals whence their chiefs ruled. ' But after the fall of the empire, even the inferior title of Rao was lost to the clan, and whether owing to the discouragement of successive chiefs, or to the influence of the Hindu law of joint inheritance, there are now many Bikliit villages, but no Dikhit chief.' ' It will be remembered that in many cases in this chapter we have spoken of clans, because as a matter of fact the clans exist, and their . ' number can be counted — if they are on compact areas of country. But ^ nothing necessarily remains of any clan feeling as to pi'operiy ; this is completely replaced by the ancestral individual right and by the co-sharing body as representatives of one original o\vner. » S. B. (1881), § 72, p. 64. VILLAGES OF INDIVIDUAL FOUXDATION 317 (3) Illustrations from Oiulh The value of possessions in so fertile a countiy, and perhaps the influence of traditions of kingdoms believed to have been held by half-remembered ancestors or by legendary clan connec- tions, must always have combined to tempt C/i a/ rt leaders to try and return to OUDH. They could reach it without difficult}'^ either from their refuge in Rajputana or when driven from settlements in Ujjain or Kanauj. Such possession was in fact acquired, sometimes by independent adventure, sometimes by joining the army of some Mughal or earlier emperor. The Ghatrl possessions and lordships thus acquired have given rise to proprietary-villages and to estates established on a footing clearly distinguishable from that of the apparently earlier land-holding communities, among whom no monarchical organi- sation or desire of territorial rulership was ever developed.' To give a complete account of the many conquering Rajas or local chiefs and of the estates held by their descendants, would be to transcribe a large portion of the account given of each district in the Gazetteers and Settlement Reports ; the difi5culty is to make a suitably small selection for the purposes of illustration. In the SultAxpur district I notice an ' estate ' of 365 villages held by families of the Bandalgotl clan ; the head still retaining, as landlord, the possession of 316 villages. This was due to the fact that up to the eleventh generation from the founder only one son was born ; but at last there were more, and then the estate was divided and several village properties became separate.- In Bahraich the great Ikhauna estate might still be flou- rishing as an example of individual, territorial, foundation but for the events of the mutiny. It owed its origin to a single Janwdr chief under Moslem, patronage (for the chiefs long bore the military title of ' Risaldar '). Shah Jahan made the estate revenue-free, and it became a landlord property. A number of villages (mentioned under the designation of bhaiym) were originally allotted to cadets of the family for their maintenance ; 1 Ante, p. 193, and cf. p. 288. ' Oudh Gazetteer, i. 47. As I have before remarked, it is perfectly immaterial, as regards origin, whether these villages did or did not in after times come under the power of Taluqdars or landlords. 318 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY but after two or three generations tliey were found as indepen- dent estates having no connection with the chief, and were afterwards reduced to paying rent, separately, to a Taluqdar.' For the Kheri district (northern part) the writer of the Gazetteer notice makes some good remarks on the manner in which Rajput chieftains came to be able to establish their local rule. ' Tlie Chatrl ascendency,' he says, ' might be simply described as the re-establishment of local Hindu government under the native chief. There was no elaborate design or settled plan. A conqueror appeared and was often welcomed as giving some security against the oppression of neighbouring chiefs or of the suzerain government. The Raja once established could . . . dispossess any of his subjects who showed signs of treachery or disloyalty. . . . He had many wives and many sons, bastard and legitimate ; all the waste lands were his ; all lapsed and forfeited villages also became his ; with such lands he pi'ovided for the scions of his house.' ^ In this way much of the actual Ownership of the land passed into the hands of his famih". Four-fifths of the district, it is said, belonged to Chatris, and three-fifths were under their ruling chiefs. Indeed, in Akbar's time, of the 223 malull (or jjwrganas) of Oudh. eighty-seven were held by Chatri lords. Other tribesmen, as Kayaths and Kwmls, might obtain village estates, but they never became rulers. But an able and adventurous Chatrl of noble descent could always get a local territory ; and villages, as already re- marked, would often gladly place themselves under him.' The Moslem Emperor was content to take a general revenue or tri- bute from such a chief, leaving to him the administration of justice ; and the whole estate ceased to be borne on the imperial registers a,s Mdlsa or directly subject to the imperial adminis- tration. It was merely a natural progression of things that ' the subjection of the land to the Raja became first confused, and then identical, with his proprietorship.' In Oudh it often 1 Gazetteer, i. 117, 122, 177 if. = Ibid. ii. 140, 215 S. ■' Ibid. 207. Several instances are noted where the village lancl- liolders voluntarily placed themselves under the protection of the Kiljil, This hdth-rakhdi, or commendation, is frec^Tiently found. The villages always ended by passing under the complete ownership of deseecdants c f the chiefs family. VILLAGES OF INDIVIDUAL FOUNDATION 319 happened that the Raja became Taluqdar, and utimately was created landlord of the whole or a portion of his demesne ; but, il' the estate happened to be partitioned or the Raja disappeared, being put to flight, or slain in battle after some unsuccessful revolt, the villages would continue to be held by some members of the family, and would become so many separate village-estates. A most remarkable instance remains to be cited, and it illus- trates the direct process of the division of a Raj into botli village-estates and larger landlord-properties. I refer to the case of the TiloJ; Candl Bais estates in Rai-Bareli.' The whole history is too long to be even summarised here, but the main facts are these : the district contains 1,735 villages, of which 1,719 are owned by descendants of Tilok Chand, who died shortly before Babar ascended the throne of Delhi (a.d. 1526). The dominion, indeed, began before the chiefs time, but he consolidated the position. He acknowledged the ^Mughal suzerainty and never assumed the title of Raja personally ; it was only taken by his eldest descendant at a later date.^ At the present time there are about forty landlord estates containing several villages each and ranking as ' Taluqdari ' estates, and a great number of village-estates.' This resulted from the family at first admitting of partition and then agreeing to stop it. The elder branch represents the estate of Murarmau, in which the title of Raja was afterwards taken; it was the several grandsons who, separating, originated the larger estates ; and these again became variously subdivided in the course of time. ' The accounts,' writes Mr. Benett,"* ' of the half century which elapsed between the death of Tilok Chand and the accession of Akbar are very meagre. ... It may be surmised that the Raja of Murarmau, the Rana of Khiron, and some other chiefs of a different stock, each exercised on a smaller scale the sovereign powers of the first great Raja (i.e. Tilok Chand). ' The whole history will be found in the Gazetteer, iii. 208 and 225 fl, and in Mr. Benetfs Chief Clans of Rai-Bareli (Luclaiow, 1870). 2 Gazetteer, iii. 230-1. 2 I cannot separate the single villages held by Tilok Chandl Bais from some held by Moslems and Kanhpurias ; but out of the v.-hole l,7ou villages 537 are independent of any Taluqdar over-lord. * Clans of Bai Bareli, p. 53 ff. 320 IKE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY Under the vigorous administration of Akbar and his successors, the Hindu clans were naturally much depressed, and driven, so to speak, nearer to the soil. Their connection with the villages in their domain became much closer ; new villages were founded, and the increasing numbers of each family led to the establish- ment of the non-cultivating village-proprietors who are now- known in our courts as the " old zamliidcLrs." The intervention of a foreign ruler, and the diminished danger of invasion from without deprived the Eajas of half their attributes : the principle of unity was lost sight of, and each member of a leading house was able, when he separated, to assume, in his new home, almost all the privileges retained by the head of the famih'. The ties of kinsmanship were, however, still vividly recognised, and at the end of this period, instead of a few unconnected Rajas, we find hierarchies of powerful landowners, each the immediate proprietor and landlord of a few villages froin, which he drew his subsistence . . .' (the italics are mine). In this case it will be observed, although a clan unity so far prevails that kinship is acknowledged and kept up by the survival of the military spirit (always a strong incentive to its preservation), and by the fact that the Emperor would call on the chiefs to furnish levies for the imperial army, there is nothing of clan-custom observable in the mode of land-holding. The tenure is ' aristocratic ' either in the form of larger landlordships or of jointly-owned, single, villages. Section III. — Villages founded by individual Adventl'rer.s AND Settlers unconnected with the State or \vith Territorial Chiefship. While a large number of villages have had their origin in some individual chief or dignified founder connected with a State or chiefship, it is also true that other founders have been private adventurers, settlers, or purchasers, without any terri- torial connection. It is convenient to separate the cases, because it facilitates discussion to classify our known origins of villages as far as possible. There is often, however, room for doubt whether in any given case the foundation more properly belongs to one specific kind or another ; we may VILLAGES OF INDIVIDUAL FOUNDATION 321 set down a case as apparently one of private adventure, though really there had been a royal grant, or the founder represents a remnant of a forgotten local rulership. This degree of doubt necessarily arises where the foundation is remote in time and the evidence chiefly traditional. The possibility of such error is, however, of slight importance so long as we can preserve the main distinction between the village arising out of the ckim- or tribe, and that arising out of iiulividual foundation — in one form or another. For wherever we have the clan-group, and the clan sentiment of equal right, we have a different basis of constitution from what is observed in the case where an individual ancestor is remembered as the direct originator of the estate. A typical case in point occurs in the Gujranwala district of the Panjab, where we have a group of eighty-one communities (pattiddrl in their original state) descended fi-om a single founder. 1 do not know any evidence or traditional opinion that there was any local rule or chiefship ; but the founder was himself of good family : the Gattd houses ' claim descent from a Cauhdn Rajput stock — indeed, from Eaja Prithwi Chand himself. But a single adventurer of the family, named Dhiru, in the tenth or eleventh generation, left his home and settled in a village called Sidhkot : he married two wives and had eighteen sons, from whom all the village-bodies are descended. Both in this district and in Sialkot, although the general prevalence of the ^jatiiddn form of village indicates that a great number are held by bodies de- scended from adventurers or founders of some pretension to good birth, there is no definite trace of local rulerships out of which they sprang. Nor, on the other hand, does there appear to be anything of the tribal character in the villages in question. In Sialkot as many as 2,155 villages are shown as shared on the ' ancestral ' principle, of which lOG are held by the families undivided; ^ only 633 are put down as bJiaiachdra, 1 The family finds a place in Sir Lepel Griffin's Panjab Chiefs, where their history is given in detail. ^ Unless I am misled by the term zamlndarl without any qualifying addition, which is much misused; it may mean villages owned by a single purchaser, &c., or by a group remaining undivided. Probably the latter {shdmildt or sanjl villages) are meant. (iSiCilkot Gazetteer, 1883-4, p. 48.) Y ;rJ2 T[IE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITV wLicli, as the term is used iu the Paiijab, includes villages that yjrobably were originally ' ancestral,' but in which the ravages of time and circumstance have caused the regular shaves to be modified or forgotten altogether. It is worth noting that in the earlier Settlement, Mr. E. Prinsep, illustrating the varieties of village as regards sharing, takes, as the standard natural to the district, the case of ' the founder of a village who secures a proiDerty by purchase, grant, appropriation, or conquest;' and he goes on to show how the sons will hold undivided, how they ultimately separate, and how the anasstrcd shares of the separated liouses are changed into de facto holdings or some other shai'es which have become ' customary.' This series of changes would be wholly inapplicable to cases where the estate did not begin with one founder, but where a whole clan had divided the conquered land, or where a clan grew up under its own customs of holding. I have already alluded to a specific case from the Gdj- ranwalI district ; but the totals of the difierent kinds of village in the whole district are also worthy of notice ; though here a considerable number of villages are held on shares of a special kind which may indicate a different origin. But even allowing for these cases, the number of villages derived from vidividucd founders is considerable. An analysis of the tables ' shows a total of 1,199 villages, classifiable thus: — rl38 I held by single owners (40) and undivided families ; ^ ^ -! 211 (wholly or partly divided, (118 ^ariZy on ancestral shares, 459 by a system of shares in wells, 188 by a system of ' customary' shares, 85 held ' on possession ' only. 1,199 Even of the eighty-five, in the last line, it is quite possible that some really belong to the other classes, only that from one cause or another the shares have been completely lost. It is noteworthy that among the villages which acknowledged shares, no less than • S. B. (Nisbet), printed in 1874. The figures are gathered from the tables at the end. \ ILL AGES OF INDIVIDUAL FOUNDATION 323 395 agreed to return to the correct list, some by voluntarj- sur- render of excess lands, others by making up to those who had less than their proper share by additions out of the undivided culturable waste.* These examples have been selected from the Panjab Reports without diflSculty, owing to the circumstances of the country. I have not been able to do the same for the North- West Provinces and Oudh, because, with a denser population, with a much greater number of local kingdoms and chiefships, and the wider prevalence of revenue-farming, in former days, it becomes jdmost impossible to separate the cases of private enterprise from those connected with territorial rulershijos. It is not, however, to be doubted that villages due to private, individual, foundation, are just as common in the Ganges plain as they are in the Panjab. Section IV. — Coloxist Associ-ixiONs I do not at present include those ancient traces of villages in the Madras Tamil country, regarding which our most reason- able conclusion is that they were due to colonist families of an energetic agriculturist caste settled under patronage of a local prince, and who adopted an interesting method of co-operative village cultivation. It is only traces and traditions of these southern villages that now survive ; and before I could bring them forward as instances of the formation of joint-villages by voluntary association, I should have, as I hope to do in a future chapter, to argue out the case for their existence, nature, and origin. Here I am concerned with villages of a type actually exist- ing and kno\vn. Such cases must necessarily be confined to sparsely populated districts, where large areas were, even in late historic times, awaiting cultivators energetic and patient enough to cope with the initial difSculties of establishing cultivation. The South-eastern Panjab exhibits a natural field for such founda- ' It may also he noted that if we deduct 13S single owner or undivided villages, the remaining 1,061 (shared or held in severalty) show, as a whole, 636 in which the original system has undergone no change, and 425 in which under stress of time and circumstance it has heen altered. Y 2 324 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY tions ; and we are not surprised to find them quite characteristic of certain districts or parts of districts in that locality. In such villages there is no question of ' holding in common ' except in so far as the unappropriated waste and grazing ground is so held. The villages have accepted the joint-responsibility under the modern revenue system, because their association would ex- pressly contemplate cohesion for such purposes, not to speak of other countervailing advantages, such as acquiring defined rights in the adjacent waste area, which they may not have possessed before. Villages founded by associated colonists are treated as cases of iiidividual foundation, since the associates are neither a gradually expanding clan nor a tribal-group already formed. If some of the members happen to be connected by blood, which is quite likely, it is an accidental circumstance, and may have produced some sharing (as a family) of particular holdings, but not of the whole village. Complete extracts from the District Eeports describing the mode of foundation, the planting of the stake (mori) to mark the central village-site, and the drawing lots for the ' plough-lands,' have been printed in m}' Laiw? Systems of British India and need not be repeated here. ' We find villages of this kind in the districts of FiROZPOR and what was formerly SlRSA.2 There is no doubt also that a similar origin may be ascribed to villages in other parts. It will be enough to call attention to the main features — viz. that the headman is the leader and spokesman of the pai'ty, who has perhaps conciliated some neighbouring chief or governor, and obtained his countenance to the projected settlement. JMajor and minor divisions of the culturable area were, or might be, arranged in the first instance to suit the requirements of different groups — probably difierent castes or different family aggregates ; within these, the several ' plough-lands ' — such is the general unit — were arranged and assigned to each settler according to his means, i.e. with refer- ence to the plough cattle he possessed, and the number of hands be could bring to the work of cultivation ; the plough-lands " Vol. ii. p. 678 £f, and p. 689. ' The Sirsa district has been abolished, part of the territory being added to- Firozpur, part to Hisar. VIl.LAGES OF COLOXIST ASSOCIATES 325 were taken by drawing lots for each, so that there might be no unfair distribution. As to the adjacent waste area, it was so little considered that no definite boundaries at first existed ; and long afterwards, anyone of the settlers who chose could break up a new portion, outside his former allotment. Indeed, this was the cause of some trouble after the Land-Revenue Settlement was introduced, and a tenant law was provided. For then the waste was definitely surveyed and included in the village boundaries, and became formalhj the joint or ' common ' property of the whole body, who were, under the system in question, regarded as the co-proprietors of the whole village. Consequently, after the survey and record of rights, no one could make a new field in the waste without proceedings for partition, or without asking permission of the whole body. Moreover, additional cultivators had been formerly allowed in as tenants, on the understanding, perhaps rather tacit than expressed, that the land they cleared and subdued to the plough would be left in their possession for ever. Under the first of the tenant laws (1868) such persons might find themselves treated as tenants at ii;ill, and be offered the option of a rise in rent or of notice to quit — a proceeding which, however legal, they regarded with indignation. It is extremely difficult to apply the term ' collective owner- ship ' to the rights in a village so constituted, at least before the days of Revenue records and surveys. The body was united for its own interest, and it accepted the joint liability for the Government Revenue, as one of the most natural objects of its association.' It is also curious to note that in some cases the headman and his sons managed to push themselves forward into a sort of proprietary position over the whole village, and exact some kind of rent from the other cultivators ; in that case the village was distinguished as boleduri (6oZtt= agreement). In revenue parlance, the others were called bhaidchdrd, though not in the correct sense in which I have always used the term. I do 1 As I have had occasion to observe before, m the days of bad or oppressive revenue management, it was a great matter for a combined body to be able to bargain for a lump sum which the collector would agree to, because it saved trouble ; the village was thus secured from the inquisi- torial visits and vexatious mterference of the revenue-farmers' underlings. 32G THE IXDIAX VII.T.AGE COMJIUXITY not know of any specific instance where existing village bodies known to have originated as colonies and associations have adopted any other method of allotting the land than that of assigning separate numbers of ' plough-lands ' taken by lot. ]3ut there are still many villages the origin of which is uncer- tain ; and I suspect that not a few villages holding by shares in wells and in other modes (to be mentioned in the next chapter) are voluntary colonist associations. In any case, the form of sharing adopted will depend on the local conditions of agriculture. If such a colony, instead of being planted in open dry plains and prairies like those of Pirozpur and Sirsa, had been formed in a dense jungle country like that of Southern India {Tomlai-manda- lani) they might have adopted a different method; they might have all combined to clear an area gradually, and to work the land without any final allotment, determining year by year what portion each co-sharer should take in hand. We shall see, later on, reason to believe that this was really the mode of working in the villages in Southern India, which were once held ' jointly ' under a noteworthy colonising enterprise. Having now passed in review the various known origins of actually existing joint-villages, and seen how — apart from any general a irriori theory — these villages, really grew up, it is evident that we have two great causes for union — (1) the exist- ence of a tribal or clan stage of society with all that this stage implies, especially in the way of a right to share equally in the tribal acquisition; (2) the influence of the 'joint-family' and its law of joint-inheritance. And to these we might perhaps add a third — voluntary association and combination. Villages, or areas larger than villages, constituted under either influence are found to be divided into certain general — majcr and minor, primary and secondary — divisions of the land, and finally into individual shares. Thus, there are certain liens which tend to make each village, in some sense, a unit-estate. They are, therefore, brought under a system of Land-Eevenue Management which, devised to suit the prevailing form of tenure, subjects all the village estates in the province to a similar system of demarcation, survey, and I'ecord. The system also applies a common nomenclature to them all ; and thus, as it were, varnishes over the whole group with an VILLAGES OF COLONIST ASSOCLVTES o2 I appearance of uniformity wliicli goes beyond any degree of similarity tliey naturally possess.' It now remains to examine some details of the internal structure of joint-\illages, and to note both the minor variations which occur and the modifications that the form of constitution may undergo. We have finally to notice the special cases of joint- village which are believed once to have existed in certain other parts of India, but which have become a subject of dispute because only traces of them now exist. These are very interesting to the historian as showing the growth, or at least tlie probable growth, of over-lord claims over what would otherwise be inde- pendent villages of the raiyatwdri type, and also the formation of villages under special circumstances in a joint or co-sharing form as exceptions to the prevailing tenure. If our inference.^ regarding these mostly long decayed landlord-villages are at all just, we shall have the phenomenon of the raiyahcurl village and the joint-village occurring in juxtaposition. But such a juxta- position is not confined to these doubtful cases, nor is it depen- dent on inferences regarding the past ; we shall also tate occasion to describe certain cases where it can be seen in existence at the present day. ' By such a remark I do not intend to imply any disparagement of the system. As a matter of fact, in practical working, the North-West Provinces Kevenue-systeni initiated by Eegulation VII. of 1822 (and appKed, with local modifications, to Orissa, to the Panjab, to Gudh, to Ajmer, and to the Central Provinces) has proved remarkably elastic. In Orissa, for instance, the working is as nearly raiyatwdr'i as possible : and so in Ajmer, where the principle of the joint-responsibility has been reduced to a mere shadow. Indeed, the system is able practically to admit botli the landlord right over large estates (as in Oudh and parts of the North- West Provinces') and what are really separate holdings in villages nominally joint. 528 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITV CHAPTER VIII THE VARIETIES AND MODIFICATIONS OF VILLAGE FOliMS We have seeu hitherto that the existence of a group of agri- cultural holdings forming a village does not necessarily imply a single or uniform plan of internal constitution. The village may be a group of independent holdings ; or it may be in one sense a unit, a share in which is held by every one of the resident owners who form the ' village community.' • Or again it may be a group of lands which has been almost accidentally formed, the real areaof ' collective ownership ' (as far as the term is applicable) being something much larger than a village. In any case, the constitu- tion may differ. The main forms or principles have now been dis- cussed — the tribal, the joint-family or _pa/ii(£(Zn, and the' equalised- share ' metliods, &c. But each such method may exhibit in its application certain minor variations, just as in plants we may have • species.' and under each a number of ' varieties.' Apart from this, modification arises subsequently owing to what I may call ' wear and tear.' Original shares are lost, sometimes par- tially, sometimes altogether, without any constitutional differ- ence of principle. There is one form of village which in the nature of things does not varj" : the raiyatwdrl form, being merely an aggregate of independent holdings, has no original varieties ; nor can any change be introduced short of its conversion into a joint-village either by reason of some artificial process of Revenue manage- ment, or, so to speak, naturally, by the reduction of the cultivators to the rank of ' tenant,' under the influence of a co-sharing family, which establishes over-lord rights over the whole as the proprie- torv communitv. This is, however, not a variation of form, it is the supersession of one form by another. The superiniposition of landlord rights has, no doubt, constantly occurred wherever MINOR ^'ARIATIONS IN JOINT- VILLAGE FOEMS 329 conquering clans have settled, and wherever adventurers have acquired a dominion, or Rajas and Emperors have made grants, or the revenues have been farmed to some village-manager. But until such an over-lord arises, the independent group of land- holders, with its hereditary headman and its staif of artisans and menials, must necessarily remain unchanged.' But when we come to the joint-villages^those held on some system of co-sharing — there is ample room for variety, both original and induced by accident. In the first place, I may mention a general cause of modifi- cation which may affect any kind of really joint-village. Tliere may be a portion of the village area not yet divided ; and this circumstance, though of no particular interest in itself from the tenure jDoint of view, may be of practical importance to the ad- ministration. We shall see presently that the official classifica- tion provides a distinct head for the wJwlly divided, and another for the 'parthj divided villages. In the former there is neither arable nor waste land, except the site of the village temple or mosque, the graveyards, roads, and other such naturally in- divisible areas, left unpartitioned ; ^ in the latter, which is by far the larger class, an area of waste either wanted for grazing and wood-cutting, or not yet wanted for ploughing up, is still held in common. Sometimes, also, a portion of the arable is left un- divided, because it is all in the hands of tenants — perhaps • occupancy ' or irremovable tenants — and the proprietors have no object in dividing it. This question of partial or total divi- sion may affect management in various ways ; ^ but there is one 1 I have already discussed the possibility of rights being destroyed and originally homogeneous bodies dispersed under the effects of harsh revenue administration ; but nothing of the kind tends to alter the raiyativCirl form. ^ Land which is unfit for cultivation and is otherwise impartible is spoken of as ghair mumTxin ; while the waste for grazing, &c., that may one day be utilised, is mumkin — i.e. ' possible ' to cultivate. The viUa^e-site is often partitioned, because it gives the different co-sharers not only their due allotment for their own houses, but enables each to charge rents and derive other benefits from the house-sites which fall to his share. 3 It may also be conveniently borne in mind that when a village is divided into major and secondary groups (caUed pattl, thoTc, &c.), the whole of the land may he divided between the groups, so that nothing remains 330 THE IXDIAX VILLAGE COxMMUXlTY point wliere it also touches custom and the tenure fonn. It is sometimes observed that, while the divided arable land is held on one existing scheme of shnres or on the basis of mere de facto possession, the common land and the profits from grazing, wild fruits, thatch-grass or similar produce, as well as other common profits or dues — house rates and the like — maj- be enjoyed or divided on a quite different set of shares. This usually indicates that the original shares of the foundation have been disturbed or forgotten, as regards the cultivated holdings, and yet the co- sharers do not like altogether to ignore their proper principle ; chey cannot help abandoning it as regards the lands that have long been held in severalty, but they still adhere to it as regards profits or lands which have not been yet divided. We may now proceed to the more specific varieties. It maj^ be a convenience shortly to recapitulate the list of p-MJiari/ joint forms before specifying these variations. We have : (1) villages held on a tribal basis. As a rule, the several allotments are made as equal as possible : of this class the frontier and some other Panjab villages form our best examples. Here the 'joint- holding ' depends on the sense of unity as a clan, and on the feeling that all are equal and may have to submit to exchange holdings with a view to giving effect to that equality. There is no particular bond constituting i-illaije-gYOu-ps as such. (2) "'■'illages held by ' cultivating fraternities,' where there has been no territorial rule and no aristocratic title in the family, but where, beginning with a small household-group settled on a wide area, there has gradually grown up a large clan. In some cases a group of villages has been formed like a number of buds shooting out from one parent stem, and then separating into so many full-blown new ' villages.' In other cases certain common to the whole village (shamildt dili) ; but each^afit may have in- ternally divided only part of its land, leaving some still common to the section {slidmildt pattV). It very frequently happens that smaller family (or close kindred) groups hold their shares jointly because it would be so inconvenient to divide them. The co-sharers may recognise a fractional interest in a pattl which is represented by ysVcth part of a ' rupee ' or less (see p. 315, ante) ; but such an interest cannot always be divided out on the ground, and must be enjoyed jointly with others or it would be useless. MINOR VARIATIONS IN JOINT VILLAGE FORMS 331 primary, secondary, and tertiary divisions of tlie whole estate- area have been established in the days when there were but a few family members ; but after that, all the multiplying descendants have obtained land per capita according to the actual requirements of each household as it came to maturity. There was no thought of any particular aliquot parts of the whole ; only care was taken that an equal division of good and bad lands should be observed, and more especially that a valua- tion should be made so that the share of the burdens (land- revenue or any other charges) borne by each might be in just proportion to the value and extent of the land held. In contrast with this cultivatiug-fraternity form, where some traces of clan feeling are still in evidence, stands the very large class of villages (3) where one individual, or one or two together, obtained or founded the village-estate ; and here it is solely the 'joint-family ' fully developed, and its consequent law of joint-inheritance, that has produced the joint-community. Here, too, the ' village ' is essential ; it is the limit of the grant or acquisition. The heirs will divide strictly on the ancestral shares indicated by the ' genealogical tree.' It is in this form that we have the stages, first, of the sole owner, then of his heirs holding undivided, and finally of complete or partial severance of the holdings. But in many such estates the division was made at a remote period. And there are some few cases where a kindred already numerous enough to form a village-group or something larger have, on acquiring a new domain, formed it and continue to subdivide it into so many ancestral sJiares, rather than into the equal lots of Nos. 1 and 2. The ancestral-share i?ystem is peculiarly open to give dissatisfaction as time goes on ; it is also peculiarly liable to become modified by external agency. (4) There is a class of village still having certain features of 'joint' holding — e.g. the common responsibility for the revenue, which is best described negatively ; it is not ' tribal,' it is not pattiddrl, nor is it held on the ' artificial calc,' or equalised-hold- ing method. There is locally some peculiarity, derived from some unknown source : perhaps the village is a small surviving remnant from some once larger body which has gradually dis- appeared ; often it is a voluntary association of cultivators, who 332 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY have combined for protection into a 'joint-body.' In these cases the ' shares ' are of various kinds. (5) Lastly, there is a large list of villages which is only separable because we are in the dark as to their real original mode of constitution. The ' co-sharers ' hold each a certain separate area, and the fact of possession is the only known measure of right. The official classification has a special head for these ' fZe-/acto-holding ' villages.' Let us notice each head separately, and see what minor varieties are possible. (1) It is difficult to say that there is any typical or normal form of the purely tribal village of the Panjab. Eegarding the co-sharers as persons, the village depends on the family con- nection which associates a number of kindred in one separate group, and on the conditions of life and locality which compel many small hamlets, or one large dbddl, as the case may be, to be formed. All we can ask is what is the type of tribal-s/iare ? The examples I have given show some variety in this respect which is evidently original and not induced. Generally, both in Biluchi and Pathan tribes, the larger divisions follow the branches of the first ancestral family up to a certain point ; ^ but within the Jchel, or other ultimate larger group, the single shares are per capita and equal. More rarely ancestral shares seem to be followed thi-oughout, and up to the existing families. The principal changes that occur in such a distribution of holdings are more a matter of anticipation than anything else. The clan- connection, not being exercised in war, or by other occasions, will fall away and be forgotten ; the general sense of the area as ' the clan possession ' in which each member has his personal share or right will also fade away, especially with the abandon- ment of the old custom of periodic exchange of holdings which kept it alive, but which becomes impossible when time and labour expended for years past have produced well-cultivated fields and farms, and when records of title and maps of permanent holdings ' See Appendix to the chapter on the official classification of villages for statistical purposes. ' Even then the taj>pd, &c., are not made of equal size and value ; they are larger or smaller according to the number of houses and families in each. MINOR VARIATIONS IN JOINT- VILLAGE FORMS 333 Lave been prepared. Under the system of dividing the land into lots composed of several pieces of different soils, there will be. 1 suppose, a gradual tendency for original differences to disappear under long cultivation, manuring, and watering; fields will then be voluntarily exchanged, and by these means holdings will in time become consolidated lots in one place. (2) But in the communities which I have called the ' true bhaidchard,^ and of which the Aira-khera estate in the Mathura district ' is a perfect example, there are several natural varieties if not subsequent modifications. It will be remembered that in all these cases of clan-holdings and fraternities growing up on the spot there is never anything in the nature of holding • in common.' Certain large divisions may be established at an early stage of the growth of the body, and within these the household lots or shares for the later descendants in each group are added on, one by one, as the families increase. In these cases very large areas are usually occupied ; and the first modi- fication they undergo is that some of the family groups within each main division, having each built separate groups of houses. but regarding themselves as offshoots from the parent village and not at first disconnected from it, gradually blossom out into completely separate villages. Thus a large estate in the Hamir- PUR district called Kheraila-khas, and containing 28^ square miles, was divided into six main thoh or sections, and these have now become separate village estates. So in the same district, Patara, an estate of over 9,000 acres, was divided into twelve sec- tions (there called heliri), which have become as many ' villages.' The building of the separate residence, the increase of the houses, and the consequent completion of the village establishment, is what makes the separate ' village : ' the lands belonging to it may still be scattered, and only brought into an aggregate in the official registers. But sometimes a large portion of the land happens to lie in one block, and then in the course of time out- lying fields will be exchanged, and so the village and its land will be brought into a ring fence. Lastly, special customs of distributing the revenue charges according to standard valuation lots {calc, &c.) will be given up in favour of paying according to 1 Described at p. 282 ff., ante. 334 THE IXDIAX VILLAGE COJDIUNITY the difFerential acreage-rates for soils established for assessment purposes by the Eevenue-Settlement Officer. But the metlwd of sharing also shows some variation. Thus, in the Banda district, if the village was composed of no more than the three chief varieties of soil — mur, parwd, a.nd rCikar — it was not necessary to make any complicated artificial lots, and for valuation of the holdings ; it was sufficient to treat the members of the community as holding each a certain number of higlid measures of land ; but the Inglid of the worst soil was in fact two or three times as large as the hiijltu of the best soil.' InMAiJV- PURi, examples occur of villages in which advantage was taken of the natural belts into which the cultivation in the North- West Provinces generally is observed to fall : there is t\\e (jauhdn, or laud nearest the village site (central group of homesteads), which is always well irrigated and easy to manure, and is thus the most valuable and most successfully cultivated ; next there is the mdnjhd, or ' middle land,' not quite so good, because not so easily supplied with manure, and irrigation is perhaps less certain ; lastly, there is the hdrhd, or outlying zone of the poorest soil, probably rarely manured and largely dependent on the rainfall. Each holding will be represented on the basis of an artificial tor (or tauzl-blgJid) made up of a certain area in each zone of the best, middle, and outer land.^ The holdings here are scattered, but very much less so than under the elaborate system of soil classification sometimes followed — such, for instance, as that noted from the Basti district.' I have not met with other specific forms of originally various (or afterwards modified) bhaidchurd custom. The ' bJfaidcJidrd, lot or share ' must naturally vary with the simplicity or complexity of the actual soil distribution in the village. In a very uniform 1 Bdndd S. i?. p. 40. So that when the revenues are distributed at a uniform sum 'per h'lghit,' the payment is in fact fairly equaL - North'West Provinces Gazetteer, iv. 600. Thus, in one village the standard lot was large, viz. 90 b'lghds (actual measure), composed of 25 of the best + SO of the middle + 35 of the poorest. In another village, where the lots were numerous and consequently smaller, I find 819 lots each of 24 actual h'tghas (6 of the best + S of the middle + 10 of the outer soil-zone). ^ See p. 291, ante. MINOR ^■AEIATIONS IX JOIXT-VILLAGE FORMS 000 locality the shares may be of the simplest description ; ' where the soil varies much each share or lot will be a very composite one. In the latter case serious practical difificulty is to be looked for in the future. The tendency in such estates (as noted, e.g., in the Etawa S. R., which is worth consulting on the subject), is for the shares to become excessively subdivided ; and then the fact that the holding is already perhaps in three or five or more portions tells awkwardlj' ; for each portion has to undergo the same process of subdivision. The result is that unless the cultivators are of superior energy, or are able to devise some remedy and to send off their surplus hands to some other occupation, they will surely fall into poverty and lose the ownership altogether. In this district, the prospects of the much divided bhaidclidrd estates are not very promising : the Settlement Officer notices that the pativdrl (village accountant) is the only person who knows how to keep the accounts of the numerous little separate holdings, and how to apportion the revenue payment ; he rules them all accordingly ; the pancayat has ceased to exist, and ' self-government ' is a delusion. (3) The ancestral-share, or pattidMrl, villages are the most likely to change of any. Here it will be remembered that, theoretically, if a man owns (owing to his place in the genea- logical table) say ^ of ^ of :^ (= ^) of t}iQ pattl or main branch to which he belongs, he ought to be holding -^-^ of the cultivated area, to be entitled (on partition) to the same fraction of the waste, and to be paying -^ of the assessed land revenue and common expenses of the patti. But long before the village has got to this number of small shares it will probably be found that the correct fractions ^ have been partially, at any rate, lost sight of. The causes are several ; they are sometimes natural, ' It is to be regretted that the method of sharing in the large Jihlam clan-estates or villages (ante, p. 270) is not on record. I believe, however, that it is by simple plough-lands allotted in each group according to the requirements of the households at the time, there being great similarity of soil throughout. ^ It will always be remembered that the arithmetic of vulgar fractions was not known in former days to the village population, any more than it was to the devisers of the extraordinarily cliunsy provisions (as they appear to us) for dividing the estate under the Muhammadan law of inheritance. 336 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY but still more often they are the I'ssult of extei-nal pressure on the village resources. In the first place, after the co-sharers had gone through a certain term of practical experience ot working their separate shares, it must often have proved that two portions designed to represent perfectly equal fractional- shai-es are by no means equal in working value ; at least, they are not equally productive in the hands of the actual holders. When this inequality is general, the co-sharers will probably not alter the holdings, but will give up the attempt to distributt- the charges according to the proper (corresponding) fractions. and will agree to a hdch (as it is called), which will re-distribute the burdens in a more equitable manner. And then the hold- ings themselves rarely remain unaltered in extent : one man finds himself able to cultivate more waste land and increases his holding ; another sells a part of his share to his neighbour, or becomes poor and leaves the village, in which case his holding is distributed perhaps between not more than two who are willing to undertake to pay the revenue ; or it is absorbed by the head- man, &c. This goes on till a great many sharers have more or less than their true fraction. But a still more fruitful cause of change is the heavj"^ lump-assessment laid on the village by some former rapacious native governor; all the holders had then to pay what they could and to cultivate what they could to make up the total and avoid being ruined or ejected from their ancestral home. Possibly, too, they would have to call in outsiders to help ; and these may have needed to be coaxed by promises of admission as co-sharers or as tenants with special privileges — such as paying nothing beyond the Government assessment on their land. Case after case occurs in our records where this has actually happened. In the Panjab it was indeed the normal state of things under successive Sikh governments ; with them it was the regular plan to take everything that could be got, from everyone — no matter whether he was owner oi' tenant — who held land. Shares then ceased to have much practical value ; and it is not surprising that the correct scale was often forgotten or voluntarily abandoned or altered, while the village body were unwilling to give up their ancestral lands Hence division by fractions was always a roughlj* and clumsily per- formed operation. Cf. p. 263, ante. MINOR ^'ARIATIOXS IN JOINT-VILLAGE FORMS 337 en Hoc if they possibly could lielp it. After some years, or perhaps a generation or two, it is too late to rectify the shares, when better times come round ; the larger holders will stand out for their de facto holding on the ground of their larger pay- ments ; the weaker ones will have to submit ; and the only relief IS that the existing revenue assessment can, by law, be distri- buted in accordance with the actual holdings, or at rates per acre, of the different kinds of soil. I expect also that irregularity must frequently have arisen from the mode in which the land was held before formal parti- tion.' Each co-sharer gets possession of a certain home-farm, or s~ir land ; and this he continues to hold on the understanding that when a regular partition is demanded he will have to sub- mit to give or take as the case may be ; for the land held by each in this way may be more or may be less than the proper fractional share of the whole village, or of any section of it. When at last a partition is made, there is a struggle, in which each sharer hopes to keep what he has previously been enjoying ; and it is quite possible that some irregularity is submitted to by the weaker members, and that the stronger come oft" the gainers. But, whatever the cause of the inequality, it is first made tolerable hj dropping the fractions, as far as revenue payment is concerned, and making the charges correspond to the area actually held. In the end the villages frequently consent to remain ' as they are.' Sometimes they will allow the de facto holdings to be recorded, and then, of course, the change is stereotyped. Sometimes they will desire to have the proper list of shares recorded, but the possession does not, in fact, correspond ; this means that there is some lingering idea that one day or other the correct shares will be restored. But it must be remembered that there is in most communities con- siderable pride taken in the fattidari form, as being intimately connected with the maintenance of the family dignity ; and I have given an instance of at least one district where the co- sharers agreed to correct the existing holdings either by sur- render of excess lands, or by making up to those whose holding was deficient, by means of a special allotment out of the culturable common waste.^ 1 See post, p. 347. ^ Ante, p. 323. Z 338 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY It is also frequently observed that, while de facto lioldint^ has been acquiesced in as regards the old cultivated land, the ' manorial' profits of the waste lands, or from fruits, grass, grazing fees, house-dues, and other miscellaneous sources, are still divided on ancestral shares, and that the culturable waste will be partitioned on the ancestral shares also. In such cases we have estates partly held on shares and partly on de factu possession. This is one of the reasons why the official classi- fication provides a separate heading for ' imperfect pattiddrl villages,' which means that part of the land is undivided, and possibly also that the divided and undivided jDortions are shared on different principles. It m^y be added that for the same reason an 'imperfect hliaiaclidra' may exist ; part of the land may be retained in common ; and there may be cases where a different principle has been introduced in the two portions. (I do not, however, know of any such, at least in the real ' customary share ' class of village.) If we tabulate the variations of the ancestrally-shared villa(ie!<, we have : 1. Held on fairly correct shares : at least the principle is acknow- ledged throughout.' 2. Held partly de facto (home farms / a. Separate (existing) pos- out of proportion to the correct I session has become un- share) ; aud the rest (common! alterable by record in the land, profits of a miscellaneous kind, &c.) divided on the correct ancestral shares. Papers of Settlement. b. Separate possession has not been recorded. a. Existing possession fixed by record. 3. Ancestral shares have become com -J h. Only a list of shareholders pletely lost or upset and disused, j recorded, and cultiva- tion arranged for each year.2 ' These occur where the land is partitioned, and also where the whole land is held b3' tenants, and managed by one man on behalf of an undivided bodj', who share the profits ancestrally. - Mr. Whiteway, author of the Mathura S.B., informs me that such cases do exist, but are very rare. MlNOll VAKIATIONS IN JOIXT-VILLAGE FOUMS 339 The effect of heavy revenue-assessments in producing tenure modifications is not confined to pattiddrl villages ; it may be observed in any class ; it may break down whatever system of shares existed. It was doubtless this oppression that led to the hhejbarar custom, which prevailed at one time, especially in the districts of Banda, Allahabad, &c.' Here, quite irrespective of any original or theoretical distribution of burdens, the revenue charge was in former days periodically redistributed so as to suit the actual cultivation of each member ; and the liability of an insolvent member was distributed rateably among the others. This was done, not because they held the land in common, which they never did, but because they were still one clan or one ' wide-kindred,' as the case might be, and this was the most feasible mode of preserving their united existence as land- holders. Over-assessment, too, must have led to various arrange- ments for admitting new cultivators ; and especially to the absconding or withdrawal of some of the co-sharers, who some years later would seek to be readmitted, but most probably would be allowed a smaller holding than they had once enjoyed, and perhaps an inferior position. In the GUJRAT district of the Panjab, Mr. Tupper ^ notices how oppression under Ahmad Shah Durani led various sections of different tribes or families to club together and effect ' a much greater concentration of the village communities' than had existed before. We have seen how, in distant Kachar,' the settlers formed joint-stock communities, doubtless to enable them unitedly to meet the revenue charge, and to ward ofl' internal interference with their affairs. And so they did under the visdhadi system in North Madras. In some of these cases we observe the effect of a sense of strength given by voluntarj'- combination; but in others, as in the Gujrat district, the elements combining were already tribal, or at least kindred groups, and the natural sense of tribal-union maintained the combination ; but each group kept to itself, and formed a distinct ' This custom is fully described in L. 8. B. I. ii. 143. It was certainly, while it lasted, an expression of the solidarity of the vUlage ; as all consented to a periodical readjustment of their proportionate payments, and in some cases to a correction of holdings. "^ Cust. Law, ii. 31. ' Ante, p. 140. 340 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITV /'/)/, or section of the village. In most cases, too, the result oF heavy exactions was to confuse the co-sharers with their tenants and cultivators : ' responsibilities were imposed on the founder's kin, or immigrant outsiders indifferently.' Naturally, in after times, the outsiders, who had borne the burden equally with the nominal ' owners,' claimed their just privilege, and the modern Revenue Law cut the knot by creating for thera a special status of mdlih maqhitxa , or ' proprietors of the holding,' without any interest in the general management of the village or share in the common lands or miscellaneous profits of the whole.' There is also a curious feature connected with the ijattkldrl principle of sharing which is observed in Oudh and the North- West Provinces and possibly elsewhere. It will be found in cases where the existing proprietors are groups of families which had established their over-lordship over a number of village-areas already existing ; and they have declined to accept the existing villages as the ' shell ' into which the growing communities will fit. As the landlord family multiplied, it partitioned, and then the sections partitioned again. Such a partition might have given, say, a single village to each branch of the kindred, and that would be subdivided into iKd'l, &c., for the lesser branches ; then we should have a number of separate and compact village- estates, each owned by the descendants of the particular head to whom the village was allotted. But very often, actuated by a desire to secure a more equitable division of the property, the heads of groups who were to receive the separate msqor- shares got part of their allotment in one geographical village, and part in another, or in several others ; so that here the ^ This is only one way in which such cases of limited or secondary proprietary-right to plots of land within the village estate come to exist. In other cases such persons have been recognised in view of the fact that originally they were full proprietors, but their rights had been overborne by the growth of a new general proprietary body over their heads as, e.g., in the case of the tnaUk maqbuza in Central Provinces villages, or with the 'ardzidar and mushdjthsidar in parts of the North West-Provinces. It must be remembered that in the old days the village ' solidarity ' was much more felt than it is now, and that there were many cases (even in the North- West Provinces) where tenants were welcomed to help cultivate, and no one thought of taking rent from them. The burdens were distributed rateably over the whole, and all paid alike. MIXOU VARIATIONS IX JOINT-VILI.AGI': FORMS 041 estate, or mahdl (group of lands held under one title), has to be gathered together on paper, and cannot be a compact area on the ground. In the 'Azamgarh district, for example, to which I have so often referred for illustrations from its curiously subdivided villages, ' one judtl may hold its land in one or two numza^ (geographical or survey village), another 'jjcdtl in another maur.a or two, and a third luittl in a third, while all the paitls hold in the remaining maii:<(f; ; but gener- ally all the 2kMIs have shares in all the maums.' ' As the families are much attached to certain jilaces of residence, which are also divided, it happens that many groups of land belonging to one section of a family, have no village site : the owners continue to reside at some other centre. Such areas are technically said to be he-cirdghl, or ' without a lamp.' - It is often only the larger and important villages that are finally sub- divided down to the household shares ; in others the lands for the whole pattl have long ago been defined, but the families within the jMttl manage their holding jointly — very probably collecting and dividing the rents obtained from the tenants. This pecu- liarity, it will be observed, affects the land ; it does not alter the ancestral shares or the constitution of the groups of fami- lies. Such groups may be subject to the loss of their correct share-system and so forth, just as if they were enjoying a com- pact area of land. (4) I have made this head — for the remaining villages, sometimes colonist groups and sometimes of other origins, in which neither the tribal nor the pattidarl methods of division are followed. Colonist villages — known to have had that origin — have been described as a well-known feature of the South-eastern Panjab. But when we have taken note of those hiown origins which we can classify, there are still a large number of villages found here and there with local, special, or apparently exceptional methods of sharing, of which the origin is not always known. Any small tribal or family group may locally adopt some method of sharing which is peculiar. Thus, among the Ghakar clans of the Northern Panjab, in an 'Uaqa or tribal territory called Sohaii, the allotment of lands was made with reference to military ■ Azimgarh S. R. ' Government K6\'iew,' § 2. - Hid. §§ 326-8, pp. S2, 93. 34.2 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY rank, as liovsemaii, or foot- soldier, or asdml (ordinary person). The share for the former was one-tliird as much again as the latter. For family purposes the ' horseman ' share was divided into four swm (=hoof). And so in a village in the Hazarfi district I have noticed shares (called chgl) each subdivided into four pair ( = feet), and each paiV into four liharsaiidi (or toes).' These are some of the exceptional and local cases. A much more widely spread mode of sharing is found in the Panjab, and occasionally in the North-West Provinces ; we are led to suppose that the villages adopting it are freqnently groups of voluntary associates. It is observed when cultivation is carried on by means of irrigation-wells. The settlers have combined to sink the number necessary, and shares in the village are reckoned by shares in the wells which water, or at least jiartially protect, the whole arable portion. One well, with the area nominally attached to it, will be divided among three sharers, another amongf six, and so on. The actual wateringf is managed by each sharer taking possession of the well apparatus, attaching his own bullocks, and working it (letting the water run into his own channels) for so many hours in the working da}', or on so many days in the week. In the Jhansi district. North- West Pro- vinces, there are whole villages (called hlahddl villages) worked in this war : but there is a peculiarity in the management, as all the fields are not always irrigable, nor the same fields under crop ; so the revenue is assessed in a lump sum _pe7- ' well,' covering both the land regularly watered and the outlying fields, which can only occasionally in favourable seasons get irrigated.^ In villages of uniform soil, another common mode of sharing is to divide the land into lots (of varying number of acres), called ' ploughs,' the unit being the quantity of land which it is supposed one pair of oxen can plough. If necessaiy, the ' plough ' is subdivided into ' bullocks,' and each ' bullock ' into 'legs.'-"* Sometimes the division is effected by counting the cattle and allotting the area into so many portions representing each ' one bullock' — one family will hold two, another ten, and so on. Here the only 'joint' element in tlie village is the 'common » L. S. B. I. ii. 639. " North-West Provinces Gazetteer, ii. 281. = See L. S. B. I. ii. 143. MIXOU VARIATIONS IN JOINT-VILLAGE FORMS 343 waste ' allotted to the village, and recorded as tlieir joint- property, and the common responsibility for the land revenue ; the actual holdings are, and always have been, sepai-ate. It is hardly necessary to specify separately, as cases of modification, the change of a joint-village of one form into a village of another form, by sale, or grant, or by some voluntary adoption of a new plan of holding. Yet such cases do occur. I have elsewhere given an account of a village in the Tirohan liargana (Banda district) where a hhaidclulrd village became granted to three Brahman proprietors, and so technically became a -pattiddri village. A village called Tura was another case in which part became held under one principle and part under another.' The largest class of transformation cases is where the old constitution has been lost completely, without any apparent or traceable grant, purchase, or usurpation of over-lord rights — where, indeed, no definite explanation can be given. (5) And this will serve to remind us that after enumerating the varieties and known modifications of the several forms of village, it is necessary to take account of the many villages which, having made no objection to the joint liability under the North-west Land-revenue system, and having accepted the common area of waste attached to their group, are reckoned as ' joint-villages,' and yet there is no trace of any particular foundation, or of any share-system ; the cultivated land is held simply on the basis of de-facto possession — i.e. every member of the community has come to hold a certain area of land — how, he does not know. Each holding is enjoyed in complete severalty, but the whole village admits its joint responsibility for the revenue. Should it happen that there is a waste area to be divided, the division will take place hasb-rasad-khewat — according to the proportion of land held in the arable, or to the amount of revenue paid. Even if this ' possession ' is believed to represent a modification of an earlier system of regular ancestral or other shares, still it is now irrevocable. But very often nothing is remembered ; and the holders say that their holding was always ^ Both tlie cases are given in detail in i. S. B. I. ii. 147, 148, and need not be further described here. 344 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY merely according to wliat they wanted or could manage (kdeld hash maqdur), or that their holding was what 'Providence gave them ' (dad illdhi). In some such cases, possession is now the sole measure of right in the arable land ; but the existence of ancestral or other shares is acknovyledged as regards the waste and the manorial profits. These cases have been already alluded to. There is, however, one class of cases in which ' de-facto possession ' is the sole measure of right throughout, in which it is highly probable that original shares are unknown because there never were any ; the villages were originally raiyaiicdrJ, and no landlord family happened to have acquired them. Such villages merely became ' joint ' by the example of the neighbour- ing estates and the application of the prevalent Land-revenue system. In some districts such a change has been artificially effected. For example, in the little province of Ajmer (the only British possession in Rajputana), the villages were raiyatwdri, but were brought under the North-West Provinces Settlement, and made 'joint' by the grant in common of the adjacent waste; but the joint responsibility was so little adapted to the circumstances of the communities that at the later Settlements it has been virtually abrogated. In the Central Provinces the same thing happened, only in a peculiar form ; for there the whole village was not treated as the joint proprietary body, but the headman, or more fre- quently the Maratha Revenue manager, or indUguzar (as he was afterwards called), was made sole proprietor, only with large reservations of the rights of the original cultivators ; so that there we have the peculiar feature of landlord-villages, only that the landlords have no power of interference with the rent- payments, or with the management of a considerable portion of their tenants.' Then, again, there are the districts, like Kangra and Kumaon , where, as we have seen, there were no villages, but the hamlets have been aggregated into circles, and certain areas of common waste and forest given to each, and so the circles have been ' The Ajmer and the Central Provinces sj-stems are fnllj' described in L. S. B. I. vol. ii. MINOR \"ARIATIONS IX JOIXT-VILI.AGE FORMS 345 formed into villages. The same thing happened with the isolated ' wells ' in the South-western Panjab. Here the land has practically come to be a bond of union, as the separate farms formed into groups have accepted the joint constitution ; they have even adopted the custom of pre-emption, basing it, as might be expected, on the principle of mere contiguity or vicinage. ' Individuals,' writes Mr. Eoe,' ' have sunk wells in the waste, receiving a grant from Government of from sixteen to fifty acres of land ; and whei-e such grants lie near together they have been formed into a village and the intervening w^aste thrown in as common land. I myself as Settlement Officer, have created several such villages in the Montgomery and ilultan " Bar " dry tract. More were so erected under native rule, and very probably in some cases the families have come together of their own accord.' In these isolated and afterwards artificially aggregated holdings, some curious customs of right have sprung up. In the first place, in many cases, families of some pretension have gained the over-lordship over such villages, or, may be, over a considerable tract of country, and have been able to exact a kind of over-lord fee.^ Sometimes the landlord also settled a cultivator under what is known as the ddhlupl custom, by which the cultivator who sinks the well (without which tillage would be impossible) becomes customary owner of half the land, and the landlord of the other half; very frequently the well-sinker would also permanently occupy the landlord's half, paying him rent for it. Under this state of things also appears another custom, the Jicisilr Tfhicdr (:=eater of fractions), where the owner of the land employs someone with capital to sink the well, and the latter receives certain dues (kasur-sil-cdh) or portion of the produce • for the bricks of the well.' In Sikh days, the local governors often ignored the over-lord, and assumed their own right to locate settlers on cak, or allotments of waste. These settlers were then able to sink wells and hold on what is called a calcddri tenure. It might be that the grantee (cakddr) was unable himself to sink tbe well, and put in a tenant who ' Tribal Law in the Panjdh, p. 8, and note. ^ See L. S. B. I. ii. 661, and iii., chapter on Sindh. It was in this way that the ' zamindiri ' rights in Sindh grew up over aggregates of scat- tered settlements which answered to villages. o46 THE INDL^N VILLAGE COMMUNITY did so ; in sucli a case the tenant became irremovablo, ar.d is now recorded as ' inferior proprietor ; ' he is entitled to take tlii' produce after paying the revenue, the over-lord's Aaf/, or fee. it' there is one, and certain dues (in kind and called IrusCir) to tho raJcddr. While time and circumstances have thus produced many varieties in the holding of village lands, thei-e has been one, thing that has perhaps tended to preserve the constitution m some extent, and that is the facility with which the revenue ami other burdens can be specialh- distributed over the holdings by a bach, or scheme in which (without altering the extent and character of the holdings themselves) earlier methods of fractional or artifical-lot valuation are given up and the revenue is dis- tributed over the actual holding, either by an all-round acreage- rate sufficient to cover the total sum , or by different acreage rates, which vary with the value of the soil, or by some other method. Mr. D. G. Barkley enumerates eight such methods, used in the Panjab ; ' but this includes the methods which are normal, viz. where the payment is according to the proper or theoretical shares. Omitting these, the other methods adopted are — (1) to pay by a rate on each whole i6-eZZ (hulvjdrl), (2) by a rate on the actual pZoM'/A-s possessed by each co-sharer (hahdri), (3) by an all-rotnid acrec.'ie^ rate, (4) by rates varying with reference to the land being irrigated or unirrigated — i.e. dependent on rain-fall, (5) by rates on the several descriptions of soil, (6) by a rate on the houses or families (garh sclri) proportionate to the number and abilitv of each, (7) by a rate according to the cattle possessed (duTn sOrl — i.e. counting ' tails.') Whatever general method is in force, there may be different ways of applying it. It may be, for instance, that rents of the tenant lands, and rents, usuallv light, applied to the lands in the possession of the several co- sharers, are all levied and collected, or, at any rate, brought to account, at contract or customary rates. This sum, too-ether with all miscellaneous and 'manorial' income added, is first applied to pay the revenue and rates and the common expenses of the village — entertainment of guests, repairs of village public buildings, and, I fear, we must add, bribes to officials, and cost ' See his Panjab edition of Thomason's Directions to Revenue Officers p. 44. MIXOU VAi;iATIONS IX JOINT-VILLAGE FOEMS 347 of supplying free rations to man and beast, as shown iu the shop-books of the grocer, the grain dealer, the money-lender, or the headman, who disbursed them in the tirst instance, and then the surplus is distributed according to shares. Otherwise the proceeds of tenant-rents on the undivided land, and other items of general income, go to paj- the revenue and expenses, and, if they do not suffice, a rate is levied on the co-sharers' holdings, according to one or other of the above methods, just sufficient to make up the total charges. There are no profits, of course, under this latter system. It follows almost naturally, from this, to pass on to explain what is usually meant by holding a village ' in common.' I do not here speak of the mere leaving to the common use and enjoyment a certain area of waste and grazing ground. Such land is often left undivided, not because of any inherent idea of community of goods of which this is a relic, but for reasons already stated. I refer to the areas where the luhole village is held ' in common ' by the proprietors themselves. This usually happens in villages where the community are the coheirs of one founder; they are jealous of each other, and regard partition as likely to give an undue start to some one or more members, which will give him or them an advantage over the rest. More rarely it happens, when there is some peculiarity in the soil, or some other circumstances which make it desirable for the body either to cultivate the land, and, after paying the revenue and expenses, to divide the surplus on known shares, or else to manage the cultivation by an arrangement effected year by year ; each co-sharer takes up, for the 3-ear, such a plot as is assigned to him, without calling it his own ; in that case each takes the produce of what he has actually cultivated ; this is the most usual plan. In the Panjab, for example, I may quote Mr. Roe's descrip- tion ; and I believe that it correctly represents w^hat happens in other places where there are undivided villages cultivated by the proprietors. Each co-sharer actually takes as his ' home- farm ' — i.e. some area which he holds in possession, though as yet there has been no partition — and he enjoys the whole produce of that, either paying a light rent for it to the common fund or otherwise. After observing that there is no such thing as a 348 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY common house or common table, and that each family has its own ' house with its surroundings, the privacy of which is strictly guarded,' Mr. Roe continues : 'Nor do we find . . . even in joint (i.e. undivided) villages, or even in joint holdings, that the produce of the cultivated lands is ever really brought to a common stock, and then distributed. What happens in practice is that each cultivating proprietor takes the whole of the produce of whatever portion of the joint land he actually cultivates, and pays the land revenue assessed on it, and perhaps a light rent in addition. This rent, and all rents paid by tenants, and all income derived from the waste, go to the common fund or ■nialba^ . . . If there is any surplus, it is not distributed in cash, but the headmen with whom the administration of the common fund rests, if they do not embezzle it tliemselves, apply it to paj uient of the land revenue, thus reducing the amount to be paid by each shareholder.'^ From these considerations we shall now be able to summarise the actual varieties of the different kinds of village, as we have already summarised the various origins from which the bodies of owners sprang. A reference to the Apperulix will then show how the official vernacular terms come into use, and how the classification adopted in all general returns is valueless as far as the real tenure distinction is concerned'. (i.) The raiyatwo.ri village, which has remained as such in all those provinces where no attempt has been made to establish middle-men, or to aggregate the separate holdings artificially, i.e. to make a general estate by including a portion of waste, which may be partitioned, and imposing a joint responsi- bility for a lump sum of revenue assessed on the estate as a unit. (ii.) The zaminddr% khcdis, or ' sole landlord ' village, where one single person concontrates in himself the right to all the land and all the rents, (fcc, in the village. (iii.) The zamindarl musldarka, or jointly held, undivided village, where the body of nearly related agnates, descendants of one original landlord, own the village, and have not ■ Tliis term has been explained above. ^ Tribal Law in the Panjdb, ]). 9. MIXOU VAKIATIOXS IN JOINT-VILLAGE FORJfS 349 divided it at all — i.e. by any formal partition. In rare cases, a joint-holding, as I have remarked, may result from other causes. (iv.) The village partitioned and held on ancestral shares — the legal, or fractional shares of the law or custom of inheritance pure and simple. Rarely these shares are correct or perfect ; but if the principle is acknowledged over the whole of the land, the village is rightly put in this class. We have in this case either the result of a formal partition made recently, or at all events subsequently to a known period of previous undivided holding ; but very often a state of division has immemorially existed. In most cases, however, it does result from the antecedent holding of some founder, or a small number of such founders whose names still adhere to the pattl, or main sections. In certain cases it may be that a sufficiently numerous family has conquered or gained an estate, and has divided it out, on settling down, in ancestral fractional shares throughout. (v.) The purely tribal village, usually held in shares on some plan of equal holding, such as we see in the definitely tribal cases of Biluchi and Pathan frontier villages, and in some large tribal villages in the North Panjab and elsewhere. (vi. ) But we also include the * cultivating fraternities ' of ' democratic ' or non- monarchical clans, exhibiting many of the same features of connected groups of hamlets, occupying a large and continuous area. The shares are usually equalised lots made up of different soils, and subject to a peculiar mode of calculating value. These villages ought to be called (and only these) bhaidchdrd. (vii.) All villages held on 'ploughs,' 'well-shares,' and other ' fancy ' methods of allotment, always divided, which may be colonist-associations voluntarily formed out of more or less miscellaneous elements ; or they may be tribal or family groups, which have adopted this particular method for reasons which are not now discoverable. (viii.) We have also to add villages now retaining something of the corporate feeling, the relics of a family or a tribal union, but who have lost or never possessed any calculated share of the unit-estate, and have separate holdings, of which all that can be said is that possession is now the sole measure of interest. (ix.) Lastly, we may make a class, or rather two sub-classe.s, 3-50 TJIE IXDI.VX VILLAG1-: COMMINITY for what are officially termed the ' imperfect' forms of parti- tioned village estates. If a portion of the estate is Ict't undivided, this fact alone puts the village, for official pur- poses, into the ' imperfect ' class, whether of patliddrl or other. From a tenure point of view, this partial indivision is only interesting when it involves the fact that one method of sharing is applied to the divided cultivated land, and another, very probably iJcc old or orighud scheme of the estate, to sharing the waste, or dividing tlie common profits. So that really this class gives us the ' transition ' village, where the loss of the ancestral or some other kind of share is not quite complete — the village is not yet wholly relegated to the eighth head, where de-facto possession is alone recog- nised. This head, then, includes the 'imperfect' paitiddrl and the imperfect bhaiachdrd, or any other kind of shand estate. With these nine heads of real difference and variety, it will now be easy to compare the heads of classification which were indicated in Mr. Thomason's Directions to Revenue Officers in the forties ; these have, with singular infelicity, been adopted ever since for official purposes, the terms getting slightly, or some- times completely, misused in dififerent places. The headings of the statistical tables are : ' — (i.) ' Zamindari ' generally employed to mean either a sole landlord or an undivided body. I suppose because it was troublesome to write the distinguishing vernacular additions- - Ifhalis (sole), mushtarlM (joint), which alone give any sense to the term. (ii.) Pattlddrl, divided on legal or ancestral shares, often, however, allowed to include other settled schemes of shares besides. (iii.) Imperfect paffirfrti't, partly so divided, andj including the large class where the two portions are shared in different ways. (iv.) Bhaiiichard, which in the Panjab has been strangely appropriated ^ to mean villages held on possession only, but which ' The raiyatwdn village is acknowledged, but it does not appear in Mr. Thomason's list, as such villages are not recognised under the North- West system. " See Barkley's edition of the Directions, p. 4-t. MINOR VARL4.TI0NS IN JOINT-VILLAGE FORMS 351 IS, in practice, used to include also any kind of ' equal-lot,' ' plough,' ' well,' or other kind of shares which are not ' legal ' o\' ' ancestral.' ' (v.) There is the ' imperfect ' form of No. 4, either where there is merely part of the land undivided, or where part iy undivided, and also enjoyed on a different principle. If the ' imperfect ' class is held to refer mainly to the fact that two parts of a vilktge estate are held on different iwinctpht-^ then, of course, ' imperfect ' pattidarl and imperfect bhaidchdra can be, and very often are, lumped together in official returns. In the light of our present knowledge of custom and our general interest in tenure-forms, such a classification is worse than none at all. When it was first invented, it served as a rough and ready means of distinguishing villages for office and administrative purposes. It had, and was intended to have, no other use or value. In conclusion, it may be well to remark that there is con- siderable practical difference betwern joint-villages held by owners of a completely non-agricultural caste and those held by Jats and other agricultural communities. The distinction is not, however, formal, nor does it give rise to actual variations of tenure. In the Panjab, it will be remembered that by far the larger number of villages are cultivated by the co-sharing families themselves ; even the women take a large share in the work. When there are tenants, it is because the co-sharers have more land than they can manage, and are able to call in ' tenants at will ; ' or because in the old days a tenant class was associated to help in ' the founding,' or were called in to help cultivate more land to make up the heavy demands of the State Officers. Sometimes such tenants (or, may be, ' inferior-proprietors ') are reduced members of earlier, once proprietary, families, or of grantees or other families who have gained a footing in other ways. In such cases it is quite common to find ' tenants ' paying no rent — they are, in fact, only cultivators, just like the proprietors, with the exception that they have no concern in the profits of the estate and no voice in its management. But the revenue and 1 E.g., the artificial villages of Ajmer and Kangra are so classed, and most of the Panjab tribal villages, which are really a class apart. 352 THE IXDIAX VILLAGE COilMUXITY cesses are distributed rateably over tlie whole of the cultivated land — sharers and tenants alike.' In the Xorth-West Provinces, again, it is much morn common to find the village co-sharers non-agricultural ; and then either the whole land is managed by tenants who may or may not have been located by the owners, or, which is very common indeed, a large portion of the land is held by tenants who represenr the original cultivating bodj^ over whom the ' community " of proprietors grew up. In such a case the whole estate may be simply managed by one man, who collects the rents and divides them, after paying revenue and expenses. Or, more commonly, each co-sharer will have taken a certain holding, called his sir, or home-farm. This farm he cultivates by his own personal tenants and farm-labourers, while all the rest of the ' tenant '-land is held by cultivators regarded as the tenants of the whole body. Frequently this area is not divided, for why should it be ? It is much easier to divide the rents collected by the head- man or other manager ; or perhaps these rents go en bloc to pay the revenue, and the surplus only is divided. In the Panjab we rarely hear anyone speak of sir lands, because the co-sharers generally work the whole of their share themselves, and such tenants as there are naturally appear as holding land under this or that co-sharer. In the Panjab the co-proprietors generally look for cultivating profits only. In the North- West Provinces they expect an income from rents, besides the yield of the home-farm. At least, that is the case with the largest class of villages. I believe the true hliaiaxlui.ro or cultivating fraternities are oftener cultivat- ing bodies of agricultural caste, or of one that has taken to cultivation. Contract-rents based on competition are much commoner in the North-West Provinces than they are in the Panjab. In the former, they are so common as to form the normal standard of the value of land for assessnient pur]5oses ; in the latter, they are neither sufficiently common nor really based on competition to furnish such a standard ; they can only be referred to as a supplementary means of checking rates calculated in other ways. ' Mr. "Wliitewaj' tells me that a few such cases may be found in parts of the North- West Provinces ; and were formerly common. 353 APPENDIX THE DEFECTS OF TEE OFFICIAL SYSTEM OF CLASSIFYING VILLAGES IN THE AGRICULTURAL RETURNS It will readily be understood that the remarks made in this note are not intended to criticise the published Agricultural Tenure Returns as they are in themselves, and for the purely official or administrative purposes for which they were alone designed.' What I have to point out is (i.) that these returns are not only quite useless, but distinctly misleading, Jbr any purposes connected with the history of institutions, and as regards the interesting question of the sur- vival of the different tribal and family origins of the villages. The British Government has done much to preserve the Archaeo- logical treasures of British India. Old buildings and inscribed monuments have been protected, repaired, and strengthened ; elaborate drawings have been made, photographs taken, and measurements and sections placed on record in the invaluable Technical Art Series of the Imperial Survey Department. My plea is that something of the same interest should be shown by an attempt to preserve the archaeology of Indian institutions which do not exist in stone or in material monuments, but in customs and forms of tenure. I do not think it would be an impossible task, gradually, and after such modification of detail as must necessarily be made in any plan submitted, to take a kind of census of the ' joint '-villages of the Panjab, North- West Provinces, and Oudh, and to improve the general returns as regards the raiyatwdrt provinces. (1) As to these last-named provinces : in Madras we wish to know the number, and if possible the population, whether mis- cellaneous or of chiefly one or two castes or tribes, of the purely raiyatwdrl villages ; the number of villages included under Zamin- daris or other great landlord estates ; and it might be possible to give for each district the number of villages in which mirdsi rights are in any degree of survival, carefully noting that mirdsi is used only to mean relics of old sJiares in the village land, and is not to include the hereditary ex-o^cio remuneration of village headmen, officers, artisans or servants, and the like, which have never decayed, and are part of the natural constitution of raiyatwdrl ^ Though it must be admitted that the obscurity or diversity of mean - ing which has been allowed to attach to the vernacular terms used must have a tendency to produce error even for the purposes mentioned. A A 354 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY villages. The usual official record of villages held in In'dm — i.e. free of revenue, or liable to a fixed reduced payment consolidated by ' enfranchisement/ would conveniently be added, though they are of less interest from the tenure point of view.' In Bombay it would surely be possible ^ to show the narwd and bhdgddn villages, which represent local survivals of the co-shared village, and the number of villages in the kasbdtl estates. (ii.) But it is in the provinces of Upper India that the returns fail to preserve any information regarding the real nature of the joint-villages which are there the prevailing form. It is necessary to explain that in the official classification used in the local returns * for the North-West Provinces and in the Imperial returns for Oudh and the Panjab (where the classification is added) the heads are derived from §§ 85 £f. of Thomason's Directions to Hevenue Officers. It must be admitted that these paragraphs, afford- ing an explanation of the system, are very obscure. In the Panjab edition of the work (1875) the attempt was made to elucidate them by adding explanatory matter in square brackets, but the result is not satisfactory. The whole classification was only intended to be provisional, and to suggest a few ' obvious distinctions ' which would assist the Settlement Officer in his attempts to understand the constitution of the villages. The degree of separation between the several properties, a matter of no interest to the tenure student except as already explained, is taken as a matter of distinction, which no doubt from the Collector's point of view is really important. The heads adopted are : — (i.) Communal — zaminddri, i.e. zaminddri-mushiarka( where there is but one landlord it is z. Tthdlis (§ 87 of the Directions). (ii.) Pattlddrl — held in complete severalty (§ 88). (iii.) Bhaidchdrd — which the Directions does not define : the term is only mentioned afterwards in §§ 89, 93. The term is explained in the Panjab edition, in an added par. (§ 104) ; but in this case the word is given a sense which is only partially adopted in the North-West Provinces and in direct contradiction to what is sometimes there meant. Bhaidchdrd thus appears to ' In Form I. (E 3), Madras is fairly complete ; but it might be possible to add the number of villages in which mirasl right is still recognised. = In the same Form I. (E. 3). ^ In the Imperial form for the North- West Pro^-inces, all details of villages-forms are omitted ; and the vicious mode of recording the villages twice over under different heads increases the difficulty. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII oOu include everything that is not paltlddrl, but especially to signify villageci held ' on possession ' as the only measure of right. (iv.) Imperfect pattklarl — where part of the village estate is held undivided, and where very frequently the two parts are shared on different principles — only one retaining the original shares. (v.) Imperfect hliaidchdra — ditto, ditto in bhaiachara villages. Now, considering that most of these terms are obscure, and that probably in no two District Reports are they used in exactly the same sense, it is quite intolerable that they should continue to ser\e as headings. A few remarks on each term will make the difficulty more evident. ^ Zaminddrl.' This term implies simply that the land is held by a landlord or a proprietor. The owner or co-sharing owners of the village are in fact peasant proprietors of the whole, arable and waste together. The term in itself has nothing whatever to do with 'joint' or 'several,' 'communal' or 'individual.' It only acquires these meanings when another word is added. Zaminddrl khdlis means that there is one landlord, a sole surviving sharer, or a sole owner, whose family has not yet branched out into a number of co-sharers. Zaminddrl mushtarJca, again, means the ' communal,' or joint holding of a number of co-sharing proprietors whose interest is not separated by the several allotment of shares on the ground.' There are villages of this kind almost always held by a body of co-heirs succeeding to a previous single owner ; and in this case they have their defined shares, though the holdings are not partitioned. Hence from a tenure point of view they are not distinguishable from patiiddri in the true sense of the word. Rarely there may be village estates held by a voluntary associa- tion ' in common.' Pattlddrl was originally employed (and so Mr. Thomason seems sometimes, but not uniformly, to have employed it) to mean any kind ' "Whether the whole phrase in the vernacular was too long or what I do not know, but quite early they began to use zaminddrl as if it meant ' communal.' Thus in an old law (Reg. xix. of 1814, sec. 30) zumeendary was used to mean 'joint-estates held in common tenancy, where all the sharers have a common right and interest in the whole estate without any separate title to distinct lands forming part of the estate.' Strictly speak- ing, this definition is somewhat defective, as it omits the important qualification that every ' tenant ' has a defined share, most commonly a legal fractional share, on which the profits and burdens, though not the land itself, are in theory divided. Property is only held in common when there are no fixed shares and each takes what he needs. 6-jb THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY of village, so long as it was divided out on the ground into distinct shares or lots.' But it soon came to mean, and now ought always to be restricted to, pure pattldilrt — i.e. where only the ancestral or fracfional sliares of the laiu of inheritance are recognised. In this sense I have uniformly employed the term in this book ; nor is it necessary that the shares should be strictly accurate, as long as the jn'incipJe is accepted throughout the village estate. In the Panjab, some District Reports use the word as including either ancestral or customary shares, which is fatal. - ' BhaidcJoard.' This term is the most unfortunate of all, since it has now lost all definite meaning ; and a column so headed in the returns is a veritable statistical melting-pot in which all sorts of interesting origins and varieties are confused together. Properly, in its original sense (as used in Duncan's early Report of 1796 on the Benares co-shared villages), it means held on the custom of the brotherhood — i.e. by the association of families, usually a clan grown up out of one single family on a large available area which fortune preserved for them till they had filled it all. It implies that peculiar method of equal allotment of which the type is best illustrated by the oft- quoted Mathura Jat villages,' and Mr. Whiteway correctly uses the term accordingly. Holdings made up of specimens of each kind of soil are the characteristic. This is the true (1) sense. But the term has also got to be used (2) for all kinds of share systems, viz. by 'wells,' ' ploughs,'itc., other than the legal or ancestral [j>attida.rx) shares, and (3) to include also all villages in which shares have become wholly extinct or never existed, and where defacto possession is now the sole measure of right. In the Panjab the term is oflScially provided to be used for the cases where the shares ' have become quite extinct, and each man's holding is or has become the sole measure of his right ' (Barkley's edition of the Directions, § 10-1). But even in the Panjab this use is not uuiformlj' kept to ; e.g. the artificial Kangra villages are shown as ' hhaiachard,' and £0 are many of the tribal- frontier villages, where the shares are not ' It is so used, e.g., in an old Act (I. of 1841). It is evident that in § 88 Mr. Thomason so uses it, while in § 93 he clearlj- uses it in the restricted sense. ° In practice, the Panjab returns have the effect of ignoring all tenure distinctions except — 1. Undivided or sole. „ _ . . . T r i. on any hind of shares. 2. Divided ■{ .. " , , , \. 11. on no shares, but possession only. ' Ante, p 282 ff. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII 3-57 in tlie least extinct, but perfectly definite, only that they are not ancestral — e.g. a.re jjer-capifa shares. In the Nortii-West PROVI^•CES the term is variously used in different districts, sometimes to mean the de-facto possession and extinct-share class, sometimes to mean the real old custom of the ' democratic ' cultivating fraternity. The resulting confusion is easily understood ; the Iinperial com- piler of Provincial tables cannot know in exactly what sense the term has been used ; nor can the Provincial compiler know exactly in what sense each District officer has used the word. Under any general head of this kind, in the tables, we therefore find throion togetlier indiscriminately the following varieties : — (i.) Real hhaiachara villages of the ' cultivating-fraternity ' type (Mathura Jats, tc. &.C.) system. The Panjiib use should be altogether abandoned^ as there is really no excuse for it, since villages held on possession only can much better be called Qahzewdr. AYhatever is done, however, with regard to terms, it would surely be possible to distinguish — (IV.) Frontier tribal-villages, noting the number that are held on the ancestral shares throughout, and not merely as regards the principal divisions, while the interior shares are khuldvesh. (V.) Villages held by clans grown up on the spot, or old ' culti- vating fraternities,' having some form of equal allotment or artificial measures made up of specimens of each kind of soil. Some means may be adopted to indicate clusters of villages that are simply oflf- shoots or divisions of a single parent estate as in Rohtak, Karnal, &c. (VI.) Villages held on special shares, such as ' wells,' ' ploughs,' ' bullocks,' hulubhogam (in separate lots) ; and so hwMiavd is the equivalent for Jcdniadsi, or mirdsi. (D. M- Tanjore, pp. 403, 409.) Phala bhogam is sometimes said to be a half Sanskrit compound with the Tamil pala = ' many.' I think it much more likely that it is the Marathi phdlu, a share. 2 This is clearly put in the D. M. Tanjore, § 10, p. 403. B £ 370 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY hiTulu-iuram is the landlord's (minlsdur^) share ; and kudi- vuraw, the cultivating occupant's, as before. Turning to the other royal demesne of Maduka and TiNNE- VELLI, the evidence is much less satisfactory ; but we can hardly help believing that the kings' and chiefs' courtiers and relations, and others, would gradually acquire the mirasi right in certain villages ; and hence we find it reported that, at any rate in the Tinnevelli 'pollams' or chief's territories, minlsi villages were found. In the early report,' the existence of Brahman minlsi villages (agrahdram vcdafjai) is noticed in the Tinnevelli district, and it is stated that other villages held by Qudras were also mirclsi and held on shares, and that these latter are called pci'iwldra-vudagai. It is noteworthy, however, that these words merely mean that the villages are on the list of those paying revenue to the treasury (which the agrahdram are not) ; or, in other words, that they are what elsewhere would be called Midlsa, or revenue-paying, villages. Nothing appears about the origin or the nature of the tenure ; the details given refer solely to the Brahman grantee villages ; ^ still, it is certainly intended that both Brahman and Cudra villages were held on the same sort of superior title, and were divided into pamgu and hirai = major and individual shares. But further, it is added (and this is important), that, beside the shared villages, there were others held by non-proprietary (payalcdri) holders, who had no system of shares.' As to Maddra, the author of the District Manual expressly states that certain villages in which harai-kdran, or ' persons holding shares,' were stated to exist, there was no privileged or superior tenure, but the term merely indicated a method by which the cultivators formed a voluntary association for the * Mirasi Papers, pp. 77, 105, 283. The two latter Eeports are long- winded disquisitions on property in general, giving no facts of any kind, and showing that the writer was confusing in his mind all sorts of rights, including the special holding of the headman, which is certainly not existent in mirasi villages under any circumstances whatever. ' Mirasi Papers, p. 79 (Mr. Lnshington). MTien the writer comes to the Qudra villages, he only makes some unimportant remarks about the caste, and gives a deed of sale with nothing to show to what class of village it refers. He says nothing as to how the Qudra tenures originated. ^ See this clearly stated by Mr. EUis (Mirasi Papers) p. 386. ANCIENT JOINT-VILLAGES IN MADRAS 371 purpose of meeting the revenue demand, ilr. Ellis, on the other hand, evidently thought that joint-villages once existed in Madura ; and it must be admitted that in the demesne territory of an ancient kingdom it is likely enough. No great import- ance, however, attaches to the question ; but it is evident that throughout these districts there is no single incident or feature in the evidence which does not coincide with the supposition, in itself so very probable when judged by the experience of other ' Hindu ' kingdoms — viz. that the co-sharing or proprietary villages were the superior or privileged tenures resulting from royal grants to Brahmans, or to other (secular) grantees for various purposes, including, very possibly, the direct revenue management or the extension of cultivation to new lands. As such they may date back several hundred years ; and they may have been held by the descendants of the original grantees acting on the usual custom of joint-succession. Ad (iii.). When we come to the Chingleput district, which is the centre of the larger group of Tamil mirdsi villages, we find the evidence much more complete, and the whole subject studied with great care and with an amount of detail that is quite remarkable for the period. The evidence mainly consists of surviving share-lists in many cases, and other evidences of proprietary possession, while the origin of the villages is explained by a detailed and ancient tradition, the substantial truth of which was accepted by every one of the officers who had local experi- ence, from Mr. Place in 1796 to Mr. Ellis (1816) and 3Ir. Smalley (1822), Mr. Graeme in North Arcot, and a learned native gentleman (B. Sankaraya) in Madras.' We are not bound to accept the entire details of the tradition ; but there can hardly be a reasonable doubt thi^t its main idea was a true one, and that the villages were established in a fertile but origi- nally almost wholly forest-clad country, at the time held, and partly at least inhabited, by Kurumbar — a pastoral tribe who were then ruled by Pcdlava chiefs, who had established twenty- ^ The principal reports are in Mirdsi Papers, Place (1796), p. 3G, ff. For his final Eeport in 1799, of some 750 paragraphs, and full of long- winded disquisitions of no interest, but containing also many valuable facts, see pp. 38-70. EUis (1816), pp. 172-217; B. Sankaraya, p. 218 ; Graeme, p. 393 ; SmaUey (1822), p. 424. 3/2 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY four Indtam. or territorial divisions, each protected or com- manded by a fort. The days came when a Qolp, prince advanced into the country and conceived the idea of colonising part of it.' The settlement of the first families of Vellalan castemen was not a success, but ultimately Vellalar from the north-west country of Tuluva were induced to settle ; and then the colony was established. Some remains of the earlier families of the Vellalar are stated by Isiv. Ellis to have still held lands, but the principal proprietors were the Tuluva Vellalar.^ The general evidence as to the past history of the villages is given by Mr. Ellis in some detail. He quotes the verses that have become tradional or are found in early Tamil literature bearing on tlie subject, as well as lists locally preserved showing how the Vellalar divided the territory into nudu under chiefs (called NdUo.n), and how these new divisions were related to the twenty-four huttain which their predecessors had organised. The records include some lists of the nadus, and some calcula- tions of the number of villages which each contained.^ It appears to me that attempts to identify the entire country included in the traditional and literary limits of Tondai-nnan- dalam are very doubtful. Equally so the attempts to calculate, from certain temple records, the number of families of Vellalar. The fact seems quite clear that so large an area could never have ' The name general^ accepted by Mr. Ellis and others is that of a (Hinduised) prince, Athonde, or Adandd-Chahravarti (the last member being a Sanskrit title meaning 'suzerain '). The fuU detail is given in the CJdnglepvt D. M. ; but as Wilks's description of a purely rcdyativdri village is quoted, and this is mixed up with the account of the village held in shares, some mistakes are the natural result. The dates seem also somewhat confused. The author suggests that the Vellalar colonisa- tion began before the time of Manu (p. 207) : on what this rests I have no idea. Afterwards it is suggested that the Vellalar from the Tulwva country came during the first centuries of the Christian era. (See p. 208, and compare p. 25.) The supposition that jointly-held villages existed before Manu, and before Sanskrit was known in the South, is entirely unsupported by any kind of evidence. The traditions all pomt to their having been privileged imder Adaiida, who reigned at a time when the Hindu religion had long been introduced. He may have extended the privilege to the remains of earlier settlers of superior race, as indeed would be natural under the circumstances. - Mirasi Papers, p. 230. » lUd. pp. 236-240, 242. AXCIENT JOINT-VILLAGES IN JLVURAS 373 been occupied from end to end by colonists, even if it was really conquered and annexed by the (Jolu dynasty ; and that the special location and grant of privileges to the Tuluva Vellalar villages must more reasonably be confined to that part of the country where they are proved to have been established by the fact that a considerable group of them was in some degree of preservation at the time when British rule began. It is quite a gratuitous supposition that such villages at one time existed all over the whole area vaguely included in ' Tondai- mandalam,' but that over the greater part they had been rooted out — the villages entirely, the people almost — by subsequent Moslem and Maratha conquests.' It is true that we have more reason to believe the villages were held on a mirasi tenure in some other districts (Tanjore, &c.), and it may be that these are included in the general limits of Tondai-mandalan described by Mr. EUis.^ But the districts of Chingleput and Arcot were also equally harassed by wars, and afterwards by the harsh rule of the Nawabs of the Carnatic, as Mr. Ellis's own papers show ; and yet tJiere the tnirasi villages wei'e, though much injured, not at all destroyed, nor was the Vellalan population rooted out. It is surely sufficient to establish — and of this there is no doubt — that in Chingleput, in the Madras Collectorate, and in the neighbour- hood, there were unquestionably mirasi villages, and that in many of them the paivju-malai or records of shares were pre- served, a fact which demonstrates that the institution in question was certainly ' the joint or co-shared village.' It is not at all easy to fix a date for these Chingleput colonies. Mr. Ellis thinks that the country was early brought into a fairly flourishing state, since there are names of places which can plausibly be identified with those mentioned in Ptolemy's geographical account (about the middle of the second century). Hence Mr. Ellis thinks the colonisation must have begun before the Christian era.^ But such recognition of ' See Mirasi Papers, p. 246. Eaces speaking Telugu and Canarese cover the whole of the so-called Upper Tondai west of the ' Coromandel ' ghat. ^ He proposed to prepare a map, which was never completed ; and the coloured portions were to show whence the Vellalar possessions had now disappeared, and the uneoloured the parts where they survived. 2 Mirasi Pajjers, p. 230. See D. M. Chingleput, p. 25. 3(4 THE INDIAN' VILLAGE COMMUNITY names, if it is a fact, does not show that Adanda's colonising enterprise was so early ; for (as the Chinrileput D. M. points out), up to the eighth century, the Pallava, Pandu, and Kurumbar tribes were in possession,' and furnished the origin of the still existing ' Pallar,' a low caste of farm labourers. It was only about the eighth or ninth century that the CoUi dynasty extended its influence northward to the jungle-clad Tondai countrv, and overthrew the Pallava chiefs. After this it began to lose ground, and finally fell about the eleventh or twelfth century. I think that, on the whole, we may more probably attribute the special foundation of privileged villages to some period not far i-emoved from the eighth or ninth century. This does not conflict with the possibility of some still earlier and partial Vellalar settlements. Coming, however, to the actual survivals at the time of the British rule, Mr. Place in 1799 enumerated 2,241 mirdsi villages in Chingleput.^ Of these, a considerable number had passed into the hands of Brahmans, but the bulk were still Vellalar. In his time as many as 15,994 mirdsi shares were held by 8,387 sharers, but a number had been abandoned owing to the heavy revenue demands which, here as elsewhere, deprived landed pro- perty of its value.' Mr. Place, indeed, adopted the extreme measure of granting tl:e mirasi right in vacant lands. Mr. Place explains that the 8,387 sharers represent only the heads of kindred; and that there were many more minor shares — apparently subdivisions of \, |-, -^, -^^, &c. — the fractions known to the Tamil arithmetic.'' It has been remarked that the Vellalan village-owners were not of common descent ; but this, I think, is very natural. For colonists would be volunteers gathered from a number of different families and centres. From the accounts we possess, it is pro- bable that the colonists kept together in village groups, and that the head of each separate family-group would represent a major share in the village ; there is no reason why these major ' The D. M., North Arcoi, p. 20, states that it was a Pallava chief who formed the twenty-four kuttam above alluded to. ^ Mirdsi Papers, p. 251. ^ See ibid. pp. 382, 383. ■* Mr. Place's long report of 1799 is also printed in the Fifth Report, ii. 299-314. ANCIENT JOINT-MIJ.AftlCS TX MADRAS 375 shares sliould not have often been held by separate families, who, associated as clearers of the forest, had no lien of blood beyond the common ties of caste or tribe. But within these major shares {fatti or tarf as they would be in North India), the minor holders would all at first be kindred ' — i.e. descendants of the same ancestor. This, I think, is the only reasonable inference to be drawn from the facts as stated by ]Mr. Place. The villages of the Vellalan special colonisation were, as I have said, privileged by being allowed a portion of the land free of revenue, and by certain other dues ; privileges which it is'noticed particularly do not occur in any other mirdsi villages elsewhere.' The larger shares alluded to seem to have been called pangu, and the minor shares were iMrai (whence the generic term J:ardi-lMran, or ' co-sharers '). As to the foiin of joint tenure prevalent, the villages were chiefly what are called pasmi-karai, a term which has led to some rather extravagant notions about ancient community of property. But, as a matter of fact, all the evidence points to this having been a voluntary and f)erfectly natural arrange- ment of association made when t\qw cultivation was to be established, and when a well-cemented union of effort, both in clearing forest and in creating the means of irrigation by dig- ging tanks, was necessary. Under this system, moreover, two varieties were observed. The absolute fasaiy-karai meant that the village body worked without any separate or permanent allotment of lands ; the ' council ' determined each year what portion of land each group should undertake. Whether each took the produce of what they actually cultivated, or whether all was collected and divided according to the known fractional shares, does not clearly appear.'^ But for this mode another was sometimes substituted, viz. the Jcaraii/ulu, which meant that ' See Mirdsi Papers, p. 375, § 85. I make no apology for repeating this, for it is important as showing that there must have been somethuig special about their villages, and so far confirming the tradition of their origin. ^ Mr. Place speaks of such joint bodies working together so that ' the labours of all jield the rent = the Government revenue (?), and they enjoy the profit proportionate to their origmal mterest ' {Fifth Report, ii. 314). This may refer only to the general idea of the association. 376 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY the holdings were separately allotted for a time and then ex- changed. Mr. Place gives several examples of the shares in these villages.^ The major-shares, as I have said, were those of the heads of each branch or group, taking part in the establishment of the cultivation ; and there were sub-shares. Mr. Place in- stances a village in which there were actually thirty sharers, but they remembered the four major-shares of the foundation, and adhered to that division. Another village had 160 origiTial shares ; this probably includes both the major and minor shares. ' It was deemed essential,' says Mr. Place, ' that the shares should be equal.' As might be expected, there were many slaves and serfs, doubtless the original inhabitants who were reduced to this condition ; and many followers who held lands on an inferior tenure.^ In one of the Mirasi Papers mention is made of the formal grant by the mirasddrs of a cultivating, but not co-sharing, right in perpetuity. And it was this, and possibly the occasional existence of previously established culti- vators, that led to the distinction between the illJcudi, or heredi- tary tenant, and the iMraliudi, or tenant-at-will, especially in Brahman or other villages in which the co-sharers were non- agriculturist and would rely on tenants for farming their lands. When, in the course of time, the shares, for any reason, were allotted and permayiently divided, the village was said to be arudi-karai. This division was foreign to the original plan of co-operative colonisation, and was, as Mr. Place notes, against the caste feeling. It appears either as a later change in the Vellalar villages, or as a more frequent family division in the Brahman villages, and perhaps in those of other (Qiidra) grantees. 1 Fifth Report, ii. pp. 299, 300, io. This exchange, Mr. Place says (p. 885), was ' to obviate, I imagine, the inequality to which u, iixed dis- tribution would be liable.' - In the D. M. Chingleput, there is a curious iiccount of the serfs and their being rather proud of being ad-scripti glebit, because they had a certainty of land to cultivate and a fixed livelihood ; and they had a kind of annual ceremonial strilie — for such it was, for the details of which the origmalmust be consulted (pp. 211-214). AXCIENT JOINT- VILLAGES IN MAUIIAS 377 1 tliink that a variety of circumstances taken together are strongly in favour of the view that the joint-holding, or ijasan- karai, in the Tondai country was essentially a device for holding together and equalising the colonist associates, each in his own group or major-share division. It will be recollected that we start with the uniform tradition that the Velldlar were established with the grant of a superior right, which was to attach them to the land and encourage them to persevere in their difficult task.' Then we find that this permanent right was still so much valued in 1799, that Mr. Place declared'-' that 'it was indispen- sable to assign mirdsddrs to the unappropriated lands ; without it,' he says, ' I found that they could not be rented — i.e. the revenue-settlement accepted; but the idea of permanent pro- perty was such an inducement that I was not only able to fill up the vacant shares, but to convert the most stubborn soil and the thickest jungle into fertile villages. " Give us the inirdsi, and we will both rent the lands, and employ all our labour to make them productive " was the common observation . . .' Then, again, it is noted that the inirasddrs would ' assemble and execute a joint-deed divesting the defaulter of his share in the " inirdsi," transferring it to the others, which looks verj'' much like a strong association, the basis of which was that all must pull together to meet the assessment. ^ For in village bodies dependent on common descent from a single ancestor nothing of the kind is ever recorded. And, again, it is noted in Sladura, as I have already observed, that the pasan-karai was actually adopted in existing villages as a means of meeting the ' ' There is a distinct tradition of some of these (VelliLlar) having deserted the undertaking. The manner in which the difficulty was at last overcome, and the son of the Chola king able to report to his father the completion of the enterprise, is set forth in the following story, which has always been current in the country. KuUatanga (Raja.) asked his son how he had been able to settle the country so well ? The latter replied that he had forged a chain for the inhabitants of such strength that they would never be able to free themselves. By this he meant that the affections of the people were bo riveted to the land of their new country by Ttdnmds't, or property in the soil, that they would not desert it. This story is no doubt very ancient. . . .' D.M. Chingleimt, p. 217. " See Fifth Report, ii. 303. ^ See Mirdsi Papers, p. 223, and cf. p. 389, post. 378 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY revenue chai'ge by combined action. And so in North Arcot it is expressly said that when it became ' necessary to add . . . new cultivators to the original proprietors to assist in repairs of tanks, in the distribution and settlement of the different lands, and to regulate the irrigation,' imsan-liarai was adopted by voluntary association, and the new-comers were ' pai-tners in the profit and loss of the cultivation of all the lands,' though they had no share in the original privilege by which the co-sharers had a certain portion of the land free of revenue, and received certain special grain-fees (liuppatam), &c.' I also note with regard to the method involving exchange of lands Qiaraiyldii) that it is stated in the Report on South Arcot that newly cleared ' wet ' lands under new water are to this day frequently exchanged in order that each might get the good as well as the bad lands in his turn.- I do not think, then, on the whole, that there can be any reasonable doubt that the relics of mirdsi right indicated the establishment of a superior co-sharing village tenure, which existed locally, and contemporaneously with the raiyatwCirl tenure ; such superior tenure being connected either with grants to Brahmans or to other (secular) castemen — very likely cadets of families and other persons gaining privilege from connection with the ruler, or with a direct privilege granted to encourage and confirm a colonising settlement. That such should be the real history is exactly in analogy with the evidence we have everywhere that, given a ' Hindu ' State and Rajas, we are sure to find joint-villages growing up, either by grants of land or by colonising enterprises under the patronage of the Raja. I would only add that, in another connection,^ I have shown how in the old Oudli kingdoms the villages were naturally raiyativd/n, and how by the king's grant leading families obtained the lordship of the village, and how waste land grants would result in the establishment of villages on the superior tenure (co-shared village). I believe that the Madras history is 1 See Mirdsi Papers, p. 395, § 106. - Ibid. p. 412. ^ See p. 300, ante. AXCIENT JOIXT-VILLAGES IN MADRAS 379 just the same thing in another form. That it affords any t'xample of a general primeval tenure of ' land in common,' quite contrary to all we know of Dravidian custom, I see not the remotest reason to believe.' ' In concluding the whole subject I take occasion to observe that no attempt has been made to account for tbe unquestioned survival of the joint- villages, with their pangu-malai, or share lists, and, in the Tondai territory, their special privileges, on any otlier basis. Tlie chief if not only dissentient voice is that of Sir T. Muuro in his Minute of December 1824 [Mirasi Papers, p. 4S0). But this illustrates what I have elsewhere had occasion to observe, tliat the Minutes of our great Administrators are not always to be appealed to for points of history and details of tenure. Sir T. Munro's main object was to argue for the practical adoption of a raiyatwdrl Settlement and for a great reduction of revenue ; t)uit would make the country flourish and save it from middlemen. This important principle, to the adoption of which Madras owes all its subsequent prosperitj-, seems obvious enough now ; but in those days it needed all the advocacy of a powerful personality to obtain consideration for it. But with this one object in view. Sir T. Munro had no concern with tenure details. He frankly says he does not care to inquire about the alleged mirasi vUlages. Had he stopped there, and pointed out that in their then existing condition the surviving right, such as it was, could easily be pi-ovided for under his system, and that its past history had no practical bearing on his proposals, it would have been well. Unfortunately, the distinguished writer endeavoured to add a brief criticism, which, it must be admitted, was without sufficient foundation. He says that tlie existence of the joint-village is ' without the least proof ' and is onlj' Mr. Ellis's opinion. This certainly is not the case. He then briefly adds that if such colonists settled (to the nvmiber of fifty or sixty thousand) it would have depopulated the country whence they came ; and that they would have perished before the task of clearing the jungle w as accom- plished. But Mr. Ellis expressly shows that the Tuluva country was well able to support sending out a colony (see Mirasi Paiiers, p. 249), of which of course the numbers may have been exaggerated. And, as to the likelihood of their perishing in the attempt, smce the country certainly ivas somehow colonised, and that, unquestionably, at no recent period, the objection has no weight : colonisation was just as possible in, say, the eighth century as it was at any subsequent but still ancient date. In fact, the whole argument — as far as it appears in the Minute — would not need to be seriously noticed at all if it were not for the great name it hears. 3S0 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMil UNITY Section IT. — Traces of Over-lord Right in the Dakhan Villages When we turn to the Dakhan districts of the Bombay Presi- dency, the traces of co-sharing right, also called minlsi,^ are more doubtful ; or rather, I should say, it is more doubtful what interpretation we should put on the evidence. That a distinct class of superior holders once locally existed there can be little doubt ; that share-lists, showing how the families allotted the lands, were actually obtained by Colonel Sykes is also clear ; but to what extent this superior tenure of whole villages pre- vailed, or whether in some cases the traditional evidence does not rather relate to shares in the headman's privileged special landholding (or watan'), there is some room for question.^ On the whole I think it is more probable that these villages were subject to a local but really widespread over-lordship, which is by no means impossible to account for. It will be observed that in no case is there any suggestion of any common-holding of village lands. The families whose shares (thai) are spoken of may, or may not, be descended from common ancestors. Colonel Sykes notes particularly that the major shares were called by the names of the founders — men of ' ancient Maratha families.' We have no sufficient evidence as to who they were. Very probably the\' may be traced to the earlier Aryan or semi- Aryan clans, loug before the name ' Maratha ' was in use — though at a date when ' It wiU be remarked that the term imrdsi was derived from the earlj' Moslem revenue systems which originated in the JMuhammadan ];ingdoms of the Dakhan and thence become generally current. Malik 'Ambar, the famous minister who made the Revenue Settlement of these parts, was always anxious to resuscitate, if he could, the inirCisi families and make village Settlements with them. See Berar Gazetteer, p. 90, and G. AV. Forrest's Minutes of M. Elphinstone (Captain Brigg"s Report), p. 385. - There is in the Reports something of the same confusion already noted in Madras ; for tlie terms watan, watandc'ir, which apply to the headman's and village-o_^cers' privileged holdings, are sometimes applied to the proprietary shares in the village ; at any rate, it is not certain which is meant. Hereditary holdings of headmen and officers are common in, and even characteristic of, raiyatwdrl villages ; so that their existence is no proof at all of any joint-tenure of the whole village as a unit estate. JOINT-VILLAGES IN THE BOMBAY DAKIIAN 381 the Hindu co-sharing family institutions were already developed. Buddhism, we know, from architectural remains, had obtained a hold in the country, but was afterwards supplanted by the later Brahmanic institutions. The early ' Marathas ' disappear from history and only emerge with the revival under Sivajl in the seventeenth century.' Whenever the process of destruction of these early village over-lordships began, and whether it was chiefly due to Moslem victories or was before that period, these ruling families were defeated and deprived of their estates, except in so far as some of the descendants may have clung to villages here and there or to shares in such villages. Under the rule of a new conqueror, a change naturally begins : the lands still belonging to certain branches of the landlord families cannot bear up against the heavy assessment that is imposed ; the families, already weakened and dispersed by defeats, having lost prestige and also had many members slain in battle, gradually disappear. The local governor, without much care for anything but immediate profit, puts in some upari — i.e. non-proprietary cultivators — to till the vacant lands, and they in time become permanent holders with prescrip- tive rights. In any case, as time goes on, the few remaining mirdsddr, or co-sharers, and the cultivating ujjaris, become reduced to the same level, and both appear as mere raiijats occupying lands the superior ownership of which has become claimed by the ruler. I think this view will be generally confirmed by the evidence which is derived partly from the inquiries directed by the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone previous to his well-known Report of ' The Dakhan districts, covered with hills, afford the greatest facihty for building forts and strongholds from which the early chieftains and noble families would dominate the villages in the ' tal,' or level country below. The old over-lord families were sure to have been non-agriculturist, and when their forts fell before their enemies they would lose their hold on the village lands to a great extent. In this respect they would be unlike the village bodies of Upper India, who, holdiug strong posts in the centre of their village lands, and being in close managing connection ^\-ith the land and themselves agriculturists, were able to defend them and to secure their possession. I may refer to p. Ill, ante, where some account is given of early Aryan contact with the west of India. 382 THE Ix\13IAN VILLAGE COMMUXITY 1819 on the 'Territories acquired from the Peshwa.' ' These inquiries were made at a time when real historical investigations into tenures were not understood, and tliey naturally leave much to be desired. A further inquiry was made by Colonel Sykes ; and his papers on ' Dakhan Tenures ' are to be found in vols. ii. and iii. of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. The then well-remembered distinction between mirdsi holders and wpart holders, which is held to mark the existence of co-sharing families over the villages, did not extend to Khandesh, nor to the South Maratha country; but it was found in the Dakhan Collectorates of Ahmadnagar, Puna, and Dharvar. Here, too, it was noticed that many lands not in possession of tnirasddrs were popularly known as gat-kid, which implied that the landlord family (kuld) was ' gone ' or destroyed (gatd). Colonel Sykes found that in many villages lists of shares still existed. And there is some reason to suppose that the larger share was called thai, while the minor or individual share was tlM.^ Colonel Sykes's papers are well worth reading, but it has to be remembered that the author was not familiar with the joint-village, as found elsewhere ; there is nothing strange, for example, in the lands of one family branch or thai lying scattered about, as the result of some family partition. And our author sometimes confuses the haq and the ivatan holdings of headmen, and village officers with the shares in the hereditary ^ This is printed in Mr. G. W. Forrest's Oficial Writings of Mount- stuart miphinstone (London : R. Bentley, 1884). Unfortunatelj', the whole of the Eeports of Chaplin, Robertson, Thackeray, and others are not reproduced, but only those portions which Elphinstone attached to his of&cial Minute. - These words are, nevertheless, rather puzzling, perhaps, owing to faulty record of the real word. Thai means the ' ground, ' soU,' and ' place ' in general ; tal means ' level.' The correct word I cannot ascertain. Talkari may mean a person holding land in the level plain as opposed to gadhhari, a person employed in the forts, or gadh, which crowned the hiUs in the high land of the Dakhan and were doubtless the head-quarters of the chiefs of the elans which dominated the villages. Tlkd (or thiM ?) again suggests either a spot, a blotch, or patch, or, if the second form is correct, a lease or farm ; but the latter is less likely, for farming the revenue of villages could not have been in use in early day.s. Captain Robertson thought thai was used in the sense of a ' field.' (Forrest's Elphinstone' a Minutes, p. 379.) JOINT-VILLAGES IX THE BOMBAY DAKITAN 38o estate of village proprietors. Lastly, he ia mucli too ready to iufer the general existence in the Dakhan districts of the thai system, where no trace of it was actually found. It can justly be inferred to have existed only where it also appears that there is at least the memory of mirdsi holdings in the village. Each thai, it is interesting to observe, just like the patti of Northern India of which it is the counterpart, bears, as I have said, the name of the head of the branch to which it belonged. As the early volumes of the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal are not readily accessible, I will make one or two characteristic quotations: — At Nimbi, in the Nagar (Ahmadnagar) Collectorate (writes Colonel Sykes), there were twenty-three thai, of which eighteenwere(/atkul; at Kothal, nine thai and five gatkul. In the first case eighteen families out of twenty-three are extinct, and in the second, five out of nine. . . . At the village of Belwandi {pargana Karde, Ahmadnagar district), there was not a single representative of an ancient family remaining in A.D. 1827, the whole of the lands were gatkul. There were nevertheless some half dozen mirdsdars who had purchased their lands from the Patel six or seven and twenty years back.' The Kulkarnl even denied the existence of thals ; but, one of the mirdsdars having told me that he had his land on the thai of an extinct family, I urged their existence so strenuously that a thaljdra, or list of the estates into which the village lands are divided, was at last reluctantly produced, an old worn paper dated Saka 1698=a.d. 1777. In this list I find the thals minutely detailed, together with their possessors, the number of names of mirdsddrs who had pur- chased mirds rights from the village authorities on the thals that had become gatkul, and, finally, the names of the different uparis (tenants-at-will) renting land on the thals. In 1827 there was not a single person alive a descendant from the possessors of thals or mirds rights in 1777 ; it would appear that in Holkar's inroad into the Dakhan in 1802, war, famine, pestilence, or flight had depopu- lated the village ; that the few people that returned died subse- 1 Journal B. A. S. ii. (1835), 209 ff. It will be remembered that in later Maratha, times the Patels were made responsible for the revenue of their village ; and it was their duty to provide for the cultivation of abandoned holdings; and they would assume to sell the mirdsi right occasionally, either for their own profit or as an inducement to culti- vators to take lands and to remain permanently. 384 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COM.MUNITY quently, and that in consequence there was not an ancient ' heritor ' remaining. The lands of Baghroza (one of the constituent villages of Ahmadnagar) are divided into thals, each having a family name with descendants of the original proprietors in possession of many of them. It might have been supposed that the Mussulmans would have dispossessed the Hindus ; ' but with the exception of one thai which from time immemorial - had been in the possession of the descendants of Husain Khan, whose name it bears, there is not a Mussulman name to any of the tluds. An instance is afterwards given of a ' town ' Wamori (or Wambori, in the Ahmadnagar district) in which tluds do not exist by that name, but there is a list found called Jamliv-jdrd- jatlidwdr— list of lands according to families (jatJul means ' company,' hence family), and there were thirty-four families. The individual holders were members of these families, holding the land divided into tiled ; the family lots were apparently not contiguous. In this instance, however, we have a case of the superior ownership being recently assumed by a family of some pretensions ; for it was known that Wamori had been devastated by Bhils, and that the inhabitants fled and the lands lay waste till some of the hereditary village oflBcers returned and took possession of what lands they pleased. The Patara family holding the pdtelsliip (there were then five pdtels) had annexed no less than thirty thousand acres between them ; and the family of the hulkarnl (accountant) had also taken possession of a large number of tikd. Colonel Sykes thinks that the thai system could be traced in three-fourths of the villages in the Ahmadnagar and Puna ' This, however, would not be likely ; the Nizim Shahi kings (in this part) took the rule only and could not have furnished foreigners sufficient to dispossess any considerable number of land-holders. Moreover, it appears to have been their policy to preserve the old land-holders and superior families, regarding them as the best guarantee for a permanent revenue. "^ This is an exaggeration, for the dates of the conquest, and of any possible Mussulman proprietor, are perfectly well known. Probably the share was acquired between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries ; but here we have the original process repeated; a Musssulman locally replaces as over-lord, an earlier Hindu whose ancestor may have been lord of the whole village or more, and who probably gained his position by similar conquest in the first instance. JOINT-VILLAGES IN THE BOMBAY UAKHAN 385 districts. It is curious tliat, though the superior tenures were, as so often observed, originally free or at least privileged hold- ings, they afterwards (in Moslem and Maratha times) were made to pay at a rate which was higher than that of ordinary occupants, and was distinguished by the term swastidhdrd.^ And, characteristically, the Marathas, not liking to openly, sur- charge this, levied once in three years an extra cess, which they called miras-faiti , a special tax on the privilege of superior tenure ! Under such circumstances it is no wonder that in the course of time the distinction between swasti land and other, or between the representative mirdsi occupant and the upari or tenant, soon became a matter of memories and names only. It owed such partial preservation as it actually had to the feeling of attachment to hereditary lands and to pride of superior origin. The mirdsdur as such would be able to marry his daughters, and secure social advantages that would be denied to the iqjari, however wealthy. Nor is it surprising that the Moslem and Maratha Governments respected at least the title to mirdsi lands ; this was partly because they had a natural fellow- feeling with the higher families, partly that they themselves felt- that customary respect for hereditary land which was never altogether extinct,^ partly also because such lands could be made to pay more than the others. Ordinary tenants not attached by hereditary sentiment to any particular village will not be induced to cultivate unless tempted by terms that on the whole are advantageous.^ ' Corruptly, sosthi or susthi ; the word means ' well-being ' — i.e. a rate {dhdrd) proper for land held on privileged or superior tenure. ' The private lands of the governing classes themselves would neces- sarily be held on an analogous if not identical tenure ; this also might make them have some respect for the mirasi holding in general. ' This opportunity may be taken to mention that, besides these traces of the tenure of co-sharing landlord families over villages, there were, in a few villages, locally sur\'iTing divisions of an older nature, as indicated by the purely Dravidian terms used. The lands were divided into larger areas called inund-, and smaller ones called Tais. The writer of the Ahmadnagar Gazetteer (Bombay Gazetteer, svii. referring to xiii. p. 550), justly points out that the division had nothing to do with co-sharing families in superior possession ; for where these existed they were of Aryan origin and had the Sanskritic names of thai, tiled, &c. Nor do C C 386 TIIE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY Section III. — Modern (or existing) Cases of the Juxtaposition of the Two Types of Village (1) The Gujarat Districts of Bombay We have just seen that in the Dakhan districts, whatever groups of landlord families holding villages in shares once existed, they have died out. In one or two of the Gujarat districts we find a number of ' shared ' (i.e. jointly held) villages still surviv- ing, but having a different and much later origin ; and they are found side by side with the ordinary raiyattodri village. W e shall find them, in fact, held by families of Bohra (or Vohara), and by families of the enterprising agricultural caste called Kunbi. In both cases the co-sharing tenure is due to the families hav- ing originally taken the management, as revenue-farmers, or in some analogous capacity ; and now their descendants have sub-divided the villages into many shares, and have long held the whole as virtual owners. That many more villages had formerly come under the same kind of ' ownership ' there can be no doubt, but they did not survive the Maratha rule. In fact, it is largely due to the fact that the Nawabs of Bharoch encouraged such villages that they survive as much as they do. Before describing these tenures it will be well very rapidly to review the position of the Gl'Jarat country as a whole ; for it they indicate any Maratha method of revenue-management ; thoiigh doubtless the revenue officers, finding these old divisions of fields still remembered, made use of them to impose lump sums of revenue on the whole, making the cultivators distribute the amount among themselves. Thus the idea arose — which is quite without any foundation — that those few villages where the mund areas were known had some resemblance to the North Indian zamiTiduri or joattlddri villages. The terms mund (cf. mudd, murka, &o.), and Tids indicate larger or smaller areas or lots as measured by the quantity of seed required to sow them. This was a very ancient mode of estimating area, still traceable in Kanara and other Dravidian districts. The word is also found in Berar (Berdr Gazet- teer, p. 93), where it is used (mundkart) to mean an old original cultivator of a holding. It is quite possible that these terms may connect the present with the old form of Dravidian village, and indicate the establishment of different lots or holdings for the headman, the muhato, the priest, &c. (Cf, p. 179, ante?) EXISTING CASES OF JUXTAPOSITION— BOMBAY 387 illustrates well how these joint or shared ownerships of villages (where we have nothing to do with clan movements and the foundation of villages in a new territory) always originate in some dismembered territorial over- lordship, or in some position of vantage gained by a revenue-farm, or grant of the revenue- management of a village. In the Dakhan districts, the early and probably only half- Aryan chiefs who once dominated the country disappeared, as I have stated. In the richer Guj.AlRAT districts, a much larger and longer continued series of local chiefships attract our attention. For the earlier centuries we have no detailed knowledge ; but there is every reason to believe that besides early Aryans coming from the Indus Valley, and probably other Northern leaders also, Greek Princes (connected with the name of Menander) had the rule ; and at one time Asoka, the Buddist Emperor of Magadha, extended at least his suzerainty thus far. But at some date long subsequent to the establishment of the Aryan clans in the Ganges plain, and when the Rajput chiefs had spread into Rajputana and Malwa, we begin to have historic glimpses of powerful Raj put dynasties, still strictly localised. They were of the later Aryan type, either Buddhist, Jain, or Brali- manic, being of the Agnikidd, or ' Fire-born ' houses, the Glidward (locally Ghdvadd) of Anhilwara, the Solanlchai, and later Bdgheld princes. In the fourteenth century the ' Hindu ' rule came to an end, and there succeeded a series of Moslem Sultans, the results of the early conquests subsequent to Mahmud of Ghazni. Their rule lasted some 165 years, till Akbar conquered the country in A.D. 1672. A number of local ' estates ' or lordships, the remnants of the old chiefs' dominions, were the natural result.' With these we are not now concerned. But it is hardly wonder- ful that under such a varied series of rulers, all desirous of making the best revenue possible, and rewarding their followers, there should be occasional examples of petty lordships over villages : such were the tenures enjoyed by persons called naih, gdmeti, mdlik, Jcasbdti, &c. The class of village under Bohra or Kunbi families, which is ' There is a particularly good account of Gujarat in the Asiatic Quarterly Review by the late Mr. W. G. Pedder. I think it was in 1889. I have a copy of the article, but, unfortunately, not the reference. ;-)S8 T[IK INDIAK Vil.LAGE CO.M.^[UNITV wliat we liave immediately under our consideration, arose out of revenue-farming arrangements. When the time came at wliich the old fashion of collecting the revenue in grain proved too troublesome, the natural resource was to fix a lump sum iu demand from the whole village, whether at a full estimate or at some moderated sum (udhad-jmtiob). This was especially the Maratha system ; and the local officials looked about for some village manager to be responsible for the total sum ; he in his turn being entitled to take grain or cash (or both) from the villagers, as he best could, to recoup himself. When there was any local chief or gamSti, or Icashaii, of course he was the person who managed the village. AVhen it was an ordinarj- ratyahmri village, either the patel (indigenous) headman might be employed, or some outsider put in. It was merely a question of opportunity and circumstances whether such a revenue-manager grew into being virtual owner of the village, in which case the family would divide the property into shares. In the cases before us — chiefly in the districts of Broach (Bharoch) and Kaira (Kheda) — the revenue-managers had contrived to retain their villages, and had handed them on to their descen- dants as their own property. In principle, these estates are joint- villages like those of Uppe^ India. As late as 1827 such villages were more numerous than tbey are now.^ Two kinds are now in survival : one is called bhagdan, or ' held on shares ; ' and the shares are (in origin at any rate) the ancestral fractions of the law of inheritance, and, in fact, correspond to the pattiddri tenure of Upper India. In the Kaira district the prevalent form is the narvjddarl, which has a some- what different constitution, and in Upper India would be called a form of bhaidclidrd tenure — i.e. fractional shares resulting from the law of inheritance were not observed, but a scheme distri- 1 The example of a raiyatwdri Settlement all round, and the fact that the revenue officers assessed (in general, for there was some difference in detail) every field and holding, would give a great impulse to the co- sharers already holding in severalty to adopt the survey-rate on their holding, instead of their own fractional shares or other customary modes of levy ; and if they consented to give up any waste numbers not in cultivation, they would become practically raiyatwari. The only draw- back was a certain loss of dignity by giving up the ' shared ' tenure. EXISTING CASES OF JUXTAPOSITIOX— BOMBAY o89 buting the charges foi' revemie and expenses was made out accoi'ding to the value and advantages of the several holdings. The word narwd itself means a schedule or scheme of rateable or proportionate payments assigned to each sharer. And the shares or holdings were valued by reference to the iirdr-bhdgwdri, which I understand to be certain artificial land-measures adopted for the valuation of the different shares relatively, like the bhaidehurd- highd of Northern India. In Bharoch the co-sharing holders Qjlulgddr) have, I under- stand, become much mixed as to family and caste. But the prevailing caste of proprietors seems still to be the peasant or agricultural section of the Muhammadan Bohra or Vohara.' These families appear to have acquired a hold over a number of villages at a date which is uncertain, but cannot be many generations ago. They got their footing as revenue farmers, or by the familiar process of lending money, or becoming sureties for village revenue payments ; this naturally ends by transferring the land to the surety. In 1818 as many as eighty-four villages were found to be held by Bohra families, who had undertaken the joint responsibility for the revenue, and accordingly had divided both the land and the responsibility into family shares. The Kaira villages, again, are mostly held by Kunbi com- munities ; the precise origin has not, as far as I know, been traced ; but it seems likely that these enterprising agricultural castemen undertook, on the acknowledgment of a permanent lease or other superior tenure, to be responsible for the revenue, possibly restoring the villages after some calamity had for a time thrown them out of cultivation. They have kept together better than the Bohra communities, probably because the narwd system tended better to prevent the disruption of the community, and secured mutual co-operation and support in meeting the revenue demand.^ 1 I cannot find proof of the correct spelling. In the local dialect the w is usually pronounced as v. hence narvCi, vanta, &c. {nanva, wdnid, &.C.), and so with b and v. - It is to be wished that we had a more definite detail about the classes or castes actually holding shares, and about the people's own traditions of origin and history. There is a valuable Keport on these tenures, by the late Mr. W. Pedder, C.S.I., in the Bombay Eever.-.ie 390 THE INDIAN VILLAOE C03IMUNITY The difference between the narwd and hhdfjJun villages i-i usually treated, by the JBombay writers, as a question of tlie fumi of assessment ; in the narwd village, it is said, the revenue was, at first at any rate, assessed in the lump for the whole, village, according to former custom, and the people prepared the distribution list according to which the co-sharers arranged to pay the total amount.' In the BM^ villages, on the other hand, every share-land or family holding, being separate, was separately assessed ; and the fields held by tenants were valued at the usual survey-rates. The revenue on the tenant lands was paid accordingly ; but the rest was added up together, anil the total disti'ibuted among the co-sharers, according to their own fractional shares. I cannot believe that this is tlie real tenure distinction ; the different mode of assessing must surely have been the consequence, not the cause, of a difference which already existed, and which I have attempted to describe. It will be well to examine a little more in detail the features of each class of village, as it may show that here, in fact, we have the same varieties as naturally occur in joint villages elsewhere. In both cases the origin was, as I have stated, in an arrange- ment made by individuals of sufficient influence who under- took the responsibility for the revenue-assessment of the whole Selections, one of those monographs which ought to be reprinted, witli notes and explanations added, by some intelligent inquirer of the present time. Some good remarks are to be found in Mr. A. Eogers's Paper oi'. Bombay Tenures in the Journal of the East India Association, and in the Bombay Gazetteer, iii. 88 (Kaira) ; for the Broach (Bharock) district, ii. 377, 483 ; and for some remains (in Daskroi) of Ahmadabuil shared villages, see iv. 156. ' None of the reports give any detail as to how a narwdddri holding is actually made up ; I have no doubt it is of various proportions of each kind of soil ; and that the customary valuation is effected by some artificial standard-lot (which is the sj-stem called bhaii'ichiird in Nortii India), and it was worked also witli tlie annual or periodic readiustmer.: of burdens known in the North as bJtejbarar; both features are certainly implied by Mr. Pedder's Eeport. It seems to me probable that our iirsi Settlement officers, finding this apparently complicated method, thouglit it better not to try and assess the lioldings separatelj', and so assessed the whole of the narwd lands en bloc. I can only offer that as mv suggestion. It is a fact that the narwd lands were assessed in the lump, and the bhdgddri field by field. EXISTIXG CASES OF JUXTAPOSITION— BOMBAY 391 village. Tlius, as regards the Kaira villages, we are told : ' ' Under this, the narwd system, the headman's responsibility was divided among the members of his family. In such cases, the different branches of the family were traced back to their common ancestor, and the village divided into as many hhdg, or primary divisions, as that ancestor had sons. Each share was made over to the representatives of one son, and they divided it into as many lots as there were men (heads of households) in their branch. The head of each branch was called hJidgddr, or patel. He acted for the other shareholders, but interfered in no way with the management of their shares.' The families — and sometimes there was only one to a whole branch, would either till their own lands or let out the fields to tenants. Shares were sometimes sold,^ and outsiders thus brought in. The peculiar narwd feature was this : ' Every year the Grovern- ment demand (ankdo) was divided equally among all the branches, and in every branch each shareholder had a lot, called pMld, assigned to him. If he failed to pay, he forfeited his right to the land, and the other sharers might force him to give it up.' ^ But this was not always insisted on, for the others also might fail to pay, or the parela, or lapsed shares, might have to be managed direct by the State officer. The shares were expressed in aivxs (fractions of a rupee) on an artificial scale. Thus, in a village called Sandesar, in Pitlad, there were seven bi-anches, and the revenue demand was lis. 7,854. The whole village was treated as = 84 dnas, of which 12 were assigned to each of the seven hhdg. There were 403^ ligJuls held undivided, and the income of this, Rs. 294, was first devoted to the revenue payment, leaving Rs. 7,560 to be met by the remaining lots held in severalty and covering 1 Bombay Gazetteer (Kaira), p. 88 ff. "^ The complicated and readjustable narwd share would be less easy to sell than the fixed, demarcated, fractional share of the bhagddri village ; perhaps this was the reason why the latter villages have become more miscellaneously held (p. 389, ante). ^ This is noteworthj-, as confirming what I said about the Madras Vellalar (p. 377, ante). Such a power does not exist in the pattidari com- munities descended from an ' aristocratic ' ancestor in Upper India. It shows a voluntary association for colonising or revenue managing. 392 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY 1,505 hlglids. Each ana thus corresponded to a holding of 17 bujhas and a fraction (17-9 x 84 = 1,50-1- nearly).' As there remained Rs. 7,560 to be jDaid on 1,505 bighus, that gave Rs. 90 for each ana share (90 x 84 = 7,560). The majmiln, or common land, was managed for the community by the headmen. On the whole, the narwcl village evidently much resem- bles the democratic bhaidcJidrd community of Northern India. In the bhd^ddri village the method is somewhat different, and approximates to the ancestral fractional-share system, or pattidarl, of the North-West Provinces. In the example selected by the writer of the notice in the Bombay Gazetteer, the village has a total area of 2,500 acres, of which 1,800 are held divided and 700 held jointly. Now in Bharoch there might be three ' ancestors,' or representatives of three major shares of four anas each, leaving the undivided land as a kind of fourth share to represent the remaining four anas of the unit rupee. This, it is true, would not be the case with an ' imperfect piattiddri ' village of Upper India, held on fractional shares in descent from an original founder. In such a village, if there were only three patti, each could represent one-third of the whole (5^ d7ia), and each would be liable for the same fraction of the revenue, and would take the same fraction of the undivided land when it came to be partitioned, and meanwhile each would have one- third of the rents and profits.^ But in the Bharoch example, each of the three sharers holds 600 acres as a four-ana share, and 700 acres are in common (3 X 600 + 700 = 2,500). The total revenue is assumed to be Rs. 10,000, of which Rs. 4,000 come from the manorial dues and income of the common land, leaving Rs. 6,000 to be met by the three sharers. Each of the three bhdgs would thus have to find Rs. 2,000, which would again be distributed in regular fractions among the sub-sharers; thus, two ^ pdtiddrs '(secondary sharers) of the first blidcj, would pay Rs. 1,000 each ; or, if they were further subdivided, say into eight minor shares, each of • See p. 389, as to the different soils in each holding ; and the note at p. 335, ante. * In practice, the rents and profits of the common would probably be first taken to meet the revenue demand, and it would be the balance that would be met (one-third by each) by the main shares. EXISTING CASES OF JUXTAFOSITIOX— BOMBAY 393 these would find Rs. 125 and so on.' In prosperous times the common land would be held by tenants, and so managed as per- haps to cover the whole or a large part of the revenue demand ; but under the Marathas an assessment would be laid on every separate portion, and the village total would be raised accord- ingly ; and I expect that the arrangement noted above, of treat- ing the tenant land or ' common ' as a sort of separate share, arose out of this necessity. The villages all keep their list of the shares and sub-shares, which is called plialo.vni. The major share is here locally called 'motabhdg, and the minor share petdbhdg. Each family share is lydti, and the holder of it pdtiddr. This is the usual division of the estate according to the degrees of the original family — sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons of the founder. The people, Mr. Pedder notices, are unwilling to give up the status of co-sharer, because they would lose ' ahru' or dignity ; they can marry their daughtei's much better with this claim to superiority. On the other hand, the convenience of the raiyatwdri method, surrendering the ownership of unused waste to Government, and having to pay just the fixed assessment on the particular field, must in time tempt them to abandon the original form.^ It is curious how few villages, comparatively, became definitely constituted like the naricddari and blidgddri. InNorth India, under similar revenue-farming arrangements, and under the forced sales and similar transfers which they occasion, revenue farmers and purchasers at auction have become the proprietors of a respectable percentage of the total nixmber of village-communities in the North-West Provinces. But the Maratha administration was never favourable to these growths. Though there were farmers in abundance, they were too strictly looked after, and not allowed to continue long enough, to become ' It would often happen that one of the bJuig would have part of its land ■undivided among its own members (majinun-bhitg), then they would meet their 2,000 rupee share just in the same waj-, as above stated for the whole village ; they would first apply the proceeds of the common land to the payment, and then provide the balance according to their shares. ' The people call the rcdyatwdri villages sanjd (in Gujarat sejd), which means 'joint,' or not shared ; not because tliere is or ever has been any joint-holding, but because there are no hluig,pdO, &c., but all are on the same footing of equality. 394 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY proprietors ; and the same is true of tlie village officers, who in later times presumed greatly on their powers, and iu sonu; cases acquired very large holdings,' by forced sales and mortgages in their village. (-2) The Bll-aner State. We have another instance yet to notice, in conclusion, of a Native State in which both kinds of village exist side by side. I do not doubt that many other cases could be found ; but it is only under favourable conditions that they come to notice and get recorded. If the general land system of a province happen.s to be based on the prevalence of one form or the other, the tendency must be for any other forms that may exist naturally, to assimilate to the one contemplated by the system. In thr; provinces of Northern India where rwii/atwdri villages existed of old, as no doubt they did, before the landlord villages grew up and Jat and other invaders established themselves, it is quite likely that some at least would remain without falling under any landlord class ; and yet in the present day no distinction ■would possibly survive after our surveys and records, which are prepared to suit the joint form.- So in Madras, the general system being raiyatwan, the tendency for the local, and already decaying, mirdsi or joint-villages to become merged in the prevalent form proved irresistible. The circumstances of the State of Bikaner have made it possible for both kinds of village to survive together. Bikaner is situate in the northern corner of Eajputana, in a sandy plain which stretches north and north-westof the Aravali mountains. It is possessed of a generally poor soil and is thinly populated, ' For example, in the case of the Wamori Patel above alluded to. See also a curious account in Bombay Gazetteer, iv. 485 (referring to Forbes's Oriental Memoirs, ii. 419). The District Accountant {majiwi- diir, or despandya of other parts), named Lallubhili, attained to sucli pretensions in the Bharoch district as to go about ' with mace-bearers running before him proclaiming idle titles.' This was in 1776. Had this happened under more favourable circumstances, or in Bengal, he would have ended by becoming a great ' Zamindur.' Unfortunately, under the Marathas, an end was put to his career by a revenue-farm which he was tempted to bid up for against a rival. He got it, but on terms that proved his ruin. = Ante, p. S44. EXISTING CASES OF JUXTArOSFTIOiN'— BIKANEK 39-5 so that the villages are more easy to observe and to classifj'. About the latter half of the fifteenth century, a clan of Rajputs (of the lidhtor stock) established a dominion and divided the territory into a 1/halsa demesne for the Raja and into chief- ships held (on the usual fcdid or quasi-feudal tenure) by the Thakur or ' barons.' ' In the TyhCdsa area we find two kinds of village — those established in independence, before the Rahtor dominion, by Jats,- and villages established since the dominion and mostly within the last century or so. It is probable, says Mr. Pagan, that originally neither the Rahtor Eaja nor his fief- holders claimed any definite ownership in the soil ; but they held the over-lordship as rulers, each realising the grain-share in his own territory. Mr. Eagan goes on to remark that, though primogeniture has to some extent secured the chiefs ' estates ' from partition, still the issue of grants of villages and mainte- nance provision for members of the family (which assign the chiefs grain-share and the right of cultivating the waste), have virtually created a number of petty estates, in which there is a distinct tendency for the grantee to draw closer to the land and to become the direct owner or village landlord. In the Raja's demesne, the chief's connection with the land could not, in the nature of things, be as close as that of a resident landlord ; and, consequently, the Raja collects his revenue and exercises his right of disposing of the waste, without directly influencing the tenure of the land in general. The Jat villages, in the absence of any other dominion at the time, established an independent position, and are held in joint ownership by co-sharing bodies — representatives of the original ' founders.' In the Thakur's estates above mentioned, this position has now been overborne by the Thakur's assertion of the superior landlordship ; but the original right is still so far recognised as to give a claim to hold permanently and on an hereditary title. It is chiefly in the Raja's demesne that the joint-village is more distinctly in evidence ; but side by side with ' Report on the Settlement of the Kludsa, Villages of the BJhancr State, 1893, by P. J. Fagan, C.S. (Panjib Government). ^ S. B. iii. § 19. Here the name is Jat. It will be observed that the Bajputs furnished only the ruling house and its army. Had they been more numerous, they might have formed co-sharing villages, as elsewhere. 396 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUXITy^ the Jat villages, all the other villages are groups of independent cultivating holders who have settled together under a headman (or cazidhn), who was their spokesman in applying for leave to establish cultivation. Here, as in the South-eastern Panjab, tini people commenced the village by driving in a stake or pole on the site of the abddl} Sometimes permission was not formally asked, but as soon as the nesv village became known the Raja, s officer would go to the spot and settle terms. In the village itself (land being in this case abundant and irrigation from the hilar or tank being well-nigh indispensable) there was no formal allotment of holdings ; each settler took what he could manage. ' There was no partition,' says ^Ii\ Fagan, ' of the whole or part of a definite area by virtue of a joint-landlord claim over it.' Where population is scanty and the ai"ea wide, no objection is made to anyone extending his fields into the adjacent waste, or even to new-comers doing the like. But in the more thickly populated parts of the Eastern Tahsils, only the original settlers can so extend their holdings ; new-comers (called here, as often elsewhere, suJihhasi) must get the headman's permission to cul- tivate. The caiidhrl acts in this respect, not as landlord, but as representative of the State. Mr. Fagan particularly notes that the caudhrl has no superior position as claiming general ownership over the village. Xor were the oldest settlers or ' first clearers ' owners of the whole area jointly ; their position is only marked by exemption from certain local fees, or taxes on marriages, or on weighment of grain, and by their having greater freedom in taking up additional waste to extend their holdings. The actual boundaries of each village, and the jurisdiction of the ravdhn, became settled in time by practice, and by the defi- nition which results from contact with the areas of neighbouring villages. It does not appear whether the Jat joint- villages are in the 'jjatiiddrl form, or whether (as is more likely) they are in the form of the clan-villages settled on some form of bhaiachurd tenure. It is true that the raiyahcdri villages are not of ancient origin ; but many joint communities in other parts are - In the Panjiib, it will be observed, owing to the system, such villages are classed as ' joint-villages ' and are so treated ; in Bikaner they appear in fheir natural raiyaticiiri form. EXISTING CASES OE J UXTAI'OSITION— BIKAJS'ER 39 0.07 BO older, and there must surely be a real difference in the custom and constitution of the Jat clans who preceded them. The co-sharing among the latter was due to their sense of superior position, either as descendants from individual founders, or as members of a clan obtaining a new home as a matter of conquest or adventure, and bringing with them this characteristic of clan feeling. The other settlers have no such pretensions ; they assert merely a right to their own holdings in virtue of the first clearing and establishment of tillage which they have accomplished. This is not a decay of the former feeling, but one characteristically different. 398 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITl' CHAPTER X GEyiERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION Section I. — Ideas of Property, Collective axd Lxdividuai^ The numerous instances of village formation which have been collected from the Settlement Reports and similar authorities can hardly have failed to suggest the impossibility of disposing of ' the Indian Village Community ' by referring the whole of the phenomena to some one theory or generalised view of the subject. But such a conviction does not preclude us from drawing certain general conclusions which appear to arise naturally from a comparative view of the various forms and kinds of village presented to our observation. One of the first questions which the facts naturally suggest, is : seeing that the village is a group of persons as well as an aggregate of ?<}Hici-holdings, what kind of right or title was really acknowledged ? or, in other woi'ds, what kind of connection is there between the persmis and the land of a village ? And this question involves the two subordinate inquiries — (1) how has any idea of ownership or right in land in India grown up ? and (2) how have these rights been recognised — as residing in the individual, or father of the household, or in a body of wider kindred, or in a still larger body, such as a whole clan ? (1) JEarly Ideas of Right in Land The sense of ownership in land, if we judge solely on the basis of what has occurred in India, seems to have arisen and pro- gressed in a manner which is purely natural, and which does not, at any rate, need for its explanation an a priori assumption of ' collective ownership,' or holding ' in common.' If any evidence SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 399 exists of actual collective ownership, at any stage of the development of tenures, that is another matter ; but, in so far as it may be regarded in the light of a necessary postulate, it may be not out of place to remark that * collective ownership,' as a very early phenomenon, is a hazardous thing to assume the existence of; the very name or term is one which it is difficult to employ without bringing in a number of ideas of a kind which, instinctively as they arise in our own minds, can hardly have existed in the minds of primitive or early tribal settlers. We have become so accustomed to a mental analysis of ' ownership,' and to say, at least in general terms, what it involves or in what it consists, that it is not easy to think of any right in land apart from such conceptions. When, for example, we think of the periodical exchange of holdings which is found among certain clan-settlers, and assert that this indicates ' common ownership ' because (to use M. de Laveleye's words ' ) ' le fonds continue y. rester la propriete collective du clan, a qui il fait retour de temps en temps, afin qu'on puisse proceder a un nouveau partage,' this seems to imply that a precedent conception of what ' collective property ' is existed in the minds of the clan, and that in consequence of such a conception the surrender of the holdings became required by custom. But it is impossible to suppose that any distinction of the kind was even vaguely understood : exchange was the custom because it gave every one an equal chance ; not because the tribe realised the idea of a joint- property, which, in the juristic nature of things, was capable of being recalled and redistributed. Every tribesman knew that he had joined in conquering or seizing a territory, and that he would fight to keep his hold on it. He acknowledged that his chief's word was his law, and that the share allotted to him and his fellows must be observed. His sense of right to his own allotment would make him equally ready to fight for it ; and if asked why ? he would in all probability reply, because his clan had conquered it, his chief had allotted him ' his inheritance,' and he had cleared and ploughed up the land. Putting aside the temptation to read modem juristic notions between the lines, it would seem that the right to land grows ' Propriete Primitive, &c. p. 5. 400 Till': INDIAN VILLAGE COJEJIUXITiT out of two ideas ; one being that a special claim arises, to any object, or to a plot of laud, by virtue of the labour and skill expended on making it useful or profitable ; the other, that a claim arises from conquest or superior might. In a very early stage, a body of primitive settlers comes, to a 'boundless' area of wooded or jungle-clad but fertile plain. As each house- hold group laboriously clears and renders fit for cultivation a certain area, the father, or the united family, as the case may be, regards the plot as now connected with himself or themselves specially, in virtue of the labour expended on it. This claim is recognised by all, because every other member of the clan has the same feeling as regards the field he has cleared. The feeling of right is further developed when each holding is the result not merely of a random choice, but of some regular procedure of allotment by the clan chief.' If there ai"e no other human beings to contest the ownership, although the clan occupies a more or less compact general territory, the sense of any wider or more general clan-right is not as keen as it afterwards becomes when other, very likely unfriendly, clans lie all round, and each has to maintain its own limits against aggression. The idea of clan-right to the territory as a whole — both the cleared holdings and the waste which is grazed over and from which wood is cut, must soon, in the natural course of events, become definite. Not only is there sure to be some clan collected together at the time of first settling,^ but the families, naturally and by choice grouped together, must help each other a great deal in clearing the jungle, building the cottages, digging the tanks or wells, and in many similar works. Hence, even if there were no general sense of kindred, which long residence together has fostered, there would still be a certain sense of union. The right to the holding selected and cleared by the family is, however, natural Iv superior to the clan-territorial claim, being more definite : it is, in fact, dependent on the sentiment which originates the notion of ^ Tile sentence of the Patriarch and the result of casting lots, are both of them in early times, vested with a semi-divine cogency or signifi- cance. " I refer to the first general (Dravidian) movement, probablj- un- opposed, to a permanent agricultural settlement. SUMMARY AXD OONCLUSIOX 401 ' property ' in general — that which a man has ' made ' or ren- dered useful and profitable he has a special title to enjoy. Professor Kovalevsky, in his interesting lectures on the development of the family/ has quoted the curious reflection of Rousseau : ' Le premier qui ayant enclos un terrain, s'avisa h dire " Ceci est a moi," et trouva des gens assez simples pour le croire, fut le vrai fondateur de la societe civile. Que de crimes .... n'eut point epargne au genre humain celui qui arrachant les pieux ou comblant le fosse eut crie a ses semblables : " Gardez- vous d'ecouter cet imposteur ; vous etes perdus si vous oubliez que les fruits sont a tous, et que la terre n'est a personne." ' The natural sense of the community unfortunately was that the person who did tear up the stakes of the fence or did fill up the ditch would be an enemy and a wrongdoer ; evei'yone consented that the clearer of the waste had a real claim to the field he had made. The sentiment is observed among all tribes when they have made a permanent agricultural settlement ; it was, in fact, Nature herself who prevented the early existence of the philo- sopher who should cry ' Beware of such a supposition,' though it arises instinctively. The naturalness of such a feeling of appropriation is the more obvious because in early times there is nothing to prevent its action ; there is no prior claim nor obstacle to the customary allotment by the clan chiefs : the wide expanse of virgin jungle is as free as the air or water. The modern Socialist asks as against the present possessor of a farm or a park, ' Although you have spent money in draining, planting, and, in fact, in creating the utility and value of the plot, what right had jon to deal at all — for any permanent purpose — with that particular section of the surface of the national land ? ' He considers it an economic wrong that the growth of custom and law should have allowed a permanent individual appropriation. But, in truth, it is only the operation of an instinctive feeling of human nature. The early tribesman, under sauction of custom, appro- priated his field, or his share of the tribal land, as he would appropriate a tree to make a canoe or a plough. But very soon another factor comes into the question : when 1 Tableau des Origines et de V Evolution de la Famille, &o. (Stockholm, 1890), pp. 50, 51. D D 402 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY tribes multiply, and, moving east or west, come into conflict, and one is superior in energy and in power of combination to another ; the possession of land no longer remains a matter of first appropriation in the absence of all other claims. Might becomes right ; and conquest gives a new title. The title by ' first clearing ' is overborne by the title by conquest, notwith- standing that the claim by first clearing will probably be acknowledged by the conquerors as among themselves. This claim by conquest and superiority the next generation will euphemise as the claim by ' inheritance.' It is curious to observe that a people so advanced as the Romans, and so apt to make that legal analysis of things which has influenced all subsequent views regarding ownership, not only conceived the idea of res nullius — i.e. crude material or potential property as yet unappropriated — but they boldly held that when war broke out the lauds and property of an enemy reverted to a state of nature and once more became res nullius. The conquerors began over again the process of customary appropriation. Out of this new growth — the right by conquest or ' inheri- tance '• — some further factors in the making of land-tenures are sure to spring. In India, among early tribes like the Mongoloid and Kolarian (as far as we can trace their habits), the cohesion was extremely loose, and the idea of centralised rule quite want- ing. This appears to have been gradually improved upon by the Dravidian races ; but it is later conquering tribes like the Aryan, the Indo-Scythian, the Jat and the north-west frontier tribes, that had the best developed powers of combination and organ- isation. Hence we find ideas of the right of a whole clan to a certain territory, in which every member has his share or his equal interest ; and we find families expanding into clans, and still keeping up something of this same notion.* But it is also a further phase of clan development, under the necessity for military discipline, and organised movement, that the patriarchal rule of chiefs gives way to a system of kino- ' In such a case the sense of individual appropriation exists side by side with the sense of the collective appropriation ; and while each gets his separate share, the custom of periodical exchange of holdings is the expression of the eqtial right which results from the unity of the whole .body. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 403 and barons, or subordinate chiefs. And no sooner are these dignities acknowledged than there arise various kinds of terri- torial lordship, which may take the form of a kingdom, or local chiefship, or a sort of manorial holding of smaller portions of land . This right of lordship over an estate has nothing to do with the question of labour or expense incurred in clearing and cultivat- ing the soil, but is an over-lordship, based on caste or family superiority, attained by conquest or otherwise ; and it expresses itself by taking a share in the produce raised by tenants, dependents, or a pre-existing body of agricultural settlers. It is made tolerable to the now subordinated original settlers by the degree of protection which the over-lord, even in his own interest, affords to the villages from which he derives his revenue or income. So far, then, we have the two natural and often concurrently active factors, the sense of right by ' occupation ' and ' first clearing,' and the right by ' inheritance ' — a term which we shall now understand without further comment, and which has already met us in so many forms as mirasl, ivirclsat, tvdrisl, &c. It is hardly possible to avoid the suggestion that the main distinction between the raiyativdri and the joint or landlord village (these terms being only provisional, and adopted for want of better) is in some way the outcome of these two principles. The former originated with early unopposed tribes, who, like the Dravidian had strong agricultural instincts and had passed out of the nomadic and pastoral stage : their struggle was more with the forces of Nature than with any human enemies, and their idea of right was that they were hhulhlvlr, the original soil-clearers and settlers. The latter originated with ' inheri- tors,' who acquired the lordship of existing villages, or founded new ones in the same sense of superiority. If, as in the case of the Jats, the clans were not only superior in conquest and adventure, but also addicted to agriculture, they would combine both feelings of right to their settlements. Granted, however, such a natural foundation for ' ideas of ownership ' in the abstract, it is a further question whether either kind of right is understood to attach itself to the indivi- dual, or to the family, or to the whole clan settled in one compact territory. 404 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY We can attempt to judge of this by the aid of the actual cases of clan- settlement, family- village, and separate-holding village which we have had before us. (2) Collecfice and iTidividual Ownership of Village Lavds This last remark reminds us that some preliminary explana- tion is necessary to connect the question of the form of owner- skip with the existence of land-holdings in village groups. We remember, in the first place, that the village group does not in any case represent a fixed circle of kindred extending to any particular degree. We talk freely of a ' village community ' as owning the land ' in common,' but it will at once strike us on r'eflection, that the formation of village groups of families is not necessarily connected with any idea of soil-ownership at all. In the case of some clan-settlements, we have seen that there may be a degree of unity maintained over the whole area, or at least over its major divisions, and that villages are quite a secondary, almost accidental, result of the fission of the area. In India, south of the Vindhyas, again, we see an almost universal village formation, but there is no claim, either joint or individual, to the ownership of the whole village ; • there the village is a group formed of several families who settled, or are now resident, together, but whose contiguous holdings within the village boundary are independent, and always have been so, as far as any evidence goes. And where, in Northern India, the village as an area of land is also the essential feature, not a casual result of the fission of a clan-area), and where such a village is jointly owned, it is really that the ' village ' is the limit of the original acquisition by a single person, and continues as the sphere of ownership of a possibly numerous but still singly descended close-kindred which has succeeded by joint inheritance to the right of the founder or originator. In the first instance, no doubt, the aggregation of holdings in a ' village" of limited dimensions, and the establishment of a central (perhaps rudely fortified) place of residence, is, under the circumstances of most Indian provinces, a purely natural 1 The cases in which suchan ownership had probablj' at one time existed or still exists are so far exceptional as not to invalidate the statement in the text for present purposes. SUJIiMARY AND COXCLUSION 405 condition under which permanent cultivation can best be established and maintained. There are districts where the nature of the ground or other conditions render any considerable aggregation either of fields or of residences impossible ; but in the plains, let us say, in a moist and densely-wooded region, the erection of a group of dwellings on a fairly elevated spot, the united clearing of an area to give breathing room, and the united defence of the cleared fields against the depredations of wild animals — all these things imply the aggregation of families in a village ; and the aggregate must be limited in size, or the machinery for its self-government and the supply of its needs would fail to act. Or again, in a dry climate, a similar combination would very likely be necessary with reference to providing or utilising the means of irrigation. But in the second place, the fact that kindred, especially in a tribal stage of society, naturally keep together, and that as the groups expand they must necessarily separate and form a new series of similar aggregates, these facts, and others like them, also furnish the conditions of village formation: But there is nothing in the causes of such formation to suggest any new form of ownership as resulting from their operation ; and as a matter of fact, and looking to the largest number of instances we can recall, we shall find that the sort of ownership which is actually found in villages corresponds to one or other of the following three heads : — (1) The family or individual holdings are all separate within the village. (2) The village is an accidental aggregate of kindred families ; and the joint ownership or collectivity, such as it is, is in the whole clan ; where any further (real) joint ownership appears, it is between members of the ' family ' or close kindred. (3) The village is really the limit of the acquisition, by whatever means, of one founder or originator ; ' and the joint- ^ It may happen that one geographical village may contain two origi- nally separate groups, but in that case all the phenomena of joint-owner- slaip will exist only within the groups. Where a village has come to be miscellaneously owned, by the intrusion of various strangers there is no joint-ownership at all. Should outsiders have been formally admitted to shares, then there is the fiction of family membership. 40(5 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COJIMUXITY ownersbip now appearing is due to the main brandies repre- senting, according to universal custom, tlie three primary grades of descent, and to such families, descendants of these, as remain joint among themselves being subject to the operation of the ' joint-family ' custom and the law of joint-inheritance. We sometimes find it insisted that the order of these three modes ought to be reversed. I do not, however, desire, by placing them as I have done, to imply any theory of sequence ot development. It will be well, however, as such a theory has been pro- pounded, to consider the modes of ownership in connection with it. We may readily admit some plausibility about the general idea that (1) the joint-awnersMp of land by a luhole clan is natural as a first stage ; that (2) this dissolves into the owner- ship of isolated joint-families ; and, finally (3), that family shares are lost sight of and there remains nothing but the modern individuality of title to the several holdings. But I do not think that the evidence in India will really bear out such a succession. For whatever clan-ownership can be asserted, it is not of a kind to change into or produce the real joint-ownership by a family. I should rather say ttat the process was just the reverse : that the earliest idea was appropriation by the in- dividual — i.e. the father of the family, whose power was a sole and unrestricted power ; that this gradually develops into an idea of equality between all the sons in succession to the father's property, which again leads to the restraint of the father's power to deal with ancestral land, and so to the idea of a joint-ownership by a close-kindred of which the father is the head. When a number of such families of common descent, kept together by circumstances, continually fighting side by side and conquering together, have acquired and settled on a new land, they constitute a clan, and there is, further, a kind of collective sense of right to the whole, which is over and above the family right to the several lots that fall to each, and is largely dependent on the sense of unity which clan life naturally produces, and on the sense of the right of every member to share in the common acquisition. But let us briefly recall and analyse the kinds of tenure which we have found to result from the settlement ivhere a clan-union SUMMARY AXD CONCLUSIOX 407 is still to some extent maintained. The details have ah-eady appeared in Chapter VI. We may pass by those early Kolarian and Dra vidian clan settlements which resulted in the raiyatwuri village, because we have no evidence on which to found any assertion of collective ownership among them.' Whatever indications they afford of growth of ideas of ownership relate to the family and to the father of the household and not to the clan as a whole. The clan settlements of Upper India, which introduce us more directly to the question of clan-ownership, are some of them of comparatively late date, but they show tribal ideas in full force, and, at any rate, are the only examples of clan-settle- ments which afford us any details as to the principles on which the territories occupied were held. It will be remembered that we have two forms of such settlement — (1) of already formed clans ; in this case clans with a strong sense of union under patriarchal authority ; (2) of clans grown np on the spot out of a single family of settlers on a wide area ; so that in this latter case we had the family estate, only expanded in a manner aud to an extent that was impossible in the limited area of an ordinary village, and, because of the blood connection of the cultivators throughout the whole area occupied, it preserved some of the features of a clan-settlement. It is not known, in either case, whether the settlers had had any experience of permanent cultivating ownership of land in any previous home. It cannot be said with certainty that, for example, the frontier tribes, on settling in our north-western districts, emerged for the first time from a nomadic stage and took to agricultural life ; probably not. Nor do we know how far the Jats had any experience of settled agricultural life before they came to India. But all tribes possessed herds and flocks, and they necessarily possessed the idea of individual or familj'^ property as far as moveables were concerned. Our north-west frontier tribes certainly exhibit a strong sense of territorial right, which is necessarily a collective one, ' If, too, we may take such surviving cases as the Kandh and a few others as representing very ancient custom — and they very probably do so — they do not show any collective ownership in the clan ; and even the ' family ' is not regarded as collective owner. 408 THE IXDIAX VILLAGE COMIIUNITV and exhibits itself in the acknowledgment of an ' ild'ia for the whole body and of certain sub-territories for clans and minor clans, each of which certainly constitutes a unit area. These territorial areas correspond to the main branches of the family of the founder with whom the clan originates. Consequently, the names of the primary divisions follow those of the sons, grand- sons, and great-grandsons of the founder respectively. All later and now existing families belong to one or other of the thus established groups and sub-groups, and take shares within the territory belonging to each : there are no new designations given to subsequent divisions. Only, should a certain group move off to another locality, then the whole process would begin anew.' Two sentiments appear to have taken hold of the tribal mind : the territorial right to the main'' divisions as so many units or wholes ; and the right to a specific — usually equal, but sometimes ancestral — share within the proper unit-territory. The action of the tribal heads at the time of the settlement seemed to go no further than allotting the primary or major divisions or territories : inside each, the further allotment of actual holdings was made by the minor or sectional chiefs. The space relatively required by each recognised group was roughly estimated by counting the number of single shares which represented the total population of the group. The whole pro- cess seems designed to provide for the separate enjoyment of the individual family share.^ The shares being intended to be as equal as possible, equality was further ensured by the custom of periodical exchange, which, however, did not apply where the holdings were specially prepared for irrigation, or, in any case, there were circumstances of expenditure which tended to evoke ' It is true that sometimes a new series is begun within the lowest original division, called Jchel. We may have the Mel divided into Jcandi, and that into thai — a new series of tliree grades. This, however, only emphasises the principle. Evidently, here the tribe is old and has much expanded, so that it is convenient to begin again ; the lowest of the original divisions has become so big as to be itself a clan. - In dividing a large surface into a great number of small equal portions, the process is obviously facilitated by first making a few large divisions to start with. SUMMARY AND COKCLUSION 409 moi-e particularly the natural sense of individual right to the plot. The shares were assigned on one of two principles : either (1) there is ajjer capita distribution — i.e. every man, woman, and child was counted, and each household thus received the number of shares which the count of heads indicated ; or (2) the ancestral shares were calculated according to the pedigree table, in descent from the heads of each recognised group. The lots might con- sist of various bits of different kinds of soil scattered through the whole major-divisions (a lappa, or a Ithel) dealt with. Diagram I. (on the next page) explains this. It is quite possible that groups of close kindred will culti- vate their shares jointly ; it being more profitable to do so than to split up the land into small severalty holdings. As regards the tenure of the whole major division, nothing in the nature of ' holding in common ' ever appears ; for in any real sense, 'common holding' implies that all should join in cultivating as large an area as necessary, and that each should then receive a portion of the harvest suitable to his wants, with- out thought of any particular share calculated on any principle whatever, and without thought of the proportions between the amount of sustenance required and the actual amount of labour and capital, or the number of cattle, contributed to the common task. Nor is there any evidence of ' joint-holding,' save for special reasons, in special plots of land. I am now speaking, it will be remembered, of the joint-holding by a whole clan or clan-section. Whatever the rule of distribution, partition, or allotment on the ground of the several holdings, appears to take place as soon as may be after the settlement of the clan. Some portion of the area may be left undivided, either because it is not j'et wanted for cultivation and is reserved for future extension of the family holdings, or because it is grazing ground, or jungle for wood- cutting, which would be rendered useless by division. If there is any area of cultivated land left undivided, it is for special reasons, and the shares are defined though not partitioned. On the other hand, some kind of ' collective right ' may very reasona bh' be asserted, which is something more than that mere territorial claim which every nation, even under modern conditions of life, feels with regard to its own country. The clan has not only its 410 THE INDIAX VILLAGE COMMUNITY Pi o -ill- I— O |-° -o— — o I— o ^— o -o — |— o — o -0--0 -o— I. 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J^ 03 03 ^ :2 03 03 -^ '^ a S; a ■ i?S 2 •"• c3 a- CL O S £■ -'" 2 OH " o ' ^ ^ .2 S d g — -J ^jcn-*^cu03'pmG32 S -com 03'S O-^ 03. 03 s e 03 a " &:« ■£ - m 5 e m j3 -S a S.-^ p a a::^ ,« 55 5 --a - " s p< s 03 ^\^ "5 ^ ^ 60-^ a o' S> -^ ^-^ 2k-Hcio':d coxclusiox 427 Nortl)-West Provinces declare tlie right in so many words ; but the fact of ownership is implied througliout the Regulation, as it is in the subsequent Land Eevenue Laws ; and it is evident from the terms of the land-records. ^Phe joint-village tenure is zaminddri — i.e. a proprietary or landlord tenure, with no greater limitations than those which accompany the tenure of the Zamindar or Taluqdar of Bengal or Oudli.' In both cases alike, the right is subject to certain limitations owing to the existence of subordinate rights and to the lien of Government on the land for its land-revenue ; and the mere fact that the amount of the revenue is or is not liable to periodical revision makes no difference whatever in the tenure. The village co- sharer can sell and mortgage his land,- and lease it to whom he pleases, subject of course to any special rights of tenants ; and so long as the Government Revenue is paid the owner is at liberty to cultivate or not, or to build on the land if he pleases.^ On the other hand, in the raiyahvun countries, where the Settlement deals direct with the several landholders in the villages, as in Bombay, or Berar, or Madras, there were various reasons why the British Government did not, as a matter of policy, completely or formally renounce its own proprietary right in the soil and confer it on the raij^ats. Only in the Central Provinces was a proprietary title to most of the villages, under many limitations, exceptionally conferred on certain persons ; ^ and so the villages ceased to be raiyaiwdri and became zainlnddri. Speaking generally, the difficulty was this : the raiyat holdings liad been so crushed by excessive revenue charges under the ' It is for this reason that I have called the joint-village also tlic- ' landlord village.' It is always held on a superior sort of tenure, at all events throughout Upper India and the Central Provinces. ^ Subject to any restrictions of his own tribal or caste law or custom, such as pre-emption, &c., but to none directly imposed by the State. ^ There is some difference about the subsoil right to minerals, which in the Panjfib and other provinces are expressly reserved by law to the State. In the North-West Provinces those rights, in all the plain districts, belong to the village o^vner, as the Secretary of State expressly allowed in a despatch of 1880. ■* It would be unnecessary here to go into any detail on the subject. The history of the conferment of right in the Central Provinces villages is gi\en in some detail in my L. 8. B. I. ii. 455 ff. 428 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY later Maratha and Moslem rulers, and especially during the period when Central India became the focus of the wars of contending chiefs and armies, that the first relief required was to lower the charges, especially as the British system was at first much stricter and less elastic than the Native rule.' But such reduction was especially unpalatable to the authorities under the constant pressure which the times produced on the State Treasury, and it was but tardily acquiesced in. So much, however, was gradu- ally conceded, that the raiyat might relinquish his holding, at a suitable season, if he felt unable to pay the revenue ; and this rule came to be a fixed principle of the raiyatwtlrl revenue system. It operated as an efficient test, in many cases, as to whether the revenue really was excessive or not. I am not, however, writing a history of the revenue manage- ment, and can only so far allude to the subject as helping to show why a formally ' proprietary ' title was not recognised. A holder who can give notice that he will not be responsible for land after a certain date can hardly be called ' owner,' even under the ordinary limitations of Indian law. Accord- ingly, in Madras the question of the raiyat's title has been left undefined by law, though judicial decision has left no doubt that he has the practically proprietary enjoyment of his holding. But in Bombay, the holder of land is, by express legislative enactment, called ' occupant ; ' and in Burma and Assam, which are raiyatwari provinces in principle, though not formally so designated, he is called ' land-holder.' The right is legally ' The Native rulers in general put down the revenue demand at a high figure ; but their officers were extremely good judges of the power to pay in each particular season, and were adepts in. alternately squeezing and letting go by rule of thumb and without any system whatever. The British power was irresistible, and worked with mechanical regularity. Our early authorities sometimes forgot this, and were disposed to think that rates must be equitable when they were no more than former rulers had entered in their assessment-rolls, and when peace and security were now assured to the cultivator in a manner previously unknown. Hence it was that rates not nominally enhanced, but collected with strict regu- larity, proved intolerable in the first years of our rule. Those who wish to see specific examples will find plenty in Mr. A. Eogers's Land Revenue in Bombay (2 vols., Allen, 1892) and in the Madras District Manuals passim. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIOX 429 defined as a permanent hereditary and alienable right of occu- pancy.' In prosperous times, iinder our modern well-adjusted assessments, nobody ever does ' relinquish ' permanently culti- vated land under any ordinary circumstances, but the power is there. It may be noted that this theoretical distinction between the ' proprietary ' tenure of the Upper Indian joint-village and the ' occupancy ' tenure of the several holdings in a raiyahcuri village, as well as the fact that in one case the right applies to the village as a whole, and in the other to the holding only, is the immediate cause of the difi'erence between the Provincial Land Revenue systems. These distinctions are now well understood ; but they would have been unintelligible to an Imperial Eevenue officer of the seventeenth century, or, at all events, to one after the reign of Aurangzeb, in the earljr eigh- teenth century. For the old systems cared nothing for tenures as such, and in fact acknowledged none but the tenure of ' Government ' land, and that of land held by some hereditary chief, or held in free grant [toZZ;] which was an exceptional favour. In general, the country was classified into two large divisions — one that was Jchaka, or paying revenue to the State ; the other that was held in jdgir — i.e. the revenue of the land was assigned to and collected by the grantee, the great State official, or the military tenant, who had the assignment. The assignee was bound to apply the revenue, to the amount fixed, to the support of the local administration, to the maintenance of a certain military force, and to the support of his own state and dignity. The grants (charitable, religious and special) of lands or villages revenue-free, and therefore free of all State claims, might be found in either division, but more commonly in the Ithalsa lands. The only considerable change in the system was brought about by the general introduction of revenue- farming on a large scale. It was a change, because then the details of villages and lands included in one ' farm ' all dis- appeared from the Treasury Books ; nothing was entered but the total due ; and the farmer had the entire management. This ' See L. S. B. I. iii. 269, 403, 498. The difference is technical or legal rather than practical — i.e. affecting the actual enjoyment of the liolding. The Madras theory is discussed, ihid. iii. 128 £f. 430 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY system of farming very often resulted in the farmer becoming so far owner of the land, whether a village or a larger estate, that in after years it was hardly possible to deny the title to his descendants. The British Govemnient went on an entirely different principle : it started with the avowed policy of defining, and confirming on an equitable basis, the right of private persons in the soil. At first, this right, from the experience of Bengal, seemed to reside in some one landlord ; but, as further provinces came to be settled, it was found that other kinds or forms of right had to be acknowledged. It followed that whoever was entitled to the chief interest, whether called ' ownership ' or ' occupancy,' that person was the one to be primarily and directly responsible for the land-revenue. Consequently, each provincial revenue-S3'^stem differed according to the character of the legal tenure which was most generally prevalent. In Bengal, land was held for the most part by great land- lords ; and hence the system was designed to suit the case of owners whose revenue assessment the Government thought it politic to fix in perpetuity, and whose title it was thought right explicitly to declare. In Northern India, again, in spite of the fact that in Oudh there were great landlords called Taluqdars, and that similar landlords appeared in some parts of the North- West Provinces, the prevailing feature was the tenure of joint-villages ; accordingly, the system provided primarily for dealing with these as units, fixing a sum of revenue on each, which was engaged for by the representatives of the village body, and distributed among the co-sharers according to their own custom and constitution. The minor variations of the system necessitated by the peculiar conditions of the Central Provinces, Ajmer, and the Panjab, caused subordinate varieties of the North-Western Provinces system to be formulated ; but they are the same in general plan and principle. There remained the Central, Western, and Southern districts, where, in general, the country was not held either by landlords or by joint-villages, but by separate holders in raiyatwCiri villages ; and here the two varieties of raiyatwCiri management, the Madras system, and the Bombay system, were perfected in the course of time. Each holding is here dealt with on its own SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 431 independent merits, and assessed by a special method of valuation purely based on the consideration of the quality and value of the soil. Here, of course, the right of each holder extends onh'^ to the assessed holding ; no area of waste is included in a village to be partitioned or held in common. Thus it will be evident that the difference between the great revenue-systems essen- tially depends on the difference of prevalent tenure, whether of a great landlord, a joint-village body, or the separate village land-holder.' It may be advisable here to note that a suspicion may arise in some minds that the raiyahudri village, as it is under existing systems of adminstration, is something very different to what it was in old times ; and that the system of revenue administration is quite different fi'om that in use in former days. No doubt our modem surveys have defined, demarcated, and recorded the sepa- rate holdings in a manner that was never attempted in old days, but it certainly has not altered the characteristic custom by which the holdings are essentially separate, and the boundaries of each known. And so the modern mode of collecting the casli revenue is different from the old plan — first, of taking a share in the grain from each holding, and afterwards of calling on the entire village to arrange among its members for the payment of a total estimated cash sum. But the old method, equally with our own, recognised the individuality of the holdings ; it never supposed that the raiyats were co-sharers, and that one was, under all circumstances, liable for the default of another. "When injustice was done, or rights ignored, it was not by reason of any theory of land-tenures, it was simply from the oppressive methods of the farmer or the tax-gatherer. It is curious to notice how the two ideas, now so easy to us, of the joint-village as a unit-estate, embracing arable and waste together in one general co-shared right, and the raiyatwari ' Hence the absurdity of the attempts which were made in former days to compare and discuss the relative mierits of this system or that. No comparison is possible, for each is only good for the particular sort of tenure it is designed to fit. Any one may be, and has proved to be, capable of great improvement in itself, and all of them may have certain features in common ; but it is impossible to look upon one as intrinsically better than another, because each is based on a different groundwork. 432 THE INDIAiSr VILLAGE COMMUNITY village as a collection of individual families, each having its own holding without any joint responsibility to Government, struck the minds of the earlyrevenue ofiBcers at the end of the last and the begining of the present century. When the co-shared villages of Benares and the Upper Provinces first came to the notice of officers accustomed to the Bengal system of individual landlords over con- siderable areas,' they were at first quite puzzled : there must be, so they thought, some one person who is landlord, and with whom the Settlement of the village-estate ought to be made. The idea of the village as an ' estate ' within a certain boundary, consisting of arable and waste together, was intelligible enough; and it was understood that the Government claim to ownership, [except as to some residuary and super-eminent right] was given up ; what they could not understand was that the title should reside, not in some one village-head, or other individual, but in a joint body under a more or less complicated constitution. It needed all the arguments of Holt Mackenzie's gigantic Minute of 1819 to make it understood. In the South, on the other hand, it was the idea of a village-estate, as an area of arable and waste in a ring fence and owned by the ' raiyats ' as a whole, that was so difficult to realise. Here they felt that the Govern- ment was the absolute owner of the soil, except indeed where there was some special ' inam ' (revenue-free) grant or some greater ' Polygar ' or ' Zamindar ' landlord, on whom had been conferred a patent ' of perpetual ownership.' The raiyat in a village was secure enough, no doubt, in the enjoyment of his individual holding ; but he could not have a right to anything beyond the fields for which he held the Collector's pattd, or lease ; and the Collector would also insist on his duly cultivating the land, or else the revenue could not be paid. Hence, when the inquiry was made (as detailed in Chapter IX.) as to the former existence of a number of village-estates held by co-sharing bodies (mirdsddrs), the officials could not well take in the idea. ^ And these landlord tenures, as confirmed in 1793 by Lord Comwallis's legislation, seemed to them to be in accord with the natural order of things. In early ' Minutes,' papers, and books, we often find expressions which indicate that in the mind of the writers, the tenure of land by a landlord with tenants under him was the natural and necessary order of things — the only conceivable kind of permanent tenure, in fact. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 433 And so they confused the alleged village-estate rights with other hereditary claims to special privileges, which had nothing whatever to do with the question. This difficulty of conception is reflected in the laboured judgments of some of the courts on the claims of alleged co-sharers to such village rights, and in the language of most of the district Reports ; and not least in the lengthy but very ill-designed series of questions which the Board of Revenue of those days circulated to District Officers with a view of elucidating the existence and history of mirdsi claims. Mr. Ellis, and, before him, Mr. Place, seemed to grasp the idea of the joint- village, but hardly anyone else ; and it was little wonder that the joint- villages, which were no doubt in an advanced stage of decay, perished altogether.' But there is yet another practical result of the difference between the raiyatvjwri and the joint-village. In the former, as a simple aggregate of individual cultivating holdings, held together by local ties and under the authority of the hereditary headman and village officers, there were no superimposed rights, at least not as a general rule. The holder was the separate occupant, and held by hereditary descent^ possibly from the first clearer of the soil. If he employed a tenant, as he often did, the tenant would, in most cases, have been located by him ; there would, in short, seldom be anything but a simple contract tenancy. Here and there, no doubt, it would be otherwise. In the northern parts of the Bombay territory we have various local instances of over-lord tenures, where the occupants themselves have to pay rent to some taluqddr, kasbati, gdmetl, or other superior intermediate between them and the State. And even in ordinary villages it has happened that particular persons have been able to acquire lands and be recorded as the occupant, although cultivators were on the soil before them, and are now ' inferior occupants ' or tenants * The practical treatment of the remains of such rights is described in L. S. B. I. iii. 126. ' It will be remembered that the ' inheritance,' which is referred to by such terms as mirdsi, warisl, &c., is always the landlord or superior title; it has nothing to do with ordinary holdings, which, notwithstanding that they pass from father to son by inheritance, are not held in virtue of any conquest or superiority, and so are not mirdai in the technical sense. 434 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY whose position did not originate in any contract. In such cases there may be some express local customs about rent-payment, which, on proof, the Courts will give effect to.- But, speaking generally, the practical effect of the raiyatwari tenure has been to avoid tenant-right difficulties.' But in provinces in which joint-villages are prevalent it is otherwise. We have seen how often this tenure has arisen (especially in the North-West Provinces and Oudh) by grant, conquest, or usurpation (in the more or less distant past) over the heads of earlier cultivating bodies probably in the raiyatioari form. Very often, too, the present body of co-sharers are the descendants of one or more ' farmers ' or other intruders who have borne down the rights of an earlier joint-community who once had the village lordship, and are now reduced, in their turn, to being tenants. Then, there are sure to be distinctions of grade and privilege among the tenants : some will have claims as ' ex-proprietor,' or as descendants of a family that once held the village in grant and perhaps did much to improve it ; and on other grounds also. Even where, as in the Panjab, the joint-villages are more commonly original foundations by superior agricultural clans and families, it is often found that tenants have claims by custom, as having taken part in the work of founding and having held their lands ever since ; or they may be absentee co-sharers who have returned after many years, and have been admitted to cultivate, but have not been allowed their old place in the co-sharing body. Or they may be persons who were called in, in the days of Sikh or Durani rapacity, to help cultivate enough laud to make up the heavy revenue demanded, and have never paid anything beyond their quota of the total amount. It would be unjust not to recognise those who had borne the heat and burden of the day as entitled to consideration. To put it shortly ; the joint-village tenure, being of the superior or over-lord character, is constantly associated with sub- ordinate or inferior interests in particular plots or fields, and sometimes with interests extending over the whole of the older cultivation, if not over the whole village area. There ' In fact, they only appear in such special cases of superior tenure as the Khot's estates of the Konkan districts, and certain others, in which case there is a special provision made by the Legislature. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 435 are, then, besides the ordinary class of contract-tenants located by the proprietors, others whose position is due to no contract whatever, and is on the basis of status. Fortunately, each province has been able, on the ground of an historical and practical view of the actual kinds of claim, to formulate its own tenant-law, which defines what circumstances liave to be established, and what degree of privilege, as to fixity of tenure and non-liability to enhancement, or limited liability to enhance- ment, attaches to each kind of tenancy. It should, however, be added that a difficult question of tenant-right of a more general character arose, as it did under the Bengal landlords, chiefly in connection with the village estates of the North-West Provinces, where a number of the villages were owned by com- munities of non-agriculturist castes. In such cases, the lands were naturally entirely in the hands of tenants ; and it became difficult, and sometimes historically impossible, to distinguish between tenants that had been located by the landlords, and who might be presumed to be tenants on some basis of contract, and those who were the old cultivating holders of the land, and over whom the co-sharing community of proprietors had grown up. Hence a general (arbitrary but equitable) rule was laid down of a presumption in favour of every tenant who had held, under certain conditions, for twelve j^ears. In the Panjab the villages were so much more generally the result of original location, and were so frequenth'- cultivated by the co-sharers themselves, that there this difficulty was not seriously felt ; and the tenants who are protected by law are the purely natural classes, the circumstances of whose position it is not difficult to prove. It is not within my present scope to justify these rules or to give a detailed account of the different kinds of tenant which ai-e to be found in joint-villages, and in larger landlord estates,' but what has been said will have been sufficient to show the difference between raiyattvdri and joint-villages as regards the existence of tenant-right. ^ If a succinct account of the chief features of the Tenancy Laws in Bengal, Oudh, Norfch-West Provinces, Central Provinces, and the Panjab is desired, it will be found in ch. vLi. sec. 5 of my Short Account of the Land Bevenue Administration in India (Clarendon Press, 1694). 4:36 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY As regards the social and economic advantages of the village grouping of agricultural society, I find it impossible to make any choice between the two forms. That the ' village ' formation (of either kind) facilitates revenue management, and is favour- able to arrangements for police, sanitation, irrigation, and other matters of public administration, will not be doubted. But the advantages which can be claimed do not appear to me to depend much, if at all, on the internal constitution, whether joint or several.' No doubt, in past days the joint-village was especially well adapted to confront the class of difficulties and dangers peculiar to the times ; though I suspect that the successful maintenance of so many villages intact was more dependent on the character and spirit of the castes and clans which furnished the proprie- tary families, than on the special features of their joint-holding. However that may be, the strong sense of union which exists, or once existed, in the North-Indian joint- villages, especially those that had a clan-origin, or that were proud of a connection with a common ancestor, was no doubt valuable in times of continuous war and local feuds and raids, and when defence was also needed against extortionate Eevenue officers. But in modem times these evils have no longer to be guarded against ; and the joint constitution does little for the village except that it keeps strangers out, to some extent, through the exercise of the power of pre-emption ; and to some extent it promotes mutual help. But there is an undoubted tendency for the joint-villages, in some cases, to fall too much under the power of the official ' I do not propose to discuss the advantages of the village-aggregation with regard to the revenue administration. I will only mention that in former days it was supposed that the task of dealing with a multitude of individual holdings or ' survey-numbers ' was beyond the power of any Collector, and that either a landlord-middleman or at least a dealing with whole villages as units, was the only practicable method. Such ideas have long since been exploded. The Collector of Bombay or Madras makes his annual demand accounts (jamabamdi), and deals direct with every hold- ing in every village in his district, with perfect facility ; and the raiyatwari revenue management is just as easy and as efficient as that of the joint- vUlage. Indeed, though in the latter only the village-total is (in theorj-) looked to, as a matter of fact, the local revenue officers have almost as much concern with the individual holdings in the villages as they have under the other system. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 437 lambardtlrs or headmen, who presume on their position, so tliat they, with a few of the larger and wealthier shareholders, exploit the rest to their own advantage ; while in others bitter party spirit arises and strong factions. This party spirit (dharduri) is marked in the northern districts of the Panjab, and is often the cause of affrays and even of more serious crime. The actual condition of the joint-villages and the degree of good feeling which exists among the ' brotherhood ' varies, of course, in different places. Officers whose experience is in one place will regard my remarks as needlessly depreciatory ; others with less favourable experience will probably think I am too laudatory ; over the wide extent of Upper India, it is not possible that any one estimate can be true throughout. I can only note specific points which are certainly true locally. Excessive subdivision of holdings is certainly found in manv villages, and it is a serious evil. This subdivision, to be sure, is not confined to holdings in joint-villages ; for now that in the raiyatwari countries Hindu caste and inheritance-customs have been established for many generations, it is quite possible that the raiyat holding may be much subdivided among the heirs of the ' occupant.' As a matter of fact, however, in raiyatwari districts subdivision is only carried to any length in the richer soils ; and the Revenue rules about demarcation and record of shares, though liberal enough, act as a salutary check on the process. In the joint-village there is no limit ; and where the holdings still consist of little strips in different parts of the village, representing so many varieties of soil, minute subdivision of each of these again, becomes a source of great confusion, and throws the people into the power of the patwari (or village sur- veyor-accountant, who alone can know how the little plots are distributed. Hence the local saying, 'Gharib ltd ustdd patwdrl ' — ' The accountant is the teacher (or master) of the poor landholder.' The tendency undoubtedly is towards partition, and to a separate possession which shall be unalterable. And the strict fractional sliares of the pattiddri system (as well as some others) tend to be lost, and to be converted into de-facto holdings, sometimes to the advantage of a few of the stronger, and the loss of the weaker, shareholders. 438 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY As tlie distribution of the revenue-charge over the holdings is always recorded, and each holder knows, or can know, exactly what revenue his particular plot has to pay, the practical differ- ence, as regards value or profit to the holder, between the raiyativdri holding and the joint-village share, becomes less marked, especially when all the common land has been divided up. In the North- West Provinces, if the several holders have any difficulty in getting credit for their share-payments, they can easily get permission to pay, and obtain receipts, direct from the local and subdivisional (Tahsil) treasury. In these Provinces, too, ' perfect ' partition — that form which not only separates the holdings but dissolves the joint-liability to Government, and so constitutes a number of separate ' estates ' (^nahdl) — is not objected to, when all concerned agree to apply for it. In the Panjab, the law restricts the power of such partition much more ; but the joint responsibility, though useful as indirectly keeping up the ' brotherhood ' ideal, and acting as an incentive to exertion and to combined action within the community, now but rarely needs to be enforced. The fact is that with our moderate Revenue demands there is not often any reason why in a tolerable year (or even under a short succession of bad seasons), a thrifty peasant owner should ever be in serious difiBculty to meet his revenue instalments.' The power of relinquishment which exists in a rcoiyatwuri village, and is a feature of the tenure, was once (as I have explained) of consequence, but now has practically ceased to be so. The joint-village is owner of the whole estate; the co- sharers cannot therefore get rid of the responsibility which is the condition of ownership : but this again is not in any way a burdensome necessity, as no one wishes to give up land ; and if 1 I cannot of course say the same of the unthrifty or the lazier classes of agriculturists. Of late years great attention has been paid to a most important subject ; the proper arrangement of several — but not too many — instalments in which the revenue is payable, so that the demand shall come when the rents are got in and crops profitably disposed of, and the means of payment are at hand. And the power of the Collector at once to suspend the demand in case of serious general or local calamity has been enlarged. Such suspension may or not be followed by total or partial remission, as the case requires. These, however, are matters of revenue administration, and are beyond my scope. SUMMARY AIsD CONCLUSIOX 439 he does, he can easily find a buyer or a lessee. If in any case it were not so, that would argue something wrong with the assessment, or some other defect, in which case the revenue would probably fall into arrear, and the Collector's action would be sure to result in discovering the error and effecting the necessary remedy. Another feature is that the raiyatwdri village-holdings can only consist of the ' numbers ' actually held and occupied ; all surplus land belongs to Government ; but, as long as any such lands exists, there is no obstacle to the increase of holdings for growing families. A person desiring land has only to apply for the vacant number and agree to become responsible for the revenue. And, as to the waste, as long as there is any. Govern- ment always allots to the village an area for its use, and this is secured as permanent grazing-ground (or for wood-cutting as the case may be). The Government ownership of such land is a positive advantage in some ways. In the joint- village, the estate being one, it naturally includes whatever land, arable or waste, lies within the boundaries. And in any case, even if the boundaries as regards the uncultivated area were uncertain, some provision was always made, at the first Settlements, for the natural expansion of the village ; and a suitable area of the adjoining waste was always allowed to be included in it. This land is useful as grazing-ground, and also makes it possible that, as the several co-sharers' families expand, a partition can take place, and additional holdings be so provided. When there is no more land to partition, new families must necessarily go else- where. In this respect there is no greater, and no less, difficulty than occurs in the raiyahvdri village, when a similar limit is reached and there are no more unoccupied numbers to apply for. But as the waste in a joint-village is thus at the absolute disposal of the co-sharers, no one can interfere, so long as the co-parceners agree to partition it,' even if it should be economi- cally unadvisable to break up the land, and more profitable to keep it as grazing and wood-cutting ground. ' I have known cases where a contractor for railway fuel has per- suaded a village to cut down the whole of a wooded tract, under the temptation of the several hundred rupees which he would offer and which would be divided at the moment. Yet the future inconvenience, which 440 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY A few words may be added as to the effects of the modern legal title to the land recognised in either kind of village respectively. I have explained in another connection the theo- retical difference between the title to the land in a raiyalwdri holding and that in a joint-village ; and here it may be added that this difference does not seem to have any practical effect as to the value of the land for sale or mortgage. It is a question on both sides of which much may be said, whether in adjusting and conferring private rights in land, Government was well advised in conceding the power of free alienation to the peasantry in the joint- villages, and the power of selling their interest in raiyatwdri lands. The practical result of the claim of Native Governments to be owners of the land was to deprive the peasant-owners of the right to sell the land ; and even the sale of the occupancy was restricted, partly because only the best holdings would be saleable at all (under the conditions of the time), or, if they were bought up by a person desirous of forming a great estate or holding, he would be wealthy, and the Governor could exact a handsome fine or fee for sanctioning the transfer. It is not sur- prising that, following Western notions of jurisprudence, our administrators should have thought the power of alienation to be an essential feature of free ownership, and have thought it wiser to leave the matter to a natural economic solution than to was never thought of, might often be serious, since a village is not likely to adopt the measures necessary to reproduce the wood on the cleared area. As to the disappearance of village wastes generally, however, it may be reasonably questioned whether permanent cultivation is not better than the maintenance of the wretched natural grazing which is found on the waste lands in all the ' drier ' districts. This aspect of the question is one that is often forgotten, but it would be going beyond my subject to discuss it. It is sometimes asserted in argument that the people must have this wretched natural grazing ground ; but it may well be doubted whether it would uot be a positive advantage that they should be com- pelled by circumstances to grow grass and to cultivate grass-lands, as is done in Europe. The idea that grass cannot possibly be grown profitably in India is quite a delusion. It is not so long ago that our cavalry regiments used to be given the control of enormous areas of waste land — ten times greater than they really needed — on this supposi- tion. But of late years, with irrigation and proper cultivation, they have found it easy to produce much better and more abundant grass on a much smaller area, giving up the rest to the plough. SUMMARY AND COXCLUSION 441 attempt to impose any artificial limitation. It would be impossible now to return to a policy of prohibiting the sale of land in villages ; but whether it would not have been a wise measure originally is another question. The general result of the power Las been, among the less energetic castes, to facilitate the transfer of village-lands to a money-lending or trading and non- agricultural class. The loss of lands usually commences with a mortgage ; and as payments on account are made in kind at practically the creditor's own valuation, and as the peasant tesps no accounts, and rarely knows how to preserve evidence of his payments, even by endorsements on the bond, it is very likely that the debt with interest will eventually reach such an amount that payment becomes hopeless and a sale completes the transaction. It will be observed that such a sale does not always, or even frequently, involve the removal of the landholder ; he still lives on and cultivates as before, only that he is now tenant to his vendee, and has to give a cash rent, or a share of the produce by way of rent. Should he, however, fail to pay, or let the land fall out of cultivation, there will be the ordinary legal remedy against a defaulting tenant available, and then he must go to the wall altogether. As regards the facilities, which either form of village affords for local government and rural administration, I have expressed my belief that it is the ' village ' as such which offers them ; and that in this respect there is little if any choice between the forms. The paTicayat was once the special featm-e of the constitution of the joint- village. A council of the heads of houses took the place of a single hereditary head, as the agency for managing village affairs. But, regarded as a means of de- ciding disputes in general, the agency oi a pancayat was just as commonly resorted to in raiyatwdri villages. In tribal-commu- nities, the permanent village pancayat (and the tv'ihsi jirga on the frontier) are still active institutions, and are made much use of. In the raiyatwdri village, the strong position of the hereditary headman or pdtel, has also been utilised ; and he is armed with small civil and criminal judicial powers, with or without the aid of assessors. The lambarddr of a joint-village not being originally connected with the institution, his position is apt to vary exceedingly with circumstances : I know of few if any 442 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY cases where he could be allowed to act magisterially as the jJtltel is. Sometimes he has too little iafluence, sometimes too much. One source of weakness is that there are sometimes too many of them, one for each jjatti or section. In the Panjab this is to some extent remedied by appointing a ' chief- headman.' And to aid in the repression of crime, and in rural administration generally, the Panjab villages are often formed into circles (mil), over each of which an honorary officer, being a local landowner of respectability and influence, is appointed, with the title of Zailddr. There is no doubt, however, that more use might be made of village paTicayats in disposing of petty judicial cases, both civil and criminal; and the legisla- tion of the Madras Presidency is worthy of study on this subject. Village organisation is admirably adapted for facilitating measures of sanitation, drainage, local communications, and edu- cation ; provided such measures are not overdone and are kept to very simple and intelligible lines. In another important matter — the regulation of minor questions connected with canal or tank irrigation, the equitable distribution of the water, and so forth, the villages have of old been accustomed to manage for themselves ; nor would it be difficult to form a union of several villages for such purposes when necessary. Generally, where there are a number of small hamlets, it is easy to aggre- gate them in circles ; ' and if the hamlets have a clan con- nection (such as has been described), the union will be still more easily maintained and managed. It may be added that it is very probably owing to the village- system that Indian provinces dispense with a Poor Law and feed their own indigent and helpless (rural) residents. It must be remembered, in schemes for local government by village agency, that while there is a natural tendency on the part of modern administrators to resort to the idea of a demo- cratic and elective council, popular election in India (at any rate in rural districts) is still a very tender plant ; and it is rare to find an election which means anything but the most unblushing ' As an instance, I may mention that the patwdri, being now a much better paid and educated and responsible officer, is usually (in Northern India) appointed not to a single village but to a ' circle ' (lialqd) of villages. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 443 sale of votes or the exercise of personal influeuce. The fact is that in India, in spite of all modern and more superficial aspira- tions, there is a strong underlying current of aristocratic feeling ; and to ensure the success of village councils, and the like, it IS essential that well-chosen and educated chiefs or presidents, of really respected family as well as of local influence, should be induced to become associated with them. Those who have hoped to see in the joint-village anything of a communistic or socialistic type will, I fear, be disappointed by a study of the real facts. By far the larger portion of the joint-villages were in origin the result not of communism but of conquest ; of tribal and caste superiority, and of family pride in the common descent from a house that once held sway in the country round. Not a few are the descendants of successful ' farmers,' auction-purchasers, and land-speculators, who in common with others acknowledge the joint-family law and the consequent joint-inheritance. Even among the ' democratic ' tribal settlements of Jats and the old free ' cultivating frater- nities,' the sentiment of equality is all within the brotherhood and not in the least for the outside ; their tenure is as much a ' landlord' tenure as any other form of joint-village community. Village councils left uncontrolled would be a failure ; there must be a chiefship and an efficient supervision, which, however, must be exercised with such wisdom as not to deprive the 2'iancayat element of real influence or of its self-respect. This may be difficult of attainment, but it is not impossible. The danger always is that, when it is found necessary to define by law the powers which such local and rural boards are to exercise, the provisions maybe too refined and complicated, and, with the best intentions of preventing mistakes and obviating sinister influences, the provisos and restrictions may defeat their own object. One remaining point deserves notice, and that is, that the village-system enables a complete series of working and practi- cally sufficient land-titles to exist throughout India.' The land-records prepared under the Settlement proceedings are now Jcept correct by annual and periodical revisions, and the ' Except in the landlord estates of Bengal. All other revenue systems include the survey and record of rights. 444 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY maps are also kept continually in accord with the facts, and this by the agency of the patwdris. It is comparatively of little im- portance whether deeds of transfer are drawn up or not ; the village records make all titles as clear as possible. No extensive search or examination of documents is needed. There is a simple procedure for notifying and recording the fact of every perma- nent transfer by sale, gift, or inheritance. The system is only possible where the holdings are first aggregated into villages, each with its own staff; for these villages are then naturally grouped into ' Talukas ' or ' Tahslls ' or other convenient revenue- subdivisions ; and thus a number of local centres, as well for the receipt of revenue and taxes as for the compilation of statis- tics, are distributed over the country. From the head offices of these subdivisions the various inspectors of revenue, and of land records and statistics, continually move about through their respective circles. Every one of these local centres is in charge of one or more intelligent native officials. And these are under obligation to submit various returns and reports and diaries, which enable the Collector — the District Officer — to keep himself informed of everything that goes on. Moreover, the ' District ' being so distributed and subdivided, it is possible at once to localise any complaint, or to trace the progress of any cattle disease, or agricultural calamity, or any economic change that affects the welfare of the people. Tt would be easy to enlarge on the facilities which the village organisation gives for the discovery and repression of crime ; and I might describe the customs by which (in the Panjab, e.g.) cattle stolen and traced into one village must be traced beyond it again, or else the village becomes liable for the loss: these and other matters are connected with the ' village ' as an institution ; but I cannot go beyond the more directly 'tenure' aspects of the question. I should like only to notice one interesting modern develop- ment, which is taking place in the dry plains of the Panjab,' ' In the Panjab, in spite of the fact that each village had an area of waste adjoining it, and which became part of its property, there were enormous areas of waste in the centres of the tracts between the rivers ■which had never belonged to any existing village, and which, on the usual rule, are the property of Government. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 445 where extensive areas of Government waste land Lave been made culturable by carrying out great works of canal irrigation. The Government might, of course, at once auction these lands to capitalists ; but a wiser plan has prevailed. The lands are mostly level, at any rate are so situated that the canal branches and distributories can be arranged at pleasure to suit special schemes of locating colonies of peasant land-holders who are encouraged to emigrate from the over-populated districts. The result has been to form what will be artificial villages of peasant lessees. All the holdings will be in squares or half-squares of a fixed size, so that boundary disputes and difiiculty in identi- fication of grants, will be impossible. The canal distributories have already been arranged exactly to suit the wants of these aggregates of holdings; and a certain proportion of each group is to be kept as grazing ground. The peasant-holdings will be ' Crown-tenancies ' without rights of transfer. Thus we shall have 'raiyatwdn villages' in the course of time. It is not intended to make the whole of the reclaimed areas into such peasant tenancies : a certain number of large holdings (not exceeding 550 acres) will be offered for sale to capitalists, and a certain number will be made available (140 acres is the limit, in one instance, of such grants) for cultivators of the yeoman class. So that every type of land-holder will have a fair representation; but the peasant-lessee will be the principal figure. Provision is also made for reserving certain areas, which are to be stocked with wood for fuel and other purposes. These details have been takeji from one particular locality — the Chinab Canal Area : other smaller colonies also exist ; and similar schemes will, as years go on, be doubtless extended, on the great scale, to the other tracts of open country between the Panjab rivers, and will in future play a not inconsiderable part in the rural economy of the province.' • I may commend to the reader's notice a paper by Sir J. B. Lyall giving many interesting details about these colonies and other matters connected with the Panjab and its canal system. See Journal the Society of Arts, xhv. 285 (February 21, 1896). INDEX (Rai. is used to abbreviate Raiyalwdri) Abobiginal races. See Non-Aryan Absence of villages in certain parts, 60 Adhldpl custom, 345 Administration, rural : village in con- nection with, 441 Administrators, Indian : their minutes regarding tenures, 33, 379 Adna mdlik or ' inferior proprietor,' 212 _ Agastyd, the Sage, 118 Agnikuld tribes of Bajputa, 113 Agriculture : despised by higher castes, 192 — in the Veda, 188 — Manu's view of, 191 — aptitude of Dravidian races for, 119, 162, 164 Aham or Ahvni customs, 137 Ahir, 109, 276 Akbar, Kevenue Settlement under, 219 'Aid lambardur,' 24, 442 'Aid mdlik or superior owner, 212 Alexander, population of the Panjab in the time of, 97-8 Allotment of tribal holding, modes of, 257, 409 Amisham (Amshom), 64 Ancestral shares. See Pattiddri loss of the correct scale, 338 Artisans of village. See Menials ARYAN : advance did not reach the South of India, 116 — chiefs in early times, 195 — clan-organisation, 193 — colonisation, extent of, 84 — communities, present location of, 121 — castes form only an upper social stratum, 88 — ideas of property in land, 202 ABYAN immigration, the, 7S — influence, in general, 80 as regards land-tenure, 184 in Assam, 134 in Burma, 147 —in the Panjab, 80 in South India, 117, 162, 1S4 — kingdoms established, 195 — princes in South India, 166-7 — probable numbers of the tribes, 81 — remarks on the name, 78 {note) — tendency to refer too much to this origin, 92 — traces of, in ancient Panjab, 97 Aryans, Brahmanie traditions of first settlement, 97, 104 — early schism of the tribes, 79 — first settlement, place of, 78 (noic) — retreat of aboriginal races before: idea criticised, 127-8 Arydvartd, 81 Assam, absence of village-groups in, 141 — customs of, 134 — Hill tribes of, 143 Awdn clans, holding large unit-areas, 271 BJnAR tribe, curious easterns of, 264 Bdhhan, obscure caste of agricultur- ists, 87 Bach, 336 — different modes of, in use, 346 Bangdhal. See Kangra Bannu tribes, customs of, 258 Bant caste, the, 177 Bdra-balute, 18 {note} ' Barbarous ' tribes, remarks on, 91 Begdr (unpaid labour), 139 Bengal, non-Aryans of, 109 448 THE INDIAX VILLAGE COMMUNITY Bengal humbler castes of mixed origin, 110 BhdMchdra : allotment of land by- varieties of soil, 269, 275, 280, 2H3, 413 — constitution explained, 23 — — varieties of, 333 illustrated by a custom among tenants, 291 — misuse of the term, 356 — variety of villages commonly called, 357 BhagdTirl villages (Bombay), 389, 392 Bhar tribes, 106 — • — as landholders in Oudb, 123 Bhejbarar custom, 339 Bhll : their land-customs, 132 Bhuinhdr, a caste, 86, 125, 127 — name given to original soil- clearers, 180 Bikamer, joint and rai. villages found side by side, 394 BiZScfci tribes, 245 Birt, Birtiya, 300 Bombay, village-sites in, G8 — see Western India Brahmavarta, 81 Brandis, Sir D., on Karen cultivation in Burma, 55 ' Brotherhood,' the, membershiij in, 20 Burma, customs of, 146 — elements in the population, 147 — origin of the name, 147 (iwte) Cachab {Kdc'ndr), village-assoc'.ations in, 139 Cak : a block or circle for calculation of relative value of holdings, 283 — a lot given to a grantee, 345 Qandd tribe, 125, 287, 311 Camatic, the, 174 (note) Caste (Hindu), the agriculturist, 185 Gaurdsi, 198 Cawnpore (Kdhanpur), villages from dismembered chiefships, 311 Ceru, 108 Ghatrl, 187 Chiefs, grades of, in Hindu State, 197 — position of (Panjab frontier tribes), 245-6 — tenure of, transformed by conquest, 307 Chota Nagpore. See Chutiya Nagpiir Chutiyd Ndgpur, Dravidian princes of, 165 Dravidian and Kolarian vil 153 . situation of, 47 tenures of, 181 I Gib clan, rulership dismembered, 303 curious customs of, 309 (noie) Clan. See also Tribe, Tribal Clan-areas. See also 'Ildga, Tappd &c., 230 filled by expansion of families, 266 in the Panjab, 245, 269 in the N. W. P. and Oudh, 283 — — modes of holding, summarised 411 Clans, totems, or insignia of, 120, 155, 230 Classification, official, of villages, de- fects of the, 353 Climate as affecting formation of villages, 38 Co-aration not found in India, 49 Cola dynasty, 166 Collective ownership of villages un- known to Manu or the Veda, 204 (note) Colonist-associations in Bikdner, 396 — in S.E. Panjab, 324 — probable origin of the ancient joint or mirdsi villages in Chengalpat &c. (Madras), 371 — special privileges of, 377 Colonisation (State), modern scheme of, with aid of canal irrigation (Panjab) 445 Common ownership : climatic con- siderations, 49 ■ different fields for observing in India (if it is real), 76 (note) in joint-villages, howmanaged in practice, 347 — ■ — in tribal areas, often apparent rather than real, 239-40, 409 supposed illustration of, in frontier villages (Panjab), 259 (note) Bohtak district, 277 (note) of waste land. See Waste Communism and community : Mr. W. C. Benett's remark on, 300 ' Community ' : how applicable to vil- lages of the rai. class, 9, 433 Constitution (village). See Joint- village Co-operative cultivation, (N. Madras, Cachar &c.), 140, 141 Co-sharer, absentee or absconding, 26 (note) Councils of State, 136 CCidrd caste, the, 187 occupation of, accordingto Manu, 191 (note) position of, in South India, 118 (note) ' Cultivating-fraternities,' 266, 269 INDEX 449 Cultivation, difficulties of first estab- lishment, 50 (note) — shifting or temporary, 52 Custom of Dravidian group, 159 — Kolarian group, 151 — Tibeto-Burman, 130 — Panjab Jat, &a., 217, 220 DiDDi (local), a tribal share, 260, 262 Dagar cultivation, 262 (note) Daklian (Deccan, Dekhan, Ac), features of the, 43, 381 {iiote) Dasyil : remarks on the term, 83 Dera Ghilzi-Khan, tribes of, 265 Dera Ismail-Khan, tribes and varied customs of, 260 Difference of mother and status of wife causing customs of [per-stirpes) allotment, inheritance, &o., 247, 250 Dom, 106 DEAVIDIAN: contact with the Kolarian in Chutiya Nagpur, 161 — custom affecting land, 159 — elements, widespread, 160 — people, general condition of, in South India, 119, 160-2 — traces of land measures in the Dakhan, 385 {note) Dwars, the (Eastern and Western) customs of, 139, 142 Ethnogeaphio conclusions, remarks on, 76 — chief groups adopted, 77 Exchange, periodic, of holdings in Dravidian villages, 180 — — (Panjab frontier), 255, 257, 259 (Madras), 375, 376, 378 ' Family, the ': constitution of, 241, 415 — the joint, not universal, 240, 418, 421 (note) Farm. See Bevenue-farming Farukhabad district, the empire of Kanauj, 105, 125 Female line, inheritance in the, custom of (West Coast), 176, 177 ' First clearing,' right in the soil by, 207, 399 Fractions, system of vulgar, unknown, 263 (noU), 335 Frontier, militia for defence of, 158 — see also Ghdtwdl Ganges plain, meaning of the term, 104 {note) — population of the, 104 Gautam clan, the, (N. W. Prov.), 312 Geographers, ancient, names of places &c. used by, 85 Geographical features affecting move- ment of tribes and armies, 39 Gkakar, tribe, 97, 98, 342 Ghdtwal tenures of frontier militia, 158 Ghazipur District, tribes of the, 125 Gond, Gondwana, 114 Got : term as used in Assam, 138 — section of a clan or tribe, 194 (note), 273 Grain-share (for revenue &c.). See Produce Grants (Boyal), origin of villages in, 297 illustration from the old Gonda Kingdom (Oudh), 299 Grass allotments in certain places {see Hay), 11 {note) Grove, the village, 156 Gujar tribes, 101 Gujarat (Western India), accessibility of, 43 — account of villages in, 69 — joint- villages surviving in, 387 Gundapur tribe, tenures of, 262 HAiHAirl Kings, the, 46 Ral, or plough lands (as a unit of holding), 271, 275, 278, 325 further subdivisions of, 342 JSamsdya, custom of, 245, 246 Hay, cultivation of, in India, 11, 410 {note) Headman of rai. village : his position, 10 — of joint village, 24 — of rai. village always hereditary, 13 strong attachment to office, 15 {note) ex-officio holding of land, 15, 205 {see also Patel and Lambarddr) Hill districts, Tibetan custom in, 131 — ranges, as affecting tribal move- ment, 39 Himalayan passes, &c., 40 Hill ranges, the Sulaiman, 41 the Vindhyan, 42 Himalayan districts, mixed (Tibetan) population of, 40, 87, 131 {note) conquest by Eajputs, 131 absence of villages in, 57, 132 customs of, 131 Hindu, process of becoming, by enter- ing body of a cow made of brass, 90, 140 — caste, adoption of : its effect, 90 G G 4iO THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY Hindu. Sec Joint-family Hindu law, unknown in the Panjab, 102 tlie, on the question of the State- ownership of the soil, 209 Ho tribes, 153 Hujra, a characteristic building in frontier villages of the Panjab, 254 'Ii.AQi (clan area), 231, 247, 252, 267, 2S1, 286 ' Imperfect ' : a form of tenure (partial division) in joint-villages, 355 Xva'pexiect-paUidurl and -bluiiachdrd, 350 (see also Partition) Individual foundation : originates the largest class of joint-villages, 293, 320 Indo- Scythian incursions, historic series of, 97 ' Inheritance ' : meaning of, 210, 433 (note) Inheritance, joint. See Joint-family. Irrigation mentioned in Veda, 189 — for State colonies (Panjab), 445 J.iGAXN".i.THi : on State ownership, 209 Jalandhar district, tribal settlements in, 273 JanjhuB- tribe and villages, 97 (note), 308 Janml tenure, of Malabar, 170 Jat (Panjab) Jat (N. W. Prov. Ac), tribe, 99 — illustration of origin, 277 and note — tribes settle in joint-villages, 216, 217 Gujrat district (Panjab), 272 Liidiana district (Panjab), 274 (Pacahra clan) in Mathura dis- trict (N." W. P.), 282 Jihlam district (N. Panjab) : great areas, not really villages, 270 Jirgd (Panjab frontier) tribal-councils, 255 JOINT- VILLAGE, the: (1) In general — — forms a unit estate, 21 — includes an area of waste, 20, 439 — described, 20 — constitution of (general), 22, 28, 32 — subdivisions of, 81, 238, 278, 280, 283 — custom of pre-emption in, 27 — idea of ' the brotherhood ' in, 26 — apparent uniformity of, by reason of the Eevenue system, its official forms and terms, 9, 326, 327, 415 JOINT-VILLAGE, the (contimied) : (2) Theory and history of — — as connected with tribe and clan • stage, 29, 225 — as connected with individual foundation, 29, 293 — represents (at first) an over-lord- ship not necessarily connected with soil-ownership, 205, 298 — the product of conquest and superiority, 3, 403 — in a large class of cases depend- y- ent on the joint-family and the joint-inheritance, 28, 294, 419 — formed by Indo-Scythic and Moslem as \vell as Aryan tribes, 216, 217, 220 — idea of, recognised with difficulty by different classes of early offi- cials, 431 — supposed allusion to in Veda, 204 (note) — unknown to Manu, 204 — how regarded by old native governments, 425 — modern legal title in, 426 — party spirit in, 437 — why prevalent in Upper India, 215," 216 (3) Origin and forms of — — on tribal areas, 244 — on areas on which a clan has grown up and expanded, 266 — old cultivating fraternities, 269 — from individual foundation, 293 — connected with State grants, 298 revenue farming, 301 auction purchase, 302 ' commendation,' 310, 318 — from dismemberment of ruling chiefship or large estate, 304- 308, 320 — example of this in 'Azamgarh, 314 in Bareli (Oudh), 319, 320 — by private adventure without State connection, 320 — of individual foundation, may appear in stages as sole, joint, or partitioned, 295 — by colonist association, 323, 371 example in Cachar, 139 — by effect of the Eevenue system, 325, 343-345 — imperfect or partly divided, 356 — held on special kinds of shares, 341, 342 — artificially created by revenue system, 325, 344 INDEX 45 J JOINT-VILLAGE, the (continued) : (3) Origin and forms of — — minor vaiieties and changes by partition and otherwise, 328 — varieties of, summarised list, 348 — see also Pattidari, Bhaidchdrd, Possession as measure of right (4) As to locality — — Madras, (ancient) from Eoyal grants, 367 — colonists, 375, 37G — question of date, 374 — — traces of earlier over-lordshares in the Dakhau, 3S0 Gujarat districts of Bombay, 386 Joint-family, the, 241, 416 Joint-liability for revenue in joint villages, 21, 325, 43S — — none in rai. villages, 19 Joint ownership : where it really occurs, 421. See Common owner- ship JosES, Bichard, his views about Manu and right in the soil, 206 (note) Jot, cultivating holding or tenant holding in Bengal, 142 Jiim. See Shifting cultivation Kacrjb. See Cachar Kdldpani, irrigation, 262 (note) Kanara, tenures of, 176 Kanauj, 125 * — villages from dismemberment of, 311 Kdndh, tribes, account of, 163 — village, the, 171 Kandi, subdivisions of hhel, 254 Kangra. (district), villages not found in, 57 — peculiar tenures in parts of, 132 Kdnlddsi ( = mirasi, i.e. ' inheritance ') right of co-sharer in (early) joint- village in Madras, 362 Kamal (district), village tenures of, 279 Kamam (Madras) = Pahcdri, q.v. Kashmir (Kdgmir, villages), 60 Kasur-khwar, 345 Katheriyd clan, 126, 310 Kdthi, 98 Katoch and Katord families, 129, 13i (note) Khasdes, 130 Khasi Hills, 145 Kh-dlsa, 198 Khel, division of a lappa or tribal area, 250, 254, 258, 408 — a group in the clan of related fami- lies ; and further subdivided, 253, 408 Khcl (in Assam), 138 Kherd (N.-W. Prov.), the parent vil- lage, 282 (note) Kliond. Sec Kdndh Khuldvesh custom, 257 Kindred, degrees of, in early society, 234 — divisions of clans &c., depend on, 233 Kingdoms of ancient India, 104, 105 King's aggregate rights, 199, 208 — right to supplies of food Ac, 138 (iiote) Kohat tribes, customs of, 256 Koli tribes, not confused with Kol, 114 Kol tribes, 153 KOLAEIAN : customs, 151 — absence of monarchy, 153, 154 _ affinity with TIBETAN, 151 Eorwd villages without boundaries, 155 Kos (measure of length), 12 (note) Ksliatriyd caste, remarks on the, 187 (note) Kulkarnl (Bombay) = Patwdri, q.v. Kultd or Kulitd caste, 135 (note) Kfdu (district), customs of, 133 Kumdon (district), absence of villages, 61 Kumri. See Shifting cultivation Kunbi caste, 115, 389 Kurmi (idem) Kwin (or Queug), village (Burma), 148 ZijiiBAEDAn, the, in joint-villages, 24, 441 Land : how classified under the Em- pire, 297 — alienation, power of, 440 — value of equal, in either form of village, 438 Land-revenue, not known in Vedic times, 196 — originating under Dravidian princes, 181 Land-tenures, too much reference to Aryan sources, 92 Laws of Manu. See Manu Lilld, great tribal estate of, 270, 271 Ludiana, villages of Jat origin, 274 Lushal villages, 144 M.u>BAS. See Southern India Mdgane, 63, 177 Mahal (or mahal : both forms in use), 21 (note) ' ' ■ 452 THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY Maharashtra, 114 Mdhato, office of the, 13, 180 Mahratta. See Maratha Majra, a hamlet, 279, 280 Majhhas land (in Dravidian village), 179 Malabar, customs of inheritance, 176 — kings and chiefs of, 169 — tenures of, 170, 175 — tribal divisions of, 168 Malta, or common expenses of joint- village, also the common fund out of which they are paid, 25, 346 Mdlguzar (Central Provinces), made proprietors of villages, 344 Malik-magiusa, 340 MaUi and Multan, 98 Mdnpan (official precedence rights called), 14 MANU (Manava dlutrma gastra) : — account of non-Aryan tribes, 86 — degrees of relationship, 235 — Hindu State, the, as contemplated by, 196 — ideas of, regarding agriculture and caste, 190-192 — idea of, regarding ownership of land, 204 — joint-villages unknown to, 204 — on primogeniture, 305 Maratha, origin of, 115 — administration, effect on tenures, 228 — aucientfamilies of as over lords, 380 Marriages, offspring of different, have separate territories in some clans, 248 Mathura district, villages of, 281 Mauza, in general, 20 (notR), 74, 58, 62 — as used in Assam, 141 Menials and artisans in both kinds of village equally, 23 Panjab frontier, 255 mode of remunerating, 16 Minor-clan, 233 Aftrdsi, origin of term, 210, 364 (note) Ifirasi- rights (Madras), confusion about, 364, 380 (note) (Bombay), recognised by Mara- thas, 385 Mirasi village. See Joint-village (Bombay), (Madras) Mixed races, 87 Monarchy among Aryans, 195 — not always developed by Aryan (Eajput) clans, 290 — Dravidian origin of, in Southern India, 168 — Dravidian form of, 165 Monarchy, land-revenue under the, 171 Mongoloid. See Tibeto-Burman Moslem : colonies of village land- holders, 219 — conquests, general effects of, 217 dispersion of Bajput clans caused by, 121 — joint-villages, why like others, 220 — revenue-administration of, 221 Milnda, (Kolarian), village-headman, 156 Mcxiio, Sir T., Minute mentioning tnirasi villages, 379 (note) MuttJid, division of Kandh tribes, 164 Nadu, or tribal territory (South India), 167, 231 Ndgd. See Serpent-worshippers Ndgbahsi, houses of C. Prov., Orissa, Szc, 96 (note), 154, 165 Nagld (local) division of village, 283 Nair, see Ndyar Ndla (division of tribal area), 260 Narwdddri villages (Bombay), 391 Nayak (or Ndik), 167 Ndyar (pi. of Ndyan) caste in Mala- bar, 88. 168 NON-ABYAN element : importance of the, 76 — tribes widely scattered, 82 — supposed inferiority of, 90 — varying degrees of civilisation, 8 -*- races in Bengal, 110 in the Ganges Plain, 105 Sir C. A. Elliott on, 127 in Oudh, 122 — — in the Panjab, 94 in Western India, 113 in Southern India, 117 Northern tribes in Western and Central India, 113 see also Indo-Soythian K.W. Provinces, population of, 104 Non-Aryan races recover posses- sion for a time, 124 tribal or clan-areas found in, 286 village-building in, 70 Nose, form of, and the epithet andsu, 83 Origin of villages. See Village, Joint- village, Bai. village,'Eschylus Ainger (A. C.) - Albemarle (Earl of) Alden (W. L.) - Allen (Grant) - AUingham (W.) Anstey (F.) Aristophanes Aristotle - Armstrong (E.) (G. F. Savage) Page 3, 18 - 14. 15 14 3 28 18 18 24 18,29 (E.T.) 7,19.29 " Sir " ■ ■ Arnold (Sir Edwin) (Dr. T.) - Ashley (W.J.) - Astor (J.J.) - - A teller du Lys (A uthor of)- - - 26 Page 17 7. 14 16, 29 3 14 Babington (W. D.) Bacon Bagehot (W.) - ; Bagwell (R.) Bain (Alexander) Baker (James) - Baker (Sir S. W.) Balfour (A. J.) BaU (J. T.) Baring-Gould (Rev. S.) - - Barnett (Rev. S. A. Mrs.) - Baynes (T. S.) - Beaconsfield (Earl of) Beaufort (Duke of) - 10, II Becker (Prof.) - Beesly (A. H.) - BeU (Mrs. Hugh) Bent (J. Theodore) ■ Besant (Sir Walter)- 3 Bickerdyke(J.) - 11,13 Bicknell (A. C.) 8 Bird (R.) - - - 31 11,31 3 ■ 27, 29 Page Blackwell (Elizabeth) 7 Boase (Rev. C. W.) - 4 Boedder (B.) - 16 BoUand (W. E.) 14 Bosanquet (B.) 14 Boyd (Rev. A. K. H.)7, 29, 31 Brassey (Lady) - 8 (Lord) 3, 8, 12, 16 Bray (C. and Mrs.) - 14 Bright (J. F.) - - 3 Broadfoot (Major W.) 10 Brogger (W. C.) 7 Brown (J. Moray) - 11 Browning (H. Ellen) 8 Buck (H. A.) - - 12 Buckle (H. 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