placed upon facts, first recorded in comparatively late times, and such remains of ancient institutions as are still existing; and from these meagre indications we have to infer as best we can the state of things centuries before. A few passages in Menu, modern descriptions of the village communities and the land system, with such relics of these as are still existing, are practically all we have to rely upon. Few records of Hindoo times have reached us, and those that have come down to us contain no information on our present subject. Antiquarian research may perhaps in time throw light upon those remote ages, but at present we have to grope in darkness. With respect to Mahomedan times the case is somewhat better, for the Mahomedans kept records of important matters; but the confusion which characterised much of Mahomedan rule in India pervades their histories. Moreover the Mahomedans did not introduce any new system of Land Tenures as we shall hereafter see: and it does not appear to have occurred to them to give any full description of the system they found in existence. It is for these reasons that the subject of Indian Land Tenures is so difficult and almost impossible to treat satisfactorily. At the best our information is vague, but oftener full of contradictions; and one is haunted by a suspicion that anything like a definite account of the matter must be wrong.

LECTURE

1.

Hindoo law

The Mahomedans, as I have said, did not introduce a Express Land or Revenue system of their own, but adopted the as to land. system they found in existence. Hence it is necessary to endeavour to ascertain what that system was. With this view we naturally turn to the written Hindoo law, and especially to Menu. From Menu however we obtain little help. We find only casual mention of rights in land: the

I.

داره

LECTURE general theory of land rights is not touched upon, but only some special cases. Thus Menu says, that "sages pronounce cultivated land to be the property of him who cut away the wood, or who cleared and tilled it;"" a general principle which has been recognised in Germany, Java, and Russia,2 and indeed in most countries, and which is expressly enunciated in Mahomedan law also, but which does not enable us to advance much in our present enquiry. It leaves open the question what right of property is acquired, whether absolute and exclusive, or only limited:—whether in the soil itself or only the right to cultivate it. This question has to be answered in the silence of express law by a reference to the actual practice and the ideas of the time. Menu also speaks of the owner of land, and appears to contemplate exclusive and perhaps individual rights in land, although we get no further information as to their nature. The owner of a field is directed or advised to keep up sufficient hedges; he is entitled to the produce of seed sown by another in his land unless by agreement with him; and to the produce of seed conveyed upon his land by wind or water. The case of a dispute between neighbouring landholders or villages as to boundaries is contemplated; and a penalty provided for forcible trespass upon another's land. These passages show that some kind of exclusive right was contemplated,

1 Menu, Chap. IX, sl. 44 (Sir Wm. Jones' translation).

See three articles by M. de Laveleye in the Revue des Deux Mondes for 1872, entitled Les Formes Primitives de la Propriété, Tome 100, p. 526.

3 Chap. VIII, sl. 239.

4 Chap. IX, sl. 49, 52, 53.

5 Chap. IX, sl. 54.

Chap. VIII, sl. 245, 246.

7 Chap. VIII, sl. 264.

and appear to recognise a right beyond that of the village, but whether in the family or the individual is not clear. The sale of lands is also spoken of in connexion with the sale of metals.1

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I.

show extent of

But these passages fail to inform us whether the owner Menu does not spoken of had anything more than a right to cultivate rights in land. and appropriate the produce, and such possession as might be necessary for that purpose. The nature of the proprietary rights before the British accession we shall have to discuss hereafter, when we have before us the whole native system as far as we can ascertain it; but I have called attention to this point here because it is one which we must keep in view throughout.

cultivator to

Besides the owner's rights in the land Menu recognises Obligation of an obligation upon him to cultivate the soil. It is said, "if cultivate. land be injured by the fault of the farmer himself, as if he fails to sow it in due time, he shall be fined ten times as much as the king's share of the crop that might otherwise have been raised, but only five times as much if it was the fault of his servants without his knowledge." "12

share.

The king's share here mentioned is to be one-eighth, The king's one-sixth, or one-twelfth, according to the nature of the soil and the labour necessary to cultivate it;3 but in times of prosperity the king should only take one-twelfth,* while in times of urgent necessity he may take one-fourth; this is the king's due on account of the protection he is bound to afford to the cultivator. The king is also entitled on

LECTURE

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The village as referred to in

Menu.

The village as inferred from observation and analogy.

the same grounds to half of "old hoards and precious minerals in the earth."

The king is therefore clearly recognised as entitled to a share in the produce; he is bound to protect the husbandman, and the husbandman is bound to cultivate, in order that they may jointly have increase of the land. This would seem to indicate something less than an absolute or exclusive right to the soil in either. The share of the king is what we shall meet with in all our future enquiries as the land revenue or mal.

There is also mention in Menu of the village system. The lord or superintendent (adhipati) of a village (gram) is spoken of, and he is to have the share of the king in food, drink, wood and other articles as his perquisite.3 Above him the superintendent of ten villages is to have the produce of two plough-lands (i.e., as much as can be tilled by two ploughs, each drawn by six bulls); the superintendent of twenty villages to have the produce of five ploughlands; the superintendent of one hundred villages, that of a small town; and of a thousand villages, that of a large town. Traces of these divisions are found in the Mouzah (or village), the Pergunnah, and the Circar.

The village referred to in Menu was, we can hardly doubt, the well known village community, the constitution and position of which are so important in the Hindoo land system; the village in fact is the key to that system. From the slight reference to it in Menu we have to pass by a long stride of centuries to what has been observed in such recent times

VITALITY OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITIES.

7

I.

as the period since the British rule. It is from such obser- LECTURE vations, with the aid of analogies from similar institutions existing in modern times in other countries, that we have to construct the idea of the village community of Hindoo times. It cannot be considered a very satisfactory process, but it is the only method open to us; and when we come to consider the matter carefully, we find some of the difficulties, which appear most formidable, tend to disappear. For instance Hindoo society is by its very constitution profoundly conservative, and is therefore likely to have retained the characteristic features of its institutions in something like their primitive form. Again the village community is one of the least changeable of all its institutions: this is the reason that it has survived all the shocks of conquest and civil strife, and the fanaticism of proselytising rulers whose ideas were to a great degree repugnant to such institutions. And if the village communities had the strength to resist these influences, it is natural that they should be rendered more intensely conservative thereby, and should as it were crystallize in the shape in which they were found, and undergo little further change. As Lord Metcalfe LordMetcalfe's description of says: "The village communities are little republics, having the village nearly every thing that they want within themselves, and almost independent of any foreign relations. They seem to last where nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down; revolution succeeds to revolution; Hindoo, Patan, Mogul, Mahratta, Sikh, English, are all masters in

In his Minute of November 7th, 1830, in the Appendix No. 84 to the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the affairs of the East India Company, dated August 16th, 1832, cited in the Selections from Government Records, Vol. I, p. 446, and in Elphinstone's History of India, p. 68, Fifth Edn.

communities.