LATE FELLOW OP BT. CATHERINE'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; BARBISTEB-AT-LAW; AND
OFFICIATING STANDING COUNSEL TO THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA.

CALCUTTA:

THACKBE, SPINK AND CO.,

^publishtrs to tftt Calcutta iHnibcrsttjr.

Bomkat: THACKER, VINING & Co. Madras: HIGGINBOTHAM & Co.

London : W. THACKER & Co.

1876.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

LECTURE I.

THE HINDOO PERIOD.

Scope of the present subject—Nature of sources of information—Express Hindoo

law as to land—Menu does not show extent of rights in land—Obligation of

cultivator to cultivate—The king's share—The village as referred to in

Menu—The village as inferred from observation and analogy—Lord Met-

calfe's description of the village communities—Such communities found in

all parts of India—The village lands and homesteads—A self-governing cor-

poration—The development from the joint family—The lands at first held

in common but divided at an early period—Immigrants—Servile dependants

—Three classes of cultivators with interests in the land—Khoodkashts—

Their rights regulated by custom—In Southern India—Their right to occupy

so long as they cultivated and paid the customary revenue—The transfer-

ability of their rights—Rates paid by them—Paid a higher rate than other

cultivators formerly—Their privileges—The second class of cultivators—

Their rights in the land—What occupation sufficient—Less complete rights

than khoodkashts—Assessment upon them—The mere pyekashts—Rates paid

by them—Precarious nature of their rights—The village constitution—The

village officers—Mode of payment—The servile labourers of the village—The

headman—Partly elective and partly hereditary office—The State could dis-

miss—His functions—His emoluments—In Orissa villages—Dismissal—Mode

of assessment of revenue—Mode of payment—When headman refused to

agree to assessment—Headman not a farmer of the revenue—But he and the

village responsible—Headman long recognised—The putwarry and canoongoe

—The zemindar—The chowdhry—The amount of the king's share—Pro-

prietary rights .......

LECTURE II.'

THE MAHOMEPAN PERIOD.

The transition from the Hindoo to the Mahomedan period not a sudden one—The

Mahomedan invaders of India—Their system non-hereditary—The Hindoo

system hereditary—Struggle between the two systems—The Mahomedan

system a centralised one—The Mahomedan land theory—The Ehiraj—The

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