CHAPTER 1
Feudalism in Rājasthān.
Many years have elapsed since I first entertained these opinions, long before any connexion existed between these States and the British Government; when their geography was little known to us, and their history still less so. At that period I frequently travelled amongst them for amusement, making these objects subservient thereto, and laying the result freely before my Government. I had [130] abundant sources of intelligence to guide me in forming my analogies; Montesquieu, Hume, Millar, Gibbon[[1]]: but I sought only general resemblances and lineaments similar to those before me. A more perfect, because more familiar picture, has since appeared by an author,[[2]] who has drawn aside the veil of mystery which covered the subject, owing to its being till then but imperfectly understood. I compared the features of Rajput society with the finished picture of this eloquent writer, and shall be satisfied with having substantiated the claim of these tribes to participation in a system, hitherto deemed to belong exclusively to Europe. I am aware of the danger of hypothesis, and shall advance nothing that I do not accompany by incontestable proofs.
The Tribal System.
Influence of Muhammadans and Mahrattas.
In remarking the curious coincidence between the habits, notions, and governments of Europe in the Middle Ages, and those of Rajasthan, it is not absolutely necessary we should conclude that one system was borrowed from the other; each may, in truth, be said to have the patriarchal form for its basis. I have sometimes been inclined to agree with the definition of Gibbon, who styles the system of our ancestors the offspring of chance and barbarism. “Le système féodal, assemblage monstrueux de tant de parties que le tems et l’hazard ont réunies, nous offre un objet très compliqué: pour l’étudier il faut le décomposer.”[[4]] This I shall attempt.
The form, as before remarked, is truly patriarchal in these States, where the greater portion of the vassal chiefs, from the highest of the sixteen peers to the holders of a charsa[[5]] of land, claim affinity in blood to the sovereign.[[6]]
The natural seeds are implanted in every soil, but the tree did not gain [132] maturity except in a favoured aspect. The perfection of the system in England is due to the Normans, who brought it from Scandinavia, whither it was probably conveyed by Odin and the Sacasenae, or by anterior migrations, from Asia; which would coincide with Richardson’s hypothesis, who contends that it was introduced from Tatary. Although speculative reasoning forms no part of my plan, yet when I observe analogy on the subject in the customs of the ancient German tribes, the Franks or Gothic races, I shall venture to note them. Of one thing there is no doubt—knowledge must have accompanied the tide of migration from the east: and from higher Asia emerged in the Asi, the Chatti, and the Cimbric Lombard, who spread the system in Scandinavia, Friesland, and Italy.
Origin of Feuds.
I give this at length to show, that if I still persist in deeming the Rajput system a pure relation of feuds, I have before my eyes the danger of seeming resemblances. But grants, deeds, charters, and traditions, copies of all of which will be found in the Appendix, will establish my opinions. I hope to prove that the tribes in the northern regions of Hindustan did possess the system, and that it was handed down, and still obtains, notwithstanding seven centuries of paramount sway of the Mogul and Pathan dynasties, altogether opposed to them except in this feature of government where there was an original similarity. In some of these States—those least affected by conquest—the system remained freer from innovation. It is, however, from Mewar chiefly that I shall deduce my examples, as its internal [133] rule was less influenced by foreign policy, even to the period at which the imperial power of Delhi was on the decline.
Evidence from Mewar.
Evidence from Inscriptions.
Books of Grants.
Such a collection would be amusing, particularly if the traditionary were added to the engraved laws. They would often appear jejune, and might involve contradictions; but we should see the wants of the people; and if ever our connexion (which God forbid!) should be drawn closer, we could then legislate without offending national customs or religious prejudices. Could this, by any instinctive [136] impulse or external stimulus, be effected by themselves, it would be the era of their emersion from long oppression, and might lead to better notions of government, and consequent happiness to them all.
Noble Origin of the Rājput Race.
The Rāthors of Mārwār.
The Kachhwāhas of Amber.
The others are less illustrious, being the descendants of the great vassals of their ancient kings.
The Sesodias of Mewār.
Pride of Ancestry.
Armorial Bearings.
In Europe these customs were not introduced till the period of the Crusades, and were copied from the Saracens; while the use of them amongst the Rajput tribes can be traced to a period anterior to the war of Troy. In the Mahabharat, or great war, twelve hundred years before Christ, we find the hero Bhishma exulting over his trophy, the banner of Arjuna, its field adorned with the figure of the Indian Hanuman.[[25]] These emblems had a religious reference amongst the Hindus, and were taken from their mythology, the origin of all devices.
The Tribal Palladium.
Banners.
From the commencement of this religious war in the mountains westward of the Indus, many ages elapsed ere the ‘King of the Faith’ obtained a seat on the throne of Yudhishthira. Chand, the bard, has left us various valuable memorials of this period, applicable to the subject historically as well as to the immediate topic. Visaladeva, the monarch whose name appears on the pillar of victory at Delhi, led an army against the invader, in which, according to the bard, “the banners of eighty-four princes were assembled.” The bard describes with great animation the summons sent for this magnificent feudal levy from the heart of Antarbedi,[[30]] to the shores of the western sea, and it coincides with the record of his victory, which most probably this very army obtained for him. But no finer picture of feudal manners exists than the history of Prithwiraja, contained in Chand’s poems. It is surprising that this epic should have been allowed so long to sleep neglected: a thorough knowledge of it, and of others of the same character, would open many sources of new knowledge, and enable us to trace many curious and interesting coincidences.[[31]]
In perusing these tales of the days that are past, we should be induced to conclude that the Kuriltai of the Tatars, the Chaugan of the Rajput, and the Champ de Mars of the Frank, had one common origin.
Influence of Caste.
But before I proceed further in these desultory and general remarks, I shall commence the chief details of the system as described in times past, and, in part, still obtaining in the principality of the Rana of Mewar.[Mewar.] As its geography and distribution are fully related in their proper place, I must refer the reader to that for a preliminary understanding of its localities.
Estates of Chief and Fiscal Land.
The country was partitioned into districts, each containing from fifty to one hundred towns and villages, though sometimes exceeding that proportion. The great number of Chaurasis[[37]] leads to the conclusion that portions to the amount of eighty-four had been the general subdivision. Many of these yet remain: as the ‘Chaurasi’ of Jahazpur and of Kumbhalmer: tantamount to the old ‘hundreds’ of our Saxon ancestry. A circle of posts was distributed, within which the quotas of the chiefs attended, under ‘the Faujdar of the Sima’ (vulgo Sim), or commander of the border. It was found expedient to appoint from court this lord of the frontier, always accompanied by a portion of the royal insignia, standard, kettle-drums, and heralds, and being generally a civil officer, he united to his military office the administration of justice.[[38]] The higher vassals never attended personally at these posts, but deputed a confidential branch of their family, with the quota required. For the government of the districts there were conjoined a civil and a military officer: the latter generally a vassal of the second rank. Their residence was the chief place of the district, commonly a stronghold.
The division of the chiefs into distinct grades, shows a highly artificial state of society.
First class.—We have the Sixteen, whose estates were from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand rupees and upwards, of yearly rent. These appear in the [142] presence only on special invitation, upon festivals and solemn ceremonies, and are the hereditary councillors of the crown.[[39]]
Second class, from five to fifty thousand rupees. Their duty is to be always in attendance. From these, chiefly, faujdars and military officers are selected.[[39]]
Third class is that of Gol[[39]] holding lands chiefly under five thousand rupees, though by favour they may exceed this limit. They are generally the holders of separate villages and portions of land, and in former times they were the most useful class to the prince. They always attended on his person, and indeed formed his strength against any combination or opposition of the higher vassals.
Fourth class.—The offsets of the younger branches of the Rana’s own family, within a certain period, are called the babas, literally ‘infants,’ and have appanages bestowed on them. Of this class are Shahpura and Banera; too powerful for subjects.[[40]] They hold on none of the terms of the great clans, but consider themselves at the disposal of the prince. These are more within the influence of the crown. Allowing adoption into these houses, except in the case of near kindred, is assuredly an innovation; they ought to revert to the crown, failing immediate issue, as did the great estate of Bhainsrorgarh, two generations back. From these to the holder of a charsa, or hide of land, the peculiarity of tenure and duties of each will form a subject for discussion.
Revenues and Rights of the Crown.
Mines and Minerals.
The marble quarries also added to the revenue; and where there is such a multiplicity of sources, none are considered too minute to be applied in these necessitous times.
Barār.
The offering on confirmation of estates (or fine on renewal) is now, though a very small, yet still one source of supply; as is the annual and triennial payment of the quit-rents of the Bhumia chiefs. Fines in composition of offences may also be mentioned: and they might be larger, if more activity were introduced in the detection of offenders [144].
These governments are mild in the execution of the laws; and a heavy fine has more effect (especially on the hill tribes) than the execution of the offender, who fears death less than the loss of property.
Khar-Lakar.
[1]. Miscellaneous Works, vol. iii.
[2]. Hallam’s Middle Ages.
[3]. It is a high gratification to be supported by such authority as M. St. Martin, who, in his Discours sur l’Origine et l’Histoire des Arsacides, thus speaks of the system of government termed feudal, which I contend exists amongst the Rajputs: "On pense assez généralement que cette sorte de gouvernement qui dominait il y a quelques siècles, et qu’on appelle système féodal, était particulière à l’Europe, et que c’est dans les forêts de la Germanie qu’il faut en chercher l’origine. Cependant, si au lieu d’admettre les faits sans les discuter, comme il arrive trop souvent, on examinait un peu cette opinion, elle disparaitrait devant la critique, ou du moins elle se modifierait singulièrement; et l’on verrait que, si c’est des forêts de la Germanie que nous avons tiré le gouvernement féodal, il n’en est certainement pas originaire. Si l’on veut comparer l’Europe, telle qu’elle était au xiie siècle, avec la monarchie fondée en Asie par les Arsacides trois siècles avant notre ère, partout on verra des institutions et des usages pareils. On y trouvera les mêmes dignités, et jusqu’aux mêmes titres, etc., etc. Boire, chasser, combattre, faire et défaire des rois, c’étaient là les nobles occupations d’un Parthe" (Journal Asiatique, vol. i. p. 65). It is nearly so with the Rajput.
[4]. Gibbon, Miscell. vol. iii. Du gouvernement féodal.
[5]. A ‘skin or hyde.’ Millar (chap. v. p. 85) defines a ‘hyde of land,’ the quantity which can be cultivated by a single plough. A charsa, ‘skin or hyde’ of land, is as much as one man can water; and what one can water is equal to what one plough can cultivate. If irrigation ever had existence by the founders of the system, we may suppose this the meaning of the term which designated a knight’s fee. It may have gone westward with emigration. [The English ‘hide’: “the amount considered adequate for the support of one free family with its dependants: at an early date defined as being as much land as could be tilled by one plough in a year,” has no connexion with ‘hide,’ ‘a skin.’ It is O.E. hīd, from híw, híg, ‘household.’[‘household.’] ‘Hide,’ ‘a skin,’ is O.E. hýd (New English Dict. ssv.).]
[6]. Bapji, ‘sire,’ is the appellation of royalty, and, strange enough, whether to male or female; while its offsets, which form a numerous branch of vassals, are called babas, ‘the infants.’
[7]. Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 200.
[8]. Sanskrit, Sūla.
[10]. See Appendix, No. [XIII].
[11]. See Appendix, No. [XIV].
[12]. ‘Full moon’ (See Appendix, No. [XIII].).
[13]. It is customary, when officers of the Government are detached on service, to exact from the towns where they are sent both bed and board.
[14]. Seized for public service, and frequently to exact a composition in money.
[15]. Hallam, vol. i. p. 197.
[16]. Some of these, of old date, I have seen three feet in length.
[17]. Hallam, vol. i. p. 199.
[18]. Hallam notices these laws by this technical phrase.
[19]. Sesodia is the last change of name which the Rana’s race has undergone. It was first Suryavansa, then Grahilot or Guhilot, Aharya, and Sesodia. These changes arise from revolutions and local circumstances.
[20]. [The Rāthor dynasty of Kanauj is a myth (Smith, EHI, 385).]
[21]. Nala and Damayanti.
[22]. Relations anciennes des Voyageurs, par Renaudot.
[23]. It is generally admitted that armorial bearings were little known till the period of the Crusades, and that they belong to the east. The twelve tribes of Israel were distinguished by the animals on their banners, and the sacred writings frequently allude to the ‘Lion of Judah.’ The peacock was a favourite armorial emblem of the Rajput warrior; it is the bird sacred to their Mars (Kumara), as it was to Juno, his mother, in the west. The feather of the peacock decorates the turban of the Rajput and the warrior of the Crusade, adopted from the Hindu through the Saracens. “Le paon a toujours été l’emblême de la noblesse. Plusieurs chevaliers ornaient leurs casques des plumes de cet oiseau; un grand nombre de familles nobles le portaient dans leur blazon ou sur leur cimier; quelques-uns n’en portaient que la queue” (Art. “Armoirie,” Dict. de l’ancien Régime).
[24]. I was the first European who traversed this wild country, in 1807, not without some hazard. It was then independent: about three years after it fell a prey to Sindhia. [Several ancient dynasties used a crest (lānchhana), and a banner (dhvaja): see the list in BG, i. Part ii. 299.]
[25]. The monkey-deity. [Known as Bajrang, Skt. vajranga, ‘of powerful frame.’]
[26]. The Khichis are a branch of the Chauhans, and Khichiwara lies east of Haravati.
[27]. [Quintus Curtius, viii. 14, 46; Arrian, Indika, viii.]
[28]. See Annals of Mewar, and note from D’Anville.
[29]. The Pamir range is a grand branch of the Indian Caucasus. Chand, the bard, designates them as the “Parbat Pat Pamir,” or Pamir Lord of Mountains. From Pahār and Pamir the Greeks may have compounded Paropanisos, in which was situated the most remote of the Alexandrias. [?]
[30]. The space between the grand rivers Ganges and Jumna, well known as the Duab.
[31]. Domestic habits and national manners are painted to the life, and no man can well understand the Rajput of yore who does not read these. Those were the days of chivalry and romance, when the assembled princes contended for the hand of the fair, who chose her own lord, and threw to the object of her choice, in full court, the barmala, or garland of marriage. Those were the days which the Rajput yet loves to talk of, when the glance of an eye weighed with a sceptre: when three things alone occupied him: his horse, his lance, and his mistress; for she is but the third in his estimation, after all: to the two first he owed her.
[32]. Charsa, a ‘hide or skin’ [see p. [156] above].
[33]. ‘Ministers,’ from Mantra, ‘mystification’ [‘a sacred text, spell’].
[34]. It is probably of Teutonic origin, and akin to Mantri, which embraces all the ministers and councillors of loyalty (Hallam, p. 195). [?]
[35]. Hallam, p. 193.
[36]. One I know, in whose family the office has remained since the period of Prithwiraja, who transferred his ancestor to the service of the Rana’s house seven hundred years ago. He is not merely a nominal hereditary minister, for his uncle actually held the office; but in consequence of having favoured the views of a pretender to the crown, its active duties are not entrusted to any of the family.
[37]. The numeral eighty-four. [In the ancient Hindu kingdoms the full estate was a group of 84 villages, smaller units being called Byālisa, 42, or Chaubīsa[Chaubīsa], 24 (Baden-Powell, The Village Community, 198, and see a valuable article in Elliot, Supplemental Glossary, 178 ff.)[178 ff.)]]
[38]. Now each chief claims the right of administering justice in his own domain, that is, in civil matters; but in criminal cases they ought not without the special sanction of the crown. Justice, however, has long been left to work its own way, and the self-constituted tribunals, the panchayats, sit in judgment in all cases where property is involved.
[40]. [They are heads of the Rānāwat sub-tribe. The latter enjoys the right, on succession, of having a sword sent to him with full honours, on receipt of which he goes to Udaipur to be installed (Erskine ii. A. 92).]
[42]. Oxen and carts are chiefly used in the Tandas, or caravans, for transportation of goods in these countries; camels further to the north.
[43]. [On the mines of Mewār, see IA, i. 63 f.]
[44]. The privilege of coining is a reservation of royalty. No subject is allowed to coin gold or silver, though the Salumbar chief has on sufferance a copper currency. The mint was a considerable source of income, and may be again when confidence is restored and a new currency introduced. The Chitor rupee is now thirty-one per cent inferior to the old Bhilara standard, and there was one struck at the capital even worse, and very nearly as bad as the moneta nigra of Philip the Fair of France, who allowed his vassals the privilege of coining it. [For an account of the past and present coinage of Mewār, see W. W. Webb, Currencies of the Hindu States of Rajputana, 3 ff.]
[45]. Enemy.
[46]. Numbering of houses.
[47]. A measure of land [usually 55 English yards]
[48]. Hallam, vol. i. p. 232.
[49]. Hume describes the necessity for our earlier kings making these tours to consume the produce, being in kind. So it is in Mewar; but I fancy the supply was always too easily convertible into circulating medium to be the cause there.