[28] Sir Ch. Trevelyan, Christianity and Hinduism, 1882, p. 42.
This will be news to many. It has been quite common to include the Thugs with the worshippers of Bhavani, the consort of Siva. The word signifies a deceiver, which eliminates it from every religious association.—A. W.
[29] Manu VII. 115.
[30] H. M. Elliot, "Supplement to the Glossary of Indian Terms," p. 151.
[31] I see from Dr. Hunter's latest statistical tables that the whole number of towns and villages in British India amounts to 493,429. Out of this number 448,320 have less than 1000 inhabitants, and may be called villages. In Bengal, where the growth of towns has been most encouraged through Government establishments, the total number of homesteads is 117,042, and more than half of these contain less than 200 inhabitants. Only 10,077 towns in Bengal have more than 1000 inhabitants, that is, no more than about a seventeenth part of all the settlements are anything but what we should call substantial villages. In the North-Western Provinces the last census gives us 105,124 villages, against 297 towns. See London Times, 14th Aug. 1882.
[32] "Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian," by McCrindle, p. 42.
[33] "Perjury seems to be committed by the meanest and encouraged by some of the better sort among the Hindus and Mussulmans, with as little remorse as if it were a proof of ingenuity, or even a merit."—Sir W. Jones, Address to Grand Jury at Calcutta, in Mill's "History of India," vol. i., p. 324. "The longer we possess a province, the more common and grave does perjury become."—Sir G. Campbell, quoted by Rev. Samuel Johnson, "Oriental Religions, India," p. 288.
[34] Vasishtha, translated by Bühler, VIII. 8.
[35] Mr. J. D. Baldwin, author of "Prehistoric Nations," declares that this system of village-communities existed in India long before the Aryan conquest. He attributes it to Cushite or Æthiopic influence, and with great plausibility. Nevertheless, the same system flourished in prehistoric Greece, even till the Roman conquests. Mr. Palgrave observed it existing in Arabia. "Oman is less a kingdom than an aggregation of municipalities," he remarks; "each town, each village has its separate existence and corporation, while towns and villages, in their turn, are subjected to one or other of the ancestral chiefs." The Ionian and Phœnician cities existed by a similar tenure, as did also the Free Cities of Europe. It appears, indeed, to have been the earlier form of rule. Megasthenes noticed it in India. "The village-communities," says Sir Charles Metcalf, "are little republics, having everything they want within themselves, and almost independent of any foreign relations. They seem to last where nothing else lasts." These villages usually consist of the holders of the land, those who farm and cultivate it, the established village-servants, priest, blacksmith, carpenter, accountant, washerman, potter, barber, watchman, shoemaker, etc. The tenure and law of inheritance varies with the different native races, but tenantship for a specific period seems to be the most common.—A. W.
[36] "Sleeman," vol. ii., p. 111.