Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official eBook

William Henry Sleeman
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,051 pages of information about Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official.

Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official eBook

William Henry Sleeman
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,051 pages of information about Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official.

6.  ‘Beearee’ in author’s text.

7.  Then worth more than thirty thousand pounds sterling.

8.  On the customs of the sweeper caste, see ante, Chapter 8, following note [11].

9.  The Parihars were the rulers of Bundelkhand before the Chandels.  The chief of Uchhahara belongs to this clan.

10.  Wealthy Hindoos, throughout India, spend money in the same ceremonies of marrying the stone to the shrub. [W.  H. S.] Three lakhs of rupees were then worth thirty thousand pounds sterling or more.

11.  The numerous clans, more or less devoted to war, grouped together under the name of Rajputs (literally ’king’s sons’), are in reality of multifarious origin, and include representatives of many races.  They are the Kshatriyas of the law-books, and are still often called Chhattri (E.H.I., 3rd ed., pp. 407-15).  In some parts of the country the word Thakur is more familiar as their general title.  Thirty-six clans are considered as specially pure-blooded and are called, at any rate in books, the ‘royal races’.  All the clans follow the custom of exogamy.  The Chandels (Chandella) ruled Bundelkhand from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries.  Their capital was Mahoba, now a station on the Midland Railway.  The Bundelas became prominent at a later date, and attained their greatest power under Chhatarsal (circa A.D. 1671-1731).  Their territory is now known as Bundelkhand.  The country so designated is not an administrative division.  It is partly in the United Provinces, partly in the Central Provinces, and partly in Native States.  It is bounded on the north by the Jumna; on the north and west by the Chambal river; on the south by the Central Provinces, and on the south and east by Riwa and the Kaimur hills.  The traditions of both the Bundelas and Chandellas show that there is a strain of the blood of the earlier, so—­called aboriginal, races in both clans.  The Pawar (Pramara) clan ranks high, but is now of little political importance (See N.W.P.  Gazetteer, 1st ed., vol. vii, p. 68).

12.  The paramount power often assigned a portion of its reserved lands in ‘Jagir’ to public officers for the establishments they required for the performance of the duties, military or civil, which were expected from them.  Other portions were assigned in rent-free tenure for services already performed, or to favourites; but, in both cases, the rights of the village or land owner, or allodial proprietors, were supposed to be unaffected, as the Government was presumed to assign only its own claim to a certain portion as revenue. [W.  H. S.] The term ‘ryotwar’ (raiyatwar) is commonly used to designate the system under which the cultivators hold their lands direct from the State.  The subject of tenures is further discussed by the author in Chapters 70, 71.

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Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.