eight annas the bigha. The revenue, once settled, is collected by the
patel, whose office is tacitly recognized to be hereditary, and, though the
remuneration is small, it is much coveted. The disputes connected
with the patelship are more vigorously contested than any other.
The exceptional tenures in this district are those held by jágir-
dárs, to whom integral villages have been
Exceptional tenures.
granted rent-free by former governments,
either for maintenance or endowments of temples. The mahant* of
Máhúr and a few others hold villages on this tenure in this district.
The next in order is the "pálampat" tenure. This in its nature
closely resembles the "mokása" prevailing in the Central Provinces,
so far that a fixed portion only of the revenue, varying in amount, of vil-
lages so held is credited to Government, while the remainder is enjoyed
by the holder. Deshmukhs and deshpándias in the Wún taluk hold a
few pálampat villages under ancient sanads. There are also the usual
inámdárs who enjoy fields rent-free. These are chiefly charitable grants
or endowments to temples, mosques, &c., and occasionally held condi-
tionally, for the lifetime of the present incumbents, or in perpetuity,
according to the nature of the grant, which is the subject of special
investigation by a specially-appointed officer. There only remain for
brief allusion the "maktas" (farming-leases) of either deserted villages,
or of those in which the cultivation is very backward. Villages to the
number of 519 have been leased out for a term of thirty years upon
terms which give a graduated rental, culminating in full assessment and
proprietary right.

Land tenure.

Bulda'na.

The system is ryotwári. The State is the superior landlord, and its property-rights in the land are recognized universally. The ryot holds. directly under the State, and, subject to revision at the termination of thirty years from the last settlement, which was the period for which the settlement was made, he pays a fixed annual rent. He is in fact a peasant-proprietor of the land, with a heritable tenure admitting of alienation by sale or mortgage of the right of occupancy. The registered holder can throw up his land at will at the close of the fasli year; but if he continues to hold over the commencement of the new fasli, he is liable to the revenue demand whether he cultivates or not. The occupant of land may be the registered holder, called khátadár; or a co-occupant, though unregistered, sharing right of occupancy with the khátadár, and called pot-hissadár or pot-bhágidár; or he is a mortgagee in possession, called gahándár; or a sub-tenant, in which last case he may be occupying the land of another on the áng bailki system, or as a batáidár, or as a karárdár, or as a pot-láonidár. In any case it is the khátadár to whom the State looks for payment of the revenue demand. The terms of occupancy under this temporary tenure are that the khátadár and pot-hissadárs, if any there A'ng bailki tenure. be, provide the bullocks required for working the land, but beyond this go to no expense on account of the

*Chief priest of a shrine or temple.

Land Tenures.

District Selections.

Land Tenures.

District Selections.

cultivation. The cultivating occupant is a sub-tenant, who, in consideration of the use of the land and the plough-bullocks, shares with the Government tenant, and his co-sharers if any there be, the produce of the land in a certain agreed-upon proportion. The occupancy is terminable at will at the close of each fasli, after the crops have been taken off the land and divided. The revenue demand on the land is paid jointly by the khátadár and the cultivator in shares proportionately, according to the proportion in which the produce was to be shared.

This is another temporary tenure. The so-called occupant cultivates the land and pays the khátadár a Batáidár. certain proportion of the profits in kind. The khátadár has to make good the revenue demand out of his share of the produce. The batáidár may cultivate the land for one or more faslis consecutively, but can be ousted at will at the termination of a fasli, after the crops have been harvested and divided.

Where a man cultivates

Karárdár.

another's holding under special contract as to period of occupancy, restitution to the kháta, &c., he is called a karárdár, and the nature of his sub-tenure varies with the terms of the contract.

Pot-láonidár.

In the pot-láonidár we find the ordinary sub-tenant paying rent, either in money or in kind, to the khátadár, who has to make good the revenue demand out of the rent. He is a tenant-at-will from fasli to fasli; but where he has cultivated the same land for twelve years or more the khátadár before he can oust him must get a decree of court declaratory of his title.

A table is here given which shows the number of persons actually on the land registers as holding land of the State in Berár. It does not pretend, however, to contain the names of all persons having proprietary interest in the land, for without doubt many co-sharers must have been omitted, and a large proportion of the sub-tenants who do not hold from the State immediately:

111

CHAPTER IX.

HISTORY.

The following sketch of Berár history is drawn mainly from a few well-known authorities; some official papers have also been consulted, and local inquiries made, but there is no pretence to deep or wide research, nor attempt at critical analysis of sources of information:

PRE-MAHOMEDAN PERIOD.

The name Berár seems to have designated a separate territory (called Vaidarbha in the Puráns) from very ancient times; but the derivations given of the word carry little historic value. No ancient inscriptions* have yet been deciphered which preserve record of the Hindú kings who ruled this country up to the Mahomedan period. We know, however, that the greater part of the Dakhan, up northward so far as the Narbada, was subject for some centuries to Rajput princes of the Chálukia race, whose capital was at Kalyán, near Kalbarga, And Rámdeo, who was conquered from about 1000 A.D. to 1200 A.D. and slain by Alá-ud-din, was the last of the Yádava line of kings, who reigned not without fame at Deogarh, the modern Daulatábád, So we may be allowed to down to the end of the 13th century A.D. guess that Berár was at one period under the sway of Kalyán, or of Deogarh, probably of both successively, though the south-eastern districts of the old province may have belonged to the kingdom ruled by the ancient Hindú rájas at Warangal. Moreover, the most striking remains of ancient Hindú architecture found in the Dakhan are supposed to date from the era of these dynasties; while in Berár we have many fine specimens of the massive stone temples with their rich ornamental sculptures, their porticoes, and pillared colonnades, Most of these buildings that belong to the style called Chálukian. are founded in the hilly country above the Gháts, or in that section of the Berár valley which lies between those southern gháts and the Púrna In India ancient races and river; north of that river they are rare. dynasties are traced and remembered chiefly by their architecture; the prevalence of a style may connote the extent of dynastic dominion-so these ruins may help to attest the received hypothesis that the province must long have formed part of that principal Rajpút kingdom which occupied the heart of the Dakhan.

But all local tradition tells of independent rájas who governed Berár from Elichpúr, which is said to take its name from one of them, called Rája I'l. Whether this personage was in truth one of the Deogarh princes, or a governor under them at Elichpúr, or whether he really ruled a separate state-are questions not yet solved by researches. He is supposed to have been defeated and slain at Elichpúr by Mahomedans; and he may have been the last of his line, for he

* Two inscriptions have just been sent to the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

History.

Præ-Mahomedan Pe riod.