Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/57

 INTRODUCTION.

xlvii;

.produce after deducting the expenses of cultivation, an arrangement by which the state got about a third. Theoretically there was no such thing as rent or landlord. The gross produce was piled up on the threshing-floor. First the village servants and the labourers who helped to get in the harvest or attended to the plough-bullocks took their fixed dues, and what was left was divided equally between the cultivator and the state ofiicial. For a very long time, however, the theory has only been carried out in rare instances. The first modification was the introduction of a middleman .between the cultivator and the state, and the simplest form his inThe raja appointed a headtervention took was the following man, known as muqaddam or mahtau, whose duty it was to keep the village under cultivation, superintend the harvesting and division of the grain, and prevent the cultivators from migrating into For these services he was recompensed by the •another territory. receipt of one-tenth of the heap which formed the raja's share further modification was introduced when the of the produce. village was alienated for a valuable consideration and in perpetuity under a grant of kirt, by which the grantee was allowed a quarter of the grain heap on his engaging to pay Government the remaining three-fourths. These, however, were only modifications complete revolution was brought about of the original plan. by two main causes, the increasing density of the population and the influx of large quantities of coined silver. It requires but little consideration to understand that a tenant can afibrd to pay a larger portion of the gross produce of an extensive area under poor cultivation than he can of a smaller As tenements diminished in size the area under high tillage. gross produce per acre increased, but the tenant's needs remained the same, and he had to meet them from the outturn of a smaller He could only do this by reserving for himself a larger area. This difficulty was solved by the introducportion of the crop. universal, of a money rent for highly, become has which tion,

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cultivated lands. The next factor in the revenue system to be considered is, though it has not yet been referred to, perhaps the most important of all. Throughout the province there exist in almost every village large communities of the higher castes,

Muhammadans, who

Brahmans, Chhat-

furnished nearly all the fighting tris or were allowed, under cercommunities These rdja. power of the management of the villages complete the retain to tain conditions, villages, of sometimes groups definite or of in which they resided, admittedly theirs often from more jdglr, but conferred on them in