Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/223

 KHE 215 Further, about half of those held by Musalmans belong to Chhattris who have been converted to that faith. The estates of Kotwára--Raipur, Gola, Bánsi, Agar Buzurg, Muhamdi, Kukra, Bhürwára—are of this nature; of the rest the greater portion only came into the hands of Musaliaans during the last twenty years-Atwa Piparia in 1855, Kastą about 1864. The two great rájas of Mitauli and Dhaurahra, an Ahban and a Jangre Chhattri, holding above 500 villages, lost their estates for rebellion and complicity in murder. These have been given largely to Europeans; the estates of Kasta and Kukra Mailáni were thus granted to Europeans who have since, however, sold them or lost them in litigation. The Brahman landed proprietors are generally grantees of copyholds from the rájas of Muhamdi or Mitauli. It will thus appear that shortly before annexation nearly the whole of Kheri-about four-fifths-was held by Chhattris, and about threo-fifths by large feudal proprietors. The nature of this latter tenure will be described hereafter, at present the point is the ascendancy of the Chhattri, This I have elsewhere discussed and may quote the passage. Cause of their ascendancy.—It seems hardly to be the case that the Chhattris more than any other caste deferred to a common head, and therefore by union among themselves secured pre-eminence. Rather it should be considered that the feeling of all the inhabitants in each dis- trict was to yield feudal service to, and in return to receive protection from the natural lord, the leader of society in the neighbourhood ; and lie, according to the Hindu system, must be a Chhattri, in old India every king was necessarily a soldier, and every soldier was, according to the Vedic cosmogony, a Chhattri ; such a thing as a Brahman or Ahír king was an anomaly under Hindu law, and if by chance or by force any low caste rose to power, a fabulous Chhattri origin was devised for him, and his descendants admitted into the soldier brotherhood. The Chhattri ascendancy in Oudh might be simply described as the re-establishment of local Hindu government under the native chief. There was no elaborate design or settled plan. One village had been founded in a jungle, its inhabitants wore harassed by plunderers from the neighbouring estate, they thought it better to become also fcoffees. Another village paid its revenue direct to the Musalman government, the collector was oppressive to the weak units, it was received by the nearest rája into the collection of villages for which he paid revenue. As estates grew by a gradual process of accretion, the motive was the anarchy and oppression of the native government, the guiding principle the ancient idea that a rája must be a Chhattri, a man of the military caste, because all rule was then based on the sword. In time among his own people, the rural baron assumed the title of rája, but never was this title bestowed by the people of Oudh except upon a Chhattri, The rája once established could treat as rebels and dispossess any of his subjects who showed signs of treachery or disloyalty to the little state he ruled. He had many wives and many sons, bastard and legitimate; all the waste lands were his; all lapsed or forfeited villages likewise became his. With such lands he provided for the scions of his house, and in this waymuch of the actual ownership of the land passed into the hands of his clan.