Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/255

 RAE 247 roughly distributed among the clans according to their position on the map of the present day. The accounts of the half century which elapsed between the death of Tilokchand and the accession of Akbar are very meagre, but no important new houses were thrown off, and it may be surmised that the Raja of Murármau, and the Rána of Khíron, and the Kanhpuria chieftains of Tiloi, Ateha and Simrauta, each exercised on a smaller scale the sovereign powers of the first great rája. Some light is thrown on the influence of ſ'ilok Chand by the thorough insignificance of the older Kaithola rája, when compared with the descendants of Parshád Singh, a cadet of the same house, whose greatness dates from this period, Under the vigourous administration of Akbar and his successors, the Hindu clans were naturally much depressed, and driven, so to speak, nearer to the soil, Their connection with the villages in their domain became much closer, new villages were founded, and the increasing numbers of each family led to the establishment of the non-cultivating village proprie- tors who are now known in our courts as old zamindars. The intervention of a foreign rule, and the diminished danger of invasion from withont, deprived the rájas of half their attributes; the principle of unity was lost sight of, and each member of a leading house was able when he separated to assume in his new home almost all the privileges retained by the head of his family. The ties of kinsmanship were however still vividly recog- nized, and at the end of this period instead of a few unconnected rájas, we find hierarchies of powerful zamindars, each immediate proprietor and landlord of a few villages from which he drew his subsistence, and acknow- ledged head of a larger circle from which he collected the militia levies of bis clansmen and their dependents for the prosecution of his private disputes, or at the summons of the chieftain of his tribe. When the Mahratta wars distracted the forces of the empire, and the province of Oudh was no longer regarded at the Mughal court, the clan system at once reassumed its old form as far as it was compatible with the modifications which had been introduced during the preceding cen- tury. The flames of war broke out over the whole district, aud the sub- ordinate centres of power united themselves for conquest or defence under the banners of a leading rája, who again exercised the royal authority, which had fallen into abeyance. In his mud fort surrounded by the mud hovels of his servants and the few handi craftsmen needful for the ordinary wants of himself and his household, he received in council the heads of the infeudated families, or held a court of justice to dispose of the prin- cipal disputes of his subjects; and when he went to war he was followed by an enthusiastic army attached to himself and to each other by the closest ties of common origin and common interests. Within his ráj he exercised every degree of authority from the absolute pro- prietorship of his private villages to the receipt of a feudal allegiance from the great zamindars; and isolated in the midst stood the large Muhammadan towns where the qázi still dispensed the Koran, and the kotwál preserved order and collected a few unimportant transit dues. Two direct acts of ownership were exercised by the rája over the soil. The first was the appropriation of villages for the support of the younger