Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/46

 34 CLASSIFICATION AND inferior officers, down to the chiefs of large villa- ges. No class or rank of nobility is to be considered exclusively civil or military, for, in such a state of society, such an appropriation of employments has no existence. When the Javanese would aim at the organization of a regular military force, they trans- fer to the military body the civil subdivision of ranks, from the highest noble down to the hum- blest officer of the village polity. Under the Malay governments we have a nobi- lity of the very same description as under that of the Javanese. The first class is there denominat- ed Mantri, and the second HidubaUmg. The first hold the principal offices of state, and the se- cond the subordinate ones. The influence of Hhulu manners, as stated in the chapter on Government, appears to have had no small share in the establishment of absolute power, and its influence may be traced in the titles of nobi- lity, particularly in Java. The Hindu w^ord Mdntrij meaning a viceroy, has, among the Javanese, been strangely degraded, in modern times, to the lowest class of nobility ; among the Malays it is more ap- propriately applied. The probability is, that, with the former, it was driven from its station, like many other words of the same origin, by becoming too familiar, and, consequently, vulgar. The words adipatl and nayoko are also Hindu words, not to