Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c48.s2.1

c48.s2.1

§ 32. In the greater part of India, the village as a unit not only of population but of land, has assumed a form not to be found in other countries. In European Russia, it is true, the system of rural aggregation bears a considerable resemblance to that of India, but has far less weight in the social organisation, and is far less bound up with the ethnic evolution of the country. The village, then, as it falls within the scope of this review, is an agricultural community on a self-sufficing basis, congregated, for the original purpose of protection, on to a single site, surrounded by a definite area of land the prescriptive right to which is invested in it. Originally, no doubt, the occupants of the soil formed a close corporation based upon kinship or common descent, but in the course of time that exclusiveness crumbled away, and new comers were admitted to the land, though on an inferior footing, in most cases, to the rest. The village exists for the agriculturist, and the exercise of other callings therein depends upon their necessity or utility to him, and this, in turn, depends upon the relative isolation of the village from other sources of supply. The staple staff of artisans and menials is remunerated directly from the soil in recognised proportions of the harvest, so much threshed grain from each landholder. The completeness of the organisation varies considerably in different parts of the country, but where it exists, its main features are much the same. The village, in the above sense, is not found in the comparatively recent settlements east of Bihār, or on the Malabar coast; nor has it taken root amongst the more or less migratory tribes of forest tracts, where the insufficiency of arable land and the frequent flittings of the population from spirit-haunted or unlucky locations are adverse to so stationary an institution. Although, then, these tribes live mostly by rough methods of tillage, they cannot be counted amongst the landed classes, and are therefore dealt with apart from those to whom that designation is conventionally more appropriate. The latter can best be considered under two heads, first, the castes which hold their land as a military or formerly dominant body, and, then, the peasantry dwelling alongside of them without traditions of a status or calling other than that which they now enjoy.