A History of the Mahrattas v1.c7.181

v1.c7.181

The reasons, however, for doubting this conclusion, and for supposing the Deshadikars distinct from, and superior to the Deshmookhs, are not unworthy of consideration. At the present day the Mahrattas generally preserve all the Mahomedan forms of address in their letters and official papers, unless they can revert to the ancient Hindoo words and forms with facility. On the occasion of granting Enam, or rent-free lands, of any village, wholly or in part, there are four separate Sunnuds, or deeds of gift made out: 1st. One to the grantee, always conferring the grant on him and his heirs for ever; 2d. One to the Muqudum, or managing Patell in the village; 3. One to the Deshmookhs and Deshpandyas; and 4th, one to the Deshadikarees. The three first are addressed to the parties simply; but to the fourth, the address is, ‘Raje sree Deshadikaree wo Lekuk, wurtuman bawee.’ To the Deshadikarees and writers now and hereafter. The terms used for wurtuman bawee, in the Mahomedan grants are hal wo istuqbal, and these are seldom found substituted by the Mahrattas for the Sanscrit. Those who are inclined to defend the antiquity of the Deshmookhs’ rights say, this address is merely applicable to the present agents, who are collectors for the government, and occupy the place which was held by the chief, or managing Deshmookh; whilst others adduce it as an instance of there having been no permanent hereditary officer between the Patell and the sovereign, and this opinion they support by some plausible conjectures. The Deshmookhs and Deshpandyas, as now found, were, in the opinion of these last, an institution of the Mahomedans, when they first revolted in the Deccan, and adopted as an inducement for the Mahratta Naiks and Polygars to join their standard against the emperor; that they promised all such officers, and all Deshadikarees certain powers and immunities in their native district; and hence, the general introduction of the term wutun, an Arabic word signifying one’s native country. To support this opinion there is one curious circumstance:—In the oldest firmans of the Mahomedan princes of the Deccan, in the preamble to which the petition of the grantee is frequently inserted, all the claims to Deshmookhs’ wutun are made, either in consequence of former firmans, granted for services performed to the Beder [Bidar] king, (the name by which the princes of the Bahminee dynasty are designated in Maharashtra,) or, if the petitions be addressed to those kings, the application is made in consequence of claims, to which the petitioner considers he has an equal right, with other persons on whom wutun has been conferred agreeably to the king’s promise, should he succeed in establishing his independence, or, in the words of the petition, on his mounting the throne. I am inclined to suppose, from several specimens I have examined, that these firmans were forgeries, founded on an incorrect but popular Mahomedan opinion, and intended Shaster,¹ in which it is expressly stated that the appeal from the Punchayet, assembled by order of the Gramadikaree, was to the Deshadikaree ; but there is, as yet, no proof of the Deshadikarees having been a permanent and hereditary officer with lands and immunities such as the Deshmookhs had, under the Mahomedan princes of the Deccan.