A History of the Mahrattas v1.c9.57

v1.c9.57

¹ [In the Bombay Presidency the Deccan districts are usually divided into two or more subdivisions, still termed Prānt (Praunt) in vernacular correspondence, and these subdivisions are composed of tālukas (talookas) or groups of 100 to 200 villages, supervised by a revenue and magisterial official styled Māmlatdār. The Mahāl survives in the term Mahālkari, the revenue official in charge of a petha or petty subdivision of a tāluka, and in the name of the Pānch Mahāls district of Gujarāt. In northern India the words pargana and mahāl are in general use, and are part of the indispensable terminology of district and revenue work. The pargana in many cases represents the area of a tribal or clan settlement cleared from the jungle. See Elliott, Supplement to the Glossary of Indian Terms, ed. Beames, 1869; also V. A. Smith’s Akbar, pp. 139, 400. See Yule’s Hobson-Jobson, ed. Crooke (1903), p. 698, for the ‘Twenty-four Parganas’ (Pergunnahs), the official name of the district immediately adjoining and enclosing, though not administratively including, Calcutta.]