Shivaji and His Times c5.s6.3

c5.s6.3

The Maval country is a purely agricultural region with no city and little trade. Its common people differed from the Marathas and Kunbis of the plains only by being stronger built, hardier, simpler, and less enervated by luxury or vice. Their social organization was neither tribal nor patriarchal (as with the hillmen of Scotland and Rajputana), but that of the ancient village community of the Deccan, in which each village formed a miniature self-complete republic of various castes and professions. Every sub-division of the province was under a *deshmukh*, who might be called a landed baron or, more correctly, the king's local agent. He took from the peasants through the headmen (*patils*) of the different villages the royal revenue and his own share of it, besides enjoying the produce of certain *de mesne* villages (or fields) which he owned free of rent.