The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c18.74

c18.74

¹ 'Those who are well versed in the Śāstras admit that the king is the owner of both land and water, and that the people can exercise their right of ownership over all other things excepting these two' (Comment on *Arthaśāstra*, Bk. ii, chap. 24). The Malabar coast offers an exception to the general rule. Dubois (*Hindu Manners*, &c., 3rd ed., Beauchamp (1906), p. 56) expounds the system of proprietary rights in land and of slavery as the special peculiarities of the Malabar coast, where the predial slaves went with the land, although they might be sold separately. He believed Malabar—i. e. the region occupied by 'the Nairs, the Coorgs, and the Tulus, the three aboriginal tribes of the Malabar coast', to be the only province in India where full private proprietary right 'has been preserved intact until the present day. . . . Here the lands may be alienated, sold, given away, or disposed of according to the will of the owners'.