Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c12.49

v1.c12.49

Much space in *The Annals* is occupied by a review of the so-called ‘Feudal’ system in Rājputāna. Tod was naturally attracted in the course of his discursive reading by Henry Hallam’s *View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages*, which first appeared in 1818, four years before Tod resigned his Indian appointment. Hallam himself was careful to point out that “it is of great importance to be on our guard against seeming analogies which vanish away when they are closely observed.” ¹ This warning Tod unguardededly overlooked. Hallam recognized that Feudalism was an institution the ultimate origin of which is still, to some extent, obscure. It possibly began with the desire for protection, the *rakhwāli* of the Rājputs, but it seems to have been ultimately based on the private law of Rome, while the influence of the Church, interested in securing its endowments, was a factor in its evolution. In its completed form it represented the final stage of a process which began under the Frankish conquerors of Gaul. At any rate, it was of European origin, and though it absorbed much that was common to the types of tribal organization found in other parts of the world, it was moulded by the political, social, and economical environment amidst which it was developed. Hence, while it is possible to trace, as Tod has done, certain analogies between the tribal institutions of the Rājputs and the social organization of medieval Europe—analogies of feudal incidents connected with Reliefs, Fines upon alienation, Escheats, Aids, Wardship, and Marriage—these analogies, when more closely examined, are found to be in the main superficial. If we desire to undertake a comparative study of the Rājput tribal system, it is unnecessary to travel to medieval Europe, while we have close at hand the social organization of more or less kindred tribes on the Indian borderland, Pathāns, Afghāns, or Baloch; or, in a more primitive stage, those of the Kandhs, Gonds, Mūndas, or Orāons. It is of little service to compare two systems of which only the nucleus is common to both, and to place side by side institutions which present only a factitious similitude, because the social development of each has progressed on different lines.