Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c20.s9.t2.5

v1.c20.s9.t2.5

The Landed System.—The ryot (cultivator) is the proprietor of the soil in Mewar. He compares his right therein to the *akshay* duba,¹ which no vicissitudes can destroy. He calls the land his bapota, the most emphatic, the most ancient, the most cherished, and the most significant phrase his language commands for patrimonial² inheritance. He has nature and Manu in support of his claim, and can quote the text, alike compulsory on prince and peasant, “ cultivated land is the property of him who cut away the wood, or who cleared and tilled it,”³ an ordinance binding on the whole Hindu race, and which no international wars, or conquest, could overturn. In accordance with this principle is the ancient adage, not of Mewar only but all Rajputana, *Bhog ra dhanni Raj ho : bhum ra dhanni ma cho* : ‘the government is owner of the rent, but I am the master of the land.’ With the toleration and benevolence of the race the conqueror is commanded “to respect the deities adored by the conquered, also their virtuous priests, and to establish the laws of the conquered nation as declared in their books.”⁴ If it were deemed desirable to recede to the system of pure Hindu agrarian law, there is no deficiency of materials. The customary laws contained in the various reports of able men, superadded to the general ordinances of Manu, would form a code at once simple and efficient : for though innovation from foreign conquest has placed many principles in abeyance, and modified others, yet he has observed to little purpose [495] who does not trace a uniformity of design, which at one time had ramified wherever the name of Hindu prevailed : language has been modified, and terms have been corrupted or changed, but the primary pervading principle is yet perceptible ; and whether we examine the systems of Khandesh, the Carnatic, or Rajasthan, we shall discover the elements to be the same.