Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c8.29

c8.29

§ 27. *Common fields and boundary disputes.* It is more important for the historian to arrive at a solution of the question whether communal or private property was the chief form of ownership than to decide whether the origin of property was secular or religious. The joint property of distant family relations was doubtless very much in vogue (§ 22); but the traces of a common property of the whole village community are much less clear and the data in the Smṛtis are much less definite on this point. The village of course forms the political unit—the smallest unit in the scheme which the Smṛtis (Vi. 3, 7ff. etc.) prescribe for the management of an Indian principality. At the head of the village stands the Grāmadhipa or Grāmaṇi, Grāmakūṭa, Grāmapati or Paṭṭakila of the inscriptions—the modern Patil, the Gāmabhojaka of the Jatakas. It is a hereditary office though however the officers are appointed by the king; the village headman exercises the authority of a criminal police, imposes taxes on the farmers or exempts them from taxes and hands over the collected taxes to his superior after taking away his own share.