The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c8.s1.t15.8

c8.s1.t15.8

The acting Agent and Collector also submitted two statements of the quantity of land dedicated to various religious purposes, expressing at the same time the opinion that the produce of these endowments is generally estranged from the purposes to which it was originally devoted, and enjoyed by persons who have no claim to it. He seems to have considered that these endowments also were applicable to purposes of education but the reasons of the opinion are not given. The statements were prepared from the public registries of land and I subjoin them entire, noticing here only their general results. These are that in twenty-two pergunnahs there are 8,348 beeghas, besides 39 separate mouzahs or villages of *dewottur* lands; 16,331 beeghas of *nazar* lands; 5,086 beeghas of *chiraghi* lands and 1,015 beeghas of *pirottur* lands. In fifteen other pergunnahs that had been then recently transferred from the district of Moorshedabad to that of Beerbhoom, there are 1,934 beeghas of *dewottur* and 162 of *pirottur* lands, making the whole amount 32,877 beeghas of land, besides 39 villages. I have added to the statements a brief explanation of the distinctive terms employed to describe the different sorts of endowed lands; and I have recorded these endowments in this place because they were in some way connected in the mind of the acting Agent and Collector with the means existing in the district for the promotion of education; but I would not be understood to express a concurrence in the opinion, if it was entertained, that their application to such a purpose could be rendered legally obligatory. As far as I can ascertain from the terms employed to describe them, they are religious endowments. With the voluntary consent of the holders, they are, as I understand, capable of being applied to promote education when viewed as a religious duty; but without that consent it would be unjust to employ them for such a purpose, and it would also be imprudent by the employment of questionable means in pursuit of a great public object, such as national education, to rouse the religious feelings of the country against it.