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IV. A Description of the Agricultural and Revenue Economy of the Village 



of Piidu-vayal, in that part of the Peninsula of India called the Carnatic. 

 By John Hodgson, Esq., M.R.A.S. 



Read June 16, 1827. 



In submitting these notices to the attention of the Society, the object is 

 to bring under its view the intei-nal revenue economy of a Hindu village 

 that has never been under the direct control of any European officer of the 

 East-India Company, in order to exhibit a fair specimen of ancient usages 

 in the south of India, and to shew witli accuracy, the proportion of the 

 produce of the soil customarily taken in kind, in latter times, as land 

 revenue, the rights of the parties paying revenue, and those of the indi- 

 vidual who, by grant from the sovereign, is entitled to collect that 

 revenue. 



These notices contain little that is new on the rights of the peasantry of 

 the south-eastern part of the peninsula of India. The public records of 

 the government of Madras from an early period, the report of the case 

 tried in the Supreme Court at Madras in 1808, preserved in Sir Thomas 

 Strange's notes, and the memoir prepared by the late Mr. F. W. Ellis, of 

 the Madras civil service, all contain much interesting information on 

 the landed tenures of the south of India. In this paper, therefore, I 

 have merely endeavoured to render the subject intelligible to those 

 who have not been in India, by divesting the description of all technical 

 terms. 



The village of Pudu-Vayal is situated about thirty miles north-west of 

 Madras, in that portion of the Carnatic denominated the Company's Jagir. 

 The village has defined boundaries. The lands, like those of some parishes 

 in England, and in other parts of Europe, are held and cultivated in common, 

 by the privileged members of the community. The other divisions of 

 territory in India are of various denominations, according as Hindu or 



