84 Mr. Hodgson's Description of the Village qf Pudu-vayal. 



appropriation by grant to the servant of the late Sir Eyre Coote, of a portion 

 of what otherwise would have been collected as revenue by the fiscal offi- 

 cers of the sovereign. 



4thly. Evidence of the existence of an intermediate agent between the 

 cultivators and payers of revenue and the sovereign as receiver, without 

 injury to the rights of the cultivators. 



I conclude these observations with stating, that several thousand villages 

 now under the Madras presidency have, at various times, been transferred 

 in a similar manner, by Hindu, Muhammedan, and British rulers in the 

 East, either on condition of services to be rendered, in reward for past ser- 

 vices, or as endowments for charitable or religious institutions ; some with a 

 reserved revenue, and others without sucli reserve, or entirely exempt from 

 the payment of revenue; and that many i)ublic native servants of governors, 

 collectors, public boards, and also many distinguished native officers of the 

 Indian army, Muhammedan as well as Hindu, continue to receive such grants. 

 By these grants Muhammedans become the permanent local superiors over 

 Hindus, Sudras the superiors over Brahmans, witliout such grants being con- 

 sidered as an infringement of any previously existing rights. The grantees 

 receive by grant the rights of the sovereign only ; that is, the sovereign's 

 land revenue, and that revenue to be increased only as cultivation increases, 

 and not by encroachment on the rights of the cultivators. It is also a curious 

 fact, that many Hindu temples are endowed both witli the beneficial interests 

 of the cultivators by gift, and with the sovereign's revenue by grant. The 

 idol of the temple is thus made proprietor of botli tlie superior and inferior 

 rights ; and the land so obtained is cultivated by means of slaves or hired 

 labourers, under the superintendence of the priests of the temple so endowed, 

 or let out to under-tenants. 



I have deposited in the library of the Society, for tlie use of those who 

 may be desirous of further information upon this subject, a complete account 

 for the years A.D. 1741 and 1742, in the greatest detail, of a very large 

 village (yielding, in a favourable season, a revenue of from three to four 

 thousand pounds), in which the whole revenue and statistical economy of 

 the village is exhibited, with tlie names of each cultivator, tlie amount of 

 the grain and money revenue, the portion of tlie produce of the land 

 retained by the cultivator, the portion taken by the sovereign, and the 

 prices at which the reserved grain was sold. I have also deposited in the 

 library a large MS. collection of public and private documents relating to 

 landed tenures in Southern India. 



