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ence, indicate that the earliest form of communal property (in 

 which the common land was cultivated by all the owners in 

 common who divided the produce) had already become 

 uncommon ; for though townships exist where this system 

 is followed, — and there are traces of it, — yet the inscrip- 

 tions indicate that the system which still exists to a great 

 extent in South India, viz., communal lands with shifting 

 lots exchanged periodically, was already widely practised. 

 Under this system the rights of ownership in a township 

 are divided into a number of shares, and these again sub- 

 divided to a great extent. The township land is divided into 

 hattalais which answer to fields. And these are sub-divided 

 into lots which answer to the shares (pangu) or fractions of 

 shares owned by the several members of the community. 

 But the township land consisted only of the arable land ; the 

 ground on which the houses of the community were built 

 (mnattam)j that on which the serfs or artizans resided [■para- 

 seri nattarrii ^c), the village burning ground (Sudukadu), water 

 courses and tanks, temples, waste land (irayili nilam= land 

 without owner) were private property or reserved for the 

 public use in general, and over which the members of the 

 community had merely the right of use. What could be 

 transferred was, therefore, a certain extent of land corre- 

 sponding to a share or shares together with the undefined 

 rights over the public property which attached to every 

 member of the community, but which were not, and sel- 

 dom are, mentioned in deeds, or to the separate property 

 of the individual member of the family. There can be no 

 doubt that all such transfers of either kind were illegal and 

 void without the sanction of the community, and the Sanscrit 



lawyers clearly recognized this principle The 



numerous attestations to transfers of property are intended 

 to represent the co-proprietors' assent and ratification, rather 

 than evidence of execution of the document." Even where 

 the communal and joint family systems had given way to 

 individual property, land might still not be transferable, both 

 because, by heavy taxation the value of the interest of the 

 cultivator might have been reduced to little or nothing, and 

 because owing to the sparseness of the population and abund- 

 ance of waste lands the difficulty might be not in finding 

 lands but in finding men to cultivate them. The fact that 

 the ascertainment of the share of the sovereign and its valua- 

 tion were left to his officers led to continual encroachments 

 on the cultivator's share and thus rendered his property an 

 uncertain one, is an objection applicable to all forias of pro- 

 perty which were exposed to inroads of this kind. All rights 



