250 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XV, 
ie comfort and dignity of the Royal House” seems naturally 
to suggest comnigue even to the last some lingering idea prevailed 
that the king not an autocrat but was rather primus 
inter pares—t the ale ninistrative, social and religious head but 
nevertheless. bound, to regard the customs of his people whose 
of even.more importance than the maintenance and extension 
of the personal authority of the kingship. 
88. 1 conclude from all this that, though the immigrant 
population had pushed the Dravidian tribes back into the hilly 
country north and south and west of the Mahanadi ‘basin, vet 
the tribal form of administration was not, even in the later 
days of Rajput — wholly obliterated in the open country. 
In so far as the new heads of Garhs and Talugs pledged them- 
— according to their degree to the service of a King or 
Diwan who was not of their own kith and kin the tie of allegi- 
ance was a teudal one, but something of the old customary 
tribal status still adhered to these foreign chiefs. By accept- 
turn a customary suppor’ of their own status in relation to 
their overlord. We may call this a feudal system if we' like, 
ut, as it was ayatent: more of status than of contract, I 
would prefer to sale it as a mixture of the purely tribal 
and the purely feudal type, since it continued to preserve the 
primitive tribal ideas of the aboriginal population, while adapt- 
ing itself to the requirements of immigrants from the north. 
89. The whole indigenous fabric was shattered by the 
Mahratta conquest. The Mahratta came as a conqueror and 
proceeded at once to develop his position. He soon saw that 
ful centralized authority. He promptly set himself to oust the 
Zamindars from all those parts’of the country which were 
sufficiently accessible and fertile to justify the introduction of 
close official control. As we have it from Vans Agnew, Mohan- 
singh who was left in charge of the Province by Raghoji “‘ was 
‘very active and successful in subduing many Zamindars = 
“either making their lands Khalsa or subjecting them to 
* tribute.” This process continued right through the period of 
Maratha rule for it is on record _ the old Zamindaris of 
endra were a 
the Marathas only some 203 years before the country came under 
British control (1818). 
90. The Marathas’ treatment of the 7'alugdars was equally 
characteristic. They were everywhere in the Khalsa turned out 
