OR CUTTACK. 243 



"being struck by the fact, that the entire business of settlement and collecti- 

 on, is described as lying between the husbandman and the officers of the go- 

 vernment, called the Amil, Tepakchi, and Treasurer, conducted through the 

 • 'intervention of certain local functionaries, who are styled the Shikdar, Kar- 

 kun, Mokaddam, and Patwari. It would be superfluous to quote particular 

 passages, in illustration of what is so abundantly clear, from the whole tener 

 of the portion of the work alluded to. It cannot surely be imagined, that, 

 if a class of so much importance as Zemindars and Proprietors had then ex- 

 isted in the Khaliseh land, no reference should ever once be made to their 

 existence and interests, in speaking of the payments of the Ryots to the 

 Officers of Government ; the settlements to be made with them ; the mea- 

 surements of the land ; the accounts of the same to be kept, and the parties 

 by whom those accounts were to be signed and countersigned. By the 

 Shikdar* and Karkun, in this place, are meant, I apprehend, the Chowdri 

 and Canungo Talukdars, like those of Orissa, or persons performing similar 

 functions. Shikdar implies very nearly the same as Talukdar, the one de- 

 signation signifying literally, holder or manager of a division; the other, 

 holder of an allotment or dependency. The Chowdri, is, twice only, that 

 I can discover, mentioned by that appellation express, throughout the Ayin 

 Acberi ; first, in the account of the Subeh of Berar, and second, in the part 

 about Syerghal, which is defined to mean either money, pensions, or land 

 bestowed as milk and madadmash. The passage is this, " Various illicit 

 practices having been discovered, the Syerghal of the Afghans and Chaic- 

 dris of the Khaliseh, were annexed to the Exchequer." 



The same indirect and incidental evidence may be drawn from Ferish- 

 teh, whose history extends down to the death of Acber in A. D. 1605. In 

 the cases where he mentions Zemindars, it is almost invariably as, Zeminda- 

 ran o Kaj/i/an Deccan, Zemindars and Princes of the Oeccan ; Zemindarau 



* Tn Bengal, Shikdar has become an hereditary title or appellation like Chowdri, 13aksl.ee, ^«y» 

 ■mnndar, &c. 



C c 2 



