________________
154
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ MAY, 1921
grant has to be made, the document is to be drawn up by the Chitnis. If however any correction is to be made about the sum (literally if the sum is either more or less), the letter will be written by the Fadnis.
All passports for travelling and permission for establishing warehouses should be written by the Chitnis. Summons should be written by the Chitnis. Memoranda enumerating regulations for Watani Mahals Ports, and Forts, etc., should be written by the Chitnis. Letters about ammunition and clothes to be sent each year to the forts, strongholds or military outposts, or to be brought to the head-quarters from those places, should be written by the Chitnis. If any objection is to be raised about these works, it is to be raised by the Fadnis.
The Chitnis is to open the envelopes and read (to the king ?) the letters that may come, and to enclose and despatch letters.
The memorandum of rules for regulating the price of things should be drawn by the Chitnis.
If officers are sent from the head-quarters to villages, or stores, or Parganas, all letters to the District officer should be written by the Chitnis.
All orders of confiscation of any one's property, or restoration of property to its owner, should be written by the Chitnis.
Letters for conferring (the command of) forts and strongholds, etc., for settling a boundary, for imprisoning or releasing any one, should be written by the Chitnis.
Letters of diplomatic intelligence should be written by the Chitnis.
All letters in which the royal signature is to be inserted, handnotes and documents with seals, should be written by the Chitnis. All letters about the appointment to the command of forts and strongholds, grants of Saranjam Inam or Vatans, or communication about any assignment, accompanied by the customary clothes of honour, should be written by the Chit. nis, as well as letters specifying contribution, fine, Harki or subscription, and Nazar (to be paid by the addressee). He should also frame a list of these and send it to the Daftar. The officers there will accordingly make their accounts of income and expenditure. Closed letters and handnotes should be written by the Chitnis; no one except the Chitnis should put his sign in the handnotes.
Kowls for settling (new inhabitants in any place) or authorising (any one to do a specified act) should be drawn up by the Chitnis.
Letters for attaching or conferring a house, or homestead, fuel, or rice lands, should be written by the Chitnis.52
Besides the duties enumerated above, the Chitnis was in charge of the Abdar Khana and Saraf Khana also.5
In the document quoted above, the Fadnis is also mentioned with the Chitnis in their official relations. A subordinate Secretariat officer of no great importance in Sivaji's time, the Fadnis rose to great power and authority during the Peshwa régime. The Potnis was responsible for the account of income and expenditure of the metropolitan treasury, while the Potdar was only an assay officer.
Fadnis, Potnis and Potdar.
52 Sanads and letters edited by Mawjee and Parasnis, pp. 127 to 130. 53 Ibid, p. 125.
