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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ June, 1928
SIDE-LIGHTS ON DECCAN VILLAGE LIFE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
BY S. M. EDWARDES, C.S.I., O.V.o. Mr. Surendranath Sen in his Administrative System of the Mardthas has referred more than once to a volume of selections from the diary of the Raja of Satara, which was prepared by Rao Bahadur Ganesh Chimnáji Vad in 1902. The Volume contains a variety of information relating to political, military, revenue, judicial and social affairs during the reign of Sivaji II, otherwise known as Shahu, who ascended the Maratha throne of Satara in 1708 and died in 1749. Some of the entries in the official record of his administration throw an interesting side-light on the manners and customs of the age, and indicate the extent to which old religious rites and superstitions figured in the routine administration of the autonomous village-communities of Mah Arashtra.
The Patel and the PAtelki watan naturally occupy a prominent place in the record. The Patel's responsibilities as head of the village-community were far from trivial, but he received in return for his services various rights and perquisites of sufficient value to render the watan worth retention and preservation at all costs. Thus, for example, in the case where the Patel of a village in the Subha of Khujaste Baniyad (i.e., Aurangabad) sold a half-share of his walan, the vendee acquired, inter alia, a right of precedence (a) in the presentation of a ritual cake at the Holi, (b) in the annual processions in honour of Ganesa and Gauri; (c) in the matter of the kadakand or kadakanen, which signifies primarily a circular piece of paper, cut into indentations, suspended above an idol on the Navarátra and similar occasions, and secondarily, a thin oil-fried cake made in the same shape ; (d) at the annual Pola procession, the Pola being a bull dedicated to the gods, which was marked with a trident and discus and permitted to wander at large. He also acquired a prior claim to the decoration of his house with festoons of flowers by the Mang and with red-ochre by the Mahar, and to the supply of water by the village Koli, who figures among the Bård Alute in Grant Duff's list of hereditary village-servants as the recognized water-carrier of the village. As against the Vendee of the half-share, the watandar Patel retained a prior right to the paper kite presented by the village Gurav, to the performances of the village-musicians at the Dasahra, to tilápida or the anointing with sandal and the presentation of leaves at public ceremonies, to the worship of the apta (Bauhinia tomentosa) at the Dasahra and the worship of the tuli, to Harijagara or the vigil kept on lunar days in honour of Vishņu, and to precedence in the annual Sirdl det procession, Sird? set being a legendary coru-chandler who became king for a short time, and an earthen image of whom is worshipped, carried in procession, and thrown into a well or tank. He also retained the prior claim to receive a bundle of fuel from the village Mahar.
In cases of dispute about village - boundarios the Patel filled an important role, as for example in 1744, when, other evidence having failed to establish the facts, the panchayat asked the Patel to put a cow's hide over his head and, so adorned, to walk step by step over the real boundary of the village. The Patel did so, and was then kept under close watch for fifteen nights. As nothing untoward or harmful happened to him during this probationary period, the panchayat declared that he had indicated truthfully the course of the Village-boundary, and formally confirmed it. The idea underlying this procedure is that the Patel, by putting the hide over his head and shoulders, becomes imbued with the divine influence of the sacred animal and must therefore speak the truth. II, by chance, he is so sinful as to do the opposite, the outraged divinity will visit him with various pains and penal. ties during the next ten or fifteen days, and on this account he has to be kept for that period in a kind of social quarantine. In Mysore the procedure in boundary-disputes was slightly different. There, according to Thurston, the kuluvddi, an inferior village servant of the Holeys tribe, corresponding to the Mabar in the Decoan, had to carry on his bead a ball of
