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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
( JUNE, 1927
when the company assumed charge of the Diwani, collection of the land revenue and showed a firma "they found a complete cadre of hereditary officials intention to surrender none of it to the Company's ready to resume their functions under & normal government. Hence arose the burning question and effective Government. The two most important whether the Kanungo should be retained or aboand powerful classes of these hereditary revenue lished. It is curious to reflect that when the officials were the Zamindars and the Kanungos." Marath leader Shivaji commenced to organise the
The position of the Zamindars was a very strong administration of the Deccan, he was confronted by one. They enjoyed the same prestige and exercised a somewhat similar problem in the persons of the greater magisterial powers than any large English Deshpande and Deshmukh, who were the ancient landowner : they collected the revenue for which and hereditary custodians of all information relating they were responsible and received a certain fixed to the lands and land revenue of Western India. quota as their remuneration. But as a clase they In both cases the ultimate decision was the same. were inert and degenerate, and in 1765 most of them The Maratha leader reduced the Deshmukh and were idle, ignorant and effete, and were usually under Deshpande to # purely ornamental position, and the thumb of unscrupulous servants. Between 1765 transferred their powers and duties to his own and 1793 the Court of Directors in England and the public servants: the Company in Bengal abolished Company's officers in India made a continuous effort
cers in India mode & continuous effort the offices of sadr and mufassil Kanungo, simul to secure the knowledge requisite for a just and taneously with the introduction of the Pormanent accurate settlement of the land revenue. The Settlement. The decision was a wise one, for, in Amini report is one example of this endeavour, and the words of Lord Cornwallis," the official attestait stands, in Mr. Ramsbotham's words, 48 "an tions and declarations (of the mufassil Kanungos) enduring monument of the work done by unknown have long since fallen into contempt and disregard British officers of the Company, whose services were in the eyes of the people, from having been in variably never acknowledged by their 'Hon'ble Employers', made the cloak to every species of fraud and abuse." and on whom the limelight of public recognition
Mr. Ramabotham's book throws much valuable never fell." Indeed, Mr. Ramsbotham quotes
light upon the circumstances preceding the introfrom an original manuscript, belonging to the late duction of the Permanent Settlement in Bengal, Rao Bahadur D. B. Parasnis of Satara, evidence Bihar and Orissa and upon the foundations of the showing that Jos. Sedley was very far from being
British district administration. It well repaye typical of the Company's district officers, and that
perusal. between 1772 and 1786 the district administration
S. M. EDWARDES. was conducted by a small, conscientious and very DJAWA: TIJDSCHRIFT. VAN HET JAVA-INSTITUTE, hardworking body of officials, who eschewed idleness, Vol. 5, Nos. 2 and 5, March, April and October led so her and uneventful lives, and in their official 1926. dealings with the Indian public showed themselves No. 2 contains articles on : "Java in Malay litera"minutely just and inflexibly upright." Certainly ture," by H. O.; "A fusilier of the last century as the knowledge contained in the Amini Report antiquarian," by Dr. W. F. Stutterheim; “Hindoocould never have been acquired, sifted and co-ordi. Javanese legends, II, Sakoentala" by Boedihardjo ; nated by men of the type immortalised by Thackeray. "The Psyche of the Javanese," by Paul van Schief
Equally interesting is the Report on the Kanungos gaarde ; "A singular Institution," by R. Treena. - an office which probably existed in pre-Mughal I No. 5 contains articles on : "An interesting Hintimes and was inerely reconstituted and extended doo Javanese drawing on copper," by Dr. W.F. Stutby Akbar. It became in the usual way hereditary, terman with a reproduction; "The burial places of and the knowledge thus acquired by successive the old governors of Grisee before, during and after generations we employed by its possessors to the time of the Company," by R. A. A. Kromod. strengthen their hold over the land revenue of their joio Adinogoro (illustrated);"History and myth II : respective districte. By the time the Company The Pandawag of Java," by M. V. Moens-Zorab; bacame Diwan, these hereditary Kanungos held in vulnerability ?" by R. Tresna. all the vital information necessary to the efficient
M. J. B.
NOTES AND QUERIES.
to represent some local vernacular term from lapaed, TOPSHAW. tapasha, or topdshi. See ank, vol. L, pp. 106-113.
R. C. TEMPLA. 1702. Letter from Sir William Norrie from the
KING SARANGDHARU. Scipio off Bombay on his homewar voyage, regard
It is stated by the Reverend Dr. Macnicol that ing the Bombay factory. "They have two or
a king barangdharú is mentioned in one copy of three Companys of Topehaws, those country soldiers
one of the books of the Marathi poet Mukundraj. which are but a slender and weak Guard " (Public
Can any reader of this Journal determine the preRecord Office) C.0.77/51, p. 53. "Topshaw " seems
cire identity of this king? JOINT EDITOR,
