Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/308

290 MAHRATTAS pays to the Government direct the land tax, which is assessed on his holding for the long term of thirty years, so that he may have the benefit of his improvements. His property in the land is absolute ; it descends according to the Hindu law of inheritance it can be sold or otherwise transferred by private arrangement; it is pledged or mortgaged for debt, and money is largely borrowed on its security. It is liable to sale for default in regard to land revenue ; and Government as a creditor has the first claim. Thus, as a peasant proprietary, the Mahrattas are in the best possible position, and have been so for many years since the completion of the British settlement. Their only fault is a disposition to live beyond their humble means. They have thus been of late years led into debt, which has produced disputes between them and the money-lenders, ending sometimes in agrarian disturbance. In the Concan there are some superior proprietors termed Khotes. With this and perhaps some other exceptions, notably that of Nagpur, there are not in the Mahratta country many large landlords, nor many of the superior tenure-holders whose position relatively to that of the peasantry has caused much discussion in other parts of India. There are indeed many Mahratta chiefs still resi dent in the country, members of the aristocracy which formerly enjoyed much more wealth and power than at present. They are sometimes in the position of landlords, but often they are the assignees of the land revenue, which they are entitled under special grants to collect for themselves instead of for Government, paying merely a small sum to Government by way of quit-rent. Under them the cultivators are by British arrangements placed in the position of peasant proprietors. The village community has always existed as the social unit in the Mahratta territories, though with less cohesion among its members than in the village communities of Hindustan and the Punjab. The ancient offices pertaining to the village^ as those of the headman (patel), the village accountant, &c,, are in working order throughout the Mahratta country. The Mahratta peasantry possess manly fortitude under suffering and misfortune. Though patient and good- tempered in the main, they have a latent warmth of temper, and if oppressed beyond a certain endurable limit they would fiercely turn and rend their tormentors. Cruelty also is an element in their character. As a rule they are orderly and law-abiding, but traditions of plunder have been handed down to them from early times, and many of them retain the predatory instincts of their forefathers. The neighbourhood of dense forests, steep hill-sides, and fastnesses hard of access offers extraordinary facilities to plunderers for screening themselves and their booty. Thus gang robbery is apt to break out, gains head with rapidity, and is suppressed with difficulty. In time of peace it is kept under, but during war, or whenever the bands of civil order are loosened, it becomes a cause of anxiety and a source of danger. The women have frankness and strength of character ; they work hard in the fields, and as a rule evince domestic virtue. Conjugal infidelity, however, is not unknown among them, and here, as elsewhere in India, leads to bloodshed. The peasantry preserve a grave and quiet demeanour, but they have their humble ideas of gaiety, and hold their gatherings on occasions of births or marriages. They fre quently beguile their toil with carols. They like the gossiping and bartering at the rural markets and in the larger fairs, which are sometimes held in strikingly pictur esque localities. They are utterly superstitious, and will worship with hearty veneration any being or thing whose destructive agency they fear. They will even speak of the tiger with honorific titles. They are Hindus, but their Hinduism is held to be of a non-Aryan type. They are sincerely devout in religion, and feel an awe regarding " the holy Brahmans," holding the life and the person of a Brahman sacred, even though he be a criminal of the deepest e. They of course regard the cow as equally sacred. There are two principal sects among the modern Hindus those who follow Vishnu, and those who follow Siva. The Mahrattas generally follow Siva and his wife, a dread goddess known under many names. The Mahratta war- cry, " Hur Hur Mahadeo," which used to be heard above the din of battle urging the soldiers to onset with victorious elan, referred to Siva. All classes high and low are fond of the religious festivals, the principal of which, " the Dasserah," occurs in October, when the first harvest of the year has been secured and the second crops sown. This has always been held with the utmost pomp and magnificence at every centre of Mahratta wealth and power. The people frequently assemble in bowers and arbours con structed of leafy boughs to hear " kathas " recited. These recitations are partly religious, partly also romantic and quasi-historical. After them national resolves of just re sistance or of aggressive ambition have often been formed. Apart from the Mahratta Brahmans, as already men tioned, the Mahratta nobles and princes are not generally fine-looking men. Their appearance, notwithstanding jewel lery and rich apparel, is still that of peasants. There cer tainly are some exceptions, but there is general truth in what was once said by a high authority to the effect that, while there will be something dignified in the humblest Rajput, there will be something mean in the highest Mahratta. Bluff good-nature, a certain jocoseness, a humour pungent and ready, though somewhat coarse, a hot or even violent disposition, are characteristics of Mahratta chieftains. They usually show little aptitude for business or for sedentary pursuits ; but, on the other hand, they are born equestrians and sportsmen. As a rule they are not moderate in living, and are not unfrequently addicted to intemperance. Instances of licentiousness and debauchery have always been found among them. They have generally sprung from a lowly origin, and they have been proud of this fact even after attaining greatness. For instance, three Mahratta chiefs, each of whom established a large kingdom Sindhia, Holkar, and the gaekwar declared the lowliness of their birth. Holkar was the descendant of a shepherd ; Sindhia boasted of having begun life by keeping his master s slippers ; and by his very title the gaekwar perpetuates the memory of his pro genitor having tended the cow (gae). Mahratta ladies and princesses have often taken a prominent part in public affairs and in dynastic intrigues ; in some instances their conduct has been of the highest type, in others their in fluence has been exerted for evil. Though they have produced some poetry, the Mahrattas have never done much for Oriental literature. Nor have they been distinguished in industrial art. Their archi tecture in wood, however, was excellent ; and the teak forests of their country afforded the finest timber for build ing and for carving. They had also much skill in the construction of works for the supply of drinking water on a large scale, and for irrigation. On the whole the Mahrattas will hardly be regarded by Europeans as being among the most interesting of the Indian races. The admirable History of the Mahrattas, by Captain Grant Duff (1826), may possibly awaken enthusiasm, as written nnder personal ad vantages and with a living knowledge which will never again be possessed by a historian of the later Mahratta times. At all events, a strange interest gathers itself around the Mahratta history. In the first place the Mahratta country is for the most part strategically important as well as highly picturesque. Some parts of the Deccan are indeed almost irretrievably ugly. The stretches of low hill have long been disforested, and even laid bare of lesser vegetation, and the champaign tracts are treeless as far as the eye

can reach. Still much of the Mahratta country lies in the bosom