we should certainly hesitate to describe the practice as a universal custom prevalent among the nation at large. Moreover, there is a distinction between "Núr" (Divine light or fire) and "Nár" (material fire), and the Mazdiashnán religion nowhere forbids the extinction of fire, when, for instance, as in the case of a conflagration, it exercises its energy for the destruction of person and property. In the same way, if during the prevalence of plague or any other infectious disease human corpses have, out of sheer necessity, to be burnt for the welfare of the living, it is a pardonable sin, which can be expiated by the Patet, or what the Buddhists would call the Pátimokh. According to the Zoroastrian religion, just as with Buddhism, the only and all-sufficing saviour of the soul is righteousness and sincere repentance. Again, take one more instance, Agathias states that the priests had lost a good deal of their influence and dignity with the later Párthians. But surely it cannot be fair to infer from this passage, as Canon Rawlinson has hinted (vide “Parthia,” p. 396), that they had ceased to be Magians. No doubt, in these later times, the Mobeds or priests, for some reason or other, were far from being so cultured and learned as their brethren of former days, and it is very likely that such an ignorant, selfish, and unlearned priesthood could not possibly attract to itself any considerable share of the love and respect of the laity. But it is absurd to believe that on this account all the later Párthians had given up their old ancestral Zoroastrian faith altogether and had taken to idolatry. However, there is some truth in the above statement of Agáthius. For the writer of the Dinkard also relates that the Sacred Scriptures about this time, owing to the former ruthless destruction of Alexander, and also, I believe, on account of subsequent neglect and indolence of the later priests, had been so far lost and were so rapidly disappearing that the Párthian King, Vologeses or Násis, actually took it upon himself as an imperative duty to collate and collect together the scattered remnants. This great work thus commenced by the Emperor was ultimately accomplished by Ardeshir Bábegan, by the aid of Touser and other learned priests. Furthermore, Ardeshir subdued the several little kingdoms and principalities that had sprung up in the country, and brought the whole of Persia, as before, under the sway of one man. He also abolished idolatrous customs, and rid the country altogether of the Materialistic philosophy, which he used to call by the name of "Aristotle's poison."

It has not been yet satisfactorily ascertained which Vologeses or Nasis it was who undertook to collect the remnants of the Zoroastrian Scriptures after their destruction by fire by the order of Alexander in his drunken state. There were in all six kings of the name of Vologeses or Narsis, who ruled in Persia, as may be gathered from the inscriptions on the coins ofthe Parthian period (vide Gardner's "Numismátá Orientalia," Plate VIII.). I am inclined to believe it must be the second Vologeses, who reigned from A.D. 130 to A.D. 149; quite a century before the advent of Ardeshir. Farjáné-Béhrám, the author of a learned Persian book called the Sáristán, refers in the course of his work to a Péhleví book called the NáméHúsh-peraê, written by Buzurj-mihr, the wise minister of Núshirwan, or Chosroes I., surnamed the "Just," and on the authority of this Pehlevi

book, now lost, Fárjáné-Béhrám, the disciple of Dustúr Árzar-Kaiwán, states that "Narsi bin Gúdarj bin Pallás” (i.e., Vologeses the son of Gotarzes and the grandson of Phráates) on one occasion saw Zoroaster in a dream, who told him that he had not been a sinner and bade him consequently to be of good cheer (vide "Sáristan," pp. 578-80; also Mirzá Ismail Khán's "Námé-Farájistán," p. 298). After him "Narsiè Narsi bin Gúdurj," ie., Vologeses, the son of Vologeses and the grandson of Gotarzes, came to the Parthian throne and reigned from A.D. 149 to A.D. 191. He also was a wise, pious, and good-natured king, and he continued the work which must have been left unfinished in the brief reign of his father. Professor Rawlinson doubts whether these two kings were father and son ("Parthiá," p. 321), but there is no room for doubt now that the writer of the Sáristán clearly states, on the unimpeachable authority of Buzurj-mihr, whom Gibbon calls "the Senecá of the East," that they were both father and son.

Hamzeh Ispahani, a Mahomedan writer of no mean authority, who flourished about the beginning of the tenth century of the Christian era, distinctly mentions that Ardaván (Artábanús V.), the last of the Parthian princes, and Ardeshir, the founder of the house of Sássán, both belonged to the same religion. (See Darmsteter's "Vendidâd," p. 39). Hamzeh, I think, was the first Persian writer who pointed out to his countrymen the name Koorsee for the Persepolitan monuments; Kúraús, as we all now know, was the cuneiform native name of Cyrus the Great. In Persian Koorsee also means a chair, for the throne of Darius Hystaspes, which we find engraved on these monuments, has the form and shape of a chair. (See Dastur Peshotan's "Pehlevi Grammar," p. 11.) The above fact goes now to prove to a certain extent that Hamzeh seems to have had some inklings of the Achæmenian princes having once ruled over Persia, unlike all the Persian historians who followed him up to the beginning of the present century.

THE LANDLORD AND POLITICAL TENURES OF GUJARAT AND WESTERN INDIA.-III.

BY B. H. BADEN-POWELL, M.A., C.I.E., F.R.S.E., M.R.A.S.

THE MOSLEM RULE.

THE Muhammadan domination of Gujarât was exercised by two successive dynasties, each of which adopted a somewhat different policy. There were first the Pathân Sultans of Ahmadābād whose dominion lasted from the time of the assertion of independence by Muzaffar Shāh I. (A.D. 1407)* till the reign of the last feeble sovereign during which the local Nawabs or Governors, quarrelled among themselves and tried to make a partition of the kingdom. Then the interference of the Mughal Emperor Akbar was invoked, and the kingdom was annexed to the Delhi Empire (1583 A.D.). In general it may be said that the control of the Sultans, while it varied in efficiency from reign to reign, never, even in its best days-under Ahmad Shah I., or Mahmud Bigarhā-really succeeded in establishing a thorough or uniform control over the turbulent Rājput and Koli territories; but it destroyed or absorbed many estates; and the disorders of the time tended to the dismemberment and crippling of others. The only permanent success obtained, was in completely subduing a certain area of "Khalsa " territory in the districts adjoining the capital, and in the other centres of provincial rule-Sūrāt and Bharoch. In general, effort was directed to establishing the Muhammadan faith and extirpating idolatry, as well as to rendering the Rajput States tributary, or at least keeping them from openly opposing the central Government. The Moslem historians however are not disinclined to exaggerate the successes of the rulers, both from the religious point of view and from the secular. Thus during the reign of Ahmad Shah (1412 A.D.) we are assured that steps were taken to make all the Hindu chiefs pay tribute, and "to extirpate idolatry"; and as early as 1414, Firishta would have us believe "that the very names of 'mewās' (estates of turbulent freebooters)† and 'gras' (lands held by Rajput chiefs not paying revenue) were no longer heard in the whole kingdom." Yet in the very next reign we hear of continued, and often unsuccessful, efforts to reduce the chiefs whose domains lay outside the immediate reach of the Moslem headquarters. Whatever the truth may be, it is evident that the Sultan's aim was to render tributary and if possible harmless, as many of the states all round as could not be actually absorbed.

But it is to the measures taken within the directly administered territory of the Government that we are most indebted for the origin of the existing state of tenures. The result was in fact threefold. (1) A certain number

* This is the date given by Bayley, p. 84. But for some years previously the Sultan (as Viceroy Zafr-Khan) had exercised really independent authority. It is for this reason that in the Ayin-i-Akbari (Jarrett ii. 261) the date is given as 1391 A.D.

A full note on this term will be found some pages further on.

of the old estates simply disappeared, and the villages which had paid revenue to a Rājā or a Thākur now became the (nominal) property of the conquering Sultan and paid revenue to him. (2) Other estates (usually perhaps of less importance) were left with their Rajput (or other) overlords, on their consenting to pay a tribute or revenue-charge in the lump; these were treated as "talukdār" or dependent estate-holders of the kingdom. (3) But another plan was also put in force in many cases; it would have been too much to annex the whole of the estates of the chiefs outright, but the governors insisted on making the greater part of the villages pay revenue direct to the State collector, leaving only "wāntā” lands certain portions scattered here and there-as the freehold of the former owners. The Sultans, as conquerors, felt themselves fully entitled to "resume" what they pleased: they felt very little compunction about interfering with a possession which after all was just as much a matter of seizure by force as their own.* As lands still exist known as "wāntā” it will be interesting to quote the passage from the Mirāt-i-Ahmadi—which is not included in the chapters translated by Sir E. C. Bayley, but is given in the Rāsmāla. “The whole of the landed chiefs (Zamīndārs) in the time of Sultan Ahmad of Gujarāt," says the author, "erected the head of rebellion and disturbance. They were however punished and driven from their retreats, and the servants of the king were established in every place. In consequence of their being thus completely dispossessed of their habitations, that band of unbelievers, being hopeless, began to infest the roads and villages with their depredations. Anarchy increased, confusion prevailed, and the decay of cultivation became visible, while the raiyats were distressed. Those whose duty it was to advise, in their foresight put an end to those calamities, and exacted from the 'zamindar' of every villaget security to discontinue opposition. Three parts of the land of each village, under the denomination of 'talpat' were acknowledged as the property of the King, and one portion was given to the landlords under the denomination of 'wāntā' (¿.e., divided, a portion) and they were engaged to furnish guards and protection to their own villages." The author goes on to say that the landholders submitted, and engaged to pay the crown a tribute (or "salāmi ") from their "wāntā" [i.e., they did not pay the full assessment as on ordinary lands, but a lump sum in token of submission]. But some estates even within the circle of the Khalsa, escaped this hardly veiled confiscation. "Some of the landholders . . . were converted to Islam, and entered into agreements for the defence of their own 'taluka' [observe the name now applied to the chief's domain]; and their possessions were con* But the strength of the Rajput claims lay in the prescriptive title. A holding that has endured for generations can hardly be questioned as to its first origin.

This implies that all the villages or groups of holdings of the agricultural classes, had fallen under the overlordship of some chief, grantee, or other superior-which is very likely to be true. Villages of original cultivators, independent of any overlord, Moslem or Rajput, do not seem to have existed.

We shall see afterwards how these wanta lands survived under British rule. The term came also into use among the chiefs themselves. On one occasion we hear of a chief mortgaging his estate but reserving some wänta lands for his own support. On another a Rānā, resuming a service-grant on the death of the holder, leaves " a fourth part" to the widow.

ferred upon them by the imperial court, for the encouragement of the faith, on their consenting to pay the imperial peshkash. [I understand this to mean an annual lump sum by way of revenue, larger than the salāmi.]” "From other principal Zamindārs" (adds the author) "over whom the hand of conquest did not extend, the levy of a yearly peshkash' was exacted." To put it shortly, chiefs who were not conquered, ie., reduced to being landlords under the Sultan, were made to pay a tribute, when it could be got; those who were subdued were either deprived of of their estate (which became Khalsa property) or else were favoured by being regarded as revenue-paying "tālukdārs" or landlords without diminution of their land.

Whether this process was imperfectly carried out, or whether the number of estates over which "the hand of conquest" had not prevailed was still very large, it appears that the idea of further resumption was entertained, once and again, by later sovereigns. In the time of one of the last Sultans (1545 A.D) the minister, consulted as to the advisability of attempting the conquest of Malwā, dissuaded his master from the plan saying "that he could direct him (rather) to the conquest of a kingdom not less important: he said that a fourth part of Gujarāt' called bānt (wāntā) was in the hands of grasiya chiefs; if the Sultan should take possession of it, it would furnish jāgir (grants) enough to maintain 25,000 horse." The advice was taken. grasiyas were ejected from the lands which they held, and officers were appointed to collect the revenue. Whether this applies to a further diminution of estates already crippled, or to an extension of the system to lands previously untouched, in either case the chief result was to produce general rebellion and discontent; the dispossessed chiefs "went out "- -as it was called.t The historian however is ready to report success, and assures us that in the time of Sultan Mahmud III. (middle of the 16th century), every Rajput was compelled to devote himself to agriculture and live a quiet life. Every man of them was branded on the arms, and if any Rajput or Koli was found without the brand he was put to death."‡

*

+ Col. Walker (quoted in the Rāsmāla, p. 255, note) thus describes the procedure of the bahirwatiya," or outlawed chief: "The Rajput chief (Grāsiyā) thus aggrieved, makes the raiyats and his dependents quit their native village, which is suffered to remain waste and uncultivated. The Grasiya with his brethren retires to some asylum whence he may carry on his depredations with impunity. Being well acquainted with the country . . . the bahirwatiya' has little to fear from those who are not in the immediate interest of his enemy, and he is, in consequence, enabled to commit very extensive mischief until he may be extirpated, or his principal forced to compromise the dispute. In the hill country of Idar (în the N.E. of Gujarāt) it is said of such an outlaw that he is 'wakhō' or 'in trouble."" See also some good remarks about the outlaws and their doings in Bomb. Gazetteer, viii. 116.

Bayley, p. 439. The confiscation was accompanied by some cruel religious oppression of Hindus (p. 440) which however could only have taken place in the Moslem capital itself. But so much aggrieved were the Hindus in general, that when the Sultan was murdered (p. 445) "the grasiyas made a stone image of Burhan the assassin, which they worshipped, saying, 'this is our preserver who brought us from death to life; for if that system had continued for one year longer we should have died of hunger and been swept out of existence.'"