DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

324 MODEL FOR FEUDAL PROPERTY [9.6
be an evasion of taxes, unless special exemption were granted as in the
charters.* The general rights in land may be inferred from these
conditions and later survivals. The village huts were surrounded by
a palisade, and that in turn ringed about with a broad grazing common.
Beyond this lay the food-producing lands of the first settlement, also held
in common and taxed in common. The only right to a plot or field in
this prime cultivated land was by assignment, to one who actually
cultivated it and only as long as he cultivated it, by the real owners, the
village as a whole represented by the village council. Beyond that lay the
waste lands which could also be assigned, by the council or the king, to
any individual (brahmin or not) who wanted to clear a field or
plantation. This was bestowed as long as he paid the taxes, and cultivated
the land — unless he had received the rare exemption above. Later,
with an increasing labour supply and a new, growing market, the brahmin
indirect cultivation acted as model for the formation of landed, and even
feudal property, except that the state claimed some tax and service from
the recipient,
9.6. The processes of land-settlement of the Gupta and
succeeding periods, outlined in the preceding sections, can fortunately be
illustrated by records, archaeology, and field-work. One regional example
may be followed through in detail, just to bring the development sequence
into historical focus. The Kadamba tree (Nauclea cadamba, or more likely)
Anthoce-phalus cadamba, is known to most parts of India,
particularly the warmer, for its striking orange flowers. The edible fruit is
now used mostly in country medicines. The Anthocephalus also has the
name hali(ri)priya ‘beloved of the peasants’, or ‘beloved of Hari
(Visnu)’. It is still worshipped as a totem by the Gavadas and other
tribesmen of the Western Ghats. 9 It is also the root-word for the
surname Kadam so common among many castes of Maharastra.
* For a single plot, the income would be whatever the brahmin could get out-of it by
personal or indirect cultivation. When the entire village was granted, the income was
fixed so far as the payment to the grantee, instead of the state, went. However, the right
to make the terms for any new settlers in the waste land, or to cultivate any portion of
the waste directly, vested in the donees, and were not only a constant source of new
profit but also a model for the later feudal tenure.