The system of entitlements in eighteenth-century khurda, Orissa: Reconsidering ‘caste’ and ‘community’ in late pre-colonial India
2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 28; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/00856400500337768
ISSN1479-0270
Autores Tópico(s)South Asian Studies and Conflicts
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size I would like to thank the people of Garh Manitri, especially the late Mr. Laxmidhar Sundaray, for their hospitality during my stay there. Mr. Sundaray helped me a great deal in locating and reading the historical sources with his knowledge of local history. The fieldwork was made possible by funds from the Japanese government scholarship (Ajia shokokuto haken, 1990–1993), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Fellowship for Research Abroad (1995–1997) and Nitobe Fellowship for Japanese Social Scientists (1999–2000). I would like to thank Professor Noboru Karashima who read the manuscript and gave valuable comments and also Professor Hiroyuki Kotani and Professor Tsukasa Mizushima who provided incisive criticisms and suggestions on earlier drafts. Notes 1On the Khurda kingdom, see Hermann Kulke, ‘Kings Without a Kingdom: The Rajas Of Khurda and the Jagannatha Cult’, in South Asia, Vol.4 (1974), pp.60–74; Hermann Kulke, ‘Ksetra and Ksatra: The Cult Of Jagannatha and the “Royal Letters” (chamu citaus) Of the Rajas Of Puri’, in Hermann Kulke, Kings and Cults: State Formation and Legitimation in India and Southeast Asia (New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1993), pp.51–65. 2Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1980). 3Arthur M. Hocart, Caste: A Comparative Study (London: Methuen, 1950); Arthur M. Hocart, Kings and Councillors (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); Nicholas Dirks, The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory Of an Indian Little Kingdom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Gloria G. Raheja, The Poison in the Gift: Ritual, Prestation and the Dominant Caste in a North Indian Village (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); Ronald Inden, Imagining India (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990); and Declan Quigley, The Interpretation Of Caste (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). 4Chris A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age Of British Expansion, 1770–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Chris A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making Of the British Empire (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988); David Washbrook, ‘Law, State and Agrarian Society in Colonial India’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol.15, issue 3 (Jul. 1981), pp.649–721; David Washbrook, ‘Progress and Problems: South Asian Economic and Social History C.1720–1860’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol.22, issue 1 (Feb. 1988), pp.57–96; David Washbrook, ‘South Asia, the World System and World Capitalism’, in the Journal Of Asian Studies, Vol.XLIX, no.3 (Aug. 1990), pp.479–508; Burton Stein, ‘State Formation and Economy Reconsidered’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol.14, issue 3 (July 1985), pp.387–413; Burton Stein, ‘Eighteenth Century India: Another View’, in Studies in History, n.s., Vol.5, no.1 (Feb. 1989), pp.1–26; Frank Perlin, ‘State Formation Reconsidered, Part Two’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol.19, issue 3 (July 1985), pp.415–80; Frank Perlin, The Invisible City: Monetary, Administrative and Popular Infrastructures in Asia and Europe 1500–1900 (Aldershot: Variorumm, 1993); Andre Wink, Land and Sovereignty in India: Agrarian Society and Politics under the Eighteenth-Century Maratha Svarajya (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); and Dirk H.A. Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory Of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 5In an oft-quoted phrase, Washbrook said: ‘Colonialism was the logical outcome of South Asia's own history of capitalist development’. Washbrook, ‘Progress and Problems’, p.76. However, see also David Washbrook, ‘South India 1770–1840: The Colonial Transition’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol.38, issue 3 (July 2004), pp.479–516 for a more complex picture of colonial transition. 6Criticisms on revisionists differ considerably in their emphasis and perspectives. See Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), esp. Ch.2; Gyan Prakash, ‘Writing Post-Orientalist Histories Of the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historiography’, in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol.32, no.2 (Apr. 1990), pp.383–408; Kumkum Chatterjee, Merchants, Politics and Society in Early Modern India: Bihar 1733–1820 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996); Sushil Chaudhury, From Prosperity to Decline: Eighteenth Century Bengal (New Delhi: Manohar, 1995); and M. Athar Ali, ‘Recent Theories Of Eighteenth Century India’, in Indian Historical Review, Vol.XIII, nos.1–2 (1986), pp.102–10. 7For a useful overview of discussions on eighteenth century India, see Seema Alavi, ‘Introduction’, in Seema Alavi (ed.), The Eighteenth Century in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp.1–56. I have benefited most from a review essay by Nariaki Nakazato, ‘Indo no Shokuminchika Mondai Saiko’ [‘The Question Of Colonisation Of India: A Reappraisal'], in Koichi Kabayama et al. (eds), Ajia to Yoroppa 1900nendai–20nendai [Asia and Europe: 1900s to 20s] (Tokyo: Iwanamishoten, 1999), pp.155–79. Recently, it has been noted that there is a general dissatisfaction over ‘oppositions implicit in the continuity/transformation dichotomy’ and there is a search for a more nuanced view on the process of historical transition. See Ian J. Barrow and Douglas E. Haynes, ‘The Colonial Transition: South Asia, 1780–1840’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol.38, issue 3 (July 2004), pp.469–78. 8P. Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments; Ashis Nandy, Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery Of Self under Colonialism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983); and Madhav Gadgil and Ramachandra Guha, This Fissured Land: An Ecological History Of India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992). 9K. Chatterjee, Merchants, Politics and Society in Early Modern India: Bihar 1733–1820, p.7. Also see Chris A. Bayly, Origins Of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making Of Modern India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998). This book shows an important expansion towards the politico-cultural in Bayly's work. The question of transition from patriotism to the sense of nationality, however, remains unexplored. 10My hypothesis on the impact of the early colonial rule is that it brought about continuous development—though with disturbances—of market and administrative technology while there was a ruptured transformation in the social and politico-cultural areas of life. The discussion on this topic, however, will have to wait for another paper. 11See Akio Tanabe, ‘Ethnohistory Of Land and Identity in Khurda, Orissa: From Pre-Colonial Past to Post-Colonial Present’, in Journal Of Asian and African Studies, Vol.56 (1998), pp.75–112 for an outline of the colonial transformation of Khurda local society. 12Attention has been paid mainly to the function of market and administrative practices in understanding these ‘intermediaries’ (e.g. Bayly, Perlin, Kolff and Wink). I am trying to expand the focus from the political economic to the social aspect of the intermediaries. 13See Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy. There was much politico-military dynamism in the late pre-colonial period and the ‘military labour market’ certainly had its important function in Orissa too. Its function, however, was complementary to kingship and the system of entitlements. 14Dirks, The Hollow Crown. 15For views of the jajmani system, see Thomas O. Beidelman, A Comparative Analysis Of the Jajmani System (Locust Valley, NY: Association for Asian Studies, 1959); Pauline M. Kolenda, ‘Toward a Model Of the Hindu Jajmani System’, in Human Organization, Vol.22 (1963), pp.11–31; Jonathan Parry, Caste and Kinship in Kangra (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), pp.74–83; Chris Fuller, ‘Misconceiving the Grain Heap: A Critique Of the Concept Of the Indian Jajmani System’, in J. Parry and M. Bloch (eds), Money and the Morality Of Exchange (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp.33–63; and P. Mayer, ‘Inventing Village Tradition: The Late 19th Century Origins Of the North Indian “Jajmani System”’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol.27, issue 2 (May 1993), pp.357–95. 16Perhaps the classic description is by William H. Wiser, The Hindu Jajmani System: A Socio-Economic System Interrelating Members Of a Hindu Village Community in Services (Lucknow: Lucknow Publishing House, 1969 1936). Srinivas's research shifted the then scholarly understanding of the organising principle from one of reciprocity to one centred around the notion of ‘dominant caste’. See Mysore N. Srinivas, ‘The Social System Of a Mysore Village’, in McKim Marriot (ed.), Village India: Studies in the Little Community (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1955), pp.1–35. 17There still seems to be some confusion over the concept however. One recent example is Norbert Peabody, Hindu Kingship and Polity in Pre-Colonial India (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Although Peabody's argument is important, he fails to distinguish between the ‘jajmani system’ and what he calls ‘the complementary share system’, which he rightly says ‘provided the ideological underpinnings for revenue extraction at the village level’ (pp.92–3). The latter is not dissimilar to what I call the system of entitlements here. 18Hiroshi Fukazawa, Indo Shakai Keizaishi Kenkyu [A Study Of the Socio-Economic History Of India] (Tokyo: Toyo keizai shinpo sha, 1972); Hiroshi Fukazawa, The Medieval Deccan: Peasants, Social Systems and States: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991); Fuller, ‘Misconceiving the Grain Heap’, pp.36–9; A.R. Kulkarni, Medieval Maharashtra (New Delhi: Books & Books, 1996), pp.71–4; and Mayer, ‘Inventing Village Tradition’, pp.357–95. 19Mayer, ‘Inventing Village Tradition’, pp.357–95. Mayer, however, is not the first to point this out. For discussions regarding historical changes in the system of division of labour and exchange, see Fukazawa, Indo Shakai Keizaishi Kenkyu [A Study Of the Socio-Economic History Of India]; Fukazawa, The Medieval Deccan; Fuller, ‘Misconceiving the Grain Heap’, pp.33–63; Chris Fuller, ‘British India or Traditional India?: An Anthropological Problem’, in Ethnos, Vols.3–4 (1977), pp.95–121; E.K. Gough, Rural Society in Southeast India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p.204; Kulkarni, Medieval Maharashtra; Tsukasa Mizushima, 18–20 Seiki Minami Indo Zaichishakai no Kenkyu [A Study on South Indian Local Society in 18th–20th Centuries] (Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 1990); and S. Sato, ‘Mura, Kasuto, Hindukyo’ [‘Village, Caste and Hinduism’], in Kihan to Togo [Norm and Integration] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1990), pp.125–62. 20Tanabe, ‘Ethnohistory Of Land and Identity in Khurda, Orissa’, pp.75–112. 21Similar inter-village organisations existed under different names throughout Orissa. See L.K. Mahapatra, ‘Ex-Princely States Of Orissa: Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar and Bonai’, in S. Sinha (ed.), Tribal Polities and State Systems in Pre-Colonial Eastern and North Eastern India (Calcutta and New Delhi: K.P. Bagchi & Co., 1987), pp.1–50. 22In Orissa, for a polity to be called a ‘kingdom’ it had to have at least eighteen forts. See P. Acharya, Studies in Orissan History, Archaeology and Archives (Cuttack: Cuttack Students' Store, 1969), p.264. A larger-scale kingdom required more than eighteen forts under its control. It is said there were one hundred and eight forts in the Khurda kingdom; seventy-two were major forts. 23Forts seem to have been prominent not only in Khurda but also in many other regions in Orissa, including alluvial land areas. Ewer states that ‘under former Governments, besides the countries occupied by the present Gurjat tributaries [little kingdoms in the hilly tracts], there were numerous smaller estates denominated gurhs or killahs [forts] … situated chiefly on the sea coast between Coojung and Juggernaut [Puri]’. However, the forts' ‘numbers and strength would appear to have diminished greatly under the Marattas’. See ‘W. Ewer to W.B. Bayley, Calcutta, 13 May 1818’, in Selections from the Correspondence on the Settlement Of Khoorda Estate in the District Of Pooree, Vol.I (hereafter Ewer Report), para.11, p.5. This must have been the case especially in the alluvial land areas where the Marathas were most eager to gain greater control. As a result, there might have been fewer forts in these areas by the time of the arrival of the British. 24See Mahapatra, ‘Ex-Princely States Of Orissa’, pp.11–12 for the early formation of forts in the hilly tract areas of Orissa. Although there were some external influences, this process corresponded to ‘a territorial segmentation and a political development from below’, as Kulke points out. Hermann Kulke, ‘Royal Temple Policy and the Structure Of Medieval Hindu Kingdoms’, in A. Eschmann, H. Kulke and G.C. Tripathy (eds), The Cult Of Jagannath and the Regional Tradition Of Orissa (Delhi: Manohar, 1978), pp.125–6. Numerous small kingdoms and principalities made up of one to several fort areas developed along the coastal area as well as the hilly hinterland in the early centuries CE. 25See Akio Tanabe, ‘King, Goddesses and Jagannath: Regional Patriotism and Sub-Regional and Local Identities in Early Modern Orissa’, in G. Berkemer and H. Kulke (eds), Centres Out There? Facets Of Subregional Identities in Orissa, India (provisional title) (Manohar: New Delhi, forthcoming) for a description of the process of the establishment of the Khurda kingdom in its interaction with local pre-existing polities. 26Ewer Report, para.35, p.109. It should be noted that khandayat here refers not to the caste name but to ‘autonomous chief’. See Tanabe, ‘King, Goddesses and Jagannath’ for a discussion on ‘Saori khandayats’. 27 Bisoi refers to the head of a bisi (county). Dalabehera refers to the leader (behera) of a regiment (dala). The bisoi and dalabehera were usually the same person. 28‘From W. Forrester to the Secretary to the Commissioner of Cuttack, 17 October 1819’, in Selections from the Correspondence On the Settlement Of Khoorda Estate in the District Of Pooree, Vol.I (hereafter Forrester Report), paras.33, 35, pp.108–9; and D. Srichandan, Khuradha Darpana, Parts 2 & 3, [Mirror Of Khurda, in Oriya] (Gurujanga, Khurda: Sikshaka Mahasingh Siksha Pratisthana Presa, 1989). 29Forrester Report, para.23, p.107; and A. Sterling, An Account (Geographical, Statistical, and Historical) Of Orissa Proper or Cuttack with Appendices (Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press, 1904 1822), pp.44–5. 30Ewer Report, paras.26–32, p.108. 31An important aspect of the state that cannot be taken up in detail here is warfare, which I have touched upon in another article. See Akio Tanabe, ‘Kingship, Community and Commerce in Late Pre-colonial Khurda’, in Noboru Karashima (ed.), Kingship in Indian History (New Delhi: Manohar, 1999), pp.195–236. Examples of repeated warfare between chieftaincies, little kingdoms, the Khurda kingdom and surrounding powers are described in Srichandan, Khuradha Darpana, Parts 2 & 3 [Mirror Of Khurda, in Oriya]; and A. Joshi (ed.), Phiringi Kali Bharata [Foreigner, Conflicts and India, in Oriya] (Cuttack: Cuttack Trading Company, 1986). 32According to W.C. Taylor, Settlement Officer for the 1877 settlement, ‘Mr. Wilkinson [Collector during the 1836 settlement] found that the gurhs [forts] that were broken up improved more than those kept entire, and he observed that all cases of mismanagement should be treated in a similar manner…. At the present settlement every remaining gurh will be broken up, and each village will be settled with a single surburakar [tax collector].’ ‘From W.C. Taylor to the Collector of Pooree, 21 May 1877’, in Selections from the Correspondence on the Settlement Of Khoorda Estate in the District Of Pooree, Vol.I (hereafter Taylor Report), paras.41–42, p.169. 33B.L. Bhatt, ‘India and Indian Regions: A Critical Overview’, in David E. Sopher (ed.), An Exploration Of India: Geographical Perspectives on Society and Culture (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980), p.55; see also Y. Subbarayalu, Political Geography Of the Chola Country (Madras: Govt. of Tamilnadu, Dept. of Archaeology, 1973), p.21; Burton Stein, ‘Circulation and the Historical Geography Of Tamil Country’, in the Journal Of Asian Studies, Vol.XXXVII, no.1 (Nov.1977), pp.7–26; and Brenda E.F. Beck, Peasant Society in Konku: A Study Of Right and Left Subcastes in South India (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1972). 34Mysore N. Srinivas, Religion and Society among the Coorgs Of South India (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), p.57. 35Burton Stein, Peasant, State and Society in Medieval South India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980), p.13. 36In this context, Gordon seems to be more careful about both the general socio-political importance of parganas and also their historical and regional differences. Stewart Gordon, Marathas, Marauders, and State Formation in Eighteenth-Century India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994), p.150. 37For the critical evaluation of the model of ‘segmentary state’, see Noboru Karashima (ed.), Kingship in Indian History, p.11; Noboru Karashima, ‘Importance Of Nayaka Studies and Their Development: A Critique Of Burton Stein’, in A Concordance Of Nayakas: The Vijayanagar Inscriptions in South India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp.9–27. 38One of the aims of this paper is to participate in the debate concerning the ‘yet some unspecified “medieval Indian social formation”’ (Stein) or the ‘medieval Indian system’ (Habib). See Burton Stein, ‘Politics, Peasants and the Deconstruction Of Feudalism in Medieval India’, in Journal Of Peasant Studies, Vol.12, nos.2–3 (1985), p.83; and Irfan Habib, ‘Classifying Pre-Colonial India’, in ‘Feudalism and Non-European Societies’, Journal Of Peasant Studies, Vol. 12, nos.2–3 (1985), p.49. Cf. Hermann Kulke, ‘Introduction’, in Hermann Kulke (ed.), The State in India 1000–1700 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), p.16. 39Dirks, The Hollow Crown; Raheja, The Poison in the Gift; Inden, Imagining India; Quigley, The Interpretation of Caste; and Declan Quigley, ‘Is a History Of Caste Still Possible?’, in Ursula Sharma and Mary Searle-Chatterjee (eds), Contextualising Caste: Post-Dumontian Approaches (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), p.25–48. 40Hocart, Caste: A Comparative Study. 41See for example Dirks, The Hollow Crown. 42Rg Veda 10: 9; Ronald B. Inden, ‘Ritual, Authority, and Cyclic Time in Hindu Kingship’, in J.F. Richards (ed.), Kingship and Authority in South Asia (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), p.39; J.C. Heesterman, The Inner Conflict Of Tradition (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1985), p. 39; Stanley J. Tambiah, World Conqueror and World Renouncer: A Study Of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand Against a Historical Background (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), pp.20–21. 43Kolff, Naukar, Rajput, and Sepoy. 44Quigley, The Interpretation Of Caste, p.229. 45 Ibid., p.155. 46 Karani letters were special scripts used by the writers, Karana, of the period. 47See Hiroyuki Kotani, Indo no Chusei Shakai: Mura, Kasuto, Ryoshu [Medieval Society in India: Village, Caste, Landowner] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1989); Hiroyuki Kotani, ‘The Vatan-System in Sixteenth–Eighteenth Century Deccan: Towards a New Concept Of Indian Feudalism’, in Dwijendra N. Jha (ed.), Society and Ideology in India: Essays in Honour Of Professor R.S. Sharma (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1996), pp. 249–68; Hiroyuki Kotani, Western India in Historical Transition: Seventeenth to Early Twentieth Centuries (New Delhi: Manohar, 2002) for a study of the ‘Vatan system’ in Maratha country. See Mizushima, 18–20 Seiki Minami Indo Zaichishakai no Kenkyu [A Study on South Indian Local Society in 18th–20th Centuries]; Tsukasa Mizushima, ‘The Mirasi System and Local Society in Pre-Colonial South India’, in P. Robb, K. Sugihara and H. Yanagisawa (eds), Local Agrarian Societies in Colonial India: Japanese Perspectives (London: Curzon Press, 1996); and Tsukasa Mizushima, ‘The Mirasi System as Social Grammar: State, Local Society, and Raiyat in 18th–19th Century South India’, in Masaaki Kimura and Akio Tanabe (eds), The State in India: Past and Present (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005) for the ‘mirasi system’ in South India. Also see Frank Perlin, ‘Of White Whale and Countrymen in the Eighteenth-Century Maratha Deccan: Extended Class Relations, Rights, and the Problem Of Rural Autonomy Under the Old Regime’, in Journal Of Peasant Studies, Vol.5, no.2 (1977), pp.172–237, for his important attempts to understand the ‘system of rights’ in the context of the eighteenth-century Maratha state. What Kotani, Mizushima and Perlin call ‘Vatan system’, ‘mirasi system’ and ‘system of rights’ respectively are different in terms of perspective, but seem to point to essentially the same institutional phenomenon as that I call here the ‘system of entitlements’. 48P.K. Pattanaik, A Forgotten Chapter Of Orissan History (with Special Reference to the Rajas Of Khurda and Puri) 1568–1828 (Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 1979). 49For example, see A.R. Kulkarni, ‘Source Material for the Study Of Village Communities in Maharashtra’, in A.R. Kulkarni (ed.), History in Practice: Historians and Sources Of Medieval Deccan-Marathas (New Delhi: Books and Books, 1993), pp.185–201 on source materials of the Maratha revenue records that can be used for the study of village structure. 50Perlin, ‘State Formation Reconsidered, Part Two’, p.435. 51I must admit, however, that since I have no clear historical evidence of the structure of local communities in Khurda before the sixteenth century, this still remains speculation. 52The influence of the market is also extremely important in understanding the early modern character of local society. See Tanabe, ‘Kingship, Community and Commerce in Late Pre-Colonial Khurda’, pp.195–236; and Akio Tanabe, ‘Early Modernity and Colonial Transformation: Rethinking the Role Of the King in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Orissa’, in Kimura and Tanabe (eds), The State in India. 53In areas where the chiefs retained semi-independence until colonial times, such as those under the Saori khandayats, people still say that their service lands were given to them by the chief. This is in contrast to other regions in the Khurda kingdom where people invariably claim it was the king who gave them their service lands. 54See Kulke on medieval state formation in India. Hermann Kulke, ‘The Integrative Model Of State Formation in Early Medieval India: Some Historiographic Remarks’, in Kimura and Tanabe (eds), The State in India. 55Athagarh is the name of a little kingdom in Orissa. 56There are several different stories relating to this meritorious act. One states that the brothers carried the king's palanquin across a strong current of the Mahanadi River when cowherds were unable to do so. The king was pleased and gave them the position of doorkeepers. This account (that they performed the cowherds' job as palanquin carriers) is considered degrading for the chief's lineage and told as a secret history in the village. After that, when the kingdom was attacked, the four brothers are said to have saved the queen by hiding her in the forest. The queen insisted that they would be placed in a better position in the royal army, and they were assigned as the doorkeepers on the four directions. Later, the four brothers were successful in conquering the fort of Kanjia by attacking it when the formidable eighteen brothers of the fort were taking a bath in the pond. This story is often told to imply the chief's brutality. The chief is also sometimes derogatorily and secretly referred to as ‘Nahaka’ by the villagers, implying that they are of Saora origin. 57This tallies with the fact that the members of the lineage of the chief of Garh Manitri considered those of the lineages of these chiefs as belonging to the same family (bamsa), and continued to have exchange relations with them as well as observing ritual obligations as lineage members till the 1960s. 58The forts of Atri, Bajipur and Kadaribari were annexed to the Khurda kingdom after 1592 as they are not listed in the record of the arrangement of 1592 by Raja Mansingh. See Sterling, An Account (Geographical, Statistical, and Historical) Of Orissa Proper, p.45. The legend probably reflects that the three brothers were granted these newly conquered forts from the king. 59This shows the openness of military positions to achievement and also the ‘marketability’ of military prowess, as Kolff points out. However, the picture which emerges here is more personal relations-oriented than ‘military labour market’. Kolff, Naukar, Rajput, and Sepoy. 60Sterling, An Account (Geographical, Statistical, and Historical) Of Orissa Proper, p.45. 61 Madala Panji quoted in K.N. Mahapatra, Khurudha Itihasa [History of Khurda, in Oriya] (Cuttack: Granthamandir, 1969), p.61. On Madala Panji, see Hermann Kulke, ‘Reflections on the Sources Of the Temple Chronicles Of the Madala Panji Of Puri’, in Hermann Kulke, Kings and Cults: State Formation and Legitimation in India and Southeast Asia (Delhi: Manohar, 1993), pp.159–91. 62See Akio Tanabe, ‘The Sacrificer State and Sacrificial Community: Kingship in Early Modern Khurda, Orissa Seen Through a Local Ritual’, in G. Berkemer and M. Frenz (eds), Sharing Sovereignty: The Little Kingdom in South Asia (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2003), pp.115–35. 63Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen, and Bazaars; Peabody, Hindu Kingship and Polity in Pre-Colonial India. 64However, there were state scribes and accountants who received their salary from the state and did not have shares from the local community. They were obviously less embedded in the local system of entitlements. I will discuss these below. 65Perlin, ‘State Formation Reconsidered, Part Two’, p.475. 66See Tanabe, ‘Kingship, Community and Commerce in Late Pre-colonial Khurda’, pp.195–236; Tanabe, ‘Early Modernity and Colonial Transformation: Rethinking the Role of the King in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Orissa’; and Tanabe, ‘The Sacrificer State and Sacrificial Community’, pp.115–35. 67Sterling, An Account (Geographical, Statistical, and Historical) Of Orissa Proper. It has been reported that some offices were alienable in other parts of pre-colonial India too. See Hiroshi Fukazawa, ‘Agrarian Relations and Land Revenue: The Medieval Deccan and Maharashtra’, in T. Raychaudhuri and I. Habib (eds), The Cambridge Economic History Of India Vol.1 c.1200–c.1750 (New Delhi: Orient Longman and Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp.249–60; Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen, and Bazaars; Kotani, Western India in Historical Transition: Seventeenth to Early Twentieth Centuries; and Mizushima, 18–20 Seiki Minami Indo Zaichishakai no Kenkyu [A Study on South Indian Local Society in 18th–20th Centuries]. Fuller also mentions that the alienation of inam grants and rights in public worship were common practice from long past. See Chris Fuller, Servants Of the Goddess: The Priests Of a South Indian Temple (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 68However this statement still remains inconclusive. Further investigation is necessary to confirm the point. 69Bayly, Origins Of Nationality in South Asia; McKim Marriot, ‘Hindu Transactions: Diversity Without Dualism’, in Bruce Kapferer (ed.), Transaction and Meaning: Directions in the Anthropology Of Exchange and Symbolic Behavior (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1976), pp.109–42; Valentine E. Daniel, Fluid Signs: Being a Person the Tamil Way (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); and Akio Tanabe, ‘Moral Society, Political Society and Civil Society in Post-colonial India: A View from Orissan Locality’, in Journal Of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, No.14 (2002), pp.40-67. 70Some other names suggest the nature of the land and there are also others without apparent meanings. 71It is said that the peasants in this area considered the term ‘chandina’ [sic] derogatory. ‘The Rate Report Of the Settlement Officer, from W.C. Taylor to the Collector of Puri, Khordah, 30 November 1879’, in Selections from the Correspondence on the Settlement Of Khoorda Estate in the District Of Pooree, Vol.II (hereafter Rate Report), para.210, p.84. 72The bhiana in this period contained what may be translated as ‘records of rights by person’ based on shares. In the colonial period, the multiple rights the entitlement-holders held were reduced to land-ownership, and the contents of bhiana were transformed into ‘land records by person’. From the colonial government's point of view, this represented a record of taxes that were supposed to be paid by individuals, and Maddox refers to bhiana as ‘rent roll’. We can see the transformation of the nature of ‘right’ from pre-colonial to colonial times in a concentrated form in the change of the meaning of the word bhiana. See S.L. Maddox, Final Report on the Survey and Settlement Of the Province Of Orissa (Temporary Settled Areas) 1890 to 1900 A.D., Vol.I (hereafter Maddox Report), reprinted under the authority of Board of Revenue, Orissa. 73One kahana was equal to about a quarter of a rupee in the eighteenth century. The value of cowry depreciated dramatically after colonisation. 1 kahana = 16 pana = 320 ganda = 1280 kada = 1280 kaudi (cowry). 74I have discussed the importance of cowry money in terms of its function of integrating localities to wider markets elsewhere. Tanabe, ‘Kingship, Community and Commerce in Late Pre-Colonial Khurda’, pp.195–236. Als
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