ally a village priest, known as Bhumka, Bhumia, Baiga or Jhankar,
who is taken from the non-Aryan tribes. The reason for his appointment
seems to be that the Hindus still look on themselves to some extent
as strangers and interlopers in relation to the gods of the earth and
the village, and consider it necessary to approach these through the
medium of one of their predecessors. The words Bhumka and Bhumia both
mean lord of the soil, or belonging to the soil. As already seen,
the authority of some menial official belonging to the indigenous
tribes is accepted as final in cases of disputed boundaries, the idea
being apparently that as his ancestors first occupied the village,
he has inherited from them the knowledge of its true extent and
limits. All these points appear to tell strongly against the view
that the Hindu village community considered itself to own the village
land as we understand the phrase. They seem to have looked on the
land as a god, and often their own tutelary deity and protector. What
they held themselves to possess was a right of occupancy, in virtue
of prescriptive settlement, not subject to removal or disturbance,
and transmitted by inheritance to persons born into the membership of
the village community. Under the Muhammadans the idea that the state
ultimately owned the land may have been held, but prior to them the
existence of such a belief is doubtful. The Hindu king did not take
rent for land, but a share of the produce for the support of his
establishments. The Rajput princes did not call themselves after
the name of their country, but of its capital town, as if their own
property consisted only in the town, as Jodhpur, Jaipur and Udaipur,
instead of Marwar, Dhundhar and Mewar. Just as the village has a
priest of the non-Aryan tribes for propitiating the local gods, so
the Rajput chief at his accession was often inducted to the royal
cushion by a Bhil or Mina, and received the badge of investiture as
if he had to obtain his title from these tribes. Indeed the right
of the village community to the land was held sometimes superior to
that of the state. Sir J. Malcolm relates that he was very anxious to
get the village of Bassi in Indore State repopulated when it had lain
waste for thirty-six years. He had arranged with the Bhil headman of
a neighbouring village to bring it under cultivation on a favourable
lease. The plan had other advantages, and Holkar's minister was most
anxious to put it int