ANTECEDENTS

I3

subordinate Chiefs, or ex-kings, paying revenue to a superior;
but the number of kings, and the frequency of war, during
the Hindu period furnished the conditions in which such an
institution would naturally arise, and the Arthasasira
recognises the existence, or at least the possibility, of
vassal kings, and of payments by them of taxes or subsidies!
The same work speaks of taxes levied from whole villages,
an expression which points to something like the Groupassessment
 of Moslem times; and, finally, the essential
feature of Measurement, payment of a definite quantity of
grain per unit of area cultivated, recurs in inscriptions?
from Southern India, dating from a period earlier than the
Moslem conquest of the North.
In this connection it may be appropriate to refer to the
modern practice of the Rajput State of Udaipur-Mewar,
a tract which was never subjected to Moslem administration,
and where it is probable that Hindu institutions have
survived in their integrity. Mr. G. Chenevix Trench, who
has recently been employed in reassessing the State, informs
me that he found the three methods of assessment, Sharing,
Measurement, and Contract, in operation side by side, and
sometimes within the limits of a single village. Sharing
was ordinarily carried out by Estimation, at the rate of
one-third or one-half the produce (apart from cesses), but
the peasants had the option of claiming actual Division
and weighment of the produce on the threshing-floor. In
some villages, Measurement was the general practice;
while, as far back as the records go, it has been the regular
rule in the case of crops such as sugarcane, poppy, or
vegetables, which are not handled on the threshing-floor.
The antiquity of the Contract system is proved by documents
going back in some cases for four centuries, and indicating
a long-established practice. Group-assessment is common
in the State: Farming was discontinued only about halfa-century
 ago; and Assignments to officials were until
recently a normal feature of the administration.
Such is the position in that part of Northern India which
has been least under the influence of Moslem practice; and,

! See Books VI and VII, and especially p. 109.
} Aivangar, 150, 175.