[11]
The fiscal laws which define the rights and duties of the landed
interests and the agricultural classes in relation to each other and
to the ruling powers were also everywhere exceedingly simple and well
understood by the people. What in England is now a mere fiction of
law is still in India an essential principle. All lands are held
directly or indirectly of the sovereign: to this rule there is no
exception.[12] The reigning sovereign is essentially the proprietor
of the whole of the lands in every part of India, where he has not
voluntarily alienated them; and he holds these lands for the payment
of those public establishments which are maintained for the public
good, and are supported by the rents of the lands either directly
under assignment, or indirectly through the sovereign proprietor.
When a Muhammadan or Hindoo sovereign assigned lands rent-free in
_perpetuity_, it was always understood, both by the donor and
receiver, to be with the _small reservation_ of a right in his
successor to resume them for the public good, if he should think
fit.[13] Hindoo sovereigns, or their priests for them, often tried to
bar this right by _invoking curses_ on the head of that successor who
should exercise it.
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