o execution, but said that this could not be done
until every possible effort had been made to discover whether any
descendant of the former _patel_ or of any _watandar_ or hereditary
cultivator of Bassi was still in existence; for if such were found,
he said, "even we Marathas, bad as we are, cannot do anything which
interferes with their rights." None such being found at the time, the
village was settled as proposed by Malcolm; but some time afterwards,
a boy was discovered who was descended from the old _patel's_ family,
and he was invited to resume the office of headman of the village of
his forefathers, which even the Bhil, who had been nominated to it,
was forward to resign to the rightful inheritor. [57] Similarly the
Maratha princes, Sindhia, Holkar and others, are recorded to have
set more store by the headship of the insignificant Deccan villages,
which were the hereditary offices of their families, than by the
great principalities which they had carved out for themselves with
the sword. The former defined and justified their position in the
world as the living link and representative of the continuous family
comprising all their ancestors and all their descendants; the latter
was at first regarded merely as a transient, secular possession,
and a source of wealth and profit. This powerful hereditary right
probably rested on a religious basis. The village community was
considered to be bound up with its village god in one joint life,
and hence no one but they could in theory have the right to cultivate
the lands of that village. The very origin and nature of this right
precluded any question of transfer or alienation. The only lands in
which any ownership, corresponding to our conception of the term,
was held to exist, were perhaps those granted free of revenue for
the maintenance of temples, which were held to be the property of the
god. In Rome and other Greek and Latin cities the idea of private or
family ownership of land also developed from a religious sentiment. It
was customary to bury the dead in the fields which they had held,
and here the belief was that their spirits remained and protected
the interests of the family. Periodical sacrifices were made to them
and they participated in all the family ceremonies. Hence the land
in which the tombs of ancestors were situated was held to belong to
the family, and could not be separated from it. [58] Gradually, as
the veneration for the spirits of ancestors de