ZEMINDAR, a Persian word which signifies literally a landholder. The word was introduced into Hindustan by the Mohammedans, but it is probable that the office to which it is applied was previously in existence as a part of the system of village organisation which extends throughout the whole of Hindustan. A village in Hindustan is not simply a collection of houses smaller than that of a town ; it is a tract of country comprising hundreds (sometimes thousands) of acres of amble and waste land, the inhabitants of which form a sort of corpo ration, with several officers, each of whom has his distinct duties. The head man of this village corporation is the potail, who has at his cote mend the village police. A number of villages form a district, which is larger or smaller according to the number and extent of the villages. The head man of such a district is, in the greater part of Hindustan, called a zenlindar, and the district itself a renlindary. The chief business of the zemindar is to collect the revenues of his district for the government ; and that be may do this effectually, the police of the district is under his control. The collectorate, however, is not insepa rable from the zetnindary ; and should the collection be withdrawn, as it occasionally was, the zemindar still remains the head man of the district, and the representative of it to the government.
This account of the zemindars applies to such of the states of IIin. dustan as were independent of the British government ; but a change in the collection of the revenue was made under Warren Hastings in 1772, when the zemindaries were let to the highest bidder for a term of years, the zemindar in possession, however, being preferred when he offered terms which were deemed reasonable.
At. length a permanent settlement was mado with the zemindars during the government of Lord Cornwallis, in 1791, but was not com pletely carried out till 1793, forming, as it did, a part of the great financial and judicial reforms introduced by him. The amount to be paid to the government was settled at a fixed rate, in the first instance for a term of ten years; but this was to be rendered permanent if sanctioned by the authorities in England. The zemindars were recog nised as proprietors of the soil, and thus have become, in fact, under the British government, what they had not been before, nor are yet under the native governments—landed proprietors of the zetnindary. The ryots, all of whom had hereditary rights in their lands, were made over to the zemindars, who too frequently used their new powers oppressively. But in 1822 it was enacted that tenants holding lands by any hereditary or proscriptive rights should not be dispossessed so long as they paid the rents agreed upon, nor should the rents be increased except under certain specified circumstances. The may dispose of the lands as he thinks fit, and the government does not interfere, so long as the tax is paid.
History of British India, by Wilson; Central India; Jones, On Rent.) %END is the name usually given by Parsee priests to the language A in which the oldest documents of their religion were composed. [Zren-Avesra.] It became current as such in Europe through Anquetil du I'erron, who took the word Zend as the name of the language of the Avesta, and Pazend as that of a corrupted dialect of the Zend. This view, however, ha.4 been shown by modern investigations to rest on a mistaken interpretation of a passage of the ' Ormuzd-Yesht,' and of one taken from the 'Ulemis-i-Isilm '; for it is now certain that Thomas I iyde, whose work on the religion of the old Persians is the first note worthy essay on this subject, was quite correct in calling Zend and Pazend not languages, but books. In confirmation of his view, one passage from the Persian Dictionary Burhan-i-QAti will suffice. It IAMB as follows :—" 7-end is the name of a book which, as Ibrahim Zerdusht affirmed, had come down from heaven on his account. Others say that it is the name of a book of Abraham ; and others again maintain that Zend and Pazend are two works or parts of this book. Zend is also the name of a Turanian Vezir of Soluath, the son of Rustem, who was killed by Rustem. . . Pazend is a commentary vu the Zend, and Zend is a book of Zerdusht. Some, however, reverse this definition, by saying that Zend is a commentary on the Pazend. Again, others maintain that Zend and Pazend are two books on fire worahip, composed by, Ibrahim Zerdusht; and one author says that l'azend is a translation of the Zend." (Spiegel, Granimatik der Parsi-sprache; p. 3.) This passage clearly shows that neither Zend nor Pazend is the name of a language or dialect, but it likewise gives evidence of the difficulty which even learned Pcrsiaus evinced in ascer taining the correct meaning of the terms. Nor can we affirm that it is definitely solved by the present results of Oriental philology. Dr. Friedrich Spiegel, who has translated into German the sacred writings of the Parsecs, expresses himself to the following effect (Introduction to' Avesta, die heiligen Schriften der Parsers,' Leipzig, 1852, p. 45) :—
Avesta, or, in its older form, Apestak, means literally the text, and is the only correct designation which the later Parsecs use for the text of their sacred writings whenever they do not employ the term din, or ' law,' which word, however, is probably to be taken in a more limited sense. In the invocations of the Yas'na, and elsewhere in the oldest period, the expression manthro gfento (that is, the holy speech) occurs for the sacred writings, and this expression has survived under the form of Manser-epents For the language of this oldest period, the Parsecs use the expressions, language of the Manthra, language of the Avesta, (Urine language. . . . But Zend, a word not yet sufficiently explained, is reported to designate the commentary on the sacred books, probably the lluzvaresh translation. The language of this translation is called by the Parsees Iluzvtireah, from the Zend huzaiithra, that is, Lamm sacrificium habens. In connection with Zend we always meet with Pazend, which word seems to mean the commentary on this trans lation." A v.idely different opinion on this subject is given by another scholar, whose labours have for many years been devoted to an nnderatandiug of the old Pardee writings. In a lecture he has recently (on the 1st of March, 1861) delivered at Poona, on tho Origin of the Parsee religion, Dr. M. Haug makes the following state runt " I have discovered in most of the books now extant, Yas'na, Ylaporatu, Vendidad, and Yaslits, all the three classes of the ancient religious Persian literature which are spoken of by ancient Moham medan writers and l'orsian lexicographers, viz., Avesta, that is, ' original text,' Zend, that is, commentary,' and Pazend. that is, • explanatory notes of the commentary.' The opinion of the Parsee priests that Zend and Pazend are names of languages is wholly wrong. 'These three classes may be best discriminated in the Yendidad, or code of religious, civil, and criminal laws, customs, and usages, chiefly in its fourth chapter. We find that verse 1 (in Westergaard's edition) is Avesta, being an ancient and scarcely more intelligible law ; 2-10, its Zend, or commentary ; 11-16, Pazend, or further explanation of the commentary. I shall treat this subject, as well as many other t hinge fully in my Essays on the sacred writings and religion of the Parsecs,' to be published, as I hope, in the course of this year." To enter into any speculation on the different periods of the language of the Avesta would be premature, after the confession made by the beat living and scholars, that they are unable as yet to cope with the considerable difficulties which beset its study. We must, therefore, confine ourselves here to the statement that this language, which—as ebeerved—now passes by the erroneous name of Zend, is one of the ludo-European stock, and bears so great and intimate an affinity to the Sanskrit of the 'Vedas, that 'without a knowledge of the latter, we should probably never have arrived at a correct appreciation of the forma of the language of the Avesta. The ingenious comparisons be tween both languages made by the celebrated Sanskrit scholar, Eugene burnouf, in his Commentaire sur le Vacua,' have laid the first solid foundation of our present knowledge of Zend, and the place, it holds amongst Indo-European languages is best illustrated in the excellent ' Comparative Grammar' of Professor Franz Bopp. ' ZEND-AVESTA is the name commonly given to the sacred books of the Parsecs, which are ascribed to Zarathustra or Zoroaster; it would be better, however, to call them Avesta, which word means text, or original text, since Zend designates the commentary on this text. l'arsee tradition tells us that these books originally consisted of twenty , no nooks or large divisions, but that they were destroyed by Alexander the Great, who had all that they contained of medicine and astronomy translated into Greek, and the rest burnt. There is much reason to doubt the accuracy of this report ; but whether true or not, it is certain that the Grecian conquest was highly detrimental to the old Parsee religion and its sacred texts, and that the restoration of both did not take place before the elevation to the throne of Ardeshir, the first king of the Sassanian dynasty, or about 220 after Christ. He and the kings of his lineage ordered a collection to be made of all that remained of the sacred Parsee texts, and it is this collection which we possess now under the name of Avesta. But not all of the books deemed sacred by the Parsees can strictly speaking be included under this name. It belongs more particularly to the three which are seve rally called Vendidad, Vispered, and Yas'na, whereas the remaining writings are comprised under the denomination of Khorda-Avesta, or " small Avesta." The latter contains short prayers, and especially the netts or rcahts, hymns addressed to the different genii, on the days which bear their names and 'are sacred to them, or on the days of those genii who are considered to be the attendants of the former.