1 APPENDIX — SUCCESSIONS. 201
2 The Malwa Singhs, with exception to the Bhaees,
3 sanction and admit the usage of Kurawa, thereby oppos-
4 ing a bar to disputed succession between the brothers,
5 nephews, and the widows of a deceased chief.
6 The Bhaees of Khytul, and other places, although they
7 reject the union by Kurawa, yet set aside the claims of a
8 widow, in favor of the brothers and nephews of one dying
9 without male issue. The widows of Bhaees receive small
10 Jageers for their support during life.
11 The Mahomedan families scattered over the Sikh
12 States, who have been enabled to preserve their existence,
13 and the shadow of power, reject the ordinances of
14 their Law-givers, and are guided by rules of their own
15 forming. Were the Mahomedan and Hindoo laws on
16 inheritance, as inculcated by the Shura and Metakshara,
17 to be made the leading principle in succession to landed
18 property, very few, if any, of the many principalities in
19 India would remain entire, and a common distribution
20 would become universal, to the extinction of great
21 estates, and the annihilation of the chiefs with their
22 aristocratical influence.
23 When the country, overrun by the Sikhs, had been par-
24 celled out into new allotments, the former divisions into
25 districts, as established during the reigns of the Dehlee
26 Emperors, and recorded by the Kanoongoes, or rule-
27 tellers, became void, and much angry litigation arose
28 in respect to the village boundaries, and waste lands.
29 The cultivators originated the cause of dispute, and the
30 effect was in most cases an appeal to arms, and an effusion
31 of blood, before the claims of the parties c^uld be heard,
32 2 B