Funding for research and writing for this paper came from a Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Fellowship, 1974–1975 and from the University of Oslo. Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the conference, ‘The Career and Prospects of Law in Modern India’, funded by the Social Science Research Council and held in Madison, Wisconsin, June 1982, and at the XIX nordiske historikerkongres, Odense, Denmark, 1984. Proceedings from the latter conference were published in 1986.

¹ Irschick, Eugene F. gives an intellectual history of the non-Brahman movement in his Politics and Social Conflict in South India: The Non-Brahman Movement and Tamil Separatism, 1916–1929 (Berkeley, 1969), pp. 275–310.Google ScholarA recent discusion of Hindu–Mulism riots and questions of community identity is the dissertation of Freitag, Sandria B., ‘Religious Rites and Riots: Communalism and Community Identity in North India, 1870–1940’, University of California, Berkeley, 1980.Google Scholar

² Washbrook, DavidBaker, Christopher John have put forth this view. Washbrook, The Emergence of Provincial Politics: The Madras Presidency, 1870–1920 (Cambridge, 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Baker, , The Politics of South India, 1920–1937 (Cambridge, 1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ ‘The Non-Brahman Manifesto’, in Irchick, , Politics and Social Conflict in South India, pp. 358–67.Google Scholar

⁴ Barnett, Steven, ‘Identity Choice and Caste Ideology in Contemporary South India,’ in David, Kenneth (ed.), The New Wind: Changing Identities in South Asia (The Hague, 1977), pp. 393–414Google Scholar, and Barnett, Marguerite Ross, The Politics of Cultural Nationalism in South India (Princeton, New Jersey, 1976).Google Scholar

⁵ A discussion of zamindari, landholding litigation with reference to one of the largest estates in Tamil country is in my ‘Raja-dharma in Zamindari South India: Land, Litigation and Largess in Ramnad,’ Contributions to Indian Sociology (NS), vol. 13, no. 2 (1979), pp. 228–34.Google Scholar

⁶ The definition of legal culture used here refers to those values about law, structures and rules of dispute processing, and links between these structures and relevant social and political structures in a wider society and culture. This follows from discussions in Friedman, Lawrence M., The Legal System: A Social Science Perspective (New York, 1975), p. 15 and chs. viii, ix, and x.Google Scholar

⁷ Marriott, McKimInden, Ronald B., ‘Caste Systems’, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 3, pp. 983–91 presents a formulation of code and substance in caste membership;Google Scholar see also Dumont, Louis, Homo Hierarchicus: An Essay on the Caste System, translated by Sainsbury, Mark (Chicago, 1970).Google Scholar

⁸ Barnett, , ‘Identity Choice’, p. 396.Google Scholar

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Barnett, Marguerite Ross, The Politics of Cultural Nationalism in South India.Google Scholar

¹¹ Ibid., pp. 161–4.

¹² Ibid., p. 327.

¹³ Irschick, , Politics and Social Conflict, pp. 275–310.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Ibid., ‘The Non-Brahman Manifesto’, pp. 358–67.

¹⁵ Ibid., p. 362.

¹⁶ Stein, Burton, in Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India (Delhi, 1980), well delineates the nature of indigenous polity in the centuries preceding the establishment of British imperial government.Google ScholarKadhirvel, S., A History of the Maravas: 1700–1802 (Madurai, 1977), is an excellent guide to the political structures and events of the Tirunelveli and Ramnad areas.Google ScholarMahalingam, T. V., Mackenzie Manuscripts: Summaries of the Historical Manuscripts in the Mackenzie Collection (Madras, 1972), vol. 1 (Tamil and Malayalam), performs an essential service. For an all-India characterization, showing similarities with Stein's formulations,Google Scholar see Heesterman, J. C., ‘Was there an Indian Reaction? Western Expansion in Indian Perspectives,’ in Wesseling, H. L. (ed.), Expansion and Reaction (Leiden, 1978), pp. 31–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁷ Lingat, Robert, The Classical Law of India (Berkeley, 1973), translated by Derrett, J.Duncan, p. 203Google Scholar.

¹⁸ The role of temples, for example, in political integration is examined in Appadurai, Arjun, Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule: A South Indian Case (Cambridge, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and in Appadurai, and Breckenridge, Carol Appadurai, ‘The South Indian Temple: Authority, Honor and Redistribution’, in Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s., vol. 10. no. 2 (1976), pp. 187–211.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Kadhirvel, , History of the Maravas, pp. 11, 16–21, 52, 57, 59. Published after this article was written,Google ScholarThe Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom (Cambridge, 1987), by Dirks, Nicholas B., discusses the relationship between kinship and rule in Pudukkottai, pp. 203–84Google Scholar.

²⁰ Trautman, Thomas R., Dravidian Kingship (Cambridge, 1981), ch. 6, ‘The Politics of Kinship’, pp. 357–94.Google Scholar

²¹ Nelson, J. H., Indian Usage and Judge-made Law in Madras (London, 1887).Google Scholar See also Duncan, J.Derrett's, M. discussion of the career of Nelson in his ‘J. H. Nelson: A Forgotten Administrator-Historian of India’, in Phillips, C. H. (ed.), Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon (London, 1961), pp. 354–72.Google Scholar

²² Nelson, , pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

²³ There is much excellent writing on this topic. I simply suggest here two articles on nineteenth century usage of these texts: both are by Duncan, J.Derrett, M., and are taken from his book, Religion, Law and the State in India (London, 1968),Google Scholar ch. 8, ‘The British as Patrons of the Sastra’, pp. 225–73, and ch. 9, ‘the Administrations of Hindu Law by the British’, pp. 274–320Google Scholar.

²⁴ This point was argued in my ‘Changing Meanings of Succession: Maravar Warriors in the Nineteenth Century’, given at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, Toronto, 1981.Google Scholar

²⁵ The evolution of royal polity during the nineteenth century in Maravar Country is the topic of my Ph. D. dissertation, ‘Resources and Rule in Zamindari South India, 1802–1903: Sivagangai and Ramnad as Kingdoms under the Raj’, University of Wisconsin, 1979.Google Scholar

²⁶ I attempt a systematic approach to this conflict in my ‘Competition and Conflict in Hindu Polity, c. 1550–1750: The Integration and Fragmentation of Tamil and Andhra Kingdoms’, presented at the Eighth European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, Tällberg, Sweden, 1983.Google Scholar

²⁷ See ‘The Law Courts and the New Structure of Sucession’, in my ‘Resoures and Rule’, pp. 132–75. I am continuing with this study of litigation, but have shifted the focus from Maravar caste country to the Andhra Coast in a paper for the project, ‘Kin in Conflict and Conflict among Kin on the Andhra Coast: Velama Caste “Families” in the Nineteenth Century,’ Universitetet i Oslo.Google Scholar

²⁸ Nelson, pp. 191–203, part II, ch. III, ‘Customs not judicially recognized’.Google Scholar

²⁹ David Washbrook argues that the incidence of litigation in the frist half of the nineteenth centry has been exaggerated. In 1850, 64,500 suits were instituted for property worth just 73.5 lakhs and the number of suits involving land titles were 4,742. By the late century, the total number of cases per year ran at 200,000 for Madras. see his ‘Law, State and Agrarian Society in Colonial India,’ in Modern Asian Studies, vol. 15, no. 3 (1981), p. 670.Google Scholar The argument here, however, is not based upon great numbers of cases, but the types of families involved, families holding large areas of land compared to the majority of agriculturalists. These certainly dominated the highest court of appeal, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, throughout the century.

³⁰ Price, ‘Raja-dharma in Zamindari South India: Land, Litigation and Largess,’ p. 230.Google Scholar

³¹ Washbrook, Emergence, pp. 235–6.Google Scholar

³² For biographical details see: Gopalratnam, V. C., A Century Completed: A History of the Madras High Court (Madras, 1962?), p. 154;Google Scholar‘The Late Sir V. Bashyam Aiyangar,’ in Madras Law Journal, vol. xviii (11 1908);Google ScholarRamesam, Vepa, ‘Sir Bhashyam Iyengar’, in Advocates Association Golden Jubilee Souvenir, 1939, p. x.Google Scholar

³³ Gopalratnam, A Cenury Completed, p. 158.Google Scholar

³⁴ Aiyar, C. P. Ramaswami, Biographical Vistas; Sketches of Some Eminent Indians (London, 1968), p. 131.Google Scholar

³⁵ Details below are from ‘Biographies of a Grandfather (The Hon'ble C. V. Runganatha Sastri) and His Grandson (Sir C. V. Kumaraswmi Sastri, Kt., Dewan Bahadur)’ (Madras?, 1939), pp. 1–2, 27.Google Scholar

³⁶ Gopalratnam, , A Century Completed, p. 173.Google Scholar

³⁷ Aiyar, Ramaswami, Biographical Vistas, p. 132.Google Scholar

³⁸ Ibid., pp. 174–5.

³⁹ Details below are from the Tamil biography of Krishnaswami by his son, a lawyer, Chandrasekharan, K., Vi. Kirusnasvāmi Iyar (Madras, 1945), pp. 1–4, 24, 28, 38, 44.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Ibid., p. 60.

⁴¹ Anon., V. Krishnaswami Aiyar, C.S.I., A Sketch of his Life and Career (Madras, 1913), p. 28; interview with K Chandrasekharan in Madras, 05, 1974, son of Krishnaswami.Google Scholar

⁴² Ibid., p. 6.

⁴³ Ibid., p. 43–4.

⁴⁴ Aiyar, Ramaswami, Biographical Vistas, p. 163–5.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ ‘The Late MrAiyar, V. Krishnaswami, C.S.I.,’ Madras Weekly Notes, Jan. 7, 1912, p. 2.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Aiyar, Ramaswami, ‘Sri V. Krishnaswami Aiyar, Sri P. R. Sundara Aiyar, and Sir John Wallis’, in Gopalratnam, p. 162.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ ‘Appointment of Krishnaswami Iyer, J., to the Mylapore Executive Council’, in Madras Weekly Notes, Jan. 22, 1911, p. 10.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Gopalratnam, , A Century Completed, p. 21.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Aiyer, P. S. Sivaswami, ‘The Madras Law Journal: Its Early Years’, Madras Law Journal: Golden Jubilee Number (Madras, 1941), p. 4.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Ibid., p. 2.

⁵¹ Chandrasekharan, K., Vi. Kirusnasvāmi, pp. 40–3, details below.Google Scholar

⁵² Anon., ‘V. Kishnaswami Aiyar’, p. 4.Google Scholar

⁵³ Washbrook, , Emergence, pp. 232–55.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Sastri, T. R. Vendatarama, Lawyer and former Apprentice to P. S. Sivaswami Iyer, ‘Recollections and Impressions’, Sir P. S. Sivaswami Iyer: Satabhishekam, Souvenir Volume (Madras, 1944), p. 50.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Irschick, Politics and Social Conflict, pp. 47–8.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Aiyangar, S.Srinivasa, Law Reform and Law (Madras, 1909), p. 13.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Ibid., pp. 88–9.

⁵⁸ Munro, Thomas, ‘The Position of the Ryot and the Zemindar’, in Arbuthnot, Alexander J. (ed.), Major-General Sir Thomas Munro Bart., Offical Writings (London, 1881), p. 117.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Price, , ‘Resources and Rule’.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Those concerning, for example, Nuzvid, Pithapuram, Kolenka, Belgaum.

⁶¹ Price, ‘Raja-dharma in Ramnad’, pp. 212 and 226–34.Google Scholar

⁶² Aiyangar, Bhashynam, ‘Statement of Objects and Reasons’, in The Madras Law Journal: The Law of Hindu Gains of Learning, vol. X, 1900, p. 6.Google Scholar

⁶³ Baker, , Politics of South India, p. 41. This number included the rajas of Panagal, Kalahasti, Venkatagiri, Pithapuram, Mirzapurma, Bobbili and Nuzvid.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Ibid., p. 27.

⁶⁵ Maharajah Sri Rao Venkata Swetachalapati Ranga-Rao Bahadur K.C.I.E., Maharaja of Bobbili, Adivce to the Indian Aristocracy (Madras, 1905).Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Ibid., pp. 195, 197, 198, 200.

⁶⁷ Irschick, , Politics and Social Conflict, p. 51.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Baker, , Politics of South India, pp. 206–7.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Irschick, , Politics and Social Conflict, p. 362.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Ibid.

⁷¹ The dissertation of David Gilmartin is an excellent exploration of issues of law and ruling ideologies in the Punjab: ‘Tribe, Land and Religion in the Punjab: Muslim Politics and the Making of Pakistan’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1979Google Scholar, see for the Unionist Party chs. I and IV. Also, Gilmartin, ‘Customary Law and Shariat in British Punjab’, paper given for SSRC Conference, ‘South Asian Islam: Moral Principles in Tension’, Philadelphia, 1981 and ‘“Tribe”, Custom and Shariat in British Punjab’, given at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, Toronto, 1981.Google Scholar

⁷² Steven Barnett writes concering contemporary attempts of high-status Hindus to maintain rules inappropriately: ‘hedging, presenting contradictory identities in different contexts, is really a kind of holding action and cannot be sustained in the urban setting’. From his ‘Identity Choice and Caste Ideology in Contemporary South India’, in David, Kenneth (ed.), The New Wind: Changing Identities in South Asia (The Hague, 1977), p. 406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷³ Barnett, Marguerite Ross, The Politics of Cultural Nationalism, pp. 300 and 303–4.Google Scholar