the instruction of youth in the district, either public or private,
and, as I suppose must be understood, either elementary or
learned. If, as I suspect, this statement is incorrect, it is the
more extraordinary, because the agent appears to have taken a
great deal of trouble to collect information regarding the means
existing in the district supposed to be applicable to the encour-
agement of education. From the analogy of other neighbouring
districts, it seems incredible that there should be no schools of
any kind amongst a population in which there is a proportion of
thirty Hindoos to one Mahomedan.
In 1820, a Hindoo named Sarbanand, who claimed
succession to the office of ojha or high-priest of the temple of
Baidyanath already mentioned, made an offer to the government
through the local agent to give 5,000 rupees as an endowment
for a Native school in the district on condition that his claim to
the succession of the ojhaship might be sanctioned and
established by the authority of government. From a notice of this
transaction contained in the records of the General Committee,
it would appear that he actually sent the money to the
Collector’s office, and that in addition to the establishment of a
school he wished it to be, in part, expended on the excavation of
a tank at Soory, the chief town of the district. The offer was
declined, and Sarbanand informed that he must abide the
regular adjudication of the law courts on his claim, which proved
unfavourable.
The acting Agent and Collector in Beerbhoom in 1823
seems to have considered that the funds of the temple were
liable to be applied to the establishment of public institutions,
but it does not appear on what grounds this opinion was formed.
According to one account the collections of the temple average
30,000 rupees per annum, the amount depending on the
number and liberality of the pilgrims. According to an official
estimate made in 1822, the resources of the temple were
supposed to be 1,50,000 rupees annually. A specific fact stated
is that in two months the collections amounted to 15,000
rupees, but it is not said whether the two months were in the
season of the year when the temple is most frequented. The
present appropriation of the revenue after providing, I conclude,
for the current expenses of the temple, is to the support of
religious mendicants and devotees.
The acting Agent and Collector also submitted two
statements of the quantity of land dedicated to various religious
purposes, expressing at the same time the opinion that the
produce