MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY,--
1.On this a rare, memorable occasion when His Most Gracious Majesty's greatest gift to this Ancient and Great Country--- a New Age of rights and privileges---is being introduced through Royal Representatives of His Majesty bringing a message of hope.peace and good-will to this country, may I invite Your Excellency and through Your Excellency the Imperial Government to give kind attention to a question which though primarily a personal question is yet a question is its general aspect intimately connected with the scheme of self government for this country of ancient histories and tradition?
2.To begin the question, I am deeply grateful to Government for the honours and distinctions which have been conferred upon me from time to time ;but there yet remains that question of great importance to me and to my House--- the question of restoration of the ruling powers enjoyed by my forefathers before the East India Company took possession of North Bihar, which I beg leave to submit hereby for consideration
3..Representatives of public opinion both here and in England have pointed out the advantages, desirability, and claims of certain class of ancient families and tracts to be erected into Ruling Houses and Principalities. That desirability seems to have received recognition also from such high authority as the Right Hon'ble Mr. Montagu, who on the 10th of July,1917, speaking before the House of Commons about the would-be.constitutional India described it as "the great self-governing dominions and provinces of India organised and co-ordinated with great principalities-- the existing principalities, and perhaps new ones.-- not one great Home Rule Country but a series of self - governing provinces and principalities federated by one Central Government."
4.There are tracts in this country which by reason of history, associations, traditions,language and similar factors are marked out as distinct political individualities. It is submitted that it is those tracts to which the Reform should be extended in the first instance in the way of erecting "New Principalities." In other words, where tracts had been organisms-- "principalities"-- in the near past, where life is still traceable in traditions and institutions, the scheme of self-government in this aspect be applied to them and the tracts be revived in full life, into full political persona.
5. I beg to submit that the necessary conditions,enviornments and qualifications are to be found in the part of Tirhut which has been known as Mithila since Vedic times-- since the facts related in the Epics (the Ramayana and Mahabharata ). It lies mainly in the districts of Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur extending north right up to the foot of the Himalayas. It stands out in Northern Bihar by its history, language (Maithili)and literature as a national unit , a separate entity. It has been the seat of a Hindu kingdom since earliest times. Mostly the kingdom of Mithila was territorially identical with Tirhut; at times that kingdom included the whole of Northern Bihar and beyond. Under my own ancestors the whole of Sirkar Tirhut, greater portion of the district of Purnea,a portion of north Bhagalpur and also a small portion of Champaran, had come within its limits. For centuries even before the rise of my House, the rulers of Mithila had been Brahmins. Its literature flourished under them and continued under my House; it is distinctly national. So is the very language and script in which that language is written.. No other unit in India continued the Hindu tradition unbroken in Muhammadan times up to the advent of the British Power. Mithila alone can claim to have been the intact home of orthodox Hindu civilisation, where even scribes wrote documents in Sanskrit up to the 18th century, where Hindu Law was administered by Hindu Lawers until the Dewany, where Hindu philosphies and sciences are studied in every village even to-day.
6. Sirkar Tirhut then comprised 84 Parganas covering the greater parts of the districts of Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur. The boundries of the Sirkar in the grant of Mm Mahesh Thakur are said to have been "At Ganga to Sang-- As kosa to Ghosa,"that is, from the Ganges in the south to the mountain in the north-- from the river Kosi in the east to the Gandak in the west. This couplet laying down the boundries is printed in the Survey Settlement Report of the Purnia district. By subsequent grants to my ancestors by the Moghul Emperors about half of Purnia and a portion of Bhagalpur was added to their territories.
7. Mithila, if not the whole of Tirhut, has thus the strongest claims to be raised again into its former political persona-- an Indian State..
1.On this a rare, memorable occasion when His Most Gracious Majesty's greatest gift to this Ancient and Great Country--- a New Age of rights and privileges---is being introduced through Royal Representatives of His Majesty bringing a message of hope.peace and good-will to this country, may I invite Your Excellency and through Your Excellency the Imperial Government to give kind attention to a question which though primarily a personal question is yet a question is its general aspect intimately connected with the scheme of self government for this country of ancient histories and tradition?
2.To begin the question, I am deeply grateful to Government for the honours and distinctions which have been conferred upon me from time to time ;but there yet remains that question of great importance to me and to my House--- the question of restoration of the ruling powers enjoyed by my forefathers before the East India Company took possession of North Bihar, which I beg leave to submit hereby for consideration
3..Representatives of public opinion both here and in England have pointed out the advantages, desirability, and claims of certain class of ancient families and tracts to be erected into Ruling Houses and Principalities. That desirability seems to have received recognition also from such high authority as the Right Hon'ble Mr. Montagu, who on the 10th of July,1917, speaking before the House of Commons about the would-be.constitutional India described it as "the great self-governing dominions and provinces of India organised and co-ordinated with great principalities-- the existing principalities, and perhaps new ones.-- not one great Home Rule Country but a series of self - governing provinces and principalities federated by one Central Government."
4.There are tracts in this country which by reason of history, associations, traditions,language and similar factors are marked out as distinct political individualities. It is submitted that it is those tracts to which the Reform should be extended in the first instance in the way of erecting "New Principalities." In other words, where tracts had been organisms-- "principalities"-- in the near past, where life is still traceable in traditions and institutions, the scheme of self-government in this aspect be applied to them and the tracts be revived in full life, into full political persona.
5. I beg to submit that the necessary conditions,enviornments and qualifications are to be found in the part of Tirhut which has been known as Mithila since Vedic times-- since the facts related in the Epics (the Ramayana and Mahabharata ). It lies mainly in the districts of Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur extending north right up to the foot of the Himalayas. It stands out in Northern Bihar by its history, language (Maithili)and literature as a national unit , a separate entity. It has been the seat of a Hindu kingdom since earliest times. Mostly the kingdom of Mithila was territorially identical with Tirhut; at times that kingdom included the whole of Northern Bihar and beyond. Under my own ancestors the whole of Sirkar Tirhut, greater portion of the district of Purnea,a portion of north Bhagalpur and also a small portion of Champaran, had come within its limits. For centuries even before the rise of my House, the rulers of Mithila had been Brahmins. Its literature flourished under them and continued under my House; it is distinctly national. So is the very language and script in which that language is written.. No other unit in India continued the Hindu tradition unbroken in Muhammadan times up to the advent of the British Power. Mithila alone can claim to have been the intact home of orthodox Hindu civilisation, where even scribes wrote documents in Sanskrit up to the 18th century, where Hindu Law was administered by Hindu Lawers until the Dewany, where Hindu philosphies and sciences are studied in every village even to-day.
6. Sirkar Tirhut then comprised 84 Parganas covering the greater parts of the districts of Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur. The boundries of the Sirkar in the grant of Mm Mahesh Thakur are said to have been "At Ganga to Sang-- As kosa to Ghosa,"that is, from the Ganges in the south to the mountain in the north-- from the river Kosi in the east to the Gandak in the west. This couplet laying down the boundries is printed in the Survey Settlement Report of the Purnia district. By subsequent grants to my ancestors by the Moghul Emperors about half of Purnia and a portion of Bhagalpur was added to their territories.
7. Mithila, if not the whole of Tirhut, has thus the strongest claims to be raised again into its former political persona-- an Indian State..
