Some pretend that the family of the real _Kshetrias_ is totally extinct in India; but I can, on the other hand, assert, that I found among the Gauts, not far from _Vaipur_, a town, together with a temple, which belonged to these _Kshetrias_, who cultivated the surrounding fields, and lived on their produce. I was assured also by Father Pavone, who for thirty years had been superintendant of the missionary establishment at Madura, that a great many of the _Kshetrias_ had fled to these mountains from Madura, in order to avoid falling into the hands of Hayder Aly Khan, Tippoo Sultan, Mohamed Aly, and the English. The third noble class of the Indians consists of the _Vayshya_, who are never distinguished by the name of _Bice_, as Hodges and Robertson pretend. This cast was founded also by _Menu_ or Noah, if we can confide in the book _Manushastra_, and the traditions of the Indians. The employments of the _Vayshya_ are: _Krshi_, or agriculture; _Pashupalya_, breeding of cattle; and _Vànigiya_, the sale of their productions. They supply the public with rice, corn, mustard, ginger, pease, millet, maize, and other articles of the like kind; but they preserve their butter and milk entirely for their kings, their Brahmans, and their temples, that the gods may never be in want of such offerings. The _Vayshya_, with their families, generally live in the country, where each has his own house and separate grove. In the latter stands a small temple, with an image of _Shiva_, or of some other deity, to which flowers are presented every morning after they have performed their ablutions. According to the appointment of _Menu_, the king is the sole lord and proprietor of all the land in the kingdom; and this rule prevails in Malabar to the present day. Anquetil du Perron is, therefore, entirely wrong when he contradicts Mr. Dalrymple, who asserts the same thing[177]. That this assertion is well founded, appears, to omit other testimony, from an old inscription found among some ruins near the old city of _Monguir_, in which it is expressly said, that king _Dèvapàla_ lets a certain piece of land to an Indian family. Mr. Wilkins translated this inscription, which was cut out in stone twenty-three years before the birth of Christ, and inserted it in the first volume of the _Asiatic Researches_. King _Dèvapàla_ there says: “Be it hereby known, that I give up the city _Meseeka_, &c.” and it appears from the connection, that he let the piece of land in question, and for that purpose resigned his territorial right for a certain time specified. Temples next to kings are also considered as proprietors; for a belief prevails in India, that the piece of ground which they occupy belongs to the gods. For this reason they are excepted from the lease, by king _Dèvapàla_, in the before-mentioned inscription.