The Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese Districts c6.s8.1

c6.s8.1

Under the supreme government of the reigning family of the Chālukyas and their supplanters were minor hereditary chiefs of provinces, who, though governing their own particular districts with all the authority of petty rulers, were subordinate and answerable to the former. For the purposes of Government the kingdom was divided up into areas, each containing a definite number of towns and villages such as the Banavasi Twelve-Thousand, the Panuṅgal Five-Hundred, and the Belvola Three-Hundred, over each, or groups of which, a *Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara* or other officer had charge. These petty chiefs not only came to the assistance of their feudal lord with troops when required, but occasionally fought out their own little neighbourly quarrels among themselves. These families seldom, if ever, held their posts for more than a couple of generations. Sometimes they were in rebellion against their masters, when, as in the case of the Kaḷachuris, Hoysaḷas and Yādavas, they grew powerful enough, for the time being, to dispossess them and usurp full sovereign authority. They issued their land grants in their own names.