Indian Epigraphy c16.s4: 4. Administrative and Territorial Divisions
Indian Epigraphy c16.s4
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4. Administrative and Territorial Divisions
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The meaning of the geographical names found in the records of different parts of the country is not intelligible in many cases. A word indicating a particular kind of territorial or administrative unit (e.g. words meaning a village, a town, a city, a district, a province, etc.) was often suffixed to place names. Very often geographical names were coined by suffixing a word meaning a village or town to the names of persons who were generally associated with their foundation. Territories were often named after peoples.
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An inscription² of Aśoka mentions a locality called Lumbinīgrāma, a name ending in the word *grāma*, ‘a village’. The names of hundreds of villages mentioned in later inscriptions have the same ending. Often the name of a village or its part ended in words like *padra* or *padraka*, *palli*, *pāṭaka*, etc., which are recognised in Sanskrit lexicons in the sense of a village or a part of it. The name-ending *pāṭaka* is also found in the modified form of *vāṭaka* even in early inscriptions, while, in medieval records, we have its various modified forms like vāḍa, vāḍā, paḍā, pāḍā, etc., as the word was adopted in the different regional languages. Similar local modification also characterises the words suffixed to the names of localities. In the southern regions of India, ūr, a Dravidian word for ‘village’, was often suffixed to the names of localities.¹ Various other explanatory words were likewise suffixed to the names of villages in all parts of the country. Thus the words sthāna, sthala, sthalī, etc., are sometimes found at the end of names of places having a deva-sthāna or shrine of a deity, and the word tīrtha is found suffixed to the names of holy places.² Rent-free villages in the possession of gods and Brāhmaṇas had often names ending in the word śāsana especially in the Bengal-Orissa region. In the Tamil-speaking area, the names of such villages under Brāhmaṇas, generally called agrahāra, often ended in the expression caturvedimaṅgalam. In many cases, the names of cities and townships ended in words meaning a village. But very often the names of such localities had suffixes like nagara, pura, purī, paṭṭana, etc., meaning a city or town. The towns and villages were often named after persons or gods.
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² *Select Inscriptions*, p. 70.
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¹ Cf. halli for palli in the Kannada-speaking area, and numerous similar instances.
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² Sthala and sthalī were also used in the sense of the subdivision of a district.
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As regards the provinces, districts and subdivisions of a kingdom, it may be pointed out at the outset that it is sometimes difficult to use these terms for the words found in inscriptions. Their sizes may have varied considerably with reference to an empire like that of the Mauryas and a small kingdom, sometimes smaller than a District of today. The same territorial unit may have been a kingdom in one age and only a district of an empire in another. It is usually difficult to form an idea about the extent of a district, which may have varied in different ages. Such territorial units were very often named after their chief cities. Sometimes the districts and provinces in the Tamil-speaking area were named after royal personages.
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The Sarnath pillar edict¹ of Aśoka mentions Āhāra and Koṭṭaviṣaya (a Viṣaya around a koṭṭa or fortress, or a Koṭṭa and a Viṣaya).² In later epigraphs, both Āhāra and Viṣaya are used to indicate ‘a district’. It is difficult to say whether they were the names of the same kind or of two different kinds of territorial or administrative units of the Mauryan empire. The official designations Prādeśika and Rāṣṭrika found in some records³ of Aśoka mean respectively ‘the head of a Pradeśa’ and ‘the head of a Rāṣṭra’. Of these, Pradeśa appears to have been a bigger unit like a province and Rāṣṭra a smaller unit like a district or its subdivision. It is again difficult to say whether Rāṣṭra was just another name of an Āhāra or a Viṣaya or all the three indicated different types of districts. In certain later records especially from South India, Rāṣṭra appears to have indicated a group of villages.⁴
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¹ Select Inscriptions, pp. 51, 76.
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² Cf. koṭṭam meaning a district or province in Tamil inscriptions.
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³ Ibid., pp. 20, 53.
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⁴ Passages like ‘the cultivators headed by the Rāṣṭrakuṭa or headman of the Rāṣṭra, dwelling in Pennātavādi-viṣaya’ (Ind. Ant., Vol. VII, p. 16) suggest that Rāṣṭra was a smaller subdivision of a Viṣaya.
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Some other expressions of geographical significance used in Aśoka’s records are Pratyanta and Anta, both meaning a state beyond the borders [of Aśoka’s empire],⁵ Nāga-vana, ‘elephant-forest’,⁵ Kaivarta-bhoga, ‘fishermens’ preserve’,⁶ etc. The word nagara, ‘a city’, and vraja-bhūmi, ‘grazing land’, are mentioned respectively in the official designations Naga-ravyavahārika and Vrajabhūmika.⁷
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⁵ Select Inscriptions, pp. 18,37, 50. Cf. also p. 257. In the Divyāvadāna (ed. Vaidya, p. 13), anta means a tract near the borders but within the country, and pratyanta the land outside. Aśoka seems to have used anta in this sense also.
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⁶ Ibid., p. 62.
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⁷ Ibid., pp. 34, 41.
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In the inscriptions of the Sātavāhanas of the Deccan and the Śakas of Western India, the district is generally indicated by the name Āhāra.⁸ Often a grāma, sometimes having its name ending in the word padra, was made the subject of a grant and it was specifically stated that the place was situated in an Āhāra of a particular name.⁹ But, in such cases, inscriptions of the central and eastern parts of North India, of the time of the early Gupta emperors, generally speak of villages situated in particular *Viṣayas* which are stated sometimes to have formed parts of a *Bhukti* or province.¹ In Western India, however, *Āhāra* occurs sometimes in later records such as the Maitraka inscriptions. Thus the Alina plates (766 A.D.) of Śīlāditya VI speak of the grant of a village situated in a *Pathaka* which formed part of an *Āhāra*.² Here *Pathaka* is the designation of the subdivision of a district.³ It was something like a Pargana of later times, which is called Pratijāraṇaka in the inscriptions of the Paramāra kings of Malwa.⁴ The word *paṭṭa* occurs in some early inscriptions in the sense of a similar territorial unit.⁵ The names *Golla* and *Khampaṇaka* are used in a similar sense in certain early medieval epigraphs of the Deccan.⁶
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⁸ Cf. districts called Sātavāhaniy-āhāra in a Sātavāhana epigraph and Sātavāhaniya-rāṣṭra in a Pallava record. See Select Inscriptions, pp.205, 439.
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⁹ Ibid., pp. 158, 200-01.
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¹ Ibid., pp. 283 ff. The Junagadh inscription of 150 A. D. seems to use *Viṣaya* in the sense of ‘a province’ (ibid., p. 172).
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² *CII*, Vol. III, p. 189. The word *āharaṇi* occurs in Hastavapr-āharaṇi found in the Bhamodra-Mohota plates of Droṇasiṃha (*Select Inscriptions*, p. 404).
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³ For the popularity of this subdivisional name in Western India, cf. H.D. Sankalia, *Stud. Hist. Cult. Geog. Guj.*, pp. 185 ff.
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⁴ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXXII, p. 140.
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⁵ Cf. *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXXIII, p. 304.
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⁶ M. G. Dikshit, *Selected Inscriptions from Maharashtra*, pp. 111-12, 114.
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In the Gupta inscriptions, the name *Deśa* is occasionally applied to the district.⁷ But the use of *Viṣaya*, found in the same sense and referred to above, is noticed in all parts of the country. Another popular name applied to a district in the Gupta records is *Maṇḍala* which, like *Viṣaya*, is also found in the epigraphs of other dynasties ruling in various parts of India.⁸ The Paharpur plate of 479 A.D. represents a *Maṇḍala* as the subdivision of a *Vīthi*.⁹ The Khoh plates¹⁰ (529 A. D.)
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⁷ *Select Inscriptions*, p. 273.
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⁸ Ibid., p. 332. Sometimes we have *Mahā-maṇḍala* in medieval records (*Ind. Ant.*, Vol. X, pp. 159-60).
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⁹ *Select Inscriptions*, p. 346. The word *pārśva* used in the record may not be taken to indicate a subdivision of *Maṇḍala*. It may be describing the situation of one village as abutting on another. Sometimes the word *prāveśya* is likewise used in indicating the relations between two localities. The description of a locality as *Siviḍi-prāveśya* seems to suggest that its revenue was assessed together with another locality called Siviḍi so that it was a part of Siviḍi from the official point of view. See *JAS*, Letters, Vol. XVIII, p. 78 and note.
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¹⁰ *Select Inscriptions*, p. 375.
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of Saṃkṣobha speak of a village situated in a Peṭha.¹ Sometimes a Viṣaya is mentioned as a subdivision of a Maṇḍala.² In the East Indian inscriptions of the Gupta age, a group of districts is called Bhukti³ which seems to have indicated a smaller territorial unit in South Indian records.⁴ In the early medieval records of Bengal, the subdivision of a tract in a Bhukti is called a Bhāga. Thus the Bhāga of Vikramapura was a part of Vaṅga within the Bhukti of Pundravardhana.⁵ Bengal records also mention such small territorial units as Khaṇḍala,⁶ Caturaka,⁷ Āvṛtti,⁸ etc.
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¹ In the inscriptions of the Kannaḍa-speaking area, we have veṭe, veṭhe or veṇṭhe (Ep. Ind., Vol. XXX, p. 154, note 2).
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² Ind. Ant., Vol. XV, p. 112.
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³ Select Inscriptions., pp. 284-285, etc.
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⁴ Bamb. Gaz., Vol. I, Part ii, p. 398.
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⁵ N. G. Majumdar, Ins. Beng., Vol. III, p. 137, etc.
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⁶ Ibid., p. 20.
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⁷ Ibid., p. 96.
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⁸ Ibid., p. 112.
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There are several interesting aspects of the above territorial divisions. In the first place, sometimes in medieval inscriptions the words deśa, maṇḍala and viṣaya are used in a wider sense. Thus the kingdom of the Eastern Cālukyas is called Veṅgī-deśa in some records and Veṅgī-maṇḍala in others while certain Viṣayas are stated to have formed parts of it.⁹ The Coḷa kingdom is often referred to as a Deśa, Maṇḍala, Nāḍu and Viṣaya.¹⁰ Similarly, Bhārata-khaṇḍa or Bhārata-kṣetra is called both a Deśa and a Viṣaya.¹¹ Sometimes a Khaṇḍa is mentioned as the subdivision of a Deśa.¹²
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⁹ Ind. Ant., Vol. VII, p. 16; Vol. VIII, pp. 74, 79; Vol. XIII, p. 213.
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¹⁰ The same is the case with such other territorial units as Banavasi. Sometimes a territory comprising wide areas had composite names like Mālava-Kānyakubja-viṣaya (Sankalia, Stud. Hist. Cult. Geo. Ethn. Guj., p. 186).
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¹¹ Ind. Ant., Vol. XIV, p. 16.
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¹² CII, Vol. III, p. 32, note 7.
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Another interesting fact is that often a territorial or administrative unit enjoying a particular designation was represented as having another designation even without obliterating its earlier character. Thus names like Karma-rāṣṭra-viṣaya¹³ and Gopa-rāṣṭra-viṣaya¹⁴ show that the units called Karma and Gopa had been Rāṣṭras formerly but that they later became *Viṣayas*. There are similar other names like Kheṭak-āhāra and Kheṭak-āhāra-viṣaya.¹
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¹³ Ind. Ant., Vol. VII, p. 187.
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¹⁴ Ibid., Vol. IX, p. 124.
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¹ Bomb. Gaz., Vol. I, Part ii, p. 382.
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The word for a district in the records of the southern areas of India is usually *nāḍu* and a district named Karma would generally be called Karma-nāḍu or Kamma-nāḍu.² In the Tamil inscriptions of the early medieval period, often a kingdom or its province called *Maṇḍalam* was divided into divisions called *Koṭṭam* or *Vaḷanāḍu*, which were subdivided into *Kurrams* or *Nāḍus*, although the *Kurram* was sometimes represented as the sub-division of a *Nāḍu*.³ In the records of the Vijayanagar period, the subdivision of a district called *Kurram* or *Nāḍu* was often called *Usāvaḍi* or *Sāvaḍi* (*Cāvaḍi*) which was divided into smaller units called *Parru*.⁴ The word *sīma* was often used in South Indian epigraphs in the sense of a subdivision of the district.⁵ But Tamil inscriptions sometimes use the expressions *sīmai* or *rājyam* to indicate provinces of a kingdom. In *Kannaḍa* inscriptions, we have such other small territorial units as *Sthala*, *Bhukti*, *Kampaṇa*, *Bāḍa*, *Hobali*, *Vaṇita*, etc.⁶
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² Cf. Wilson's Glossary, s. v. The word *nāḍu* was sometimes Sanskritised as *nāḍaka* or *nāḍuka* (*Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXX, p. 154, note 2).
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³ Cf. A.R. *Ep.*, 1906, No. 66; 1909, No. 395; etc.; T.V.Mahalingam, *South Indian Polity*, pp. 302 ff.
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⁴ A. R. *Ep.*, 1913, No. 272.
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⁵ T. V. Mahalingam, *South Indian Polity*, pp. 308.
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⁶ Cf. ibid., pp. 308-09.
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Apart from the fact that words like *deśa*, *maṇḍala*, *viṣaya*, etc., were sometimes employed to indicate a kingdom or territory instead of a district of it, it is often difficult to determine which one indicated a district and which one its subdivision, even when the expressions are used in the restricted sense and the areas refer to a particular region of the country. Thus, in the early medieval inscriptions of Bengal, we have reference to several *Maṇḍalas* and *Viṣayas* forming parts of the *Bhukti* or province of Puṇḍravardhana. Among these, there were : (1) Vyāghrataṭi-maṇḍala in which Mahantāprakāśa-viṣaya was included; (2) Samataṭa-maṇḍala in which Paranāyi-viṣaya was included; (3) Sthālikkaṭa-viṣaya in which Āmraṣaṇḍikā-maṇḍala and Uḍragrāma-maṇḍala were included; (4) Koṭivarṣa-viṣaya in which Gokalikā-maṇḍala and Halāvarta-maṇḍala were included; (5) Khāḍī-viṣaya which was also called Khāḍī-maṇḍala.¹ It will be seen from these instances that in some cases a *Maṇḍala* included a *Viṣaya* and in others a *Viṣaya* included a *Maṇḍala*, while, in a third group of cases, the same district was called sometimes a *Maṇḍala* and sometimes a *Viṣaya*. A number of *Vīthis* are known to have formed parts of Kaṅkagrāma-bhukti about the borders of Bihar and Bengal; but in the neighbouring Vardhamāna-bhukti the *Vīthis* were included in *Maṇḍalas*.² According to the Ghughrahati plate³ of Samācāradeva, the *Uparika* or provincial governor in charge of Suvarṇa-vīthī was the immediate superior of the *Viṣayapati*, i.e. the governor of the *Viṣaya* or district called Vāraka-maṇḍala. Sometimes we have names like Daṇḍabhukti-maṇḍala⁴ showing that Daṇḍa was originally the name of a *Bhukti* and later that of a *Maṇḍala*.
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¹ History of Bengal, Dacca University, Vol. I, pp. 24-25.
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² Ibid., p. 28. *Vīthī* is supposed to be a district on the bank of a river.
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³ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XVIII, pp. 74 ff.
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⁴ History of Bengal, op. cit., p. 27.
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In connection with the territorial unit called *Bhukti* (literally, ‘enjoyment’, i.e. a *Jāgīr*), we have to mention another such unit called *Bhoga*, literally meaning the same thing. While *Bhukti* is found in the sense of a province especially in East Indian inscriptions, *Bhoga* is found in various other parts of the country as a sub-division of a district. We may refer in this connection to a few such cases as (1) Gorajjā-bhoga in Bharukaccha-viṣaya in the Sarsavani plates⁵ of Buddharāja; (2) Sātināla-bhoga in Palayaṭṭhāna-viṣaya in the Jejuri plates⁶ of Vinayāditya; and (3) Āvaraka-bhoga in Hūṇa-maṇḍala in the Gaonri plates⁷ of Vākpati Muñja. These *Bhogas* were parts of a district called *Viṣaya* or *Maṇḍala*. It is also interesting to note that the same unit called Eḍevoḷal-bhoga in the Sorab plates of Cālukya Vinayāditya is called Eḍevoḷal-viṣaya in the Harihar plates of the same king.¹
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⁵ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. VI, pp. 297 ff. The term here may be *ābhoga*.
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⁶ Ibid., Vol. XIX, p. 64.
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⁷ Ibid., Vol. XXIII, p. 108.
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¹ Ibid., Vol. IX, p. 16.
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Monier-Williams recognises the word *bhoga* in the sense of possession, property, wealth, revenue, etc., while Wilson’s Glossary mentions two kinds of *bhoga* or possession, viz. with or without obstruction. We have also inscriptions speaking of a *vīthī* (a shop or stall) in a market-place as *bhog-ādhīnā* with reference to its lying in the possession of an individual. From the sense of ‘possession’, the word *bhoga*, as also *bhukti*, came to be used in the sense of ‘the property under one’s possession’. We have instances in which expressions like *Mahārāja-Sarvanātha-bhoga* and *Mahāsāmantādhipati-śrī-Śrīdhara-bhoga* respectively mean ‘a *Jāgīr* (*bhoga*) in the possession of Mahārāja Sarvanātha’ and ‘a *Jāgīr* in the possession of the illustrious *Mahāsāmantādhipati* Śrīdhara.’² The use of *bhoga* and *bhukti* in the sense of a territorial unit seems to be due to a further expansion of this meaning of the words.³
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² Ibid., Vol. XXX, pp. 212-13; Vol. XXXIII, pp. 169 ff.
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³ Cf. *āhāra* (food, maintenance), *viṣaya* (sphere, jurisdiction), etc.
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An interesting feature of the names of certain units is the mention of a number along with them. This is occasionally found in the inscriptions of various parts of the country, but is a popular feature of the names of kingdoms, provinces, districts and subdivisions in the medieval records of the Kannaḍa-speaking area of the South.
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In an inscription⁴ of 812-13 A.D., the village of Vaṭapadraka (modern Baroda in Gujarat) is stated to have been situated in Aṅkottaka-caturaśīti, i.e. Aṅkottaka-84. There are similar other instances of the number 84 being attached to the name of a territorial unit in medieval inscriptions, while Corāsī or Caurāsī (Sanskrit *caturaśīti*., ‘eightyfour’) happens to be the name of several territorial units in various parts of India. Thus while Kārpaṭavāñjya-84 and Ratnapura-84 are known from inscriptions,⁵ Caurāsī is the name of a Pargana in the Mirzapur District of U.P. and Corāsī is a subdivision of the Surat District of Gujarat. There is likewise a village called Caurāsī, probably the headquarters of a Pargana originally, in the Puri District of Orissa. A group of villages in the Ajmer District of Rajasthan is called Bhinaikī Caurāsī (i.e. Bhinai-84). There are similarly territorial units with names associated with numbers other than 84.
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⁴ Ind. Ant., Vol. XII, pp. 156 ff.
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⁵ H. D. Sankalia, Stud. Hist. Cult. Geo. Ethn. Guj., pp. 27, 198; Bhavnagar Inscriptions, p. 206.
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As already indicated above, in the medieval inscriptions of the rulers of the Kannaḍa-speaking area, territorial units are very often mentioned along with a number as in Aṅkottaka-caturaśīti, Bhinaikī Caurāsī, etc. Thus we have Raṭṭapāḍi seven lakhs and a half, Gaṅgavāḍi ninetysix thousands, Nolambavāḍi thirtytwo thousands, Banavāsi twelve thousands, Alande one thousand, Harṣapura seven hundreds and fifty, Purigere three hundreds, Kuknūr thirty, Nirugundagi twelve, Puriddha ten, Tamba six, Koṇḍavaṭi two,¹ etc., etc.
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¹ For Tamba and Koṇḍavaṭi units, cf. transcripts of A.R. Ep., 1933-34, B. K. No. 159; ibid., B. K. No. 42. For similar units in West India, which once came under the influence of the rulers of Kannaḍa origin, see Moḍherā-7½ and Ghaḍahaḍikā-12 in Ind. Ant., Vol. VI, pp. 191, 193.
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Some inscriptions specifically state that these numbers refer to grāmas or villages forming parts of the territorial units in question. Thus the Aihole inscription² (634 A.D.) speaks of the three Mahārāṣṭras constituting the dominions of Cālukya Pulakeśin II as navanavati-sahasra-grāma-bhāj, i.e. having ninety-nine thousands of grāmas, while the Malkapur inscription³ (1261 A.D.) refers to a bhikṣā or grant of three lakhs of grāmas in Ḍahala-maṇḍala lying between the Bhāgīrathī and the Narmadā, made in favour of the Śaiva saint Sadbhāvaśambhu, founder of the Golaki-maṭha, by the Kalacuri king Yuvarāja-deva (probably Yuvarāja II). We have also reference to Veṅgipura-sahasra sometimes as Veṅgipura-viṣaya-grāma-sahasra.⁴ Considering the abnormally high numbers of the grāmas mentioned in connection with the dominions of Pulakeśin II and a grant made by a Kalacuri king and the facts that the district of Gaṅgavāḍi could actually claim not more than a small fraction of 96000 grāmas and the whole kingdom of the Kalacuri ruler only a negligible fraction of 300000 grāmas, if grāma or village is understood in its usual sense, we were formerly inclined to interpret grāma as a landed property which was the subject of an assessment.¹ There is however some evidence to show that the word was used in such cases in the sense of a village whatever its size and nature may have been. Thus, in the Aland (ancient Alande) inscription² of Mallikārjuna, Alande itself is mentioned as the modala-vāḍa (i.e. ‘foremost vāḍa or village’) of Alande-sāsira or Alande-1000, and it is clear that the geographical and administrative unit of Alande consisted of one thousand vāḍas or villages, of which the village of Alande was the foremost, i.e. the head-quarters of the territorial unit in question. Sometimes a similar group of villages is mentioned without specifying its geographical name which remains understood. An inscription speaks of Kheḍa (modern Agarkhed in the Bijapur District of Mysore) as the rājadhānī of ‘the thirtysix villages’ included in Tardavāḍi-nāḍu, elsewhere called Tardavāḍi-1000.³ The name of the said subdivision consisting of 36 villages was apparently Kheḍa. The people of Kuknūr even now quote an old list, traditionally handed down, of the thirty villages which formed the ancient administrative unit called Kuknūr-30, and all these villages can be traced in the area around Kuknūr even today.⁴ It is interesting to note that the same village is mentioned in an inscription as trimśadgrām-ādhipati śrī-Kukkunūru, i.e. ‘the illustrious Kukkunūru, the most important among thirty grāmas’.¹ We have also to note such names as Tamba-6 and Koṇḍavaṭi-2. It is difficult to believe that Tamba and Koṇḍavaṭi respectively contained only 6 and 2 units of assessed landed property.
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² Ep. Ind., Vol. VI, pp. 1 ff.
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³ JAHRS, Vol. IV, pp. 156-57.
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⁴ Suc. Sāt. L. Dec., p. 402.
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¹ Suc. Sāt. L. Dec., p. 400. For this question, see J. F. Fleet in JRAS, 1912; also V. S. Agrawala in Sir Jadunath Sarkar Presentation Volume, II, pp. 16 ff. Our original interpretation of grāma as a unit of revenue assessment (elaborated by Agrawala as ‘one plough-measure of land assessed at one silver Kārṣāpaṇa’) cannot be true in respect of many of the cases involving small numbers specified in this section. The number of such units of assessment or income, in coins, of a tract of land may of course have been confused with the number of villages in it in cases which speak of very big numbers.
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² Ep. Ind., Vol. XXVIII, pp. 31 ff.
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³ A.R. Ep., 1937-38, Nos. 1 and 3.
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⁴ See JBRS, Vol. XL, p. 12.
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¹ JBBRAS, Vol. XII, 1876, p. 43, text line 33.
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That the word grāma in such cases was understood in the sense of a village is also clear from a section of the Skanda Purāṇa, apparently interpolated in the work sometime in the medieval period.² This section says how the nava-khaṇḍa Bhārata, i.e. Bhāratavarṣa consisting of nine divisions, was subdivided into seventytwo vibhedas (apparently indicating ‘countries’ or ‘tracts’) and quotes a list of seventytwo (actually, seventyfive owing to confusion) countries together with the number of grāmas in each one of them. This list is introduced by the stanza : Teṣāṁ nāmāni grāmāṁś=ca pattanāni ca Phālguna | velākūlāni saṁkhyāṁ ca vakṣyāmi tava tattvataḥ || and ends with the following passage : dvāsaptatir=amī deśā grāma-saṅkhyāḥ prakīrtitāḥ. The latter is followed by the statement that the entire Bhārata-khaṇḍa had 967200000 pattanas (townships) and 36000 velākūlas (harbours). It can hardly be doubted that the word grāma, used in the context of pattana and velākūla, has to be understood in this case in the sense of a village. But the fact that the list speaks only of grāmas and not of pattanas, etc., seems to suggest that, for the purpose of enumeration, the latter also were counted as grāmas. This seems also to be supported by the fact that the concluding passages mention only pattanas and velākūlas and not grāmas. The list further shows that the traditional or conventional number of grāmas in a country as given in it could hardly have been true if the word grāma is taken exactly in its modern sense.
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² See Maheśvara-khaṇḍa, Kumārikā-khaṇḍa, chapter 39, verses 127 ff. Cf. my Stud. Geog. Anc. Med. Ind., pp. 198 ff. For the date of the Purāṇa, cf. JAS, Letters, Vol. XIV, p. 25.
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We quote below the names of some of the countries mentioned in the Skanda Purāṇa list together with the number of grāmas in them; (1) Nepāla—1 lakh; (2) Kānyakubja—36 lakhs; (3) Gauḍadeśa—18 lakhs; (4) Kāmarūpa—9 lakhs;
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(5) Ḍāhala or Cedi—9 lakhs; (6) Raṭṭa-rājya (the Rāṣṭrakūṭa country)—7 lakhs; (7) Mālava—118092; (8) Śākambhara-deśa—1¼ lakhs; (9) Mevāḍa—1¼ lakhs; (10) Gurjaratrā—70 thousands; (11) Kāśmīra—68 thousands; (12) Kauṅkaṇa (Konkan)—1422; (14) Sindhu—20 thousands; (15) Kaccha-maṇḍala (Kutch)—1422; (16) Surāṣṭra (Kathiawar)— 55 thousands; (17) Lāṭa (the Nausari-Broach region of Gujarat)—21 thousands; (18) Karṇāṭa—1¼ lakhs; (19) Kāmboja—10 lakhs; (20) Kośala (probably South Kośala in the Raipur-Bilaspur-Sambalpur region) — 10 lakhs; (21) Bāhlika—4 lakhs; (22) Vidarbha—5 lakhs; (23) Magadha-deśa—66 thousands; (24) Mūlasthāna (Multan)—25 thousands; (25) Yavana—40 thousands; etc.
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It may be pointed out that the text of the Puranic section is not free from errors. Some of the names are redudant and many of them doubtful. There is however epigraphic support in favour of some of the traditional number of grāmas quoted in the list. Thus the Śākambhara or Śākambharī country is actually known to have been otherwise called Sapādalakṣa or ‘one lakh and a quarter’.¹ Such traditional numbers of villages in particular countries are also referred to in some other works. Thus Vinayacandra’s *Kāvyaśikṣā* mentions : (1) Surāṣṭra—9 thousands; (2) Lāṭadeśa—21 thousands; (3) Gurjaradeśa—70 thousands; (4) Pārata—70 thousands; (5) Ḍāhala—9 lakhs; (6) Mālava—9 lakhs and 92; (7) Kānyakubja—16 lakhs, etc.² There is apparently considerable exaggeration in the cases speaking of very big numbers. But we have no doubt that the reference is to villages which may have been in many cases very small or even nominal. Whether the inflation of the number of villages in a particular country or kingdom was due to a special method of calculation cannot be determined without further evidence on the subject.
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¹ Cf. Bhandarkar’s List, Nos. 279, 356. This was the name of the Cāhamāna kingdom with its capital at Śākambharī. Another country called Sapādalakṣa lay in the Nizamabad-Karimnagar region of Andhra Pradesh (cf. Sircar, *Maski Inscription of Aśoka*, p. 1). The Yajvapāla kingdom with its capital at Nalapura was similarly called Pāḍonalakṣa or ‘one lakh minus a quarter’ (*Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XXXIII, p. 63).
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² *Kāvyamīmāṃsā*, G.O.S. ed., pp. 248-49.
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In this connection it may be pointed out that sometimes numbers mentioned in connection with the name of a tract do not refer to the villages but groups of them, although a distinction is made between the two classes. Thus an inscription¹ of 1173 A.D. from Udaypur in the former Gwalior State speaks of a village in Bhṛṅgārikā-catuḥṣaṣṭi-pathaka which formed a part of Bhailasvāmi-mahādvāsaka-maṇḍala. It appears that the *Pathaka* or subdistrict called Bhṛṅgārikā-64 consisted of sixtyfour villages while the *Maṇḍala* or district called ‘Bhailasvāmin great-12’ consisted of 12 such sub-districts. The speciality of the second case has been indicated in the record by prefixing the word *mahā* to the number (cf. *Mahāgrāma*).
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¹ *Ind. Ant.*, Vol. XVIII, pp. 344 ff.
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It has also to be noticed that the tendency of forming this kind of geographical names can be traced in the Kannaḍa-speaking area even in early times. Thus an Early Kadamba inscription of the 6th century A.D. mentions Kiṟū-Kuḍalūr-pallī as one of the twenty-four *pallīs* of the *Mahāgrāma* called Tagare situated in Tagare-viṣaya.² Earlier still, a Malavalli inscription of about the 3rd century A.D. refers to Sahalāṭavī as a *Grām-āhāra*, literally ‘a village-district’, i.e. a group of villages, while a slightly later epigraph at the same place seems to suggest that the said *Grām-āhāra* consisted of twelve villages.³ In later terminology, Tagare and Sahalā would have been called Tagare-24 and Sahalā-12.
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² *Suc. Sāt. L. Dec.*, p. 305.
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³ Ibid., pp. 249-50; cf. Lüders’ List, Nos. 1195-96.
Linked texts (7)
- Divyāvadāna — Sanskrit
- Maṇḍala — Sanskrit
- Skandapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
- Nagara
- Banavāsi
- Kuknoor
- Sarnath Pillar Edict — Prakrit