Indian Epigraphy c16.s4.16

c16.s4.16

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