Indian Epigraphy c16.s4.48

c16.s4.48

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