Indian Epigraphy c16.s4.73

c16.s4.73

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.