Indian Epigraphy c16.s4.82

c16.s4.82

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.