The Rashtrakutas and their Times c14.11

c14.11

The villages in each *bhukti* were divided into smaller groups, each group being named after its principal village, coupled with the number of villages contained in it. Thus, Sārākachchha-dvādaśa-grāma, Vavulalla-dvādaśa-grāma, Ruridha-daśaka, Sihari-dvādaśa and Sebli 30 were the subdivisions of Pratiṣṭhāna, Uppalikā, Karpaṭavāṇijya, Vaṭapadraka, and Purigeri talukas or sub-divisions respectively. This peculiar way of nomenclature was not confined to small divisions only; terms like Harshpura-ardhāṣṭa-śataka, Padadore-dvisahasra, Alaṭage-sapta-śata, Aṅkoṭṭaka-chaturaśīti, show that in many localities this kind of nomenclature was used in preference to terms like *vishaya* and *bhukti*. This would show that the dicta in the Mahābhārata, (5) Manu (6) and Viṣṇu (7) Smritis that government should group together 10, 20, 100 and 1,000 villages for administrative purposes was based on actual practice, and not on imaginary calculations.