The Rashtrakutas and their Times c14.19

c14.19

The numerical figures attached to some of our territorial divisions mentioned above require further discussion. It has been stated that these represent the number of villages and hamlets included in the divisions concerned; but there are several other interpretations in the field. Rice had proposed to regard these figures as indicating the revenue in gold coins of the divisions concerned.¹¹ The use of these figures in such a sense is not unknown; the fertile Ashte group of villages in Satara district is still popularly designated as "Ashte-lakh-and-a-quarter," because it used to yield a revenue of that amount when the other groups were paying much less. There are, however, several difficulties in accepting the theory that these figures in the vast majority of cases denote the revenue of the units concerned. It is difficult to imagine how the revenues of Banavasi 12,000, Gangawadi 96,000, Nolambawadi 32,000 etc. continued to be the same throughout, since these figures are almost invariably associated with them in different centuries. The figures, if interpreted as the revenue amounts, are besides too small even if we proposed to regard them as referring to Kalanju, the usual gold coin current in the locality. It was not an unknown practice in our period to indicate the revenues of a division by giving its figure after it, but the method followed was different. A concrete case of such a use is supplied by the Mudiyanur Bau inscription, (12) which describes Āndhramaṇḍala as ‘dvādaśa-sahasra-grāma-sampādita-saptārdhalaksha-vishaya’, a country with a revenue of seven and half lakhs accruing from 12,000 villages included in it. None of the numerous expressions occurring in our records is similarly worded. Another difficulty in accepting this theory is the fact that the larger part of government revenue in our period was collected in kind and not in cash. If the government revenues were entirely collected in cash, then nomenclature of divisions after the amount of the revenues collected in them was likely to be current. There is also a further difficulty. Sri-Budhavarsha was a feudatory of Sikharikā-dvādaśa in southern Gujrat in 813 A.D. (13); Bankeya, the viceroy of Banavāsi, had appointed his son Kundate as the officer over Nidgundige 12. (14) If we accept the theory of Rice as universally applicable, we shall have to suppose that Mahāsāmanata Budhavarsha was the ruler over a state he revenues of which were 12 golden coins, and that the mighty governor of Banavāsi, a favourite of the reigning emperor Amoghavarsha, had appointed his son as an officer over a division the revenue of which was the same amount 12 golden coins. Could a person have acquired the feudatory status if his income were so small? Could the mighty Banavāsi governor have appointed his son to a post less important than that of a village patel or accountant?