The Rashtrakutas and their Times c14.21

c14.21

Nor does it appear very likely that the figures could have stood for the population of the divisions concerned. We have a solitary expression referring to Gangawadi as Shaṇṇavati-sahasravishayaprakṛtayaḥ, (15) but this expression is used while mentioning the witnesses to the document in which it occurs and, therefore, means that the transaction is known to or attested by the whole population of the province of Gangawadi 96,000. The population theory further presupposes that census was regularly taken during our period. No evidence can, however, be adduced to prove that such was the case. The view that was once advanced that the Khandagiri inscription of king Kāravela mentions the population of Kalinga was based upon a wrong interpretation of the expression 'Paṇati-sāhi satasahasehi pakatayo rañjayati' occurring in that record. 35,00,000, however, represents not the number of the subjects of Khāravela but the sum he spent in promoting their welfare. This interpretation will be further absolutely inapplicable and absurd with reference to small units like Śikharikā 12 mentioned above. The view that these figures do not represent the entire population of the divisions, but the fighting force that could be mustered from them or the number of house-holds that were comprised in them is open to a similar objection. It may be further pointed out that the inapplicability of these views in not confined merely to the cases where the figures are small; for it is extremely unlikely that Banavasi 12,000, Gangawadi 96,000 and Nolambavadi 32000, which together comprised an area greater that the modern state of Mysore, had a population of only 1,40,000.