The Rashtrakutas and their Times c14.37

c14.37

The express mention of *grāma* in association with the numbers mentioned in the above passages makes it fairly obvious that we have to interpret these numbers, even when the term *grāma* is not immediately used after them, as indicating the numbers of villages and hamlets included in the divisions concerned. Nor can it be argued that the *grāmas* mentioned in this connection are mere estates or fields and not ordinary villages consisting of village-settlements, the cultivable land, pasture and waste land, if any, that lay round the settlement. For, in a large number of cases the *grāmas* mentioned in our records can be actually identified and they are found to be ordinary villages of the above description. Thus Kantāragrāma, above referred to, mentioned in the Surat plates, is the village of Kattargam near Surat. (25) Villages of Vilavade, Paragava, and Aitavade mentioned in the Samangad plates of Dantidurga still exist, occupying the same relative positions, and bearing names which are hardly different from those given in the plates in question. All these are villages of the ordinary type and none of them is an estate. The village of Vaṭapadraka given in the Baroda plates of Karka is modern Baroda, the villages of Jambuvavikā, Aṅkoṭṭaka, and Vaghachha which are stated to be to the east, west and north of Vaṭapadraka are the same as modern villages of Jambuvāda, Akoṭa and Vaghodia which are to the east, west and north of Baroda. None of them is an estate, all of them are villages of the ordinary type. Talegaon plates of Kṛṣṇa (26) record a grant of Kumārigrāma along with the adjoining hamlets of Bhama-ropara, Arulava, Sindigrama and Taravade which was situated to the west of Khambagrāma and Vorigrāma and to the east of Alandiyagrāma and Thirugrāma. Most of these villages still exist and have been identified by Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar. Kumārigrāma is Karehgaon, Bhamaropura is Bhowrapur, Arulava is Uruli, Sindigrāma is Seedoneh, Taravade is Turudi, Khambagrāma is Khanegaon, Vorimagrāma is Boree, Alandiya is Chorachi Āḷandī, and Thirugrāma is Theur. The Konur inscription of Amoghavarsha grants a grāma or village called Taleyur situated in Majjantiya bhukti. The inscription adds that the king also granted 12 nivartanas of land in each of the 30 villages of that division, the names of which are given. Out of these 30 villages, 13 can be identified and they are within a radius of 7 or 8 miles from Kolanura where the Jain temple, which was the assignee of these lands, was situated. They are all villages of the ordinary type and cannot answer the description of an estate. Now one and the same document cannot be using the term grāma in two different senses. If the term grāma used in the expression ‘*adbhuktivartishu triṃśatsvapi grāmeshu*’ means a village of the ordinary type, it must mean the same thing in the expression *Majjantiyasaptatigrāmabhukti*.