Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

The Rashtrakutas and their Times c16.s2: Sub-divisional and Taluka Officers

The Rāṣṭrakūṭas and their Times c16.s2

Language
English

Sub-divisional and Taluka Officers

c16.s2.1

Districts or Vishayas were divided into several sub-divisions known as Bhuktis comprising of about 100 to 500 villages. (18) The officers over these divisions, which roughly corresponded sometimes to modern sub-divisions of the district, and sometimes to the Talukas, were known as Bhogikas or Bhogapatis. These officers did not usually possess the feudatory status but were generally commoners; Devaṇayya, for instance, who was administering Belvola 300 and was a favourite of Amoghavarsha I, was only a commoner. We sometimes find even these officers possessing feudatory titles, (19) but these cases are exceptional and rare. These officers were appointed directly by the central government as shown already.

c16.s2.2

Bhuktis were subdivided into smaller circles comprising of about 10 to 30 villages. Officers over these seem to have been appointed, as shown above, by the provincial or district officers. Very often even these petty posts went to military captains; we find the Ganga ruler Būtuga II appointing Maṇalera to the post of the supervisor over Atkur 12 as a reward for his conspicuous bravery in the Chola war. (20)

c16.s2.3

Imperial officers appointed over the subdivisions and Talukas administered their areas with the help of hereditary revenue officers. These officers were known as Nāḍgavuṇḍas in Karnatak and Des'a-grama-kūṭas in Maharashtra. A country headman or Nāḍgavuṇḍa of Belvola 300 is mentioned in a record hailing from that division, (21) and the record in question makes it clear that this officer was different from the governor of Belvola 300 appointed by the central government. The Managoli inscription of 1161 A.D. enumerates among the officers assembled on the occasion 'the 16 of the 8 districts.' This expression '16 of the 8 districts' can be best understood on the hypothesis that each of these 8 districts was in charge of two officers, one hereditary and the other appointed by the central government. Purigeri 300 and Belvola 300 each possessed a headman who was different from Mārasimha, who was the officer appointed by the central government over those divisions. (22) The Kumonelihalli inscription of Kṛṣṇa II mentions Aladitya Gova and Kalpata as the officers holding the country shrievalty of Anniga 100; (23) appointment of joint Mamlatdars by the central government over a Taluka of about 100 villages is hardly an intelligent administrative procedure; probably one of the two officers, therefore, was the nominee of the central government and the other the hereditary Nāḍgavuṇḍa or the country headman of the division. In 874 A.D., when Bankeya was the governor over Banavasi 12,000, his son Kundatte was the officer over the Nilgundige group of 12 villages. When Bankeya proceeded to make a grant of five mattars of land at his son's request to a local temple, the record informs us that he summoned his son Kundatte and Rāpa. (24) It is almost certain that this Rāpa was the hereditary headman of Nilgundige 12 in co-operation with whom Kundatte, the nominee of the central government, was administering the group of villages under his charge. Only on this assumption we can explain as to why he was summoned along with Kundatte. A des'a-grāmakūṭa-kṣetra or the rent-free field of the district headman is twice mentioned in a spurious Ganga record from Lakshmeshvar; this would show that there existed headmen of districts who were partly remunerated by hereditary rent-free lands, as is still the case with the Deshpandes and Sardeshpandes of Maharashtra. Tuppaḍ Kurahatti inscription of Kṛṣṇa III (25) mentions a tax which the cultivators had to pay in addition to the normal government demand for the remuneration of the country gāvuṇḍas,—a tax which was as high as the king's tax, probably because the latter was low owing to the field being temple property. This record too supplies clear evidence proving the existence of country headmen similar to village headmen. Like the Deshpandes of the Maratha period, these posts were hereditary; an inscription from Shikarpur informs us that when the Nālgāvuṇḍa of Nagarkhande died while fighting for Kaḷaviṭṭa-rasa, the governor of Banavasi, his wife succeeded to the office which she ably managed for 7 years. Then when she decided to perform the *sallekhanā* vow and die, she sent for her daughter and nominated her to her office.²⁶ This case would make it clear that the post of the country headman was, like that of the village headman, a non-official and hereditary one. He being a man of the people must have served the purpose of popularising the administration to some extent. We do not know whether there existed popular bodies of *mahattaras* to co-operate with the divisional and subdivisional officers. But since there certainly existed, as will be shown in the next chapter, such bodies in villages there is nothing improbable in the existence of corresponding bodies for these administrative units. It is, however, doubtful wheher they were more formal and definite than the councils of the *vishaya-* and *rāṣṭramahattaras*.

c16.s2.4

¹⁸ Ante p. 136.

c16.s2.5

¹⁹ I. A., XII, p. 225.

c16.s2.6

²⁰ E. I., VI, p. 56.

c16.s2.7

²¹ E. I., XIV, p. 366.

c16.s2.8

²³ E. I., XVI, p. 280.

c16.s2.9

²⁴ E. I., VII, pp. 202 ff.

c16.s2.10

²⁶ E. C., VII, No. 219.

c16.s2.11

The subdivisional and Taluka officers were under the control of the Vishayapatis and the Rāṣṭrapatis; we have already seen how the Nālgāvuṇḍa of Jiduvalge 70 was immediately arrested by the governor of Banavasi when he was suspected of sedition and disaffection. This incident will give some idea of the rigorous control exercised over these officers by their superiors. They had no powers to alienate any revenues on their own account; the Kyasnur inscription of Kṛṣṇa III²⁷ refers to the remission taxation given to a field of two *mattars* by the officer over the Edevola division for the purpose of the local tank; it would appear that these officers had the power of assigning some revenues for public purposes. It is, however, not unlikely that even for such remissions the previous sanction of the higher authorities may have been necessary; otherwise, the meticulous way in which the above inscription states that at the time of the grant Maharaja Kannara was the supreme lord, Maharaja Kalaviṭṭa was the governor of Banavasi, and the donee was the gāvuṇḍa over the Edevolal division will have hardly any significance. The Sirur inscription of Amoghavarsha I²⁸ states that Devaṇayya, the governor over Belvola 300, had remitted a tax on ghee levied at the locality for his own spiritual benefit on the occasion of an eclipse. This record does not invalidate the view above advanced, that these officers had no powers to alienate the public revenues under their own authority. Taxes in kind on food-stuffs, vegetables etc. formed part of the pay of the local officers in our period, and this custom persisted in the Deccan down to the British rule.²⁹ It is, therefore, almost certain that the tax on ghee remitted by Devaṇayya in favour of the temple formed part of his salary and, therefore, he could dispose it off in any way he liked. The question as to how the officer could assign a part of the salary of his post and thus reduce the emoluments of his successor is also not difficult to answer; the numerous resumptions even of land-grants show that the grants, even when made in favour of Brahmans and temples, were often revoked; the successor of Devaṇayya had, therefore, the power either to continue or revoke the grant made by his predecessor according to his own inclinations.

c16.s2.12

²⁷ E. I., XVI, p. 281.

c16.s2.13

²⁸ I. A., XII, p. 218.

c16.s2.14

²⁹ Altekar, Village Communities in Western India, pp. 10-11.

Linked texts (6)