The Rashtrakutas and their Times c16.s3: Town Administration
The Rāṣṭrakūṭas and their Times c16.s3
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Town Administration
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In the Rāṣṭrakūṭa period the cities and towns were in charge of prefects who were designated as purapatis or nagarapatis. These officers are rarely referred to in the Rāṣṭrakūṭa copper plate grants, but they are almost invariably mentioned in the grants of the Śilāhāras, who were the Konkan feudatories of the imperial power.³⁰ Military captains were often appointed to the posts; thus Rudrapayya, who was the prefect of Saravatura or modern Soratur in Karnatak, was one of the body-guards of the emperor Kṛṣṇa III.³¹ Mahādeva and Pātāladeva, the joint prefects of Badami under Jagadekamalla in 1140, were both of them Daṇḍanāyakas or military officers. Sometimes learned men also were appointed to these posts; the 12 officers in charge of Teridal in S. M. C. are described in 1123 A.D. as promoting the everlasting six systems of philosophy.³² One expects active interest in art or philosophy from men of letters rather than from military generals. Kuppeya, a governor of Soratur under Amoghavarsha I, was a Mahāsāmanta; it would, therefore, appear that some of these town prefects enjoyed the dignity and status of feudatories, as was the case with some of the Rāṣṭrapatis and Viṣayapatis.
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³⁰ See Bhadana plates of Aparājitadeva, 997 A.D., E. I., III, p. 273, Bhandup plates of Chittarāja, 1018 A.D., I. A., V, p. 278.
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³¹ I. A., XII, p. 258.
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³² I. A., XV, p. 15.
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The city affairs were managed by the prefects with the help of non-official committees. Such committees were fairly common during the period of Ancient Indian History; they are referred to by Megasthenes and Kauṭalya, they existed at Nasik under the Sātavāhanas,³³ in Puṇḍravardhana division and Kathiawar under the Imperial Guptas,³⁴ and at Bahuloḍa, Prabhāsa and Aṇahilapaṭṭaṇa under the Gujarat Cālukyas.³⁵ Coming to our own period and province we find that the administration of Guṇapura in Konkan was vested in 997 A.D. in a prefect assisted by a committee of two bankers Ambus'reshṭhin and Vappaiyas'reshṭhin, a merchant called Chelappaiyu, a Brahmana named Govaneya and some others. (36) The city of Aihole also had its own corporation under Kṛṣṇa II, the constitution of which, however, is not described in the record. No clue is available to indicate the way in which these town committees were formed; there is no express reference to any election of these members. The statement
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³³ Nasik Inscription No. 12; E. I., VIII, p. 82.
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³⁴ Damodarpur plates, E. I., XV, p. 150; C. I., I., III, no. 14.
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³⁵ Altekar, Towns and Cities in Ancient Gujarat and Kathiawar, p. 54.
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पौरत्रिवर्गप्रभृतीन् समाज्ञापयति ।
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which occurs in the Silāhāra records above referred to, probably refers to the three upper castes, rather than to three different constituencies. Apparently five wards of the town of Mulgund and their representatives, the Mahājanas, are mentioned in the Mulgund inscription of Pāñchāladeva, dated 975 A.D. (37) This may suggest the inference that cities were divided into several wards for the purpose of representation on the city council; the inscription in question is, however, fragmentary and this conclusion is not, therefore, quite certain. The divisions into wards for the purpose of representation was known in Tamil land, as is clear from the famous Uttaramallura inscriptions, (38) and there is nothing impossible in a similar arrangement being in vogue in our province as well. There must obviously have been some kind of election or selection for constituting the town committees, since these members were non-officials and were usually not more than half a dozen or so. But the precise method adopted in the Deccan of our period cannot be determined at present for want of evidence.
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Our records do not supply us with the information as to whom the town prefects were responsible for the administration. They may have been possibly under the control of the Rāṣṭrapatis in whose jurisdiction their towns were situated, or perhaps to a special minister or officer at the capital. Our records hardly supply any information about the methods whereby the local, district, and provincial governments were supervised and controlled by the Central Government. The control and supervision were, as shown already, fairly rigorous and it may have been exercised partly through the regular official hierarchy, partly through periodical tours,—a principle recommended by Manu⁴⁰ and S'ukra⁴¹ and practised by Asoka and Harsha,—and partly through direct orders from imperial secretariate carried by special messengers, who were known as *Vallabhājñāsañcāriṇaḥ* ‘carriers of royal orders’. The precise nature of the postal arrangements made by the state in our period is not definitely known, but it is obvious that postal runners and mounted couriers must have been used for the purpose with relays at convenient intervals. Such arrangements were witnessed by Ibn Batūta in the first half of the 14th century⁴² and it is very likely that Mahomedan administration may have borrowed the system from its Hindu predecessors.
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³⁶ E. I., III, p. 260.
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³⁷ E. I., VI, p. 260.
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³⁸ A. S. R., 1904-5 p. 140.
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⁴⁰ VII, 124,
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⁴¹ I, 374-5.
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⁴² Gibs, *Ibn Batuta*, p. 183.