Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

The Rashtrakutas and their Times c17: Chapter X. Village Administration

The Rāṣṭrakūṭas and their Times c17

Language
English

Contents

Chapter X. Village Administration

c17.2

Several problems connected with the origin and development of the main aspects and institutions of the village life and village government have been discussed by the present writer in his *History of the Village Communities in Western India*. (Oxford University Press, Bombay 1927.) A discussion of all these problems in detail is not strictly relevant for the present work. In this chapter the information about the village government of only our period will be discussed; the reader is referred to the above mentioned book for its previous history and subsequent evolution.

The Village Headman

c17.s1.1

Every village in our period was usually under the charge of a village headman, whose office was a very ancient institution both in the south and in the north.(1) Like the headman of the Taluka and the district, the village headman was also a hereditary officer. He was more a representative of the people than a servant of the central government. The truth of this observation will be realised from the case of a headman in Shikarpur Taluka who died of broken heart, or perhaps committed suicide, in 999 A.D., on seeing the ruin of his own town.² During our period this officer was known as a Grāmakūṭa in Maharashtra and Gāvuṇḍa in Karnatak. Sometimes our records mention a Grāmapati in addition to a Grāmakūṭa;³ it would seem that Grāmapati in such cases denotes the holder of a village inām. Grāmabhoktṛs figuring in some of the Śilāhāra records⁴ seems to belong to the same category. In 974 A.D. the village of Kadkeri in Karnatak had a village governor in addition to a village headman; the former is described as a hero in battlefield and a touchstone of heroes.⁵ Some of the villages were, therefore, clearly assigned to military captains. There are examples of some others being assigned to scholars,⁶ and the number of those alienated in favour of learned Brahmanas was considerable. The holders of these villages seem to be referred to by the expressions ‘Grāmapatis’ or ‘Grāmabhoktris.’ The unalienated village, however, had usually no officer appointed by the central government. It used to get its business done through the agency of the village headman.

c17.s1.2

⁶³ Ante p. 159.

c17.s1.3

⁶⁴ S. I. I., II, 75, 129 &c.

c17.s1.4

¹ Altekar, *Village Communities*, pp. 1-2.

c17.s1.5

² E. C., VIII, Sorab No. 234.

c17.s1.6

³ Salotgi inscription of Kṛṣṇa III, Surat plates of Karka, etc.

c17.s1.7

⁴ E. g. Badana Inscription E. I., III, p. 273.

c17.s1.8

⁵ I. A., XII, p. 271.

c17.s1.9

⁶ E. I., IV, p. 64.

c17.s1.10

Normally each village had one village headman; there are, however, several records of the Raṭṭas of Saundatti and of the later Chālukyas, which refer to several headmen of one and the same locality. From the five Raṭṭa records of Saundatti published by Fleet⁷ we learn that Sugandhavati, Elerave, and Hasudi had twelve headmen each, while Hirayakummi had six. From a record belonging to the reign of Vikramāditya VI we find that Teridal had twelve headmen.⁸ This large number of headmen, that we see in these localities, is rather unusual. It may be perhaps due to the fact that some of these places were big towns; it is also not unlikely that there may have been prevailing in these localities the custom of allowing the senior representatives of the main branches of the original headman's family to officiate simultaneously. Two headmen, representing the two main branches of the original stock, still function in several villages of the Deccan; this principle may have been possibly given an extended application in our period in some parts of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa Empire.

c17.s1.11

⁷ J. B. B. R, A. S., X, p. 283 ff.

c17.s1.12

⁸ I. A., XIV, p. 14.

c17.s1.13

The headman has been, since very early times, in charge of the defence of the village.⁹ In the Rāṣṭrakūṭa period the villages did not enjoy that amount of absolute peace, which they have under the present administration. There were constant wars going on, and every villager had then, unlike in the present time, the prospect of winning the general's parasol. The population was well trained in the use of arms; even the bangle sellers could drive back armed forces and fight to the bitter end.¹⁰ The all-round training in the use of arms, the presence of numerous feudatories anxious to enlarge their dominions, and the ambition which the well-trained villagers must have had to show off their valour naturally led to several skirmishes between neighbouring villages usually occasioned by the desire to lift cattle. We find an echo of these village skirmishes in the Nitivākyāmṛta, a contemporary work on politics;¹¹ the Canarese country is still dotted with numerous Virgal records commemorating the death of the village heroes, who fell in these fights. Sorab inscriptions Nos. 102, 216, 326, 351, 454, 455 etc.¹² belonging to the reigns of Kṛṣṇa II, Kṛṣṇa III and Karkka II, refer to the deaths of the village heroes in skirmishes caused by this cattle-lifting propensity,—skirmishes which remind us of the *Uttara-go-grahaṇa* episode of the Mahābhārata. Honali No. 13 immortalises the memory of another hero, who had died while fighting for the cows of his village.¹³ Naregal inscription of the time of Dhruva is also of a similar purport.¹⁴ These records, though short, are thrilling ones; they let us know how these forgotten village heroes used to fight fearlessly for the safety of the villages where they were born and bred up, and even lay down their lives cheerfully, if necessary, for that purpose. Sometimes these feuds led to the destruction of villages; a record from Hatti Mattur, belonging to the reign of Kṛṣṇa I, immortalises the memory of Dasamma and Ereyya, who had died while bringing about the destruction of the village of Mattavura.¹⁵ These village skirmishes were equally common in the Pallava and Noḷamba dominions.¹⁶ The Rāṣṭrakūṭa administration, which was fairly vigorous in revenue matters, does not seem to have taken effective steps to put an end to these village feuds. While admitting that many valuable lives must have been unnecessarily lost in these avoidable conflicts, it cannot be denied that the necessity of self-defence and the fighting atmosphere around him must have made the average villager a much abler and stronger man from the military point of view than he is to-day in the present absolutely peaceful atmosphere. Many Rāṣṭrakūṭa officers were military leaders, and to them these military skirmishes may not have been quite unwelcome, as they must have kept the martial spirit alive in villages, from where the army used to get its recruits. It will be shown in the last chapter of this part how the average Deccanese in this period was eagerly enlisted in the armies of even the northern kings for his martial qualities.

c17.s1.14

⁹ Altekar, Village Communities, pp. 45, 54-55.

c17.s1.15

¹⁰ E. C., VIII, Sorab No. 530.

c17.s1.16

¹¹ XIX, 11.

c17.s1.17

¹² E. C., VIII,

c17.s1.18

¹³ *Ibid*, VII.

c17.s1.19

¹⁴ E. I., VI, p. 163.

c17.s1.20

¹⁵ *Ibid*, p. 162.

c17.s1.21

¹⁶ *E. g.* Ambur inscription of Nṛpatuṅgadeva, E. I., IV, p. 180; Muttugur inscription of Narasimhavarman, E. I., V, p. 360.

c17.s1.22

Every village, therefore, as a rule, had its own militia in the Deccan of our period and the imperial army must have been largely recruited from that force. The village headman was at the head of the militia and was himself a good fighter. Sorab No. 445, dated c. 975 A.D., refers to a robber's attack on Kollana, a son of Gāvuṇḍa Kevase Kūḷa, when he fought, established his fame, and went to heaven. (17) Another record from the same place, No. 359, which refers to the death of a headman in a mutual skirmish among the Nāḷ-gāvuṇḍas, shows the same thing. A reference may also be made to an early Pallava record where we find the son of a headman receiving a grant for having slain the enemy and conducted with great devotion the wife of Yuvarājamalla and her guard. (18)

c17.s1.23

The invariable mention of the village headman in the land and village grants of our period shows that he was intimately connected with the revenue administration. Throughout the subsequent centuries under the Mahomedan, Maratha, and the British administrations, he has continued to be responsible for the village revenues. (19) In the extreme south in Tamil country where village councils were permanent bodies, meeting regularly and functioning methodically, we find, as will be soon shown, that the headman was mainly shouldering the revenue responsibility, even in the case of Brahmadeya villages where the village councils seem to have been most developed. The communiques of the Chola government in revenue matters were addressed to the village headmen when it wished to give publicity to any particular policy. (20) Owing to his position and status the headman must have taken a prominent part in the meetings of the village council convened for the purpose of the settlement of private immediately washing the feet of the Mahājanas, granting their request and making a further donation of 12 mattars of land. It is, therefore, clear that like the income from the 12 mattars the proceeds of the charcoal tax must have formed part of the income of the headman and the Pergaḍe (?); otherwise they could not have alienated them. This record, therefore, shows that the rule of Manu that daily taxes in kind consisting of food-stuffs, fuel and other miscellaneous articles were to be assigned to the village headman was followed in the Rāṣṭrakūṭa as in later times.

c17.s1.24

¹⁷ E. C., VIII.

c17.s1.25

¹⁸ I. A., VII, p. 104.

c17.s1.26

¹⁹ For detailed evidence about the assertions in this para the reader is referred to Altekar: Village Commuuities, Chap. I.

c17.s1.27

²⁰ S. I. I., Vol. III, p. 299.

c17.s1.28

From the nature of his duties it is clear that the village headman must normally have been a Kshatriya; the same is the case to-day in the Deccan and Karnatak. His influence with the government was as great as that with the people. Kings never forget to include him among the officers requested not interfere with the enjoyment of the royal grants; we often find him escorting royal ladies to their destination. It seems that he was entitled to receive a certain fee or tax on transfer of lands; even royal transactions were not exceptions from his dues leviable on such occasions.(32) Sukra's observation that the headman of a village protects it from these officers and aggression(33) was perfectly true in our period; he was the head of the village militia and to him the villagers looked for leading the village defence.(34) The headman was, therefore, as much indispensable to the people as to the government.

Village Accountant

c17.s2.1

Village accountants were hereditary officers all over the Deccan like the village headman till 1914 when most of them were induced to resign their rights in several districts. Their influence till then was as great as, if not greater than, that of the village headman. We find them figuring in the documents along with the village headman, and it has been the clerical work connected with the village administration, which must have been relegated to some other officer. Obviously it is these who are referred to by the terms yuktas or niyuktas. Some of the big villages may have had two officers to look to this clerical work; one of them may have been the accountant and the other the sub-accountant. Upaniyuktas and Niyuktas figure together in some records and that can be explained only on this hypothesis. Like the office of the village headman these offices were also very probably hereditary in our age as they were till recently. No yuktas or upaniyuktas figure as donors in our period; we hardly get any evidence suggesting that these officers wielded anything like the influence that was wielded by the village headman. It is, therefore, clear that the offices of the yuktas and upaniyuktas were more or less clerical, and did not carry the same privileges or prestige as that of the village headman.

c17.s2.2

³¹ See ante, p. 192.

c17.s2.3

³² J. B. B. R. A. S., X, p. 257.

c17.s2.4

³³ II, 343.

c17.s2.5

³⁴ Village Communities, p. 5.

Village Council

c17.s3.1

If the evidence about the existence, nature, and functions of the imperial, provincial, and district councils is meagre, that about the village councils is more than ample. These bodies existed throughout the Rāṣṭrakūṭa dominions, though their nature and functions differed to some extent in different localities. There were roughly speaking three types of the village councils in our period, the Tamil type, the Karnatak type and the Maharashtra and Gujarat type. The last did not differ very much from each other, but the distinction between the first type on the one hand and the last two on the other was considerable.

c17.s3.2

It was only for about 20 or 25 years in the reign of Kṛṣṇa III that several districts in Tamil country were annexed to the Rāṣṭrakūṭa dominions where the Tamil type of the village council prevailed. A detailed description of that type is not, therefore, strictly relevant in a work dealing with the Rāṣṭrakūṭa administration. The subject has been, besides, discussed by a number of previous writers on the subject.⁴⁰ Attention will, therefore, be drawn here only to salient features of the village councils in Tamil country in order to facilitate comparison and contrast with these in Maharastra and Karnatak.

c17.s3.3

⁴⁰ R. C. Majumdar, *Corporate Life in Ancient India*; R. K. Mookerji, *Local Government in Ancient India*.

c17.s3.4

Village assemblies or councils in Tamil country consisted neither of the whole adult population, as was the case in Karnatak, nor of a few select gentlemen, as was the case in Maharashtra and Gujrat, but of about 20 to 30 individuals elected by a kind of selection by ballot.⁴¹ There were detailed rules about the qualifications of the voters and the candidates; certain property and educational qualifications were insisted upon in the candidates along with a blameless character. Persons once elected were disqualified to stand again for election for three years, a rule apparently framed to afford opportunities to all qualified persons to serve on the village councils. The election took place annually and the members elected were known as the great men of the year (*Perumakkal*). They subdivided themselves into a number of sub-committees, as was the case with the corporation of Pāṭaliputra in the time of Chandragupta Maurya. Each sub-committee was in charge of a specific department like the village tank, the village temple, roads, adjudication, wet lands, dry lands etc. The account supplied by the Uttaramallur inscriptions is confirmed by several other records. Thus Sivachulamangalam inscription of the 16th year of the reign of Kṛṣṇa III proves the existence of annual election of the village councils;41a the Solapuram inscription from North Arcot district discloses the existence of a temple sub-committee in that village in 953 A.D., when it formed part of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa empire;⁴² the Gudimallain Bana inscriptions A and B from Chittur district attest to the existence of a village corporation in that village, discharging trust duties, regulating the village crops, controlling the village revenues, and arranging for the works of public utility.(43)

c17.s3.5

⁴¹ A. S. R., 1904-5, pp. 140 ff.

c17.s3.6

41a S. I. I., III, no. 12.

c17.s3.7

⁴² E. I., VII, p. 197.

c17.s3.8

The constitution of the village councils in Karnatak differed considerably from the above type. Our records, which are fairly numerous, refer nowhere to any election or selection of the members of the village councils, although they describe on numerous occasions the powers and functions of these bodies. But the absence of election or selection in Karnatak was due not to the village bodies being less but more democratic than was the case in Tamil country. Mahājanas, as the members of the village council were called in Karnatak, seemed to have included in that province in the vast majority of cases the heads of all the families residing in the village. The Kalas inscription of Govinda IV(44) is very important in this respect. The record first describes the attainments and scholarship of the 200 Brahmana householders of the agrahāra or the Brahmana settlement of Kadiyar, observing that the village could put to shame other Brahmana villages on account of the learning and stainless character of all its 200 householders. Later on in the record these very 200 Brahmana householders are described as the Mahājanas. It is, therefore, clear that the Mahājanas included almost all the heads of the families residing in the village.

c17.s3.9

A record from Bijapur district, dated 1022 A.D., is till more illuminating.(45) The inscription records a grant of 50 mattars of land for the village school given by the 500 Mahājanas of Perur. The land is further described as belonging to the 500 houses of Perur. It is, therefore, absolutely clear that each Mahājana represented a family in the village and that all the families were represented in the village council.

c17.s3.10

⁴³ Ibid, XI, pp. 224 ff.

c17.s3.11

⁴⁴ E. I., XIII, pp. 327 ff.

c17.s3.12

⁴⁵ Belur grant, I. A., XVIII, pp. 273 ff.

c17.s3.13

Inscriptions from Hadali(46) and Behatti(47) in Dharwar district show that the same continued to be the case in the 11th and the 12th centuries as well. The first of these records, dated 1083 A.D., refers to an *agrahāra* village, each of the 420 Mahājanas of which is described as virtuous and learned. At its conclusion the record calls upon the 420 Mahājanas of the *agrahāra* colony to protect the grant. Since an *agrahāra* village consisted mostly of Brahmanas, it is quite clear that the Mahājanas in this case also included most of the householders of the village. The inscription hailing from Behatti, above referred to, is dated 1183 A.D., and contains a grant to the 1000 Brahmanas of the *agrahāra* settlement of Kukkanuru; the Canarese postscript records a further donation to the same body and adds:—‘The one thousand and two shall unfailingly preserve this grant.’ A Yādava inscription from the same locality, about half a century later in date, again refers to a grant to 1002 Brahmanas of the same place.(48) It is, therefore, clear that the *agrahāra* village of Kukkanuru consisted of about a 1000 householders all of whom were included in the body of the Mahājanas of the locality.

c17.s3.14

An inscription from Nadwadinge in Bijapur district, dated 902 A.D.,(49) seems to show that the Mahājanas often included not only all the householders or the heads of the families of the village but also all adults. The inscription is unfortunately fragmentary, but it distinctly refers to a donation by the Mahājanas of the place, headed by their own three,(?) together with the children and old men. It would appear from this record that the term Mahājanas included at least in some localities all the adult population of the village; persons too weak or young to be members of that body were alone excluded from it.

c17.s3.15

⁴⁶ I. A., XIII, pp. 33-34.

c17.s3.16

⁴⁷ I. A., IV, p. 274.

c17.s3.17

⁴⁸ E. I., IV, p. 274.

c17.s3.18

The instances above quoted were all of Brahmana settlements, and so the Mahājanas in these cases included Brahmanas alone. But in ordinary villages consisting of a population of different castes, non-Brahmana householders also must have been included among them, though Brahmanas often may have occupied a prominent position in that body. The Radhanpur plates of Govinda, which give a village in Nagar district in charity, refer to an assembly of 40 Mahājanas that had met on the occasion, among whom the 10 Brahmanas named in the record were most prominent.⁵⁰ A record from Hatti-Mattur in Dharwar district, dated 917 A.D.,⁵¹ refers to an assembly of 50 cultivators headed by the oilman Jayasingayyasetti, Jummisetti, Malisetti, Namisetti and Kamvisetti. Here the assembly, as well as its leaders, are all non-Brahmanas; for it is not very likely that the cultivators referred to may have included Brahmanas.

c17.s3.19

⁵⁰ E. I., VI, p. 242.

c17.s3.20

⁵¹ I. A., XII, p. 125.

c17.s3.21

It is thus clear from the above instances that the village Mahājanas, whom we meet in the records of our period, included practically all the heads of the village families, and perhaps all the adult population as well. A record from Sirur in Dharwar district, dated 866 A.D.,⁵² refers to 230 Mahājanas of the place, who figure as the recipients of a donation; an inscription from Nargund in the same district, dated 929 A.D.,⁵³ records a grant when 220 Mahājanas of the locality had assembled together; another epigraph from the same district, dated 916 A.D.,⁵⁴ mentions 220 Mahājanas of the village of Pattiya-Maltavur; two more records from Bijapur district, one from Kattegeri, dated 1096 A.D.,⁵⁵ and the other from Managoli, dated 1161 A.D.,⁵⁶ mention an assembly of 500 Mahājanas of these places. Mahājanas in all these places must be standing for the local assemblies, and since most of these places were small villages, it is quite clear in view of the evidence already adduced above that they must have included almost all the adult householders of the localities, who had not particularly disqualified themselves from being designated by that high-sounding appellation. They certainly did not represent the executive of the village assembly, firstly because an executive committee of so large a number of members is inconceivable not only for villages and towns but also for large units, and secondly because the records sometimes mention the heads or the executive committees of the Mahājanas. Thus Nadwadinge record mentions the Mahājanas and their three heads, (57) and the Hatti-Mattur inscription of 917 A.D. mentions five merchants as being at the head of the 50 Mahājana agriculturists. The Mahājanas, therefore, did not form a small body of elected or selected members in Karnatak, as was the case with the "great men" of the village in Tamil country. They practically included the whole of the adult population of the village.

c17.s3.22

⁵² E. I., VII, p. 203.

c17.s3.23

⁵³ I. A., XII, p. 224.

c17.s3.24

⁵⁴ I. A., XII, p. 225.

c17.s3.25

⁵⁵ I. A., VI, p. 138.

c17.s3.26

⁵⁶ E. I., V, p. 15

c17.s3.27

A village assembly consisting of all the householders of a village would no doubt be quite an imposing body for ceremonial purposes, but it would be thoroughly unmanageable for deliberative and quite unthinkable for executive purposes. As will be soon shown, the Mahājanas in Karnatak used to perform the functions of trustees and bankers, manage schools, tanks and rest houses, raise subscriptions for public purposes and pay village dues to the central government. And yet apart from the two instances referred to in the concluding portion of the last paragraph, there is not a single instance of any mention of the executive or the sub-committee of the village assembly formed for any general or particular purpose. And these two cases also are rather doubtful; for the Nadwadinge record is fragmentary, and the five merchants, who are mentioned as being at the head of the 50 Mahājana agriculturists in the Hatti-Mattur inscription, may have perhaps been the executive of the guild of oilmen, to which the agriculturists may have belonged, if we assume that they were following oil-pressing as a subsidiary profession. The Nargund inscription⁵⁸ records an elaborate arrangement for compulsory contributions for a local tank on the occasions like marriage, thread-ceremony (Upanayana) etc., but it refers to no taxation committee of the Mahājanas, whose members were entrusted with the collection of these dues. The tank and its funds were to be managed, not by a tank sub-committee, as was the case in Tamil country at this time, but by the inhabitants of a certain street of the village which was apparently most contiguous to the tank. The Soratur inscription of 951 A.D.⁵⁹ records the assignment of certain taxes for a local temple, but it does not mention either a taxation or a temple committee. All the 50 Mahājanas undertake to protect the grant. The Salotgi inscription of Kṛṣṇa III⁶⁰ gives a detailed description of a local college, its boardings and professors, and the contributions the inhabitants had agreed to pay for the maintenance of the institution, but it nowhere refers to any executive committee of the Mahājanas to look after the college management or the fund collection. An inscription from Devi Hosur in Dharwar district, dated 962 A.D.,⁶¹ mentions the agreement of the Mahājanas of Posavur to raise a sum of 55 gadyāṇakas from the interest of which a certain number of Brahmanas were to be fed daily, but it nowhere refers to any committee to look after the endowment, its interest and utilisation. Two Alur inscriptions from Dharwar district,⁶² one dated 1091 and the other 1124 A.D. prove not only an absence of sub-committees or village council executives, but attest to the practice, prevailing in the locality, of entrusting village works of public utility, not to any sub-committee of the Mahājanas, but to the trusteeship of single individuals of known ability and character. Both these records mention certain gifts of money and land by 200 Mahājanas of the place and their conveyance to Sarvajña Mahādevayyanayaka and Sarvajña Permadiyarasa for village public works (grāmakārya). Mantrawadi inscription of Amoghavarsha I, dated 865 A.D., (63) supports the same conclusion. In this record we find the 40 Mahājanas of Elapunase (modern Mantrawadi), the Gorava Moni and the managers of a hamlet making a grant to a local Śiva temple, conveying 85 mattars of land to the honourable Gokarṇapandita saying, ‘He indeed is able to protect the property and to increase it.’ The record is not complete but the words just quoted show that the Pandit was a trustee selected by the donors.

c17.s3.28

⁵⁷ I. A., XII, p. 221.

c17.s3.29

⁵⁸ I. A., XII, p. 224.

c17.s3.30

⁵⁹ I. A., XII, p. 257.

c17.s3.31

⁶⁰ E. I., IV, p. 60.

c17.s3.32

⁶¹ E. I., XVI, p. 286.

c17.s3.33

⁶² I. A., VIII, pp. 23 ff.

c17.s3.34

It is, therefore, clear that our records do not prove the existence in Karnatak of any village council sub-committees or even an executive of the Mahājanas, and still we find them discharging the duties of trustees, bankers and managers of temples, tanks and schools. We can explain this anomalous state of affairs only on the assumption that the Mahājanas used to make some informal arrangement about the discharge of these duties; influential members of the village community were entrusted with some of these duties according to mutual convenience and trust; very probably the headman may have transacted much of such business with informal consultations with the leading lights of the village, and made the necessary arrangements for the collections of the public subscriptions and government taxes, for the deposit of the trust moneys at interest and for the management of the public schools and charity houses. This may have obviated the necessity of annual elections of the executive council and its sub-committees, as we find to have been the case in Tamil country in contemporary times. On occasions of importance all the Mahājanas probably met and expressed their views in order to guide the village headman and other influential members of the locality, who were normally discharging the various functions entrusted to them. Such meetings seem to have been fairly common, since responsibility is thrown by our records not on the headman or solitary individuals but on the whole body of the village Mahājanas.

c17.s3.35

The gentlemen who constituted the village assemblies in Maharashtra and southern Gujarat were known as Mahattaras. This term is nothing but a paraphrase of the words Perumakkal and Mahājana that were current in Tamil and Karnatak countries respectively. These Mahattaras or their executive (adhikāriṇaḥ) are referred to in most of the records from Maharashtra and southern Gujarat ranging from the 8th to the 12th century A.D. The term Mahattara indicated, like the term Mahājana, the householders or the heads of families residing in the village; this interpretation, which is suggested by etymology, is further confirmed by the Sanjan plates of Salukika Budhavarsha ( c. 670 A.D. ) which mention kulamahattarādhikāriṇaḥ, ‘officers of the elders of the families immediately after the Grāmakūṭa or the village headman.⁶⁴ This expression shows that the Mahattaras were the senior members of their respective families, and members elected by or selected from among them formed the village council. Most of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa grants from Maharashtra and Gujarat mention adhikārikamahattaras or mahattarādhikāriṇaḥ after the grāmakūṭa. Both expressions mean the same thing; the first is a karmadhāraya compound (mahattarāḥ cha amī adhikāriṇaḥ) meaning officers who are village elders, and the second a tatpurusha one (mahattarāṇām adhikāriṇaḥ) meaning executive of the village elders. The Gujarat and Maharashtra records do not give any specific examples of the number of the mahattaras of any localities as the Karnatak epigraphs do; but the meaning of the term, especially in the light of the expression kulamahattarādhikāriṇaḥ of the Sanjan plates of Budhavarsha, would tend to show that Grāmamahattaras included the elders of all the respectable families of the village. The Mahattaras of Maharashtra and Gujarat, therefore, must have been as numerous as the Mahajanas of Karnatak.

c17.s3.36

⁶⁴ E. I., XIV, p. 150.

c17.s3.37

As observed already the Mahattaras had a regular executive of their own in Maharashtra and Gujarat, the members of which were called Mahattarādhikāriṇaḥ. The communal responsibilities in these provinces were theoretically shared by the council of the Grāmamahattaras and not by the Grāmamahattaras themselves; for our records do not mention Grāmamahattaras in such connection but usually their council—Grāmamahattarādhikāriṇaḥ. In this respect we see a contrast between the adjoining provinces. In Karnatak the general assembly as a whole is saddled with the responsibility and never its executive body, in Maharashtra and Gujarat the case is just the reverse. It is not improbable that the general body of the village elders was accustomed to meet much less frequently in Maharashtra and Gujarat than was the case in Karnatak and had allowed its functions to be usurped by the executive council.

c17.s3.38

Our records give absolutely no information as to how the executive committee of the Mahattaras was formed, what was its strength, whether it was elected by the Mahattaras, if so, how and at what intervals, or whether it was nominated by the central government or its deputies, or whether it consisted of natural leaders among the villagers, selected by a kind of informal approval. Since neither election by the general body of the Mahattaras nor nomination by government or its officers is ever referred to, the last mentioned alternative seems to be the most probable one. Mahattara-vāsāpakas are mentioned in two grants of the Gujarat branch.⁶⁵ This term has not yet been interpreted but it may possibly denote those families, which claimed descent from the traditional founders of the village, and may, therefore, have occupied an important position in the village community, entitling them perhaps to a seat on the village council.

c17.s3.39

⁶⁵ Dantivarman's grant, E. I., VI, p. 292, Surat plates of Karkka, being published in E. I., XXI.

c17.s3.40

In Maharashtra and Gujarat, as in Karnatak, we do not come across any departmental sub-committees of the village council to discharge its various functions, as was the case in Tamil country. It is probable that the village executive must have obviously divided itself in practice into small sub-committees, but these are nowhere referred to in our records.

c17.s3.41

The powers and functions of the village assembly and their executives were substantially the same in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnatak, but they differed considerably from those of the corresponding bodies in Tamil country. In the latter province the village executive was responsible to the central government for its revenues; but how and when these were to be collected, whether and to what extent remission in taxation was to be given were matters in which the village had full powers. Nay, the government had even delegated to the village assemblies its power of selling the land of the defaulters of land-revenue. The village committees there were also the owners of the village lands and could sell or assign them for village purposes.⁶⁶ Under the Rāṣṭrakūṭa administration all these powers were reserved to itself by the central government and were exercised through its representatives, as shown in the last chapter. Our records supply not a single case of the Mahājanas or Mahattarādhikārins remitting any taxes or making any lands tax-free. The Kalas inscription⁶⁷ no doubt refers to the Agrahāra of Kadiyur assigning the tax on pedlars for a local temple, but the case is beside the point; for the village was an alienated one and so the rights of the central government had devolved upon the Mahājanas who were the alienees. In a record from Kattageri⁶⁸ from Bijapur district, dated 1092 A.D., we no doubt find the honourable 500 making over an impost due to them to a local temple; but the honourable 500 obviously did not represent the Mahājanas of the place, for in that case they would have been so designated, as is the invariable practice of the Karnatak records. Besides, if "honourable 500" had represented the Mahājanas of the place having sole control over the village taxation and its disposal, they need not have drawn up any document for assigning one of their imposts for the purpose of their tank. We can understand the record only if we take the honourable 500 as the members of some outside guild who assigned an impost due to them for the tank of the village. There is only one case, that of the Mahājanas of Soratur, assigning away a tax in kind to a local temple, but the record shows that they could do so only when the headman and the Governor of the place had graciously acceded to their request in that matter.(69)

c17.s3.42

⁶⁶ Mujumdar, Corporate Life in Ancient India, p. 193.

c17.s3.43

⁶⁷ E. I., XIII, p. 327.

c17.s3.44

⁶⁸ I. A., VI, p. 138.

c17.s3.45

With the exception noted above, the powers and functions of the village councils were similar to those in the south. They were looking after and arranging for the public works and other needs of the village community. We find them organising schools and charity houses,(70) managing temple property(71) where no sect or other organisation existed,(72) and arranging for the maintenance and repairs of the village tank.(73) They were also receiving deposits on trust from private individuals to be utilised for specific public works according to their wishes.(74) On such occasions the feet of all of the Mahājanas, even when their number was 200 or 300, were washed by the donors, even if the latter were provincial or district governors, and the ownership of the property was formerly conveyed in trust to them. This procedure would incidentally show the high reverence in which they were held. The Mahājanas used to guarantee perpetual proper untilisation of the funds entrusted to them for the purposes contemplated. It is obvious that the Mahājanas must have had their own banks, for they used to undertake the payment of the agreed interest annually on the deposits received by them. It is, however, equally probable that in many cases they may not have had public village banks under their control and management, but may have invested the sums through some village money-lenders of known credit and character. They used to raise subscriptions for public works and collect voluntary contributions; steps were also taken by them to commemorate the memory of distinguished donors by engraving their donations on stone tablets. The village councils were enabled to undertake and finance these public works by the policy of the central government of reserving a part of the revenues collected in the village for its local purposes. The village revenues were divided into two parts, Melā-vāram or government share and Chadi-vāram or the inhabitants' share.(75) The latter was at the entire disposal of the village council, and it could not be alienated even by the king except with the consent of the people. I have already shown elsewhere that the people's share of the revenues of a village was usually in the vicinity of 15% of the total revenues collected in the locality even under the British administration as late as 1830 A.D.(76) This regular income was supplemented by public subscriptions, and voluntary imposts and charity induced by the Ishtāpūrta theory which extolled to the skies the benefactors of the community, who obliged it by building public wells and tanks and maintaining schools and hospitals.

c17.s3.46

⁶⁹ I. A., XII, p. 258;
70. Hadali inscription, I. A., XIII, pp. 93-94; Kalas inscription, E. I., XIII, p. 327; Belur grant, I. A., XVIII, p. 273.

c17.s3.47

⁷¹ Adargunchi inscription, I.A., XII, p.258; Bhadana plates, E. I., III, p. 275,
72. J. B. B. R. A. S., X, pp. 167 ff.

c17.s3.48

⁷³ Nargunda inscription I. A., XII, p. 224; Katageri inscription, I. A., VI, p. 138.

c17.s3.49

⁷⁴ Sirur inscription I. A., XII, p. 220; Adargunchi and Soratur inscriptions, I. A., XII, pp. 256. ff.; Nilgund and Didgur inscriptions, E. I., VI, p. 102 and p. 253.

c17.s3.50

⁷⁵ E. I., XIII, p. 35.

c17.s3.51

⁷⁶ Altekar, Village Communities, pp. 68, 71.

c17.s3.52

The village councils of our period had considerable jurisdiction over the village disputes.⁷⁷ Sulaiman, a contemporary writer, informs us that there existed popular courts in India in addition to king's courts.⁷⁸ Their criminal jurisdiction was no doubt confined to petty cases of assaults, etc., but their civil jurisdiction was unlimited. They could try and decide cases worth any big amount. King's courts did not entertain any cases at first instance; it was only when the parties felt dissatisfied with the decisions of the village councils that they could appeal to the king or his courts. Somadeva, a contemporary writer of the Deccan, expressly declares that such was the case in his times.⁷⁹ If the parties to a dispute happened to be members of a guild the case was referred to the village council, only if the guild executive could not settle the matter amicably. The judgments of the early Mahomedan and Maratha period are found to be signed by several village elders including not only Patels and Kulkarnis but also goldsmiths, carpenters, oilmen and even untouchables like Mahars and Mangs. It is, therefore, clear that the power to decide the village cases was theoretically invested in the whole body of the village elders or the Mahājanas. In practice, however, the actual examination of the parties, their witnesses etc., seems to have been delegated to a small sub-committee, the members of which used to receive a certain honorarium from the fees that were charged to the disputants. The trials were usually held in the village temple, the holy precincts of which could effectively stifle during our period any promptings to dishonesty in the mind of parties and witnesses. The judicial powers of the Panchayats were not due to prevailing anarchy; it was the considered policy of the state not to entertain any suits except by way of appeal from the decisions of the village Panchayats. The decrees of the village court were enforced by the central government, just as the decrees of the present day British courts are carried out by the British executive. In the 15th century in Maharashtra, parties dissatisfied with the decisions of the village court had the right of appeal to Taluka Panchayats; it is not improbable that the councils of Vishaya and Rāṣṭramahattaras as well may have enjoyed in our period appellate jurisdiction over the decisions of the village councils. The judicial powers of Bhogapatis, Vishayapatis, and Rāṣṭrapatis are nowhere referred to in our records; very probably they enjoyed no such powers. In the king's court too the judge was assisted by Sabhyas or jurors whose duty, according to Somadeva, a contemporary writer of our period, was to find out facts and decide the cases impartially.⁸⁰ The procedure at the court of the capital considerably resembled the modern trial by jury.

c17.s3.53

⁷⁷ For detailed evidence in substantiation of the statements occurring in this para the reader is referred to chapter III of my *History of the Village Communities in Western India*. The statement made in that chapter about the non-existence of guilds during our period is untenable.

c17.s3.54

⁷⁸ Sulaiman Saudagar, p. 81.

c17.s3.55

⁷⁹ ग्रामे पुरे वा वृत्तो व्यवहारस्तस्य विवादे तदा राजानमुपेयात् । XXVII, 22.

c17.s3.56

⁸⁰ Nītivākyāmṛta, XXVII, 3.

c17.s3.57

The assemblies used to meet usually in the Mandap of the local temple or under the shade of an expansive tree; many of the villages like Kadiyur, however, had halls of their own.⁸¹ An inscription from Shikarpur⁸² records a number of donations for the construction of the village halls. The Mantravadi inscription of 865 A. D. refers to a meeting of the assembly, and says that Nāgadeva was its president. Since, there were no formal elections of the executive in our assemblies, it is not unlikely that different presidents may have been elected on different occasions.

c17.s3.58

⁸¹ E. I., XIII, p. 327.

c17.s3.59

⁸² Shikarpur, No. 45, E. C., VI.

Linked texts (34)