The Rashtrakutas and their Times c17.s3.18

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.