The Rashtrakutas and their Times c17.s3.8

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.