The Rashtrakutas and their Times c19.s2.20

c19.s2.20

Smaller feudatories enjoyed far less autonomy. Not only could they create no sub-feudatories, but they had not even the power of alienating any villages. When Budhavarsha, a Chālukya feudatory of Govinda III, desired to give a village to a Jain sage who had made him free from the evil influence of Saturn, he had to supplicate for the permission of his feudal lord. (83) Śaṅkaragaṇa, a feudatory of Dhruva, is seen taking his sanction at the time of alienating a village. (84) The necessity of imperial permission for such alienations is proved by the records of other contemporary dynasties both in the south and north. Vīrachola and Prithvīpati II, feudatories of the Cholas, had to take imperial sanction before they could alienate villages in charity.(85) The early Kadambas also exercised a similar control over their feudatories.(86) In the Gurjara-Pratihāra empire even the feudatories in distant places like Kathiawar had to take imperial permission for such transactions; the ‘Political Agents’ of the imperial power had to sanction such alienations on behalf of their suzerains by authenticating the documents by their signatures.(87) The same practice prevailed in Nepal, as is clear from a 7th century inscription of Śivadeva.(88)