The Rashtrakutas and their Times c23.s1.21

c23.s1.21

The small village of Salotgi in Bijapur district was another agrahāra village, that is known to have been maintaining a big college in the reign of Kṛṣṇa III. The college must have been flourishing for a fairly long time, for it has transformed the original name of the village Paviṭṭage into Salotgi, which is a combination of the words S'ālā and Paviṭṭage. From one of the inscriptions from this locality¹⁶ we learn that the college was located in a big hall attached to the temple of Trayī-purusha, which was built by Nārāyaṇa, a minister of Kṛṣṇa III, in 945 A.D. The record expressly states that the college attracted students from far and near, and 27 boarding houses were necessary to accommodate them. An endowment of 12 Nivartanas ( probably equal to 60 acres ) was necessary to defray merely the lighting charges of the institution. The pay of the principal of the college was the income of 50 Nivartanas of land i. e. about 250 acres. The institute had received a magnificent endowment from a local magnate, and the inhabitants of the village had agreed to pay 5, 2½, and 1¼ coins on the occasion of marriages, thread ceremonies, and tonsures respectively, besides agreeing to feed as many students and teachers as possible, at the dinners that may be given on these and similar occasions. A later inscription from the same place informs (17) us that when the college hall built in 945 A.D. crumbled down, it was built again by a local feudatory in the next century.