The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c22.48

v1.c22.48

The people are settled in small villages around a fort, which remains as a *grāma* or ‘crowd’ (village) or expands into a town, *nagara*. Small settlements are called *ghoshas* or *pallīs*, some of them ‘marches’ (*prāntas*, ‘on the border’). The distinction between these and the places called *kharvaṭas* and *pattanas* is not clear, though the *grāma* seems to be smaller than the *kharvaṭa*, which in turn is smaller than the *nagara*. Perhaps village, town, city would represent the series. The villages were largely autonomous though under the ‘overlord’ of the king, who administered justice and laid taxes. In all smaller affairs of life, ‘authority rests with the village,’ according to law (Pār., *Gṛihya Sūtra*, I, 8, 13) and the epic seems to uphold even family custom as legally sufficient. Thus as one man says (*v. inf*. p. 291) that he demands a price for his daughter, because that is his ‘family-custom,’ so another defends his occupation of killing animals on the same ground. It has always been the custom of Indian rulers to leave affairs as much as possible in the hands of the local authorities; and the headman of the village or the group of five elders were practically independent, provided the village paid its revenue as assessed by the *adhipati* or overlord.