The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c28.124

v1.c28.124

Beginning with the civil administration and at its base, we find already in operation that system of village autonomy under the headman (*grāmaṇī*, an official nominee), which has prevailed in India at all periods. Through him, no doubt, there was a joint responsibility for the assignment and payment of the land revenue, and consequently for the proper cultivation of the fields, which failing, the occupier might be replaced by the village servants⁷. In consultation with the elders, the village *panchāyat*, he would also decide all questions relating to the customary rights and duties of the village barber, washerman, potter, blacksmith, and so on. His superiors were the *gopa* in charge of five or ten villages and *sthānika* theoretically ruling one quarter of the realm⁸, each attended by executive, revenue, and police officials. By some texts⁹ further official gradations are recognised, and in the edicts of Açoka the highest local officials, set over hundreds of thousands of persons, are termed *rājūkas*, a designation pointing, no doubt, to functions connected with survey, land settlement, and irrigation¹. The superior of all these, to whom they reported successively, was one of the great ministers of state, the *samāhartṛi*, or Minister of the Interior and Chancellor of the Exchequer.