The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c11.11.3

c11.11.3

It is very interesting to see that the kaḷanju mentioned in this record is the same as the gold kāśu, the coin being apparently described by its weight here;² we cannot however be sure of the exact weight of the kaḷanju itself in those days. A record in some respects more interesting than these comes from Mānūr in the Tinnevelly district and it is dated in the thirty-fifth year of Māranjaḍayan. If this Māranjaḍayan were the same as Varaguṇa Mahārāja, as probably he is, then the record may be assigned to about A.D. 800 and would thus precede the famous Uttiramallūr records of the time of Parāntaka I by well over a century. This fact deserves to be stressed a little as this inscription contains a record of rules for membership in the Sabha of the village which have been summed up¹ as follows by the official epigraphist (Madras) in the *Annual Report for 1913*: ‘It is stated that the children of shareholders in the village, only one, who is well behaved and has studied the *Mantra Brāhmaṇa* and one *Dharma* (i.e. Code of Law) may be on the village assembly (*manru*) to represent the share held by him in the village and only one of similar qualifications may be on the assembly for a share purchased, received as present or acquired by him as *strīdhana* (through his wife); (2) that (shares) purchased, presented or acquired as *strīdhana* could entitle one, if at all, only to full membership in the assemblies;