The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c11.11.4

c11.11.4

and in no case will quarter, half or three-quarter membership be recognized; (3) that those who purchase shares must elect only such men to represent their shares on the assembly, as have critically studied a whole Veda with its *pariśiṣṭas*; (4) that those who do not possess full membership as laid down by rule (2), cannot stand on any committee (*vāriyam*) for the management of village affairs; (5) that those who satisfy the prescribed conditions should in no case persistently oppose (in the proceedings of the assembly) by saying “nay, nay” to every proposal brought up before the assembly and (6) that those who do this together with their supporters will pay a fine of five *kāśus* on each item (in which they so behaved) and still continue to submit to the same rules.’ It is a pity that twenty years after the discovery of this inscription, its text should not be available for scholars. But even the abstract given above contains enough to show the importance of the record. Other inscriptions which have been reviewed here tell us generally of the existence of village assemblies and of their carrying on their work through committees. And this Mānūr record may be taken perhaps as giving a type of the constitutions of village assemblies in this period in the south of the Pāndya country. Membership in the assembly was regulated by qualifications of property and learning very much as in the well-known inscriptions from Uttiramallūr (Chingleput) of the early tenth century A.D.