[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929) › c19 # The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c19: Chapter XV. Administration and Social Life under the Pāṇḍyas of the Second Empire The Pāṇḍyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c19 - **Language:** English ## Contents - [c19.20](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.20) — 3 parts - [c19.25](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.25) — 6 parts - [c19.39](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.39) — 3 parts ### Chapter XV. Administration and Social Life under the Pāṇḍyas of the Second Empire ### [c19.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.2) BEFORE we take up the history of the later Pāndyas, tracing the story of the decline of the Pāndyan power, some attention may be given to the study of the administration and social life of the country under the Pāndyas in the age of the Second Empire, in so far as this can be done with the aid of contemporary records. ### [c19.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.3) Besides the existence of written records, the careful maintenance in the capital of registers showing the rights in the land of individuals and corporations and of the state all over the country is very clearly and fully attested by contemporary inscriptions. Many of these records contain transactions in which rights in land are transferred from one party to another; the stone inscriptions and copper-plate records appear to have been only copies of originals maintained in more perishable material which should have disappeared long ago, and this view is strengthened by the occurrence of the word \*Tulyam\* (equal) at the beginning or the end of many of these epigraphs. The frequent references to \*ōlai\* found in our records may also lead one to the conclusion that the originals of the documents were written on palm-leaves.¹ There appears to have been a regular procedure to be observed in the numerous cases in which lands were made over tax-free to temples or Brahmins by the state.² In such cases the first step was to prefer a request to the king at some suitable hour and get his oral sanction to the proposal. This was usually done by a high official of the state. The king's sanction was accompanied by an order that the necessary entries should be made in the revenue registers and the \*ōlai\* and \*uḷvari\* from the revenue department issued thereon. Sometimes, years elapsed from the date of the oral order before a single transaction was carried through all its stages and the grant became effective. The entries in the revenue registers appear to have been intended to effect a decrease in the revenues due to government and to record a corresponding increase in the income of the donee. Such transactions are generally found in triple or sometimes even quadruple records, the main part of the contents being repeated thrice or four times, each time with a separate purpose. The first is generally a simple record of the king's oral sanction—\*Kēḷvi\*, or \*Tirumugam\* as it is sometimes called. The exact significance of the \*ōlai\* and the \*uḷvari\* is not quite clear. The \*ōlai\* generally begins with the Kōnērinmaikoṇḍān title of the king, without his proper name, and appears to have been executive order to the officers on the spot to give effect to the king's order with reference to the lands in question. The \*uḷvari\* on the other hand partakes of the nature of a title-deed granted to the donee, and is signed by a number of revenue officers (\*variyilār\* or \*varikkūruśeyvār\*). It seems likely that a similar method of maintaining records at the capital and communicating copies of the orders to the executive officers of the localities concerned was observed in other important matters as well. We have thus a Kōnērinmaikoṇḍān record of Māravarman Kulaśēkhara (\*acc.\* 1268) from Aḷwār Tirunagarī (No. 467 of 1909) which confers certain special privileges in the distribution of the \*prasādam\* in the temple on a certain Brahmin who recited the Purāṇas and the Itihāsas in the temples of the place. ### [c19.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.4) ¹ See \*A.R.E.\*, 1919, part ii, para 24. ### [c19.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.5) ² See \*A.R.E.\*, 1912, part ii, para 37; 1917, part ii, para 8; and 1923 part ii, para 56. ### [c19.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.6) We find mention in these records of numerous dues levied upon cultivated lands which formed the subject of the transfers and gifts mentioned above. It is not possible to ascertain the exact nature of most of these, but the names of the most important among them may be mentioned: Kaḍamai, antarāyam, viniyōgam, accu-vari, kāriyavāracci, veṭṭi-pāṭṭam, pañju-pilî, sandiviggiraha-ppēru, vāśalpēru, ilāncinaippēru, uḷudānkuḍi, pāḍikkāval, ponvari and others. We also hear of tari-irai; śekkirai, taṭṭāra-ppāṭṭam, inavari, idaivari and others. It is clear from the records that some of these dues were paid in cash, but most of them in kind. Occasionally we get an idea of the rates of those dues especially in connection with dēvadāna lands. We learn, for instance, from an inscription dated in the eleventh year of a certain Sundara Pāndya (No. 409 of 1914) that the kaḍamai on some temple lands¹ was fixed at three kalams on each mā of land or one half of what prevailed among other dēvadāna lands, and that for the assessment, crops of full yield alone were taken into consideration, those that had suffered damage or failed altogether being left out of account. It is interesting that another record (No. 39 of 1924) mentions the same rate of kaḍamai on temple lands,² viz. three kalams on every mā, but adds that each mā should yield forty kalams in order to be assessed at that rate. These inscriptions also contain other particulars which show that the rates of the dues varied according to the nature of the soil and the crops raised--thus the viniyōgam on every mā of land was one tūṇi (four kuruṇis or marakāls) of paddy if wet, and half tiramam (dramma coin) if dry; again, the \*vaḍakkaḍamai\* was half \*paṇam\* on every \*mā\* of garden land growing plantain, ginger, turmeric or betel. We are not in a position to say much regarding the kinds of taxes raised besides the dues from land. A record of Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāndya of about the end of the thirteenth century A.D. from Tirukkāccūr (Chingleput), No. 300 of 1909—states that a tax of six \*paṇams\* per annum was levied on each shop-keeper, on each loom of the \*kaikkōḷar\* and the \*śaliyar\*, and on each oil-monger.¹ It is interesting to note that a king, Parākrama Pāndya, whom it is not yet easy to identify, confers on a certain individual in the South Arcot district the right of collecting certain taxes as a remuneration for his duties of \*pādikkāval\* (village watch). The collections were ‘at the rate of one \*kalam\* of paddy on every \*mā\* of wet land and one \*paṇam\* on the same area of dry land, 1/16th \*paṇam\* on every areca palm, five \*paṇams\* on every \*mā\* of land which produced sugar-cane, \*koḷundu\*, ginger, gingelly and plantain, and two \*paṇams\* a year for every house (\*vāśal\*).’² ### [c19.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.7) ¹ See A.R.E., 1915, part ii, para 34. ### [c19.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.8) ² A.R.E., 1924, part ii, para 38. ### [c19.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.9) ¹ See \*A.R.E.\*, 1910, part ii, para 34. ### [c19.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.10) ² \*A.R.E.\*, 1922, part ii, para 33. ### [c19.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.11) When so much is uncertain about the number and nature of the taxes levied, any conclusions about their incidence and their pressure on the people will not be easy to formulate. However, some stray facts that can be gathered from the inscriptions may be set down here. But no general conclusions can be drawn from these exceptional instances which throw little light on the normal system of administration. A record (No. 8 of 1913) of the famous Pāndya emperor Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāndya (\*acc.\* A.D. 1251) seems to register the curious fact that the villagers had to make use of the \*vāram\* and \*kadamai\* income from the \*vārapparru\* and \*kadamai-parru\* respectively, in securing the friendship of the agents of Sundara Pāndya. Perhaps, as the official epigraphist suspects¹ ‘the villagers had actually to bribe them (the royal agents) if they were to attend to their avocations undisturbed.’ An inscription (No. 81 of 1916) in the twenty-second year of Māravarman Kulaśēkhara I, corresponding to A.D. 1290, mentions that a certain chief captured a part of the country around a village and fixed the heavy sum of 4,000 (gold pieces?) as the tax levied from the inhabitants (\*ūrōm\*) of the village including \*araiśumakkal\* and \*mudaligal\* for the current year and the year before, and that the villagers in order to pay this amount had to sell their property, cattle, etc. and some of them even their lands to a neighbouring temple. But this, evidently, was an act of oppression on the part of a petty local chieftain that had no sanction from the state.² Two inscriptions of Māravarman Sundara Pāndya (Nos. 73 and 91 of 1924) of the first half of the thirteenth century A.D. from the Ramnad district seem to contain more direct evidence of heavy and oppressive taxation; one of them states that the people of two villages were very much impoverished by the taxes they had to pay and began to feel ‘that life in the woods would be preferable’; and the other ‘records that owing to the inability of the people to pay the revenue according to the old rates obtaining from the fifth year of the king, the standard of land-measure was altered’³ a rather curious method, as it strikes us, of lightening the burden. Another interesting record (No. 357 of 1922) which probably belongs to the seventh year of Māravarman Kulaśēkhara (acc. A.D. 1268) comes from the Trichinopoly District and ‘records that the revenue expected for the sixth and seventh years (of the king) from the village of Marudūr in Uṟattūr-kūṟṟam failed as there were no people to cultivate the fields’; but in this case, the whole nāḍu in which the village was located took upon itself the burden of the taxes due to the royal treasury from Marudūr, and was in return allowed ‘to give away Marudūr to two individuals for providing offerings to the god’ in the neighbourhood for the prosperity of the nāḍu.¹ A record of Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāndya from the Tanjore district (No. 93 of 1911) ‘supplies the information that a registered tenant of certain lands having run away and his friends, who stood personal surety for him, being asked to pay the taxes which had fallen into arrears until the twenty-second year of the king, they got the houses and the fields of the tenant to be sold to the temple and redeemed their responsibility in the transaction.’² Another record of the same king (No. 289 of 1913) from Chidambaram contains an order for the remission of certain taxes on some lands which, being close to the sea, ‘had become filled up with sand and overgrown with weeds’. We may also note that a Śoḷavandān inscription of the second year of a Māravarman Sundara Pāndya ‘records the remission of certain taxes on the occasion of the king’s coronation.’ (No. 80 of 1905). ### [c19.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.12) ¹ See A.R.E., 1913, part ii, para 44. ### [c19.13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.13) ² A.R.E., 1916, part ii, para 30. ### [c19.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.14) ³ A.R.E., 1924, part ii, para 31. See Nos. 309 and 310 Pudukkottah for other instances under the same king; 310 recording heavy taxes on \*dēvadāna\* lands imposed by Kannadiyar. ### [c19.15](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.15) ¹ See A.R.E., 1923, part ii, para 55. ### [c19.16](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.16) ² A.R.E., 1911, part ii, para 39. ### [c19.17](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.17) We get just enough information in regard to the forms of land tenure to enable us to see that the conditions of tenancy cultivation varied in accordance with the locality; that shares in the produce between landlord and tenant often differed according to the nature of the crops raised, the tenant's share increasing with his part in the raising of the produce; and that, besides a share in the produce of the land, the landlord often had sundry other small claims on the tenant which were met by payments in cash or kind. An inscription from Ālaṅguḍi (Tanjore) of a certain Kulaśēkhara (No. 509 of 1920)—probably the king whose accession was in A.D. 1314—is very interesting; but there are difficulties in using it, as the only summary of the record that is available is not clear on many points; it gives an unusually detailed account of the rights and duties of landlords and cultivators.¹ Some records of Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāṇḍya (acc. A.D. 1276) describe the rather interesting terms on which lands of a certain temple were leased to tenants—the name of the tenure being Kāṇippiḍipāḍu.² Thus one record (No. 66 of 1916) says that the lessee or tenant shall enjoy the lands ‘after repairing the tanks in disuse and bringing under cultivation such of the lands as are covered with jungle and that while the lands are being enjoyed in this manner, he shall pay to the temple for the pāśan, a mēlvāram of one in three; for the cultivation of திணை, வரகு, எள்ளு, பயறு, குருவை, கரும்பு, கொழுந்து, கருணை, மஞ்சள், இஞ்சி, செங்கழுநீர், வாழை, வழுதலை, பூசனி. . . , etc., as well as trees மா, பலா, நார்த்தை, எலுமிச்சை, குனவிருளி, நெல்லி, இலுப்பை, etc., one in five shall be given; for cocoanut and areca palms one in seven and for dry crops, according to the yield, one in seven. In the case of lands which had been brought under cultivation clearing jungle he shall have to pay one-tenth in the first year, one-ninth in the second year, one-eighth in the third year, one-seventh in the fourth year and that for all subsequent years a permanent mēlvāram of one in three shall be paid.' Another very similar record from the same place gives slightly different rates of mēlvāram for crops other than pāśan. 'In either instance it is distinctly stated that the donee should not keep the lands without cultivating them and that mounds and low grounds should be levelled and the jungle removed.' ### [c19.18](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.18) ¹ See A.R.E., 1921, part ii, para 38. ### [c19.19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.19) ² A.R.E., 1916, part ii, para 28. ### [c19.20.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.20.1) We have very instructive references to the irrigation arrangements that prevailed in the middle ages in the country under the Pāndyan rulers. A very interesting record from Sarkār Periyapālayam (Coimbatore) dated in the twenty-second year of a certain Sundara Pāndya¹ contains details as to the duties of the person who was appointed to be in charge of an irrigation tank and channel and an anicut at Śūralūr, all of which belonged to a temple. 'The villagers and the temple trustees stipulated that, in consideration of certain income and privileges granted to him, the fisherman Pillaiyān . . . had to look after the said anicut (anai) and the channel, had to see that the water did not escape above the dam but was properly directed into the tank, notice the defects, if any, in the tank and the dam and report the matter to the villagers and the temple authorities and that on this information the village servant (veṭṭiyāl) had to repair the dam, receiving as remuneration for that duty a piece of rent-free land and some payments in grain. Pillaiyān was also to collect the taxes vāykkālpāṭṭam (canal tax) and pāśipāṭṭam (fishing tax) from the temple tenants at Śūralūr.¹ A record (No. 14 of 1909) at Pon Amarāvati (Pudukkottah) contains an order dated in the eighth year of Tribhuvanacakravartin Sundara Pāṇdya Dēva forbidding the temple authorities to take water from Iḍangaḷikāman, evidently for purposes of irrigation. Another record from Pudukkottah (No. ### [c19.20.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.20.2) 380 of 1914), of probably the same king, states that a dispute between the authorities of a temple and an individual as regards the ownership of a stream was settled by providing that, ‘after irrigating a certain specified field, one half of the income from fishing in the river should be made over to the temple authorities, while the other half was to be retained by the other party to the dispute.’¹ Unless an inscription in the tenth year of Jaṭāvarman Parākrama Pāṇdya (fourteenth century A.D.) from Tirumalai (Ramnad) has been grossly misunderstood, it may be taken to record a very interesting transaction.² Two villages and a tank irrigating lands in them are taken up by a temple from government after paying arrears of taxes due to it from a defaulting cultivator; the temple authorities had evidently miscalculated their capacity to use the lands and underrated the difficulties in the way of cultivating them properly and apparently were unable to pay their dues to the state. Then, in the presence of the king, they sold the tanks and the lands to two brothers for a sum of money with which they set up the images of Gaṇapati and Māṇikkavāśagar, and it was agreed that after that, the dues which the brothers had to pay on the lands they had bought, and which were fixed in detail, were to be used ‘for providing for the sacred bath and offerings and worship of the images newly set up.’ It is not clear if the newly fixed dues were less onerous than the old ones. Perhaps they were. ### [c19.20.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.20.3) Two other records (Nos. 15 and 16 of 1924) of the same king from the same place are dated in the fifth and ninth years of the king; the earlier record mentions some lands as having been sold by the assembly of the village for a certain sum of money ‘with the exemption of water taxes in compensation for the labour involved in reclaiming them from their waste condition’; and the later record registers the resale of the same land for over twelve times the original value at which it was sold by the village assembly, evidently a case of an extraordinarily successful land improvement encouraged by the village assembly. It is to be noted carefully how small a part in all these transactions belongs to the officials of the king, and how much is left to local and individual initiative. It may be noted also that early in the reign of Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāndya (acc. A.D. 1251) a new flood embankment substantially built on the side of the Coleroon was raised with the aid of funds collected in the form of a special cess from the inhabitants in the neighbourhood.¹ ### [c19.21](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.21) ¹ There is the possibility that this king was not of the regular Pāndya line, but one of the Kongu Pāndyas of whom not much that is certain is known. See A.R.E., 1909, part ii, para 26 end. ### [c19.22](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.22) ¹ A.R.E., 1915, part ii, para 32. ### [c19.23](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.23) ² A.R.E., 1924, part ii, para 38. ### [c19.24](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.24) ¹ A.R.E., 1919, part ii, para 26 and Inscriptions Nos. 518 and 510 of 1918. ### [c19.25.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.25.1) Some evidence on the administration of justice is available, and this may be briefly reviewed. Most of the references are to criminal offences, and they do not shed much light directly on the machinery of legal administration. We learn casually that in one instance a person was tied to the leg of a buffalo-bull and dragged for having murdered a Brahmin.² Three records from the Ramnad district of the time of Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāṇḍya give a continuous account of a single crime and the manner in which it was dealt with.¹ A temple priest, Vāmanabhaṭṭa by name, who was returning home at night from the temple, was, for some unknown reason, hacked to death in a street by hired assassins employed by one Sattiyanāvan. The murderers took refuge in a neighbouring place and afterwards escaped from it, when attempts were made to capture them. ‘Thereupon, the belongings of Sattiyanāvan in Karuvērkuricci consisting of lands, houses, gardens and servants both male and female, were confiscated and made over, as a gift to the temple of Śokka-Nārāyaṇa.’ Subsequently, the murder of Vāmanabhaṭṭa was avenged and Sattiyanāvan was killed, we do not hear by whom or under what circumstances; then his son made an appeal, less than four months after the date of the original murder, to the authorities, the Śrīvaiṣṇavas and others connected with the temple; ### [c19.25.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.25.2) he said that he had been ruined by the confiscation of his father’s property, himself having been no party to the murder, and that he would pay 800 gold coins to the temple treasury in lieu of the confiscated property. His plea was accepted and his father’s lands, houses, gardens and servants both male and female were restored to him subject only to the additional condition that he should maintain a service (śandi) in the temple. We also learn that, in the interval, the property of another person had been confiscated, but afterwards, most of it was restored, probably because he was able to establish his innocence. Some points come out clearly in this case and these are worth noting. Justice is administered in a rough and ready manner by the local authorities of the village. A criminal who is notoriously guilty of a serious offence, in this case the murder of a Brahmin, and escapes punishment, not only forfeits his property, but becomes more or less an outlaw who may be killed with impunity by anybody. The property that is forfeited under such conditions enriches the temple, and neither the king nor the villagers seem to touch it, probably in literal fulfilment of the injunction of Manu in the matter (ix. 243). When the murderer has paid for his offence with his life, the bulk of his property is restored to his heir, double punishment for the same offence being avoided, so to say. ### [c19.25.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.25.3) A curious inscription from the Chingleput district contains a strange narrative of an organized attempt at brigandage and terrorism on the part of some unlawful persons of Ūttipākkam and the manner in which the offenders were dealt with.¹ Five Brahmins whose names are recorded, and some Veḷḷāḷas ‘gave up the duties legitimate to their caste, and following the profession of the lower classes, wore weapons, murdered Brahmins, cut off (their) ears, insulted the Brahmin ladies, committed robbery, destroyed cattle and sold them’. On a former occasion complaints had been made against these very men to the ruling authorities and they had been beaten and fined, without being actually imprisoned. But they behaved no better afterwards and the inhabitants of the neighbourhood again complained of their misdeeds to prince Poṭṭappiyārāyar, the ruler of the division, who sent a contingent of Malayāḷi soldiers to apprehend the criminals; two of the Brahmins in the gang, Ātkoṇḍavilli and Pāmbaṇaiyān, were captured and imprisoned, but not before some of the soldiers lost their lives in the conflict with them, and others were stabbed, shot with arrows, or deprived of their weapons by the bandits. ### [c19.25.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.25.4) When, some time later, the two prisoners along with some others were being taken to the king's presence, ‘the three other Brahmin brothers who were still at large and who, in the meantime, had collected together a number of people, attacked and killed the party which was leading the captive brothers to the king, liberated them and escaped. The news of this action of the rebels having reached the king, he issued the stringent orders that they be captured wherever found and punished according to the rules applicable to the lower classes, that their houses and other hereditary property be sold to temples and other charitable institutions, that the money thus realized be credited to the treasury in payment of the fine imposed on them and that the balance, if any, be presented to the temples as a permanent charity in the name of the criminals.’ We do not know how the offenders fared after their outlawry by the king, but we learn that the order regarding the sale of their properties was literally fulfilled. These occurrences belong to the reign of a Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāṇdya who was perhaps the famous ruler of that name who came to the throne in A.D. 1251 or some later monarch. We have an instance of gross mismanagement on the part of a temple manager coupled with misconduct with ‘a Brahmin widow from a foreign country’; complaints against the manager's conduct were made by the assembly of Tirupputtur (Ramnad district) about 1291 A.D. to the ruling king Māravarman Kulaśēkhara; ### [c19.25.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.25.5) but the king's judgment is unknown as the end of the inscription (No. 125 of 1908) is lost.¹ It seems to have been the rule that all offences were in the first instance dealt with by the village officers and the village assembly of the locality, and that only when these authorities proved unequal to the task, any matter was submitted to the king's officers, or, in an extreme case, to the king himself. An inscription from Pudukkottah (No. 372 of 1906) of about the middle of the thirteenth century A.D. refers to a meeting of the inhabitants of districts, cities and villages in Kōnāḍu. The \*pūjāris\* of the temple of Tirunalakkuṇramuḍaiya-Nāyaṉār had made away with the cash as well as the jewels of the temple. One of them confessed to having taken a portion of the lost cash and shared it with a carpenter. The other \*pūjāris\* denied all knowledge of the lost property, but were implicated by the former. The lying \*pūjāris\* were orderd to be taken to the court (\*dharmāsana\*) where they were required to handle a (red-hot) ploughshare. The hands of all of them were burnt, and then they confessed their guilt. They were all ordered to be dealt with as sinners against the god Śiva (\*Śivadrōhins\*).² The references in this record to the \*dharmāsana\*—perhaps the king's court—and the ordeal of the ploughshare must be noted. ### [c19.25.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.25.6) Another record furnishes an instance of the recognition of the right of private warfare among local chieftains so long as it did not interfere with the peaceful villagers in the neighbourhood (No. 359 of 1914). ### [c19.26](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.26) ² A.R.E., 1909, part ii, para 28 end. ### [c19.27](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.27) ¹ Ins. 301, 302 and 303 of 1923 and \*A.R.E.\*, 1924, part ii, para 77. ### [c19.28](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.28) ¹ Ins. 315 of 1909 and A.R.E., 1910, part ii, para 34. I do not agree with Mr. Krishna Sastri in his view that the payment of the balance of the criminals’ property for charities in the temples was made ‘in order that these misguided people may, as a consequence, improve in their character and become at least in the future, useful and loyal subjects.’ The king evidently had lost all hopes of them, and the temples appear to have been the residuary claimants of all escheated property that was not taken by the state. ### [c19.29](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.29) ¹ \*A.R.E.\*, 1909, part ii, para 28. ### [c19.30](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.30) ² \*A.R.E.\*, 1907, part ii, para 27. ### [c19.31](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.31) A few civil disputes with the manner of their settlement are also recorded. In one case (No. 571 of 1920) there was a dispute among Bhaṭṭars connected with a temple near Kāṭṭumannārkōyil in South Arcot as to who had the right to perform the pūja in the temple, and the matter was arbitrated by the assembly with the aid of proofs produced by either party to the dispute; and it is interesting to note that one side pleaded prescription as having enjoyed the right ‘from the time of Kulōttunga Choladēva II who covered (the temple) with gold, Rājarājadēva II, Perumāḷ Tribhuvana Vīradēva, Rājarājadēva III, Avani-āḷappirandān-Kōpperunjingadēva, Perumāḷ Sundara Pāndyadēva, Perumāḷ Kulaśēkharadēva, Vīra Pāndyadēva and even up to the eleventh year of the ruling king, Perumāḷ Sundara Pāndyadēva, as a matter of course’.¹ The succession of kings who ruled in the locality appears to be very correctly mentioned here and that fixes the time of the record somewhere late in the thirteenth or early in the fourteenth century A. D. About the same period or a little later (more exactly, Śaka 1298, A.D. 1376), we hear of a long-standing dispute in twenty-four villages in the region of the modern Ran.nad district between the caste people and the pariahs in the villages, resulting at one stage in some loss of life on both sides; this dispute seems to have been settled ultimately in an amicable manner by the intercession of a certain Gāngaiyarāyan, evidently a royal official. The understanding that both sides accepted was ‘that the pariahs should beat the drum (\*muraśa\*) for the caste people on all occasions, good and bad, and receive in return a \*padakku\* of paddy and a fowl. Every resident of the \*parru\* who was entitled to the privilege should measure out in the harvest season, irrespective of the yield, a \*kalam\* and a \*tūṇi\* of paddy (to the pariahs) for this service.’¹ It may be noted, by the way, that in the time of a Sundara Pāṇḍya we have an instance of a lady, by name Peruṅaruṇaiyāṭṭi \*alias\* Dēvargaḷammai, who was counted among the \*nyāyattār\* (committee of justice ?) in the well-known village of Uttaranmērūr (probably modern Uttiramallur near Kāñchīpuram)²; and that ‘a record of Māravarman Kulaśēkhara (\*acc.\* A.D. 1268) from Kiḷaḍi in the Madura district (No. 449 of 1906) refers to the \*nirvāhasabhai\* (executive committee) of the village.’³ ### [c19.32](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.32) ¹ A.R.E., 1921, part ii, para 40. The epigraphist adds: ‘It is interesting in this connection to note that, in the assembly that met to decide this question sat, among others, pilgrims from many districts and people from different parts of the kingdom. It is not known whether these outsiders had any voice in the deliberations of the assembly. However, the fact remains that the assembly was not a packed body and that public opinion was invited as a healthy factor in the deliberations of the assembly.’ I am inclined to think that nothing more is meant in the record than that the proceedings of the assembly were public, even as trials take place in open court to-day; but I do not have the text of the inscription. It is, however, extremely unlikely that the assembly had a fluctuating constitution, or that they were directly influenced in their judgment by the ‘public opinion’ of the pilgrims and others ### [c19.33](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.33) ¹ \*A.R.E.\*, 1924, part ii, para 34. ### [c19.34](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.34) ² \*A.R.E.\*, 1910, part ii, para 35. ### [c19.35](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.35) ³ \*A.R.E.\*, 1907, part ii, para 26. ### [c19.36](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.36) The part played by the temple in the general life of every village is very largely attested by our epigraphs. We have seen enough to realize that the most fruitful sources of our knowledge of the history of the country are stone inscriptions preserved in temples and copper-plate grants. Of these the stone records in temples are more numerous and varied in their interest. In addition to throwing light on matters like land-tenure, revenue administration and the administration of law and justice, these records enable us to reconstruct with some confidence the part of the temple in the general social economy of the time. It is clear that in the middle ages in South India the temple was much more than a place of common worship. ‘Temple worship is not so Important for the Hindus as church services for the Christian. They set more store on home ceremonies and on contemplation'.¹ And yet, every village had its temple, and every temple was the object of universal attention at the hands of the princes and the people of the land. The temple is historically more important as a social and economic entity than as a religious institution; the history of Hinduism, even in South India, is much more than the history of her temples. But the story of the social life of the country, of her common people, centres round the temple in a manner, that is perhaps equalled only in mediæval Europe, although with this vital difference, that in South India the villagers held the temple, while in Europe the church or the monastery held the village. ### [c19.37](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.37) ¹ Sir Ch. Eliot, Hinduism and Buddhism, p. lxxxiv. ### [c19.38](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.38) The temple was the centre of universal culture. The best architecture and sculpture and such painting as there was, were lavished on it. Fine arts like music, dancing and jewel-making flourished in the temples and primarily on their account. Several temples contained libraries and were centres of religious and secular learning. The drama, closely allied to the dance, was promoted by some temples. Above all, the temple was for the village the most powerful economic corporation which not only sustained, by means of its lavish endowments, the arts of civilized existence, but enabled the villagers to turn to it in times of need for economic support, if not also for purposes of physical defence. ### [c19.39.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.39.1) A few facts, gleaned from a mass of similar data, may now be set down to confirm these statements about the temple and its part in the life of mediæval South India. An inscription of about A.D. 1260 from Maḍambākkam (Chingleput) dated in the tenth year of Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāṇḍya (No. 322 of 1911) states that ‘the assembly of the village seeing that it was not possible to maintain the lamps, offerings and festivals in the temple from the income available for that purpose, assigned the north division (\*vaḍakūru\*) “with its wet lands, garden lands, houses and house-sites” to the temple, but retained therein 3,000 \*kuḷi\* of land with houses and house-sites for their own use. They decided also to pay the dues on them such as \*pon-vari\* and \*nāṭṭu-vari\* from their own pockets and agreed that “if ever, owing to unfortunate circumstances, we are induced to sell this land, we shall do so, for the price at which it then sells, to the sacred treasury of the temple”.’¹ An inscription from Kāmarasavalli (Trichinopoly) of the tenth year of Jaṭāvarman Vīra Pāṇḍya (No. 88 of 1914) gives an idea of the manner in which funds were raised by the inhabitants of the \*vaḷanāḍu\* for effecting certain repairs to the temple. They agreed to pay to the temple a small cess on all merchandise sold by them, e.g. one-fourth \*paṇam\* on each bundle of cloths for women, on each \*poḍi\* of pepper, on each \*paḍi\* of areca-nuts, one \*kāśu\* on each \*poḍi\* of paddy, etc.² A record from Aḷagāpuri (Ramnad) (No. ### [c19.39.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.39.2) 109 of 1924) dated in the fifteenth year of Māravarman Kulaśēkhara-dēva contains a gift, by the assembly of Aḷagāpuri, of all the taxes due to it by the residents of the streets round the temple for the provision of lamps in the temple. Another record from Mannārkōil in the nineteenth year of Kulaśēkharadēva (No. 408 of 1916) mentions the acquisition by the king’s order (\*niyōga\*) of private houses for a second \*prākāra\* to the temple being built according to the Śāstra. A curious record from Tirumalai (Ramnad) in the fifth year of the reign of Jaṭāvarman Kulaśēkhara (No. 33 of 1924) mentions ‘the meeting of the big assembly of the Māhēśvaras of the eighteen districts (மண்டலம்) in the hall called Tirugnānasambandan-tiruveḍuttukkaṭṭi in the temple of Śūradēva-īśvaramuḍaiya-Nāyaṇār at Aḷagaimānagar to show their appreciation of the services rendered by a dēvaraḍiyāḷ to several temples of the locality, such as, setting up of certain images wanting in the temples and the construction of prākāras, by conferring on her family the hereditary honour of sounding the conch and the drum at the time of entry into the temple.’¹ The villagers of Vāyalūr (Chingleput) came to an agreement in the eighth year of Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāndya (A.D. 1258), by which they released all the lands which belonged to four temples which were probably all situated in Vāyalūr, and relinquished their previous hold on them, whether that was by mortgage or by purchase. ### [c19.39.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.39.3) In addition to this, they undertook never again to hold these lands, either as purchasers or as mortgagees, on pain of ‘treason against Śiva’ and ‘treason against king’.² A record from Tirupputtūr (Ramnad) of a Tribhuvanacakravartin Kulaśēkharadēva (No. 101 of 1908) who might have ruled earlier than A.D. 1200 and was perhaps the Kulaśēkhara of the civil war, states that the assembly (மூலபரிஷை.) of Tirupputtūr wished to go to Madura to meet king Kulaśēkhara and accordingly made certain temple lands rent-free on receipt of a specified sum for the expenses of the journey.³ An inscription from Śērmādēvi (No. 695 of 1916) mentions a grant of land to a library (\*Sarasvati Bhāndāra\*) in a temple in the locality, and records containing endowments for the recitation and study of the Vedas and Purāṇas in temples are frequently met with. A record (No. 557 of 1916) from Pattamadai (near Śērmādēvi, Tinnevelly district) is of more than ordinary interest as it registers a grant to a dancing girl for enacting a drama, not specified, on certain festival days.¹ ### [c19.40](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.40) ¹ A.R.E., 1912, part ii, para 36. ### [c19.41](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.41) ² A.R.E., 1915, part ii, para 36. ### [c19.42](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.42) ¹ A.R.E., 1924, part ii, para 26. ### [c19.43](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.43) ² A.R.E., 1909, part ii, para 26 and No. 363 of 1908. ### [c19.44](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.44) ³ For the date suggested see E.I., vol. xi, p. 137. There is another similar transaction in the same place recorded in 103 of 1908. See also No. 535 of 1920 for yet another instance. ### [c19.45](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.45) ¹ \*A.R.E.\*, 1917, part ii, para 11; also 1923, part ii, para 50. ### [c19.46](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.46) We see that the temples also furnished numerous occasions for disputes on various matters. A record in the sixteenth year of Māravarman Sundara Pāndya (No. 141 of 1902) states that the authorities of the temple of Dēvanāyakapperumāḷ in Tiruvēndipuram decided to follow the system of worship practised in all other temples, and we have no means of knowing the nature of the innovation that necessitated this rather conservative affirmation regarding the manner of worship. A record of the late thirteenth century (No. 432 of 1913) narrates a dispute between the chetties and the oil-mongers (\*vāṇiya-nagarattār\*) of Aragalūr (Salem district) with regard to the management of temple festivals, and apparently the chetties succeeded in the end.² A case of dispute between two \*bhaṭṭars\* as to the right of conducting worship in the temple which was settled by the intercession of the village assembly has been mentioned before.³ There were also disputes as to the order of precedence in which the sacred ashes in Śiva temples and the \*prasādam\* in the Viṣṇu temples were to be received, or the rope of the god's car had to be held in drawing it and such other matters.¹ About the middle of the thirteenth century a rather acrimonious quarrel between the Śaivas and the Vaiṣṇavas representing the two adjoining temples at Tirumaiyyam in the Pudukcottah state is said to have resulted in a cessation of worship in both the temples, and to have been finally settled by the mediation of a military officer of the Hoysala Vira Somēśvara, Appaṇṇa Daṇḍanāyaka by name.² ### [c19.47](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.47) ² \*A.R.E.\*, 1914, part ii, para 23. ### [c19.48](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.48) ³ See No. 571 of 1920 and pp. 228-9 (ante). ### [c19.49](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.49) ¹ Nos. 108 of 1916 and 467 of 1909. ### [c19.50](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.50) ² \*A.R.E.\*, 1907, part ii, para 26 and No. 387 of 1906. ### [c19.51](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.51) The effects of the Muhammadan invasion early in the fourteenth century and the part played by Vijayanagar in the reaction against Islam are graphically mentioned in a temple record (No. 64 of 1916) in the thirty-first year of a certain Māravarman Vīra Pāṇḍya which says: ‘The times were Tulukkan times; the \*dēvadāna\* lands of the gods were taxed with \*kuḍimai\*; the temple worship, however, had to be conducted without any reduction; the \*uḷavu\* or cultivation of the temple lands were (\*sic.\*) done by turns by the tenants of the village; at this juncture Kampaṇa Uḍaiyār came (on his southern campaign), destroyed the Tulukkan, established orderly government throughout the country and appointed many chiefs (\*nāyakkanmār\*) for inspection and supervision in order that the worship in all temples might be revived regularly as of old.’ It is further stated that some of the dancing girls of the temple (\*dēvaraḍiyār\*) died, some became very poor, and many were ready to migrate to other distant places. For the preservation of the original status of the temple, some of its land which was enjoyed as \*kāṇiyātchi\* by a certain Narasinga Dēvar was now sold to another person, the former having died without leaving an heir, for the maintenance of ten dancing girls including provision for ‘food, betel-leaf, cloth and houses in the street Pavanangakārantiruvīdi.’¹ ### [c19.52](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.52) ¹ \*A.R.E.\*, 1916, part ii, para 33. ### [c19.53](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.53) Besides temples, there were \*mathas\* representing different sects of Hinduism which were also recipients of several gifts from the king and the people of the country, some of which have been incidentally touched upon. There is some reason to believe that the class of \*Ēkadaṇḍa sannyāsins\* was rather influential in the south of the Pāndya country. Their presence in the Vēdavyāsamatha in the Bhaktavatsala temple in Śērmādēvi is mentioned in one record (No. 544 of 1911), and another (No. 435 of 1906) refers to a similar institution in Murappunāḍu, near Tinnevelly.² Buddhism and Jainism seem also to have survived to the middle ages; they must have carried on an obscure existence; yet there is some reason to think that Jainism had a little more importance than Buddhism. In a record (No. 113 of 1904) from Tiruccōpurm (South Arcot) dated in the reign of Jaṭāvarman alias Tribhuvanacakravartin Sundara Pāndya, a certain Śāriputtira Paṇḍita figures as a donor and there is a reference to ‘Śangattār’ most probably members of the Buddhist Sangha. A record (No. 358 of 1908) from Māṅgāḍu (Chingleput) of the reign of the famous Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāndya (acc. A.D. 1251) contains a gift of land as \*Palliccandam\* to a certain Palli—a Jain temple—whose name is illegible. An inscription from Pudukottah (No. 367 of 1904—Ammāsattram) of a certain Sundara Pāndya mentions one Dharmadēva Ācārya as the pupil of Kanakacandrapaṇḍita. Although the second name is in part a conjectural restoration, there seems to be little reason to doubt that we have here the names of two Jaina Acāryas of the time. ### [c19.54](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.54) ² \*A.R.E.\*, 1912, part ii, para 38. ### [c19.55](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.55) These gleanings of the social, economic and religious life of the times may be concluded by a reference to a few records which are of some special interest in themselves. Two epigraphs of Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāṇḍya (acc. A.D. 1251) may first be noted; one of them (No. 218 of 1901) mentions the opening and settlement of a new street by a private individual in the environs of the Agastyēśvara temple in Māgaral (Chingleput) and is dated in the seventh year of the king's reign. Another (No. 277 of 1913) from the Natarāja temple at Chidambaram dated six years later records the foundation of a new village and deserves notice in a little more detail. ### [c19.56](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.56) The village granted was called Vikrama-Pāṇḍya-Caturvēdimangalam evidently after the name of an unknown brother or father (nāyaṉār) of Sundara-Pāṇḍya. In the centre of it was also established the temple of Vikrama Pāṇḍyēśvara similarly designated. The village was intended to accommodate primarily 108 Brahmins among whom were many well-versed in Vedas and Śastras and able to expound the same. Four vēlis of the land were purchased for the village site and included within it the temple premises, the house sites of the 108 Brahmins mentioned above, of men who were in charge of the village library (Sarasvati-bhaṇḍarattār) and of other village servants (Paṇimakkal). In purchasing the land with its trees, wells, paths, channels (?), embankments indicating land divisions (bhāgāśraya) and all other benefits, the rights and privileges of the old tenants and title-holders were completely bought up. The right of way was secured for the Brahmins to walk to the tank Kāvaṟkuḷam every day for the purpose of performing the sandhyāvandana prayers. Land for grazing the cattle was also provided for. Also for the maintenance of the 108 Brahmin families and others, were acquired 117¾ \*vēlis\* of land in the village of Rājaśikhāmaṇinallūr \*alias\* Puḷiyanguḍi. The Brahmins evidently received each a full \*vēli\* of land. The following other \*vṛittis\* were also settled:—teachers of Vedas, 3; teachers of Sūtras, 1; two doctors, 1¾; ambaḍayas (?), ½; village accountant, ½; drummer, ¼; potter, ¼; blacksmith, ¼; carpenter, ½; goldsmith, ¼; īrankolli, 3/8; barber, 3/8; washerman, ¼; village watchman (\*pāḍi-kāppāṉ\*) ¾, and the village-servant (\*Veṭṭiyāṉ\*) 1/8. On the \*naṭṭa\* land outside the \*agrahāra\* ‘Brahmin quarter’, three parts were set apart for Veḷḷāṉ-kāṇiyāḷar and the remainder for other professionals (?). The fruit trees, gardens, ponds, waterpits, grazing grounds, irrigation channels, uncultivable waste, embankments (?) of fields and pathways, included in the village site were made over (to the donees) as per customary law. All taxes were excused, but it was stipulated that from the fourteenth year of the king 500 \*kalam\* of superior paddy, was to be measured out every year to the temple at Chidambaram for conducting the special service, Ellāndalaiyāna-Perumāḷ-Śandi, and that all lands which belonged to temples (\*tirunāmattu-kkāṇi\*) must be demarcated by stones marked with the trident.¹ ### [c19.57](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.57) ¹ \*A.R.E.\*, 1914, part ii, para 18. ### [c19.58](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.58) A record (No. 429 of 1917) of Māravarman Sundara Pāṇḍya is said to contain a reference to an assembly of 512 but nothing more is known of it now and the text is not yet available. Records of different kings from several villages in the Tinnevelly district seem to contain references to certain military institutions, the nature of which is by no means quite clear. Records from Kiḷappāvūr call them Munai-edirmōgar and Tennavanāpattudavigaḷ; their leaders are described as \*daṇḍa-nāya-kam-śeyvār\*. Inscriptions from other places contain references to Paḍaikkāṇvar and ‘ in some cases the big community of military classes (\*perumbaḍayōm\*) with their ten commands are (\*sic\*) mentioned and are stated to have belonged to the \*tantra\* or \*mahātantra\*.’¹ Here again the texts of the records are not before us and we have to depend on summaries in the epigraphical reports. ### [c19.59](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19.59) ¹ \*A.R.E.\*, 1918, part ii, para 43 and 1917, para ii, para 11. See \*ante\* ch. xiii for Tennavan āpattudavigaḷ. --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.sastri-1929.c19) · Pramāṇa