The Colas c12.32

c12.32

For the germ of a popular assembly, not organised on any scientific basis of representation, but still virtually representing such public opinion as there was, we must turn really to the institution called ‘*manṟam*’ (hall) and ‘*podiyil*’ (common place) in this early literature. The two sections on ‘*avai*’ (*sabhā*) in the *Kuraḷ* are quite general, and some verses in them may raise a doubt whether anything more than meetings for purposes of learned disputation is contemplated by them; but the term ‘*avai*’ is also applied in other works to the ‘*manṟam*’ and in the *Kuraḷ* itself, the *avai* is clearly part of the mechanism of politics. We may therefore hold with Parimēlaḻagar that these sections have reference to the king’s *sabhā*. Frequent as are the allusions to the ‘*sabhā*’ or ‘*manṟam*’ in the works of the period, few specific details of its nature and working are forthcoming.