The Colas c25.31

c25.31

The self-governing village was the unit of government. A number of them constituted a *kūrram* or *nāḍu* or *kōṭṭam* as it was called in different parts of the country. What is often described as a *taniyūr* (a town apart) seems to have been a big sized village large enough to form a *kūrram* by itself, as is implied by the phrase occasionally employed in connection with such places—viz. *tan-kūṟu*.⁷⁵ Several examples of such *taniyūrs*, in some ways analogous to the boroughs of mediaeval England, can be gathered from the inscriptions.⁷⁶ A number of *kūṟṟams* made up a *vaḷanāḍu*, often also called *nāḍu* in the region where the smaller division was called *kōṭṭam* viz. Toṇḍai-nāḍu alias Jayangōṇḍasōḻa-maṇḍalam. Above the *vaḷanāḍu*⁷⁷ was the *maṇḍalam* or province proper, the largest division of administration. There were about eight or nine of these provinces including Ceylon, at the end of Rājarāja's reign, and it does not seem likely that this number was ever exceeded.⁷⁸ The subordinate divisions evidently underwent numerous reshufflings, and their names were changed so often as to justify the complaint that 'Cōḷa geography came to suffer as much from the plague of homonyms as the kings themselves.'⁷⁹