The Colas c26.27

c26.27

*sabhā* in those days and was placed under the management of a special Tank committee (the *ēri-vāriyam*). In the twelfth year of Parāntaka I,⁴⁹ A.D. 919, the *sabhā* adopted a resolution fixing the method of appointment to its executive committees, of which five were named. This resolution (*vyavasthā*) was taken in the presence of the official of the king's government specially deputed for the purpose by a royal order (*śrī-mukham*). The central object of the arrangement adopted was to secure on the committees a fair representation not only for the thirty *kuḍumbus* (wards) into which the whole village was divided, but for the twelve *sēris* (streets) into which the wards were grouped. The actual method of selection was by lot (*kuḍavōlai*);⁵⁰ but selection was confined to those who were duly nominated by the *kuḍumbus* according to rules which laid down certain conditions which had to be satisfied by every person before he became eligible for such nomination. The attempt to combine the representation on the committees of the *kuḍumbu* and of the *śēri* did not work, and as the result of the breakdown that followed, another effort was made, two years later, to reform the method of election to the committees. The *śēri* was allowed to fall into the background, and the direct representation of the *kuḍumbus* on the committees became the only aim. But the occasion of the revision was used to clarify other doubtful questions that had cropped up in the interval, and to make more detailed and specific regulations for the nominations by the *kuḍumbus*. This revision of the constitution was also carried out in the presence of a king's official and recorded in the form of a *vyavasthā* of the *sabhā*. The very next year, the fifteenth of Parāntaka I (A.D. 922), the *sabhā* appointed another⁵¹ committee for assaying gold for all people in the village; this was not a new *vāriyam*; it was a committee of eight persons chosen by lot from among citizens who paid taxes, were resident in particular quarters of the village, and had made a name for assaying gold. This committee was perhaps intended to assist the *pon-vāriyam* (gold-committee) of the *sabhā* in the performance of their work.