The Colas c26.46.1

c26.46.1

The functions of the assemblies had a wide range. They were as a rule entrusted with the direct charge or, at least, the supervision of all charitable endowments in the village. To judge from the number and provenance of the inscriptions recording such gifts, in no place was this source of public benefaction a negligible item, and in several villages it was in itself sufficiently important to warrant the creation of a separate committee (*dharma-vāriyam*) for its administration.¹⁰² Statistics are of modern origin, and it is no easy thing to venture on quantitative statements relating to a distant past; but the student of Cōḷa institutions often wonders whether for local well-being, the gifts of the rich did not mean more in that period than the taxes levied and collected from the residents of a locality by its assembly. However that may be, the assemblies were not slow to address themselves to the task of enriching local life by additions to its amenities, social and cultural. For one thing, they took good care to preserve the records of older charities and to see that their terms were carried out by the parties concerned.¹⁰³ Altered economic conditions sometimes led to a revision of the original terms, but a genuine effort was made not to allow any of the numerous perpetual endowments to fall into desuetude.