The Colas c27.7

c27.7

A general order of Rājarāja I issued by him at his capital, Tañjāvūr, and applicable to the Cōḷa, Toṇḍai and Pāṇḍya countries shows the extent to which the local authorities could rely on themselves for the collection of local cesses, and the readiness of the central government to come to their aid, when necessary, in enforcing their demands. In certain classes of villages, those of the Brahmins, Vaikhānases and Śramaṇas, persons who held land under the service-tenure (*kāṇi-uḍaiya*) were slack in the payment of dues assessed upon them by the village authorities (*ūriḍuvarippāḍu*). The grounds for the attitude of these tenants are not stated; apparently, they held that they were not liable to these minor cesses; and there was an attempt at concerted action on their part. The dispute became a longdrawn affair, and the whole subject went up to the king for his decision. The inscription¹⁴ records the royal award which went against the tenants and authorised the villages to realise the taxes from them as from other villagers (*ūrgaḷilār*.) Those tenants who, from the sixteenth to the twenty-third year of the king's reign, were found to be in arrears for a period of two complete years and a third, were declared liable to have their lands distrained and sold by the village concerned, and the defaulting tenants were forbidden to take any part in such proceedings. This award was made by the king on the 124th day of the 24th year of his reign.