The Colas c28.19.4

c28.19.4

In accordance with a sale deed, and a royal order (*rāja-sādana*), the *māhēśvaras* and the authorities of the temple recorded the transaction in a stone inscription, marked the slaves with the trident-mark, and resolved to assign specific duties to them and punish them suitably when they failed in their duty. The inscription then states that after some time some of the slaves defied the orders of the *sthānattār* of the temple and took to mischievous and roguish ways, and the matter was laid before a general assembly of the authorities of the temple and of the *maṭhas*. Their decision is not easy to make out owing to gaps in the record. In fact the slaves would have been more than human had they not chafed at their lot. And as slavery was not confined to temples, the idea that slaves consoled themselves by looking on their lives as dedicated to the service of God can only have a limited range of application, if it had any at all.⁴⁶ There are also instances of slavery due directly to poverty; in times of famine, destitute persons escaped death by literally selling themselves and sometimes their unborn descendants for their keep. Only temples seem to have left records of this mode of accession to the numbers of their slaves; but we cannot be sure that rich and powerful individuals did not trade on the necessities of their less fortunate brethren.⁴⁷