The Colas c29: Chapter XXI. Agriculture and Land Tenures
The Cōḷas c29
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Chapter XXI. Agriculture and Land Tenures
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The vast majority of the people lived a rustic life in the villages, and agriculture was their principal occupation. The prestige attending the ownership of land had a high social value, and the independent peasant proprietor was then, as now, the backbone of social life. It was the deliberate object of every one, whatever his occupation, to have a small plot of land he could call his own. In fact, the village was primarily a settlement of peasants; and the village assembly an association of landlords. Part of the land surrounding the village was held in common, and the rest was subject till very recently to periodical redistribution;¹ even now, this old rule of redistribution from time to time appears to survive in some of the villages of Tanjore.
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As evidence of communal ownership of land in Cōḷa times may be noticed the terms *sabhāmañjikkam*² and *ūr-mañjikkam*,³ and *ūrppodu*,⁴ the escheat to the village of land that was in arrears for the *iṟai* on it,⁵ and the sale of waste land by the village for being reclaimed and put to some specific use.⁶ An inscription of the reign of Sundara Cōḷa from Madhurāntakam records the sale by the *Sabhā* in a public manner (*sabhai-vilai*) of some land described clearly as part of the unappropriated common land of the village.⁷
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Individual ownership of land was clearly recognised also, and numberless instances of alienation by sale or gift of the absolute proprietorship of the soil by individuals, and of the inheritance of such property from father to son in the normal course, can be gathered from the inscriptions. The theory of the law books is equally clear on the subject.⁸
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Besides the land-owners, great and small, there were others dependent on agriculture. A fairly large class of landless labourers, an agrarian proletariat, some of whom were in a condition of serfdom, assisted in the operations and shared the proceeds of agriculture. In almost all villages the distinction between persons paying the land-tax (*iṛai-kuḍigaḷ*) and those who did not was clearly established, and the former had usually a larger share in the tasks of local government. Each village had also a staff of hereditary menial servants of the lowest social class who were remunerated for their services to the community by shares in the common land of the village. The artisans of the village had shares also in the communal land; these shares were of the nature of retainers, inducements to them to stay in the village, ready to take up work whenever it came to them, the wage for each engagement forming the subject of separate negotiation between the parties.
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Some idea of the life of the poorer classes in the villages, those in the lowest rung of the social scale, may be gained from the picture of Ādanūr with which Śēkkiḻār opens his account of the life of the Pariah saint Nandan. Though somewhat idealised in accordance with literary usage, it is clearly informed by an intimate acquaintance on the part of the author with the realities of country life at the time: 'Ādanūr was a wealthy city of ancient fame in Mēṟkā-nāḍu. The rich waters of the Koḷḷiḍam, (Coleroon) seemed to pour out on either side the gems of fertility with their waves (hands), and the land appeared to receive the gift with its flowery hands (gardens on either side). . . . . . The town of Ādanūr owed its great prosperity to its fertile fields and gardens, and had many tall mansions and a teeming population. In the outskirts of that town was a small hamlet of Pulaiyas studded with small huts under old thatches overspread by *śurai* creepers and inhabited by agrarian labourers engaged in menial occupations. In the thresholds of the huts covered with strips of leather, little chickens were seen moving about in groups; dark children who wore bracelets of black iron were prancing about, carrying little puppies whose yelps were drowned by the tinkling bells which girdled their waists. In the shade of the *marudu* trees, a female labourer (*uḻatti*) sent her baby to sleep on a sheet of leather; there were mango trees from whose branches drums were hanging; and under the cocoanut palms, in little hollows on the ground, tiny-headed bitches lay quiet after pupping. The red-crested cocks crowed before dawn calling the brawny *pulaiyar* to their day's work; and by day, under the wide shade of the *Kāñji* tree spread the voice of the wavy-haired Pulaiya women singing as they were husking paddy. By the side of tanks full of warbling birds, the music of many instruments accompanied the drinking *fetes* of Pulaiya women who wore on their heads fragrant flowers and ears of paddy-corn, and who staggered in their dance as the result of increasing intoxication. In this abode of the people of the lowest caste (*kaḍaiñar*), there arose a man with a feeling of true devotion to the feet of Śiva. He was the unrivalled Nandanār who inherited as his share communal service in the neighbouring township (*ūr-ppulamai*).......... Depending for his livelihood on his share of the communal land (land set apart by the town for Pariahs in communal employ), and following the profession that was his by birth, he used to supply, to the temples of the Lord of the Trident, leather and leather straps for making drums, strings (guts) for lutes of various types and bezoar for the worship of the God of gods.' Workers of this class were indeed in a condition of serfdom, adscripti glebae with no freedom of movement.
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From casual references in the inscriptions, we can dimly perceive the existence of a class of hired day-labourers who assisted in agricultural operations on the estates of other people and received a daily wage, usually in grain.⁹ There was no clear line of division between the absolutely landless agrarian labourer and the small peasant hiring himself out in his spare time. Garden-labour was hired for service in flower-gardens attached to temples at the standard rate of one *marakkāl* and two *nāḷis* of paddy per diem, a rate mentioned in two inscriptions of the years a.d. 1019 and 1053;¹⁰ and eight such labourers were regularly employed all the year round in a garden of the extent of seven *pāḍagams* in one case, and two for six *mā*-s in the other. In several instances a gift of land for some public purpose, to a temple or *maṭha*, is found to include some portion set apart for the residences of the families of labourers engaged in its cultivation. Such labourers were not peasant proprietors by any means, and were nearer the class of hired labourers than of tenants; they were entitled to the use of a house-site near enough to the place of their work and to get wages fixed in advance, the proceeds of their labour on land being altogether the property of the institution that owned the soil on which they worked. Tenancy-cultivation was also quite common, both on private estates and on quasi-public land such as that of a temple; after paying the landlord a fixed *mēlvāram* determined in advance, the tenant usually retained as his share what remained after payment of the direct expenses of cultivation, and any minor dues assessed on the land held by him. The extensive class of service tenures may be taken to have invested their holders with a temporary partnership in the soil as remuneration for the particular services rendered by them to the community or the institutions concerned.
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The data to be gathered from the inscriptions are still too fragmentary and one-sided to allow of a detailed account of the entire agrarian system of the time. Almost all inscriptions record transactions of a religious or eleemosynary character, and one can never tell how far the conditions described in them can be treated as representative of the general features of private cultivation. Considering, however, that cultivation, like other industries, was undertaken mainly to supply local needs, and that there is no evidence whatever of its having attained the capitalistic form in pursuit of profit, it is possible that there was little or no difference in this respect between private lands and those of public or charitable institutions. If the correctness of this surmise may be assumed, much of what is said below on tenures, irrigation, land-values and so on may be accepted as characteristic of the whole system.
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Communal ownership of land by the villages as such has been noticed already; the residuary claim of the state as represented by the king to all unassigned land must have been tacitly assumed. For the rest, all cultivable land was held in one of three broad classes of tenure which may be distinguished as: peasant proprietorship called *veḷḷān-vagai* in the inscriptions; service-tenure, comprising all the holdings described variously as *jīvita*, *bhōga*, *kāṇi*, *vṛtti*, and so on; and eleemosynary tenure, such as *brahmadēya*, *dēvadāna* and *śālābhōga*, resulting from charitable gifts and governed by the special terms laid down in each case in a separate document drawn up in set terms and engraved on copper plates or stone or both. Service-inams were also often recorded on stone, but these records were simpler and stated only the extent of land held, the name of the person holding it and the particular service for which it was the remuneration, the details of the rights of the parties to the arrangement being left to be regulated by local custom. The three classes of tenure so differentiated may now be considered in some detail.
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The term *veḷḷān-vagai* comprises two words of which the first clearly means 'cultivator'. Of the second word *vagai*, the meanings suited to the present context are 'class' or 'manner.' That *vagai* is used in the epigraphs in the sense of classification according to tenure will become clear from our recalling the phrase *nāḍu-vagai-śeyyira* applied to revenue officials employed in the settlement of land-revenue; the process of settlement (*vagai-śeydal*) involved the registration of titles and tenures including those of the ordinary cultivators (*veḷḷān*). It may be observed, in passing, that the classification of land in the order of fertility of the soil was called *taram-iḍudal*, grading. *Veḷḷān-vagai* is clearly contrasted with other forms of tenure in the inscriptions. Karuppūr was one of many villages appointed by Rājarāja to supply fixed quantities of grain to the Tanjore temple; only such of its cultivable land as was classed as *veḷḷān-vagai*, the *dēvadānas* and *śālābhōgas* being excluded, was taken into account to fix its quota of the supply to the Tanjore temple.¹¹ Again, in the Tiruvālangāḍu plates we are told in the most casual manner that the normal type of a tax-paying village was the *veḷḷān-vagai*. The village of Paḷaiyanūr, a *brahmadēya* in the possession of the *sabhā* of Śiṅgaḷāntaka-caturvēdimangalam, was converted into a *veḷḷān-vagai* village, the *sabhā* getting other land in exchange (*talai-māṟu*).
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After this conversion to *veḷḷān-vagai*, Paḷaiyanūr was made a *dēvadāna* of the Tiruvālangāḍu temple. The difference between this village and others of the *veḷḷān-vagai* is clearly stated in the following terms: ¹² 'This *ūr* is to be exempted from paying *iṟai* like other villages (held) by *veḷḷān-vagai*; for every year from the sixth, it is to pay a permanent *iṟai* (*ninṟiṟai*) of three thousand two hundred and eighty-eight *kalams*, seven *kuṟuṇis* and five *nēlis* of paddy and one hundred and ninety-three *kalañjus*, (one) *mañjāḍi*, and one *mā* of gold as paid before including *paḍi* and *paḷḷi*;¹³ it is to be assessed accordingly and (the assessment) entered in the accounts.' Now, these words of king's order provide a peep-hole into some important aspects of the land system under Cōḷa rule. The ordinary ryotwari village as we now call it was the *veḷḷān-vagai*, having direct relations with the government and paying a land-tax liable to revision from time to time. Whether the settlement was with the individual cultivator as at present, or, as seems more likely from the strength of communal organisations and life, with the village as a whole, is not certain. The statement that Paḻaiyanūr while it was a *brahmadēya* under the *sabhā* paid an *iṟai* of a large amount to the state is proof that a *brahmadēya* was usually subject to certain imposts payable in a lump sum of gold¹⁴ to the central government.
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A *brahmadēya* could also be resumed on the holders being compensated by the grant of other land in exchange, and the land so resumed could be put to some other use, in this instance converted into a *dēvadāna*. Quite obviously, Paḻaiyanūr was granted to the temple not as an ordinary *dēvadāna*, but as a *veḷḷān-vagai* with a permanently settled assessment of taxes which it paid to the temple instead of to government. The reason underlying this roundabout arrangement is not stated; but one may guess that the intention was to leave the actual cultivators of the land in *status quo*. When the land was *brahmadēya* they were remitting in all 3288 *kalams*, 7 *kuruṇis* and 5 *nāḷis* of paddy and 193 *kalañjus*, 1 *mañjāḍi* and 1 *mā* of gold as the landlord's share, and they were required to continue making the same payment to the temple instead of to their former landlords.¹⁵ Though in consideration of existing conditions a permanent settlement of the dues from the village to the temple was ordered, all that it meant was that the assessment was not to be altered as often as in the ordinary *veḷḷān-vagai* villages; for though almost every order or resolution was said to be perpetual at the time it was issued, there was no lack of readiness to reconsider it as fresh circumstances arose.
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And the language of this order which contrasts the payment by the ordinary *veḷḷān-vagai* villages with the fixed annual assessment of Paḻaiyanūr also suggests the possibility that in *veḷḷān-vagai* tenure the state's share was in some manner directly dependent on the annual yield. But of this we cannot be sure. Another example of a similar conversion of *brahmadēya* to a *veḷḷān-vagai dēvadāna* is found in an inscription of the sixteenth year of the Cōḷa-Pāṇḍya Viceroy Sundara by which five *vēlis* of land, originally *brahmadēya*, were made over to the Tiruvālīśvaram temple as *veḷḷān-vagai* with an annual assessment of 642 *kalams*, 6 *kuruṇis*, 2 *nāḷis*, 3 *uḷakkus*, and 2½ *śeviḍus* by the *nārāyam* measuring five *nāḷis*, and 40 *kalañjus* and 3 *kāṇis* of gold, of which five *kāśus* represented *kāṭci-erudu-kāśu* and the rest *uruvukōl-nilan-kāśu*.¹⁶ These instances make it clear that the *veḷḷān-vagai* villages fell, in the reign of Rājēndra I, into at least two broad classes—one directly remitting a variable annual revenue to the state and the other paying dues of a more or less fixed and standardised character to the public institutions like temples to which they were assigned. Which of these benefited the cultivator more, if at all, we lack the means of determining.
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Another conspicuous instance of the conversion of a *brahmadēya* into *veḷḷān-vagai* is recorded in the eleventh year of Kulōttunga I (1081). The record bears close resemblance in its formalistic style to the Tiruvālangāḍu plates, and like them contains many revenue and administrative terms which call for study. The formalities connected with the change in tenure take many years—the transaction starting in the eleventh year of Rājēndra II and coming to an end only under Kulōttunga. The substantive order was addressed by Vīrarājēndra to the *nāṭṭār*, *brahmadēyakkiḷavar*, the *ūrgaḷilār*, of *dēvadāna*, *paḷḷiccanda*, *śālābhōga* and other such charity villages, and the *nagarangaḷilār*. The lands so converted were constituted into a new village under the name Rājēndra-nallūr, and it was required to pay a fixed tax (*ninṟirai*) of 2000 *kalam* of paddy every year to the temple of Tiruttāṭakai-Īśvaram, built by Nakkan Taraṇi or Panandāḷ. The new arrangement took effect from the eleventh year of Kulōttunga I. In the third regnal year of Kulōttunga II the village of Aviyanur in S. Arcot was converted from *nāṭṭu-brahmadēya* into a tax free *tirunāmattukkāṇi*.
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An inscription from Niḍūr (Tanjore district) dated a.d. 1232,¹⁷ records that after the village became free from the tyrannical rule of Kōpperuñjinga, the cultivators went up to the village *sabhā* with complaints regarding their economic condition, and that the *sabhā* fixed a new settlement regarding the dues in cash and kind to be paid by the actual cultivators to landlords, *perunguḍigaḷ*, who were forbidden to use force in making these collections. The rate of *kuḍimai* was fixed at 22 *kāśus* for each *mundirigai* (1|320 of a *vēli*) for a single crop, while *veṭṭik-kāśu* and *viniyōgam* amounted to five *kāśus* and one *kāśu* respectively; one labourer was to be supplied free for each *kāṇi* held and all extra labour availed of was to be paid for at the usual rates. Any extra dues imposed on the lands were to be paid by the *perunguḍigaḷ*.
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Service-tenures were of various types. The assignments in favour of public servants as remuneration for their official work under government have already been noticed; these assignments were, however, only of certain rights to taxes and dues from land, and as such must be distinguished from direct assignments of land in lieu of particular services rendered. Land was endowed for instance in 1088 as *kūttāṭṭuk-kāṇi* by the *nagarattār* and temple authorities of Mānambāḍi (Tanjore dt.) for the performance of five *Tamiḻakkūttus* during the festival in the month of Cittirai in the temple of Mahādeva at Vīranārāyaṇapuram. Such assignments of revenues from the land and of the land itself formed a normal method of remunerating military service, at least in later Cōḷa times. Two inscriptions from Tiruvāḍuturai dated A.D. 1117 and 1121 mention the grant of a considerable area of arable land, constituted into a separate unit under the name Kulōttungaśōḷanallūr, as *vīrabhōga* for the enjoyment of the Kaikkōḷas, from Mēṟkā-nāḍu, who were of *śirudanam* rank and served in the palace of Gangaikoṇḍa-cōḷapuram.¹⁸ An inscription of A.D. 1125 from Śivapuri, Ramnad,¹⁹ states that Śuṇḍan Gangaikoṇḍān, a vassal of the king, promised to give as *udirap-paṭṭi* five *mā*-s of good land and three *mās* of poor land to the dependants of each of his swordsmen (*vāḷilār*) who fell in battle. He further promised that in case any of the servants of the *vāḷilār* died in war or on account of disease, he would not recover anything as his dues from their relatives which they were not prepared to give with a good grace. Yet another inscription, from Tanjore district (Kōvilkāḍu), dated A.D. 1256, records an undertaking by Śōḷagangan of Paiyūr in Toṇḍai-maṇḍalam not to collect any dues over and above 600 *kāśus* and two *kalams* of paddy on every *mā* from all the lands held by him as *paḍaipparru*.²⁰ This is obviously an instance in which a feudal chieftain was allowed to enjoy the proceeds of taxes from lands assigned to him in return for his maintaining a stated number of soldiers ready for service when required by the king.
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Very good examples of service tenure proper come from temples and villages, which generally remunerated their servants in this manner. The temples often parcelled out their lands and assigned them as *jīvita*, *bhōga*, or *kāṇi*, all these terms are used indifferently, for persons who fetched water for bathing the deity,²¹ kept watch over the temple premises,²² sounded the conch (*śangu*),²³ performed the *arcanā* and aided at the *śrī bali*,²⁴ sang in the temple or trained songsters²⁵ and so on. The *Sabhā* of Jananātha-caturvēdimangalam met once in the ninth year of Rājēndra I to regulate the occupation of the lands of the local temple of Mahāśāstā by its servants and fix the nature and extent of the services for which the occupants were liable in each case, such as conducting worship (*arcanā*), supplying oil for lamps, and keeping watch over the temple.²⁶ Individual donors often ear-marked their gifts of land to temples for particular services; slightly different in its origin, this type did not differ in any other way from the foregoing. The endowment of a *nṛtyabhōga* (*śākkai-kāṇi*) for the performance of *āriyak-kūttu* at the annual festivals in Tiruvāḍuturai from the ninth year of Rājarāja I (A. D. 994),²⁷ and that of a *taṭṭārakkāṇi*, goldsmith’s holding, by queen Dantiśakti Viṭaṅki attached to the temple of Tiruvārūr from the fourth year of Rājēndra I,²⁸ furnish instances of one of the common methods by which service-tenure on temple lands was created from time to time. Many items of service, high and low, to the village community were also remunerated in a like manner. Here again there was a double process at work; sometimes the village assembly took the initiative and set apart a portion of the common land as *bhōga* for the performance of specified services; there were also rich and generous persons ready to meet some pressing local need from their purse, buy land from the village community itself to create the necessary endowment, and leave it to be administered by the local authority. Of the first process there are several examples of *bhaṭṭavṛttis* being created by village assemblies for the maintenance of teachers in schools, or of persons who popularised culture by expounding the Purāṇas or philosophies in temples, and the *kāṇis* for artisans like goldsmiths,²⁹ for the village physician,³⁰ or dancing-master.³¹ A very common form that private benefaction assumed was the gift of land for the maintenance of dredging-boats and of men who kept the village tanks in good repair by removing silt, repairing the tank bund and in other specified ways.³² Such land was called *ēri-paṭṭi*. Another was the *ambalappuṛam*, for the maintenance of rest houses and public places for the supply of drinking water.³³ In view of a gift of two *mā*-s of land to each, three carpenters of Sōmanātha-caturvēdimangalam agreed to serve in the several hamlets of the village, accepting a reasonable remuneration for each job.³⁴ In fact, the universal prevalence of service tenure created for all conceivable purposes is most clearly established by the inscriptions. Its place in the tax-system gave rise to disputes which were settled by the general order of Rājarāja issued in his twenty-fourth year.³⁵ From this order, we may conclude that, unless there were reasons to the contrary, all lands held under service tenure were subject to the usual imposts, central and local, that were levied on land. The numerous instances of land being set apart for the maintenance of lamps in temples are also best regarded as examples of service tenures.
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The main types of eleemosynary tenure were three: the *brahmadēya*, the *dēvadāna* and the *śālābhōga*. The two former were sometimes combined in the same village, a *dēvadāna brahmadēya* village.³⁶ The *dēvadāna* differs from *tiruviḍaiyāṭṭam*³⁷ and *tirunāmattuk-kāṇi*, the two latter terms being applied evidently to lands held in absolute ownership by the temple, like any other land-owner.³⁸ These tenures were created generally by purchase of land from previous owners and occupants, followed by a ceremonial gift in set form, the gift formula often giving detailed expression to the rights and privileges, and the obligations, if any, conveyed with the grant; more rarely, it was found possible especially for the king and the village assembly to utilise unassigned common land for such gifts. When land already owned and cultivated formed the subject of gift after purchase, the question was how to deal with the occupancy rights of the actual cultivators (*kuḍi*) of the soil. Closely allied was the question of the rights of *kārāṇmai* and *mīykāṭci* (or *miyāṭci*) terms clearly corresponding to cultivator's and landlord's rights respectively. As the landlord might himself be the actual cultivator, the class of occupant cultivators was sometimes distinguished by the name *kīḻ-kārāṇmai-uḍaiya-kuḍigaḷ*, i.e. the occupants with subordinate cultivation rights.³⁹ Several inscriptions recording these gifts contain statements of the manner in which these questions were dealt with, such as *kuḍi-nīkkik-kārāṇmai-mīykāṭci*⁴⁰ or *kuḍi-nīngāk-kāraṇmai*.⁴¹ It is curious to note that this conception of occupancy rights was sometimes applied even to movable property; an inscription of A.D. 1006 from Tiruvaiyāṟu records that a herd of sheep was taken charge of by a person who undertook to maintain two lamps in the temple on condition that the sheep were treated as *kuḍi-nīkkā-ccāvā-mūvā-ppērāḍu*,⁴² full-grown ewes that neither die nor grow old and are held in fixed tenancy. One other subject for specific consideration on the occasion of such gifts of land to Brahmins, temples and feeding houses, was that of taxes and dues to be paid on the land after the date of the gift. Often these lands were made *iṟaiyili* either by total remission by the taxing authorities, central or local or both, or by the *iṟai* being secured by a lump sum payment made in advance as *iṟai-kāval*. In the absence of a clear statement to some such effect, the lands were liable to the usual taxes.
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The Anbil plates of Sundara Cōḷa record the gift as an *ēkabhōga-brahmadēya* of ten *vēlis* of land by the king. The adjective *ēkabhōga* implies that, unlike the usual *brahmadēya* shared by a number of donees, this gift was meant altogether to benefit the one individual named, in this case Aniruddha Brahmādhirāja. The land given away was marked off in the traditional manner by a public ceremony in which a female elephant was made to beat the bounds. The Tamil part of the grant records in detail the rights and privileges conveyed by the gift which are more summarily mentioned in the Sanskrit part: 'we marked (the boundaries of) the land thus defined by erecting mounds of earth (*karu*) and planting cactus. The several objects included in this land—such as fruit-yielding trees, water, lands, gardens, all upgrowing trees and downgoing wells, open spaces,⁴³ wastes in which calves graze, the village-site, ant-hills, platforms (built round trees), canals,⁴⁴ hollows; rivers and their alluvial deposits, tanks, granaries (*kōṭṭagāram*), fish-ponds, clefts with beehives, deep ponds (*kōṭṭagam*) included; and everything else on which the iguana runs and the tortoise crawls; and taxes such as the income from places of justice (*manṟu pāḍu*), the *kūlam* on (betel) leaves, the cloths from looms, the *kāṇam* (of gold) on carriages, the *pāṭṭam* on shops, *kārāṇmai* and *mīyāṭci* included, the old tenants being evicted (*kuḍinīkki*); everything that the king could take and enjoy—all these shall be made over to this man. He shall be at liberty to erect halls and upper storeys with burnt bricks; to dig wells, big and small; to plant southernwood and cuscus; to dig channels in accordance with watering requirements; not to waste *śennīr*,⁴⁵ but to dam such water for irrigation; no one shall employ small piccotahs or baskets⁴⁶ (for lifting such water). In this wise, was the old order changed, and the old name and old taxes removed, and an *ēkabhōga-brahmadēya* under the name of Karuṇākaramangalam constituted’.
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A similar charter of privileges with a few variations is found in other *brahmadēya* grants, as well as in *dēvadānas*. The Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates, for instance, convey these privileges in almost identical terms,⁴⁷ and some others like the prohibition of Īḻavas climbing up cocoanut and palm trees (for tapping them) within the area and the right to raise the bund of the village tank to its maximum height and to store in it the maximum quantity of water that it could hold. Sometimes restrictions were placed by the terms of the gift on the rights of the donee and his successors to sell or mortgage the land.⁴⁸
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A deliberate attempt seems to have been made in the reigns of Rājarāja and Rājēndra I to maintain the homogeneity of the *brahmadēya* villages by excluding all other classes from owning land in them. This policy was dictated, not so much by reasons like pride of caste and social exclusiveness, which readily suggest themselves to a modern student, as by the real difficulty of fitting into the constitutional arrangements suited to a *sabhā* other persons whose aims, needs and attainments were not the same as those of the Bhaṭṭas and Kramavittas. It has been pointed out elsewhere⁴⁹ that in large villages where such homogeneity could not be attained, the device was adopted of running two types of village assemblies side by side, the *sabhā* and *ūr*. But in places where Brahmins formed the bulk of the residents, and landholders of other classes were too few to be constituted into a separate *ūr*, these landholders had either to be received as members of a *sabhā* which laid down high educational qualifications for taking part in debates and for service on the executive committees, qualifications not easily attained by the common people, or they had to go without exercising any of the privileges normally associated with ownership of land in those days and without an opportunity of giving adequate expression or gaining proper attention to their needs. The only other course was for them to betake themselves to more congenial surroundings. Possibly difficulties of the character above mentioned were not foreseen at first, and no restrictions were imposed on ownership of land in *brahmadēya* villages; as in actual practice this policy gave rise in some place or other to the sort of inconvenience that was quite natural in the circumstance, the king's attention was drawn to it, when no satisfactory solution was reached by local agreement. There was issued by Rājarāja, in the seventeenth year of his reign, A.D. 1002, a general order⁵⁰ that in Brahmin villages, the estates (*kāṇi*) of all persons of castes other than Brahmin be sold out, exception being made of servants holding land under some service tenure. The Brahmins were apparently expected to buy up the land and pay down cash, and a special officer was deputed to Rājakēsari-caturvēdimaṅgalam to get the *sabhā* to conform to the order and make early payment; some of the land sold on the occasion was bought by the king's sister Kundavai, who gave it to the local temple. A similar order of Rājēndra I is recorded in an inscription⁵¹ of the sixth year of his reign from Veḷiccēri, a *brahmadēya* in Puliyūrkōṭṭam.
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⁴⁹ Ante, p. 492.
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⁵⁰ 9 of 1914.
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⁵¹ 314 of 1911.
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A case of erosion by the Koḷḷiḍam (Coleroon) river resulting in an unsettlement of the boundaries between the lands held by the two temples of Śrīraṅgam and Tiruvānaikkāval on the island of Śrīraṅgam is recorded in the twentieth year of Kulōttunga III.51a New boundaries were fixed by royal officers *puravuvarik-kūṟu śeyvār* and *puravuvari-nāyakam-śey-* *vār*, in consultation with representatives of both the temples, of the *sabhā*, the accountants of the two villages where the lands lay, and the superintendents of both the temples; they took into account the holdings of the temples as they were before the 19th year of the king (i.e. before the erosion occurred) and suggested suitable exchange of lands where necessary. The award satisfied the parties and new boundary stones with the mark of *çakra* (Viṣṇu) and *śūla* (Śiva) were set up. In passing we may note the terms *kuṇḍigaikkal* and *mukkuḍaikkal* for Jaina boundary stones.
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51a 501 of 1905.
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From the reign of Rājarāja III, we have an instance of the original land registers of a *brahmadēya* village, Talaiccangāḍu, being lost in a commotion, and the steps taken by the village authorities, with the sanction of the central government, to prepare a fresh register of rights based on prescription (*anubōgap-parroḷugu*). The *sabhā* record their sense of gratitude to the prime mover in this business of regulating titles and restoring order after the period of confusion.⁵² The inscription is dated A.D. 1235.
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*Dēvadāna* lands were often marked off, as just noticed, by means of boundary stones bearing the emblems of the deity to whom they belonged.⁵³ The rights and exemptions enumerated in *dēvadānas* have a family likeness to those of the *brahmadēyas*, as already noticed. *Dēvadāna* lands were managed by the authorities of the temple subject to supervision and control of the village assembly on the one side and the central government on the other. It was open to the authorities of the temple acting in concert with the local assemblies to award *jīvitas* or *kāṇis* to the servants of the temple as remuneration for the performance of services or the supply of articles required for use in the temple. Such assignments are sometimes made by the assembly acting by itself; for instance, the *ūr* of Neṟkuppai received as *dēvadāna* to Tiru-mudu-kunṟam-uḍaiyār some wet land and a house from Uttama Cōḷa; these they gave over as *kāṇi* in the third year of Rājarāja I to a person who was to supply to the temple half *palam* of sandal paste and quarter *palam* of bdellium, besides bathing materials on the days of the *ayana-sankrānti*.⁵⁴ The temple often came by land of low fertility or even waste land which was sometimes dumped on it by village assemblies which found themselves under the necessity of raising money urgently for some public purpose.
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Such inferior land had a much better chance under temples of being improved and fertilised by persons who were ready to undertake the task as a labour of love; when improved in this manner the land usually yielded a better income to the temple than before.⁵⁵ In the reign of Rājarāja I the lands in a *dēvadāna* village belonging to the temple of Sucīndram were divided into two categories, on one of which the rental due from the tenants (*kāṇik-kaḍan*) was raised from 3 *kalams* per *mā* to 3 *kalams* and a *tūṇi*, while the other which could not pay such a rental was to be directly managed by the officers of the temple (*dēvakanmigaḷ*).⁵⁶ On the other hand, in some instances the tenants occupying temple lands seem to have held them on more favourable terms than others, or, at any rate, to have had better opportunities of getting the terms of their lease revised when necessary. Thus the *kāṇik-kaḍan* due from Mānābharaṇa-caturvēdimangalam to the Viṣṇu temple called after Rājēndracōḷa in Mannārkōyil was fixed at 3840 *kalams* and odd; this was found to be too high, and in consequence the Cēra Rājarāja-dēva added ten *vēlis* of land to the original extent, and fixed 2600 *kalams* as the annual rental on the whole village so extended.⁵⁷ Instances like this show clearly that a number of extra-economic considerations entered into the management of temple lands.
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The desire of the donor to secure the maximum benefit to the temple or its tenants from his gift, the readiness of tenants to squeeze themselves to help in the attainment of this object, or, what was at least quite as common, their readiness to make an honest penny at the expense of a public institution if it could be done without a scandal, such were some of the forces that exerted a real influence on the terms of the lease. At any rate there was little chance that the relative economic conditions of the tenants holding of the temples exhibited any tendency to equality, such as custom and the methods of production and sharing were apt to produce among other classes of tenants. A curious inscription of the reign of Āditya II shows the value of the periodical audit of temple accounts by the officers of the central government; this is a record which details the detection of what looks very much like a deliberate fraud by which the temple of Tiruviḍaimarudil was despoiled of 96 *kalams* of paddy every year by its tenants, who remitted only 160 *kalams* as *pañcavāram* where 256 *kalams* were due by agreement; the defence set up in the course of the enquiry was that the tenure was *kuḍinīkkā-dēvadānam*, i.e. one in which occupancy rights still held good; but this turned out to be a false statement on a reference to the original deed recording the *dēvadāna*, and the tenants were thereupon ordered to remit the higher rate of *pañcavāram*.⁵⁸
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An inscription from Tirumạ̄ḷam,⁵⁹ Tanjore district, dated A.D. 1112, records that Kulōttunga I approved and sanctioned the proposal to remove some of the tenants in occupation of the *dēvadāna* lands of the local temple and lease out the lands to other tenants, because the former had allowed arrears of *mēlvāram* to accumulate and could not command the means to grow fresh crops without a break; the sanction of the king was obtained beforehand either because tenants could not be changed on *dēvadāna* lands without such sanction, or possibly with a view to forestalling future litigation by the displaced tenants.
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A record of 1215 from Nārttāmalai, Pudukkottah,⁶⁰ relates to a *kuḍi-nīngā-dēvar dānam*, created by the *nagaram*, who sold some land to two merchants. The terms of this sale show how complex, and yet, how equitable to all parties concerned, the regulation of land rights could be. For all the dues to be paid to the king on account of this land, *ulaguḍai nāyanar tiruvāsalāl vanda iṟai kuḍimaiyum maṟṟum eppēṟpaṭṭanavum*, the *nagaram* held themselves responsible even after the sale. The two persons to whom the land was sold in equal shares had to give to the temple 30 *kalams* of paddy each in any year in which the yield of the whole land was normal; in lean years, they had to remit 2½ *kalams* on each *mā* of land actually cropped (*viḷaiñja nilattukku*). The land was declared to be in the last grade (*taram*), and was assessed as such for all time. Clearly here the rights of the temple were confined to the *mēlvāram* at a rate fixed beforehand, the tenants keeping the balance of the yield and not having to pay the taxes due to the central government, as these were paid by the *nagaram*.
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The prosperity of an agricultural country depends to a large extent on the facilities provided for irrigation, and the importance of securing an adequate water supply was recognised in South India from very early times. Natural streams and dependable channels leading off from them were the first source of supply: but for the passing mention, in an inscription at Tiruvāḍuturai,⁶¹ of a Parakēsari Karikālacōḷa who raised the banks of the Kāvēri, we hear little, in inscriptions, of the methods adopted to turn natural streams to account. Much literary evidence can be cited to show that the prosperity of the Cōḷa country proper was a gift of the Kāvēri, and particularly all the names now known of the many branches of this great stream in the delta country are traceable in the Cōḷa inscriptions. In the absence of natural streams, recourse was had to tanks, and the bulk of the evidence on irrigation from the inscriptions relates to the care bestowed on the proper maintenance of the tanks. The Cōḷa-vāridhi of Sholingur, the Kaliyanēri near Ānaimalai in Madura, the Kaḷḷinangaikuḷam at Śōḷapuram, the Vairamēgha-taṭāka of Uttaramērūr dating from Pallava times, the 'big tank' of Bāhūr, and the Rājēndraśōḷap-periya-ēri at Punganūr are only the leading examples of a very large number of irrigation tanks mentioned in the inscriptions. The primary care of the village assemblies was to get the silt removed (every year before the rains set in) from the tanks under their control in time for them to secure the proper depth needed to store the full supply for the next year. Often special endowments were created in relation to each tank to safeguard this important work from the neglect or the penury of village authorities. Even where, as in Bāhūr or Tribhuvani,⁶² the annual repairs were not provided for by specific endowments, a special cess, the *ēri-āyam*, ear-marked for this purpose was collected from the ryots in the village, the rate in the instances mentioned being one *padakku* of grain per *mā* of cultivated land. The water-rights attaching to particular plots of land were often enumerated on the occasion when they changed hands by sale or gift. Where natural levels were not favourable for the flow of water, and it had to be lifted, piccotahs and baskets were commonly employed for the purpose. The water lift worked by bulls may have been known, but finds no place in the inscriptions. About a.d. 1010, the *sabhā* of Nemali (S. Arcot) which was then called Caḷukki-kula-kāla-caturyēdimangalam set apart certain incomes as *ēri-āyam* for the maintenance of a local tank; one of these was a small charge of ¼ *pon* levied on men and women of the Brahmin community at death. In a.d. 1110 there is recorded a breach of the tank of Tirukkāñji in a storm and the repairs effected to it by a local Araiyan; the repairs included the construction of a stone revetment to the banks (*karpaḍai*).⁶³ A tank near Tirukkāccūr was extended, and a fresh sluice erected at the cost of a temple, in order that the lands of the temple may be properly irrigated; the tank originally belonged to the people of Śenguṉṟam, and their consent was obtained before the extension of the tank was undertaken. The water in the tank was to be distributed between the villagers and the temple in the ratio of their holdings.⁶⁴ In the 12th year of Vikramacōḷa owing to the silting of an irrigation channel, the assembly of Neṟkuṉṟam had to divert water from a spring in a neighbouring village after giving compensation to it. Again, in the fifteenth year of Rājarāja II the *mūla-pariṣat* of Tiruvāyppāḍi (Tanjore Dt.) sold away some fallow common land of the village to be able to make a bund and dig a channel for the irrigation of some of the cultivable land of the village. Such examples, which may be easily multiplied, furnish clear evidence of the vivid realisation by the people of the importance of irrigation and of their readiness to meet and solve irrigation problems in a reasonable spirit.
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Another aspect of agriculture that deserves special mention is the steady progress of reclamation of forest and waste land that was being brought under the plough. Popular tradition ascribes to the Pallava kings (*kāḍu-veṭṭis*) or to Karikāla, the early Cōḷa monarch, the credit of having disafforested large tracts of South India and made them fit for agriculture and human habitation. Whatever the historical value of such traditions, epigraphy gives unmistakable proof of the deliberate efforts made from time to time and by easy stages, to increase the area under the plough and the inducements offered to encourage such efforts on the part of the people, by way of concessions in taxes, favourable terms of lease in the initial years, and so on. It is needless to reproduce here details which may be easily gathered from the inscriptions.⁶⁵
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The evidence on the yield of land and land values is by no means clear or copious. The number of crops raised each year on paddy lands was two, sometimes three.⁶⁶ No direct statement on the gross yield of land can ordinarily be traced in the inscriptions and the landlord's share called *mēlvāram*, *bhōgam* or even *iṟai* at times, is expressed in different ways. One of the very few instances where the gross yield is set down is the Cidambaram inscription of Rājakēsari Rājēndra⁶⁷ which says 44 *vēlis* of land yielded in all 4500 *kalams* of paddy, and that the *mēlvāram* on this was fifty per cent of the yield. A Mysore inscription of the time of Rājādhirāja gives the *mēlvāram* rate as two-fifths for wet land and one-fourth for areas under dry cultivation.⁶⁸ The inscriptions of Tiruvoṟṟiyūr show clearly that waste land newly brought under cultivation could not yield more than was enough to justify the rather low *mēlvāram* of 30 *kalams* per *vēli* in one instance, and 28 *kalams* and 19 *kalams* for two different classes of land in another.⁶⁹ An inscription of the sixth year of Rājēndra I from Nattam (Chingleput) states that the landlord's share per *kuḻi* of cultivated land was a *kuruṇi* and five *nāḻis*. In 1124, land (ninety *vēlis*) was given as *dēvadāna* and *maḍappura iṟaiyili* at Vṛddhācalam, on the basis of an *iṟai*, tax payable to government, of forty *kalams* of paddy per *vēli* by *Rājakēsari* measure (*marakkāl*).⁷⁰ From an inscription at Erumūr, South Arcot district, dated 1152, it is seen that some *dēvadāna* land, apparently of very good quality, was assessed at 26¼ *kalams* per *mā*, equal to 525 *kalams* per *vēli* or *nilam*, inclusive of *kaḍamai*, *pāḍi-kāval*, *śilvari* and any other taxes and cesses due therefrom.⁷¹ Lastly, a record from Periya-korukkai (Trichinopoly district) of the reign of Rājarāja III shows that some *dēvadāna* lands there paid an all inclusive tax of 20 *kalams* of paddy on wet land (*nanśey*) and 10 *kalams* on dry land (*puñjai*).⁷²
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Figures bearing on the value of land reveal equally disparate conditions. The prices stated differ so widely from place to place and among different transactions that it is impossible to attempt a detailed explanation of such differences without an accurate knowledge of the quality of the land concerned, or to institute comparisons with present conditions in respect of land-values. A rough idea may be gathered from a few examples chosen at random which will show not merely the difference in values, but wide divergences in the rates at which future dues on land were capitalised for the advance payment of the *iṟai-kāval*, the 'tax-fund' as it may be called. At Tiruvaiyāṟu (Tanjore Dt.), in A.D. 1006, one *vēli* of land was sold for 100 *kalañjus* of gold.⁷³ At Kuttālam in Tinnevelly, 8 *mās* of land including the tax-dues on it were valued at 43 *kāśus* in the fourth year of Rājēndra I.⁷⁴ Two years later, in the Tanjore district, 2 *vēlis* and 8 *mās* of wet land including a tank together with dry land of the same extent were sold for the low amount of 10 *kāśus*, though the *iṟai-kāval* on it was 190 *kāśus*.⁷⁵ The low sale price in this instance was perhaps due to the sale being that of common land (*sabhāp-podu*) and to the temple. In the same year and place, another sale records the price of 40 *kāśus* and *iṟai-kāval* of 90 for just one *veli* of land, which looks more normal.⁷⁶ One Madhurāntakanmāḍai fetched two hundred and fifty *kulis* of land or one-eighth of a a *vēli* at Tiruvoṟṟiyūr in the thirtieth year of Rājēndra I.⁷⁷ Land of the extent of three and a half *vēlis* and two *mās* was sold for 50 *kāśus* and an equal amount provided for bringing it under the plough at Tiruvārūr in the eighth year of Rājēndra II.⁷⁸ One *vēli* of land was sold at 20 *kāśus* at Kāñcīpuram in 1073, and for a little less at Tiruvoṟṟiyūr.⁷⁹ In 1126, dry land of the extent of 4250 *kulis* was sold for twenty *kāśus* at Tiruvōttūr, North Arcot.⁸⁰ In 1133, four *vēlis* of land fetched a price of 90 *kāśus* at Ūṭṭattūr, Trichinopoly district, each *kāśu* being equal to three-fourths of a *kalañju* of gold.⁸¹ Land yielding a *mēlvāram* of 120 *kalams* per *vēli* was valued at 40 *kāśus* and 45 *kāśus* at Tiruvārūr, Tanjore district, in the tenth regnal year of Kulōttunga II, A.D. 1143.81a
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⁷³ 221 of 1894.
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⁷⁴ 448 of 1917.
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⁷⁵ 613 of 1920.
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⁷⁶ 616 of 1920.
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⁷⁷ 128 of 1912.
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⁷⁸ 538 of 1904.
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⁷⁹ 27 of 1893, 107 of 1912.
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⁸⁰ 83 of 1900.
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⁸¹ 521 of 1912.
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81a 546 of 1904.
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In the fourth regnal year, Rājarāja II issued an order to several villages in the Tanjore district, a *smudāya tirumugam* as it was called, regulating the prices of land sales in the whole of Virudarājabhayankara-vaḷanāḍu; the settlement resulting from this order was to supersede the tenancy conditions that had obtained till the fifteenth year of his predecessor. The new terms which were fixed by a number of high officials acting together applied to different categories of tenure such as dēvadāna, brahmadēya, paḷḷiccandam, rājakulavar-kāṇippaṟṟu etc.
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The *kāśu*, as pointed out elsewhere, underwent a rather steeply progressive debasement, or more probably the term came to be applied in later inscriptions to a new coin of much lower denomination. The price of land as stated in terms of this new coin will not bear any direct comparison with the prices mentioned above. Thus at Tiruppaḷanam, one *mā* of land was valued at 2000 *kāśus*, working to 40,000 *kāśus* per *vēli*, in A.D. 1214,⁸² and the price of one *vēli*, at Kumbakonam in 1220 is said to have been 25,747 *kāśus*.⁸³ About the same time, one *mā* of land which stood in need of reclamation was valued in Tiruveṇkāḍu at 1334 *kāśus*, the cost of reclamation being estimated at 500 *kāśus*.⁸⁴ Again land of the extent of 2 *vēlis* and 19 *mās* was sold at Kumbakonam in A.D. 1221 for a sum of 450,000 *kāśus*.⁸⁵ About the same time, house-site was valued at 40 *kāśus* per *kuḷi* at Nallūr and 16 *kāśus* at Tiruvālangāḍu (Tanjore).⁸⁶ It would seem that the *kāśu* became a coin of somewhat higher value after the close of the reign of Rājarāja III; for the inscriptions of Rājēndra III record prices of landed property that suggest such a conclusion. Two house-sites of the total extent of twelve *manaik-kōl* were sold for 700 *kāśus* at Kuttālam (Tanjore) in A.D. 1261;⁸⁷ one *vēli* and 16 *mās* of agricultural land were exchanged five years later, at Tirukkaṇṇapuram, for 5350 *kāśus*, which, we learn, was the equivalent of thirteen *kalañjus* of gold;⁸⁸ lastly, at Tiruvilimiḷalai, nineteen *mās* of land found a sale for 1000 *kāśus* and a house-site of 10 *kuḷis* for 300 *kāśus*, in 1267.⁸⁹ Rājēndra III made a great effort to resuscitate the Cōḷa empire, and a reform of currency must have been part of his plan. It will be noted also that most of the records of the later Cōḷa period come from the Tanjore district, proof of the waning and disappearance of the direct influence of the central government in the outlying parts.
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In comparing the figures cited above with one another, it should be borne in mind that neither the unit of measurement nor the unit of currency was constant, and that owing to local variations in the length of the measuring rod and the number of *kuḷis* that went to the *mā*, and owing to the currency of various types of old and new money of varying weights and fineness, any attempt to make a detailed comparison is rendered altogether fruitless.
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