The Colas c29.25.3

c29.25.3

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