The Colas c32.5.2

c32.5.2

But contemporary inscriptions bear eloquent testimony to the great work done in their day by some of these Hindu centres of higher learning and the extent to which they enlisted the sympathy and appreciation of a thoughtful and generous public. The existence of a Vedic school, Chandoga-kiḍaippuram, endowed by a member of the village executive (*āḷungaṇam*) of Kāmappullur (Kāppalur, N. Arcot) with land he bought from the *sabhā*, is attested by two inscriptions of the reigns of Parāntaka I and Sundara Cōḷa. About A.D. 999, the Mahāsabhā of Āniyūr (now Ānūr, Chingleput Dt.) provided a *bhaṭṭavṛtti* for the teaching of Veda, grammar (*Aṣṭādhyāyī*) and other subjects. The *bhaṭṭa*, it was laid down, must be well-versed in the Vedas and should be able to teach Pāṇini-vyākaraṇa, the Alaṅkāra, and the twenty-chapters of the Mīmāṁsā. He was not only to teach his pupils but also feed them. The mention of twenty chapters of Mīmāṁsā is notable; we have now only sixteen, the rest are believed to have been lost, but were still current in the reign of Rājarāja I.