History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c41.s22.8

v3.c41.s22.8

Proceeding to describe first the revenue administration of the Hindu kingdoms, we find each kingdom divided into what are now called Districts and Tahsils or Talukas. The Sanskrit words for these are sometimes different. In the north a district was called Bhukti while in Malwa and Deccan it was called Mandala and Rāṣṭra respectively. But in the South we find no names used but the number of villages mentioned signified the district as well as the taluka. Even the Konkan kingdom is described as Puri-Konkan fourteen hundred. The districts or divisions were often very large and their limits sometimes changed. Thus the Karahātaka 12000 in Chālukya days included even Poona which is a very old town as a grant recently edited (E. I. XII) by Stein Konow shows. The mode of describing a portion of a taluka by the number of villages it contained is to be seen even in the north as shown later on. The Tahsil or Taluka was usually called Vishaya and its boundaries rarely varied. The word Pattalā a new word used in this period is, however, constantly found in U. P. (Gāhadavāla) grants. Its meaning or modern equivalent cannot be ascertained. These Gāhadavāla grants do not often mention the district but simply mention the Pattalā which was really quite sufficient. In Sena grants in Bengal we have both Bhukti and Mandala mentioned, and in Pāla grants we have Bhukti, Vishaya and Mandala mentioned, Mandala being subordinate to Vishaya. In a Malwa record we have Mandala and Prati-Jāgaranaka (a new word) while within it a smaller division is mentioned as the 48 of Vodaśira (see Appendix). The town and the village was the last unit, except in Bengal, and there is no mention of a smaller division than these.