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The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c11.s5: III. Administration

The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c11.s5

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English

Contents

III. Administration

Royal Traditions and Emblems

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T HE Cāḷukyas of Kalyāṇī were particular in tracing their descent from their ancestors of the Bādāmi period, and included the history of the entire line from Pulakēśin I in the traditions of their copper-plate grants of which the Kauthem plates of Vikramāditya V¹ are the earliest in this period. The heirlooms of the dynasty included the peacock-banner (mayūradhvaja) obtained from Kātyāyanīdevī,² whilst the Kauthem plates state that these kings bore the special titles (viśeṣanāma) of Samastabhuvanāśraya (asylum of the whole world), Sarvalōkāśraya (the same meaning), Viṣṇuvardhana (cherisher of Viṣṇu), and Vijayāditya (Sun of Victory). The significance of the Boar on the seal is brought out by a verse of invocation occurring in several inscriptions³ where the whole earth is said to be sustained with ease by Viṣṇu incarnate as the Boar—an announcement, by implication, that it was the aim of Cāḷukya rule to extend its protection over the entire earth in imitation of Viṣṇu's divine reign. The same idea animates the punning epithet applied to the bow of Iriva-beḍanga Satyāśraya in the Kauthem plates, sarvavarṇadharam dhanuh, the bow which supports all classes without distinction, also the bow which bears all colours like the bow of Indra, the King of the Gods, the rainbow.

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¹ IA, xvi, pp. 15-24 (A.D. 1008).

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² HAS, viii, p. 9, ll. 23-6.

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³ SII, xi (i), 47, ll. 2-3.

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Monarchy

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The monarchy was hereditary, and succession went generally in the eldest male line. Vikramāditya V and his brothers came to occupy the throne only because Iriva-beḍanga had no male child. Even Vikramāditya VI, who waged war against his elder brother and deposed him, did not question the law of primogeniture in the matter of succession to the throne.

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Coronation

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The abhiṣeka of the kings took place regularly at Kisuvoḷal in this period as it had always done in Bādāmi times; in an inscription⁴ of A.D. 1070 this place is described as the Mahā-Vira-Simhāsana (the great heroic lion-throne) of the Samastabhuvanāśraya-Śrī-Prithivi-Vallabhas, and as the chief among all the cities of the entire country, since it was the scene of the great festivals of the coronations of the Cāḷukya dynasty; its modern name Paṭṭadakal (coronation-stone) preserves the memory of this historic fact.

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⁴ Ibid., 110, ll. 10-13.

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Yuvarāja

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It was usual to install the heir apparent when he came of age as *Yuvarāja*, and to put him in charge of the administration of the two central divisions of Belvola Three Hundred and Purigere Three Hundred, sometimes mentioned together as eraḍaruṇūṟu (i.e. the Six Hundred made up of two divisions). A *kaṇṭhikā* (necklace) is mentioned as the badge of the *Yuvarāja*’s office, and the practice of investing the *Yuvarāja* with it seems to have begun with the Rāṣṭrakūṭas.¹ When there was no qualified prince of the royal family, the place of *Yuvarāja* was temporarily conferred on some trusted official, and some instances of this have been noticed in the section on political history.

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¹ SII, iii, 83, Altekar, *Rāṣṭrakūṭas*, p. 152.

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Imperial Titles

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The full style of imperial titles adopted in all formal documents in this period was as follows: *Samasta-bhuvanāśraya Śrī-Prithivī-Vallabha Mahārājādhirāja Parameśvara Paramabhaṭṭāraka Satyāśrayakulatilaka Cālukyābharaṇa Śrīmat*, ‘The prosperous N.N., asylum of all the worlds, beloved of the goddesses of prosperity and earth, the great king of kings, the supreme lord, the great lord, the tilak of the line of Satyāśraya, the ornament of the Cālukyas’, followed by the distinctive title of the particular ruler ending in -malla. These -malla (wrestler) titles, however, sometimes fail to reveal the identity of the monarch; the same king occasionally had two such titles, as did Somēśvara I, who was both Āhavamalla (wrestler in war) and Trailokyamalla (wrestler in the three worlds); there were doubtless some wrong recitals in the original inscriptions or later copies of them necessitated by the decay of originals; and the Hoysalas of the twelfth century seem to have resented their subordination to the Cālukyas so much that they considered any -malla title good enough for the formal recitation at the beginning of their inscriptions.

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Relations with Vassals

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But the relations between the emperors and their vassals were by no means always so strained or so hostile as they were with the Hoysalas. Yājñavalkya² and two of his commentators, Aparārka and Vijñāneśvara, who belong to this period, are clear that whatever breaches of law and custom may occur during the temporary conditions of a conquest in progress, yet once this is completed, the overlord is bound to protect the traditional established order of the conquered country exactly as he does that of the home territory; and scores of inscriptions testify that the Cālukyas were scrupulous in the observance of this rule. The subordinate rulers were allowed to preserve their original regal state intact in every respect, subject only to the open and loyal acknowledgement of the suzerainty of the emperor by reciting his imperial titles and reign first of all, and then afterwards introducing their own respective *praśastis* with some phrase like *tatpādapadmopajīvi* (and dependent on him). The poet Pampa¹ noticed long before modern epigraphists that the *praśastis* of all feudatory rulers began with the much discussed phrase *Samadhigatapañcha-mahāśabda* (who had attained the five great sounds). To give an example, the Kadamba Ādityavarma recites the full *praśasti* of his family with flag, seal, and everything else in a record from Kogali, dated A.D. 992,² whilst the *paṭṭabandha* (coronation) of another feudatory ruler, a Noḷambādhirāja, is particularly mentioned in a record of A.D. 1044.³ Also petitions were presented to these vassal rulers in the same way as to the emperor, as is seen from the *binnapa* made in A.D. 1078–9 by *perggaḍe* Kambanna to the *Maṇḍalika* Joyimayya for the gift of some land to the god Kambeśvara somewhere in the Bellary District.⁴ Their rule is often described in nearly the same terms as that of the emperor himself; they too are said to be ruling from *nelevīḍus* or *rājadhānīs*, to be suppressing the wicked and protecting others, and to be occupying their leisure in noble and pleasant social and intellectual pursuits; their Courts also were minor replicas of the imperial establishment, and they had their own ministers and administrative staffs quite distinct from the corps of residential officers of the emperor; in one instance no fewer than five ministers of a single feudatory are mentioned.⁵ The only major difference in the formulae employed to describe them lies in the omission of the particular phrases indicating increasing prosperity and unchanging permanence of rule which occur in the imperial records—such as *uttarottarābhivṛddhi-pravardhamānam ācandrārkkatārambaram saḷuttam ire*.

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² i, 342-3.

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¹ Vikramarjuna Vijaya I. There are many discussions of the meaning of the phrase; Fleet, CII, iii, 296, n. 9, is still one of the best.

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² SII, ix (i), 77, ll. 5-10.

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³ Ibid., 98, l. 6.

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⁴ Ibid., 143, ll. 21-2.

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⁵ Ibid., 115 (A.D. 1054). See also ibid., 75, 80, 112, &c. The schematic use of formulae postulated, with reservations, by Fleet at BG, i (ii), p. 428, n. 4 is not borne out by the more numerous texts of inscriptions now available.

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Training of Princes

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To return to the imperial court. Little precise information is forthcoming from the inscriptions or even from the literature regarding the education and training of princes. The *smṛti* of Yājñavalkya merely repeats the ancient prescription that the king should be well versed in philosophy (*ānvīkṣikī*), the Veda (*trayī*), politics (*daṇḍanīti*), and economics (*vārttā*), and neither Aparārka nor Vijñāneśvara has touched on contemporary facts in commenting on this statement; the *Mānasollāsa* of Someśvara offers no further information about this matter. In the *Vikramāṅkadevacarita* Someśvara I once casually tells his chief queen that he is learned in the Vedas, Āgamas, and Itihāsas, and that his mind is filled with reverence to his teachers;⁶ in the description of Vikramāditya's education in the third canto Bilhaṇa tells us that as an infant he sported with whelps of lions shut up in iron cages, and later mastered all the scripts (*sarvāsu lipishu*), and developed into a poet and orator.¹ We are better informed, as we shall see, about the attainments of princesses of the royal family, of high officials and of the common people. We can only assume that in such a well-organized society and in a state where so much depended on the personal capacity of the monarch the proper education of the future emperors of the land would have received all the care it merited.

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⁶ Vik, ii, 39.

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¹ *Vik*, iii, 15-19.

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The Emperor

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The emperor had to be constantly on the alert, and capacity for exertion (*mahotsāha*) is placed at the head of the many qualities required of a monarch by Yājñavalkya. That Taila II and his successors strove to live up to this ideal is clear from such records as we possess of their personal movements; there is sufficient evidence that in both war and peace they took an active share in determining policies and making general dispositions. They were of course all assisted by competent and trustworthy ministers, most of these as eminent in the council-chamber as they were on the field of battle. There was, however, it would seem, no regularly constituted Council of Ministers in these states or, as we should say nowadays, no regular distribution of portfolios. Those nobles or courtiers who were near at hand were summoned to take part in any important discussions that were in being; others would be absent on various duties in the different parts of the empire; and we do not know what method was followed, if any, to keep the ministers of the highest rank in touch with one another and with the latest developments in politics and administration. The ministers, either singly or in meetings, had only power to advise; the emperor listened to them attentively, and then came to a decision either on his own initiative or, if he followed the *smṛiti*, after a further consultation with the purohita, who was supposed to possess all the learning and statesmanship of a minister in addition to being an adept in matters of religion. The rule of the emperor was therefore fully personal in its character, and he had to be ready to apply his mind to all matters, from the highest to the lowest, which were brought to his notice from anywhere in his far-flung dominions. And much of his time must have been taken up also by the endless petitions for gifts (*dānas*), to be made by the emperor himself or to be sanctioned by him even when others made them, as we may judge from the numerous instances of *parameśvara-datti* (the gift of the emperor) recorded in inscriptions. Such a system, or rather the lack of it, worked at all without a breakdown only because the most powerful Indian emperor had in theory only the negative duty of preserving order; his supreme function was to uphold the existing order, to maintain the peace needed by the various sections of the people, the castes, guilds, sects, villages, temples, and all the rest of them, to live their lives of free and autonomous self-expression without mutual disturbance.

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Local and Social Autonomy

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If ever there was a purely police state, it was surely the ancient Hindu state. The real life of the nation was moving along channels other than political, and the numberless bodies and institutions which looked after the material and spiritual well-being and advancement of the nation seldom came into the arena of politics except when a hitch arose. Then they invoked the aid of the royal officials, if necessary of the king himself, to put matters straight and give them a fresh start. One or two instances will serve to illustrate the whole position. In A.D. 981 the Agrahāra Kañcagāra-Belgali in the Bellary District had its three ancient Sthāna-mānyas (tax-free lands for the maintenance of temple priests) and all its other mānyas renewed by Taila II as of old¹—a renewal rendered necessary by the recent Chālukya conquest of the territory in which the village stood. Another instance from Bāgali in the same district, an occurrence dated A.D. 991, also in the reign of Taila II,² is even more to the point. In the days of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa king Kṛṣṇa III the śunka on a head-load of betel-leaf had been fixed at 2½ paṇas; Ādityavarmarasa, who was ruling Kogaḷi Five Hundred for the Chālukya monarch, increased the rate of śunka in an unjust manner (anyāya peccideḍe);

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thereupon the Fifty of Bāguḷi, three seṭṭis representing the 1,000 tambuligas (betel-dealers), and the Five Hundred went in person to the emperor, prostrated themselves in due form at his feet (śrīpādamgalge sāṣṭāngameṛagi), and presented their petition, after which he ordered the restoration of the rate prevailing since the days of Kṛṣṇa III. So far the inscription. Some things are not explicit; what the new rate levied by Ādityavarma was, who the Five Hundred mentioned at the end were, and whether any local efforts were made in the first instance to prevail upon Ādityavarma to give up his unjust demand, are not stated. We are also not told where the deputation in this case waited on the emperor. But when there was an unresolved difference between a high official and the people, the course of the latter was clear; they took the matter straight up to the emperor, and he listened to them and gave his decision. Notice the representation of the tambuligas by a small number from among them in the deputation, and the conservative outlook of the people and the emperor; they felt clearly that where it was not necessary to change any thing, it was necessary not to change it. In A.D.

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1104³ the Mahājanas of the agrahāra (Brāhman village) of Gaṇḍarādityahoḷal carried a complaint to the emperor against a certain Boppaya who had the manneya (headship) of the place, but who had abused his position by attacking the village, plundering its inhabitants and robbing them of all their possessions, and even killing its Brāhmans; the emperor listened with attention to the complaint (*kēḷadavadhārisi*), and in the presence of all his *pradhānas* (officials) he punished Boppaya and decreed the abolishment of the office of *manneya* of the *agrahāra*; further he commanded the *pradhānas* and Malayāḷapaṇḍitadevar and Somēśvara-bhaṭṭa to implement this decision by getting a deed from Boppaya renouncing the *manneya* on behalf of himself and all his descendants and having it confirmed by an oath, drinking water in the presence of the deity Tripurāntakadeva. This *ānepatra* (agreement under oath) was duly taken, registered, and placed under the protection of the local authorities and the central government like any other *dharma*. The people of the village had suffered great wrong in this instance, and the relief they got from the emperor was a permanent immunity from liability to such oppression as they had endured from Boppaya. Let us not omit to notice that the remedy was *ad hoc*, obviously a single act dependent on the will of the emperor, and not a decision following any coded procedure;

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it is clear therefore that such cases must have been of relatively rare occurrence if they could be dealt with in this way.

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¹ SII, ix (i), 74.

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² Ibid., 76.

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³ Ibid., 169.

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Law and Justice

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The emperor was not only the supreme head of the executive administration, but also the highest Court of Justice, the Commander-in-Chief of the forces, and the fountain of honour. Legislative power as it is understood in modern politics he did not possess; but in cases of conflict or dispute he had the right, as head of the State, to declare, in the last resort and after due consultation with his jurisconsults, what rule or custom was to apply in a particular case, or even to make a limited new ruling if no precedent was discovered in existing law or practice. The same procedure must have been followed in the subordinate courts of the land, and there was perhaps a good deal of law-making in the form of decisions passing under the guise of law-declaring or exposition; so long as due regard was paid to the fundamental principles of justice and right as interpreted by the manuals of law (*smṛti*) and the general sense of the community and its *élite*, all was well. But we have very little information in our sources directly bearing on the administration of justice in the period. The law-books are full of schematic accounts which need not be reproduced here.

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Priests of the King

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Mention is made in inscriptions of a number of *rājagurus*, mostly Śaiva in their religious persuasion though a few Jains also bear the designation. Whether these filled the office of the *purohita* to whom the *smṛtis* give a very high place in the inner counsels of the king, or whether they were merely the ministrants to the personal spiritual needs of the royal family, cannot be decided.

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Palace Officials

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The administration of the imperial palace and of the empire was no longer the relatively simple affair which it had been in the Bādāmi period. The machinery of government had become much more complicated and offices had multiplied greatly, whilst able and experienced officials were often allowed to hold many of these offices at the same time. Prominent among the offices of the household were the *mane-vergaḍe* (chamberlain) and *bhāṇasa-vergaḍe* (steward, *bhāṇasa* lit. means kitchen), and both these offices were apparently held together by Anantapāla for many years under Vikramāditya VI and his successor.¹ There was an *antaḥpurādhyaksha* (superintendent of the harem) or *antaḥpurādhikāri*; the office was generally held by prominent generals and statesmen and the nature of their duties is by no means clear.² The office of *aḍapa* (betel-bag) is mentioned in an inscription of A.D. 1050 and again in A.D. 1135.³ The *kaḍita-vergaḍe* and *karaṇam*,⁴ to judge from their names, were more or less in constant attendance on the emperor when he was engaged on public business; they made notes of his oral orders and later put them into proper shape for official action; their functions were similar to those of a modern Chief Secretariat.⁵ Two *tantrapālas* and a *tantrada senabova* were present at the renewal of the local constitution of Paṇṇāleyakoṭe in A.D. 1050 after the confusion caused by the Chōḷa invasion;

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the two terms have been interpreted as signifying councillors and secretary to the Council,⁶ and this suggestion may perhaps stand until we obtain more light on the nature of these offices. The *sāndhi-vigrahika*, as his name indicates, was employed in the conduct of diplomatic negotiations; the title literally means ‘maker of peace and war’. But it may be doubted whether these duties were, exclusively, or even primarily, connected with the relations of the state to foreign powers as we might be led to believe by modern analogies; for in fact there were a considerable number of quasi-independent vassals within the empire; they belonged to ancient ruling families, cherished memories of past glory and hopes of future independence, and maintained private armies of their own; their relations with the suzerain power must have always given rise to a number of delicate problems which could be handled successfully only by the employment of diplomatic methods. The *Mānasollāsa*⁷ includes among the qualifications for a *sāndhi-vigrahika* a competent acquaintance with many languages and scripts and outstanding tact and skill in dealing with *sāmantas* and *maṇḍaleśas*, i.e. feudatories and vassals; he should besides be an expert in diplomacy and finance. The duties of the *sāndhi-vigrahika* were then of the highest political importance and they spread over the whole range of imperial relations, internal as well as external;

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the empire seems to have been divided into spheres for this purpose—the northern half bearing the name of Lāṭa or Lāḷa, the southern being styled Karṇāṭaka. We hear of both *kannaḍa-sāndhi-vigrahika*¹ and *lāḷa-sāndhi-vigrahika*,² though indeed there are other instances where either only the simple title of *sāndhi-vigrahika* is employed³ or both *lāḷa* and *kannaḍa* are employed together as prefixes to the title.⁴ Another adjective, *heri*, is also prefixed to this office in some instances; on the strength of the form *hēriga* which occurs in a verse in a Lakṣmeśvar inscription of A.D. 1147 the suggestion has been hazarded that the *heri-sāndhi-vigrahika* was a minister in charge of the secret intelligence department of foreign policy;⁵ it seems much simpler to suppose that *heri* merely implies the seniority of the particular officer above others doing similar work under him,⁶ since it seems unlikely that officers entrusted with so wide a range of important and delicate duties were left to face them without assistance from a number of responsible deputies and assistants. *Heri-sāndhi-vigrahika* may indeed well have been the Kannaḍa form of the expression *mahā-sāndhi-vigrahika* which occurs in a record of A.D. 1066.⁷

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¹ *SII*, ix (i), 153 (A.D. 1083), and 224 (A.D. 1130).

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² Ibid., 232, 240; *EC*, vii, Sk. 106; *EI*, xvi, 52-3 and 47.

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³ *EI*, xv, 79; *SII*, ix (i), 232.

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⁴ Means ‘treasurer’ according to Barnett, *EI*, xvi, 50.

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⁵ *SII*, ix (i), 111, 232 and *HAS*, viii.

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⁶ *EI*, xv, 79-80.

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⁷ ii, 127-30.

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¹ *HAS*, viii, p. 3, ll. 4-5; *SII*, ix (i), 223.

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² *SII*, ix (i), 240.

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³ Ibid., 111.

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⁴ *EC*, vii, Sk. 106.

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⁵ *EI*, xvi, 45.

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⁶ Cf. Rice's translation of *EC*, vii, Sk. 106—the officer and titles being the same as in the Lakṣmeśvar inscription.

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⁷ *SII*, ix (i), 129, ll. 10-11.

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Revenue Terms

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There were other offices carrying revenue duties and yet others of a military character. The great general Anantapāla is described as *pannaẏada-dhiṣṭhāyaka*⁸ in an inscription of A.D. 1083, and twenty years later another officer Muddarasa is described as *accupannaẏad-adhiṣṭhāyaka*,⁹ and a little earlier (A.D. 1102) Daṇḍanāyaka Bhīvaṇayya is said to have had among other duties the control (*āḷuttam-ire*) of the entire Seven-and-a-half-lakh country;¹⁰ he had under him a Mādhava also called *accupannaẏad-adhisṭhāyaka*. The study of the numerous technical terms found in these inscriptions has hardly begun, and the suggestions put forward here are tentative. Putting on one side the great number of local cesses and levies of various sorts which will come up for consideration later, it seems possible to recognize two types of revenue in the income of the Central Government, viz. *āya* and *śunka*, the latter being generally a contribution of some kind levied on goods, particularly those in transit. The *āya*, which comprised all other forms of income, fell into various classes, the most notable being *siddhāya*, *pannaẏa*, and *daṇḍāya*. *Siddhāya* was the name applied to the traditional land tax, always taken for granted, and not in need of any fresh regulation or prescription. *Pannāya* was income from merchandise including octroi duties, levied at rates specified from time to time and collected either in kind or its equivalent in money as the case might be.

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The *daṇḍāya* was income from fines levied in court or in other ways as punishment for offences. The term *adhiṣṭhāyaka* in the phrases cited above obviously stands for head of the department concerned in any specified locality. It is equally clear that Bhivanayya, who had the rule of the *accupannāya* of the entire kingdom together with Palasige Twelve Thousand, had been given an assignment of either the whole or part of the net proceeds of the tax together with charge of its entire administration with power to appoint subordinates. Whether *accupannāya* was the same as *pannāya* or a part of it, in other words what the exact force of the prefix *accu* is, cannot be determined; if *accu* means a coin as in the phrase *accinaṭankasāle*,¹ then *accupannāya* may stand for that part of the *pannāya* which was collected not in kind, but in cash. That *pannāya* was the broader term and included *śunka* of some types is clear from an expression like *pannayāda śunkadolage tingalinge paṇaveraḍu*,² i.e. two *paṇas* per month from the *śunka* of the *pannāya*; it may be that *śunka* is used here in the loose sense of general income; otherwise *pannāya* must be taken to have included the *śunka* collected in money. A *daṇḍayāda-verggaḍe* is mentioned in an inscription of A.D. 1138,³ and it is probable that there were others above and below him concerned in the administration of this by no means negligible source of income.

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Several levies of the *śunka* variety are also mentioned, such as *vaḍḍa-rāvulaśunka*, *perijunka*, and *manneya śunka*, and each of these *śunkas* was evidently collected and administered by district agencies; this becomes clear from an inscription of A.D. 1037 from Hoṭṭūr where the *sunkadavaru* (tax-collectors) of each class are separately mentioned, and are said to have met and acted together for a common purpose.⁴ The meaning of *vaḍḍarāvula* is obscure,⁵ but considering its position by the side of the other two *śunkas* above-mentioned, the suggestion may be made that the *śunka* was collected in three parts—one going to the immediate local authority who had the *manneya* of the place, another going to his immediate superior who was intermediate between him and the emperor-*perijunka* (higher *śunka*), and the last belonging to the suzerain king or emperor, *vaḍḍa-rāvula*, and therefore forming part of the central revenue system. Accordingly in A.D. 1127 a high minister of state, Bhōgabhaṭṭayya, was in charge of the administration of the *vaḍḍarāvula-śunka* of the whole country and had under him a number of officers including the *daṇḍanāyaka* who was in charge of the *accupannāya* of Noḷambavāḍi.⁶ Sometimes, when the *perijunka* and *manneya śunka* remained unassigned to particular officers, they were collected by the imperial staff; thus in A.D.

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1106 the *vaḍḍarāvula* and the *perjjunka* of Noḷambavāḍi Thirty-two Thousand were both administered by Aṇukapallavarāya-Daṇḍanāyaka assisted by a number of subordinate officers of the *śunka* from the imperial staff (*devara sunkada verggaḍe*).¹

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⁸ Ibid., 153, ll. 66-7.

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⁹ Ibid., 168, l. 12.

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¹⁰ *EI*, xvi, 33, ll. 14-15, 30-1.

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¹ SII, ix (i), 228.

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² Ibid., 223, l. 28.

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³ Ibid., xi (i), 50, ll. 23-4.

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⁴ EI, xvi, 79, ll. 37-41.

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⁵ Ibid., 80, n. 5, and KKI, for other suggestions.

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⁶ SII, ix (i), 223, ll. 9-10, 17-18.

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¹ SII, ix (i), 170, ll. 15-18.

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Military Offices

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Among military offices the most common ones are those of *sēnādhipati*, *mahā (pracaṇḍa) daṇḍanāyaka*, *daṇḍanāyaka*, and *kari-turaga (paṭṭa)-sāhini*;² the first three titles are those of the higher offices in the army and the last belonged to the elephant corps and cavalry section; the combined title is perhaps an indication that divisions of the army other than the infantry usually comprised both elephants and horse.³ There is indeed mention of a separate *āneyasāhini*.⁴ The *Mānasollāsa* lays it down that the *sēnāpati* should be an expert in the riding of horses and elephants and in judging the capacities of persons serving him in the army.⁵ But we have in fact little authentic information on the details of military organization and equipment in this period.

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² Ibid., 50, ll. 23-4; 232, ll. 8-11; 240, ll. 5-7, &c.

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³ Barnett translates: 'Master of stables of elephants & horses', EI, xvi, 50.

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⁴ SII, ix (i), 206.

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⁵ ii. 90-2.

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Plurality of Offices Held

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A number of other titles are borne by the highest officers of state, and most of them are indicative of official duties of some kind the nature of which we are seldom in a position to determine now; but they certainly deserve a passing notice in any account of the administrative system. At the same time some idea can be got of the extent to which offices and titles were held in plurality by the most distinguished ministers of state if we reproduce some of them exactly as they occur in the inscriptions before drawing particular attention to those which have not been accounted for already. In an inscription of A.D. 1060 from Sūḍi, the *daṇḍanāyaka* Nāgadevayya, who was *mane-verggaḍe*, is said to have been given by the emperor Trailokyamalla (Somēśvara I) the place of *amātya* in his own palace; he is said further to have been acknowledged as their chief by the company of the seventy-two officers in the capital of the Cālukya emperor—*Cālukya-cakreśvara-kaṭaka-bāhattara-niyogi-nivahārādhyanum*.⁶ This is one of the earliest references to the traditional *bāhattara-niyogas*; other references slightly later in date were noted by Fleet, and in an inscription from Nāgai in A.D. 1058 we have an earlier reference to the institution;⁷ the occurrence of this term here gives a measure of the complexity of the administrative organization of the palace, the court and the capital, of which no good contemporary account has survived and only faint glimpses are caught in the inscriptions accessible to us. A record of the reign of Somēśvara II from Soraṭūr (A.D. 1071) bestows on Baladevayya the epithet *śrīman mahāpradhānam herisandhivigrahi senādhipati kaḍitaverggaḍe daṇḍanāyaka Baladevayya*.¹ Earlier in the same inscription he is called *Kuṇṭalā-dhīśa-hitopadeśa dhurandhara*, signifying ‘foremost in offering wholesome advice to the Lord of the Kuṇṭala country’. Here *Mahāpradhānam* seems rather a title indicative of high rank than of any particular office, and the last epithet cited proves that Baladevayya was among the trusted counsellors of the emperor. The remaining epithets are definitely all names of offices, whether all these offices were held by one person at the same time or whether they were taken up by him one after another, but all of them mentioned together for the glorification of the officer, we cannot decide; and it is interesting to note that even after the mention of the *Senādhipati* title, that of *daṇḍanāyaka* is retained. The phrase *sahavāsigaḷ-adhishṭhāyaka* occurs in two inscriptions,² and appears to be important. Barnett renders it into ‘president of the intendants’, while Rice makes it ‘regulator of the companions’ which is a more literal and at the same time a more pregnant title. The *sahavāsis* (lit. dwellers together) were indeed companions, companions of honour, a select band of devoted soldiers who were ever ready to lay down their lives in the service of the monarch. The existence of such companies in connexion with many Indian courts was noted by successive foreign travellers from the ninth century A.D. onwards.³ And this view gains confirmation from an inscription of A.D. 1127 which praises another Mahāpradhāna daṇḍanāyaka Indarāṇayya as ‘the mango tree full of juicy fruit for the parrots’, the ‘parrots’ being the group of *sahavāsi-janas*,⁴ and, incidentally, Indarāṇayya was also, like Bhīma, a native of Kashmir. ‘*Sahavāsigaḷ adhishṭhāyaka*’ may therefore be taken as meaning ‘the captain of the companions of honour’.

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⁶ EI, xv, 88, l. 18. Barnett translates *kaṭaka* into camp; I think in the context it means capital. DKD-index s.v. *Bāhattara-niyogā-dhipati*. Also SII, ix (i), 233, l.35.

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⁷ HAS, viii, p. 14, ll. 132-3.

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¹ *SII*, xi (i), 111, ll. 13-14; and 11.

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² *EC*, vii, Sk. 106; *EI*, xvi, 33, ll. 12-14.

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³ K. A. N. Sastri, *Foreign Notices of South India*, pp. 128-9, 165; and *Cōḷas*, ii, 225-6.

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⁴ *SII*, ix (i), 223, l. 16.

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Our last example comes from a vassal’s court and belongs to the year A.D. 1108. Under Vijaya Pāṇḍya-deva, ruling over Noḷambavāḍi, there was a *Hemmāḍi-daṇḍanāyaka* who is introduced with the following epithets: *śrīman mahāpradhānam, śrīkaraṇam, sarvādhyaksham, tantrādhi-shṭhāyakam, mane-verggaḍe, mahāpasāyitam vijaya Hemmāḍi-daṇḍanāyakam*. Here is clear evidence that the feudatory courts and households were organized as almost exact replicas of the emperor’s.

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Court Procedure

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A fragmentary inscription from Kollūr in the Guṇṭūr District⁵ contains the significant statement that Tribhuvanamalladeva made a gift in the presence of mantri, purohita, senāpati, dauvārika (porter), Yuvarāja, rāṣṭrakuṭa, and kuṭumbi—which is most probably the conventional way of stating that the grant was made publicly in open court. The inscription is dated in the fortieth regnal year of Vikramāditya VI (A.D. 1115-16), and the gift in question was obviously of something in Kollūr, a territory which was then being ruled like the rest of the Telugu country by Anantapāla; but the emperor's order was obviously issued from the place where he was residing at the time, possibly the capital Kalyāṇī itself.

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⁵ Ibid., 193.

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Under Vikramāditya VI the procedure of the Cālukya court appears indeed to have been elaborated to a complexity of pomp and ceremony not reached in the previous reigns, and it became a definite rule that petitions for grants by the emperor had to be presented to him by some responsible state official in his entourage, and that the details must be recorded in the charter embodying the grant. Thus we find that the Yewūr inscription (A.D. 1077) contains the statement that at the time when on account of a lunar eclipse the emperor was at Kalyāṇī making several great gifts (mahādānas), the sādhi-vigrahika Raviyaṇabhaṭṭa petitioned (biṇṇapadim) that the temple of Svayambhu Deva erected by him at Ēhūr should be remembered as it was in need of funds for various purposes, and that the emperor gratified his wish by making a substantial donation of 412 mattar of land.¹ The same officer figures again as binnapa (petitioner) on behalf of a temple of Keśavadeva built by his wife at Hūvina-Haḍagalli (Bellary); this was fifteen years later in 1092.² The Nilgund plates of the Cālukya-Vikrama year 12 mention Palata Pāṇḍya as the vijñapti; and again his grandson Rāya Pāṇḍya for another gift to the same parties thirty-six years later; Palata appeared before the emperor at Kalyāṇa, and his grandson at Vaijayanti (Banavāsi).³ On the other hand, the Kauthem plates (A.D. 1009) of Vikramāditya V, and the Daulatābād (1017) and Miraj plates (1024) of Jayasimha II, mention no binnapa or vijñapti, but record direct gifts by the emperor. In other inscriptions petitions are indeed mentioned sometimes, but they appear to be recited more as explanations of particular courses of action followed in special cases by officers of the empire than as a form prescribed by the rules of court ceremonial. Thus in A.D. 1005 governor Sobhanarasa allotted some land under certain conditions to Revabbe-Goravi of the temple of Mūlasthāna (in Sīruvūr) at the request (binnapamgeyya) of eight gāvuṇḍas and sixty tenants (okkalu) of Sīruvūra.⁴ Again in A.D. 1074, Lakshmarasa, who was then ruling Belvola and Puligere, gave some land to the Arasara-basadi in Ponnuguṇḍa at the request of all the pradhānas (intu samasta pradhānara binnahadim) under him, of whom one śrikaraṇa, two perggades, one karaṇa, and one mapasāyita are named—all of these being described in various forms of words as most pious Jainas.⁵

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¹ EI, xii, 285.

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² SII, ix (i), 158, ll. 60-1.

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³ EI, xii, 154.

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⁴ SII, xi (i), 50, ll. 16-17.

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⁵ Ibid., 113.

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Honours

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The emperor was of course the supreme bestower of honours, and instances have already been noticed of titles conferred by him on particular persons in recognition of their distinguished services on the field of battle or in the council-chamber. This prerogative was apparently delegated to viceroys enjoying the confidence of the monarch, since we find that in the reign of Somēśvara I a certain Keśava Gāvuṇḍa of the Goḍuva family of Poṭṭiyūr (Hoṭṭūr) obtained the use of royal insignia from Hariga, that is to say from the Kadamba Harikeśin of Bankāpur, and again from Vikramāditya, who was then ruling over Gaṅgavāḍi; the latter hailed Keśava as his son, conferred on him his own title of Chāḷukya Gaṅga-Vermāḍi, and allowed him to use the white umbrella, the double *chauris* of gold, the flag, the war-drum, the parasol of peacock-feathers, and other insignia; these points are detailed in an inscription of the Śaka year 988 (A.D. 1066-7) from Hoṭṭūr.¹ Such privileges, once obtained, were greatly cherished by those who enjoyed them, particularly if the recipients were permanent corporations. The sixteen *seṭṭis* of Dharmavolal (Ḍambal) obtained the honours of *chhatra* (umbrella), *chāmara* (chauri) and *śāsana* (charter) from Jagadekamalladeva (Jayasimha II); these *seṭṭis* were doubtless the executive body of the Mahānagara of Ḍambal, and the fact of Jagadekamalla's recognition of their honourable position in the country formed a part of their *praśasti*, as is shown by an inscription of A.D. 1095-6.²

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¹ EI, xvi, 84, ll. 23-6.

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² IA, x, 186, l. 15.

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The above is a sketch of the Chāḷukya administrative system at the centre of its activities based primarily on the evidence of the inscriptions; there are many gaps in it, and some uncertainty even about the significance of the data which are accessible to us. Of the methods followed in recruiting officers and in their promotion from one grade to another we hear little. Of the tenure on which offices were generally held and the manner and scales of remuneration, again no definite information is forthcoming, though we see enough to infer that though transfers seem to have been quite common from one department or area to another, no officer was disturbed during good behaviour, and that offices seem to have been financed by assignments of specified revenues in given localities. Official positions tended to become hereditary in particular families, some of whom were immigrants from outside Kuntala.

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Nature of the State

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The administration was by no means strictly centralized, and the empire is best regarded as a loose confederation of numerous centres of power presided over by the emperor. His rule was indeed personal and autocratic in the sense that he was bound by no one's advice and was responsible to no human agency for the manner in which he exercised his sway; but he lived in a cultural *milieu* dominated by the belief that the monarch was part of a divinely established order in which each had to fulfil the duties of his station in conformity with the principles of Dharma. As a matter of fact, the area of social life directly subject to the control of the king and his government was by no means extensive; the king only preserved order and adjudicated disputes which came before him, whilst he had also the disposal of the customary sources of public revenue, of which he spent only an inconsiderable portion on himself and his family, while the bulk was employed in maintaining the public services, including the various divisions of the army, and in making *dānas* intended for the support of learned men, and of temples, schools, tanks, irrigation, and other works of public utility. The king depended for his position of honoured precedence in the whole country largely on his own personal qualities, and he kept it only so long as these qualities ensured the loyal support and co-operation of his officials and feudatories. In so far as it is possible to contemplate the empire as a political institution, it would not be wrong to think of it as a system of mutual watch and ward among the public powers, that is to say the emperor, the other members of the royal family, including the *Yuvarāja*, who held high offices, the ministers and officials, and the *sāmantas* and *maṇḍalikas*, each helping according to his ability and opportunity to maintain the benevolence and purity of the administration.

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Rule of High Officials

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Before taking up the details of provincial and local administration, some attempt at indicating the important role of the high officials in the imperial organization may be made by setting out the information available in some typical instances. The position of Dhalla under Taila II, the founder of the Kalyāṇī empire, is vividly described in an inscription of A.D. 1007 from Lakkuṇḍi.¹ A Brāhman by birth and a scion of the Vāji-kula, Dhalla bore the entire burden of the kingdom in his capacity as *Mahāmantrākṣapaṭalādhipati*, a rather unusual collocation of terms meant evidently to convey that he was the Chief Minister of Taila. Dhalla was, we are told, the arm of Taila and won victories in the field for his monarch in Koṅkaṇa, Veṅgi, and Māḷava; there was in fact little difference between the actual functions of the king and of his minister except that the one occupied the throne while the other was in theory his subordinate. Dhalla’s son was Nāgadeva, also a famous warrior and statesman who rose to power in the service of the successors of Taila. Madhuvarasa of the Vāṇasa family and the Vasiṣṭha *gotra* was an even greater warrior and statesman who was at the meridian of his career about A.D. 1058 during the reign of Āhavamalla Somēśvara I.

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The history of this great family of hereditary soldier-statesmen of Brāhman origin is narrated in considerable detail in the long inscriptions at Nāgavāvi, modern Nāgai, in the Hyderabad State.² That history cannot be followed here in all its detail, since our attention must be concentrated on Madhuvarasa, the most illustrious member of a distinguished family. He was the third among six sons of Kālidāsa and Rebbaṇabbe. The father Kālidāsa is himself praised as the author of the rise and prosperity of the Chālukya rājya, whilst Bāchirāja, the elder brother of Madhuvarasa, is said to have secured for his king the glory of imperial sovereignty. But Madhuvarasa was Madhusūdana (the god Viṣṇu) himself, born incarnate as the son of Kālidāsa to wipe out the stain of the age of Kali. His noble character and unrivalled skill in war were devoted to the service of Āhavamalla and brought him great fame. He shook the power of the Chōḷa and wiped the Andhra out of existence; the Lord of Dhārā he drove out of his capital, and other kings of even more distant regions felt the weight of his arm. His generosity was equal to his valour, and there were few places in the whole empire that had not benefited from some one of his numberless charities. The world knew no difference between him and his sovereign.

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He was the spring season that caused the creeper of Kuntala rājya lakṣmī to sprout and blossom forth, and the potent spell for the destruction of the prosperity of rival monarchs who followed evil counsels. He was intent upon rooting out all sedition from the kingdom and took upon himself the entire burden of the State, being at the head of the imperial establishment. He had under him several youths from learned families, who had a perfect command of the languages of all the surrounding territories and whom he employed in difficult missions to troublesome provinces and countries. He was the great sādhi-vigrahika bestowing favours upon the Aśvapati, Gajapati, and other kings. His lustre was increased by the position of Yuvarāja conferred on him by the grace of the emperor. He excelled Chāṇakya, Kāmandaka, and Brihaspati in wise counsel, and was the equal of Yaugandharāyaṇa in the efficient implementation of the seventy-two niyogas (offices) of the court. His shining intelligence manifested itself in ways that evoked the admiration of learned scholars. This picture is certainly overdrawn, but obviously Madhuva must have been a general and statesman of outstanding eminence, and this record of his service and position in the State was certainly indited with the knowledge and approval of his sovereign. Let us note before bidding farewell to Madhuvarasa that his son was yet another Kālidāsa (II) who distinguished himself greatly in the service of Vikramāditya VI.

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¹ *SII*, xi (i), 52, ll. 6-11, 13, 16.

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² *HAS*, viii.

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General Ravideva’s descent and career are set forth in great detail in the Yewūr inscription (A.D. 1077) of Vikramāditya VI and in another inscription of A.D. 1090 from the Bellary District.¹ Ravideva was a notable musician, and when he began to play, everyone present asked: ‘is not this a downpour of fresh honey, or a river of nectar, that is falling upon us?’ He was a master of many languages and scripts. He became Lāḷa-Sandhivigrahi under Āhavamalla (Somēśvara I), and obtained from him a grant of the three rich villages of Mukkunde, Gaṅgāpura, and Ēhūr which he handed over to the Brāhmans of those places as tax-free holdings for all time. Subsequently, Somēśvara II was pleased to appoint him as both *senādhipati* and *heri-sāndhi-vigrahika*. And further, when Vikramāditya became emperor he bestowed on Ravideva all the insignia of royalty such as the white umbrella, the great drum, and the fly-whisk. He had thus the distinction of having served three successive Cāḷukya monarchs ‘like a mirror in their hands’ (*kay-gannaḍiy-ādam*). The Yēwūr inscription devotes seven well-turned verses to the praise of the moral excellences of Ravideva, verses which are worth reading as a specimen of the Kannaḍa poetry of the time, but which will not bear abridgement or reproduction in another language. The Bellary inscription adds that Ravideva’s policy and valour formed, so to say, the taproot of the entire Cāḷukya administration, and that he endowed throughout the land many charities such as drinking-water stalls, pastures, rest-houses, Viṣṇu temples, and feeding houses for *dvijas*. In this record the name of his wife is given as Rebbaṇabbe, and she forms the subject of a long *praśasti* in verse and prose, in which her beauty, learning and charm of manner, her winsome speech and mastery of the fine arts are highly extolled. She delighted to play on the vīṇā, and was in every way a fit companion for her exalted husband.

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¹ EI, xii, 274 ff.; SII, ix (i), 158.

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In Mahāpradhānam Daṇḍanāyakam Śrīmad Ayyamgaḷu Someśvarabhaṭṭopādhyāya, the Dharmādhikāri of Vikramāditya VI, we have another type of eminence in state service. The Gaḍag inscription¹ of the 23rd year of the Cāḷukya-Vikrama era (A.D. 1098) contains a full-length portrait of this illustrious scholar-statesman, developed in no fewer than thirty melodious verses alternating between Sanskrit and Kannaḍa according to the fancy of the composer, who indeed deserves to be remembered by the literary historian of either language. There follows a more summary *praśasti* in Kannaḍa prose which is reproduced exactly in another inscription of the same date from Kuḍitaṇi.² Someśvara’s rise was evidently unique in his family, which belonged to the Mauna *gotra*; his parents and his grandfather are mentioned to satisfy the *smṛti* rule about *praśastis*, but that is all. Someśvara himself is the real and unique subject of this paean of praise, and our attention is riveted throughout on his person, his learning, his work, his character, and the way he behaved to others and others behaved to him. The most erudite scholars came to consult him before reaching a decision on points of law or on the *pada* and *krama* (words and word order) of the texts of the *Rig Veda*. He was a master of all branches of learning, sacred and secular (*vaidika* and *laukika*). Noticing his extraordinary efficiency in the development of the fiscal resources of the empire and the complete integrity of his character, Vikramāditya made him a *Mahāmātya* and bestowed on him all the insignia of royalty; he also put him in charge of *Dharmādhikāra*, the administration of grants and gifts, and placed all his material resources (*samastasampad*) at his disposal; these Someśvara utilized for erecting halls of instruction in every city where discourses were held on *Veda*, *Śāstra*, and the lore of the Sun and the Moon (*Sūryasiddhānta* and *Somasiddhānta*?). From his own means Someśvara established a school at Lokkiguṇḍi for the teaching of *Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā*. Before him the king raised his palms in an *añjali* of devotion to him; all the ladies of the royal harem revered him as *guru*; the princes hailed him as a saint to whom they were dear; indeed, the right holy Someśvarabhaṭṭa was a new Śakalya of his time, a springtime for the Lakshmī of the garden of eminent poets. That such a man should be described as *daṇḍanāyaka* should be sufficient proof that this term has little to do with military duties, but is more appropriately taken to apply to civil administration, particularly the judiciary function. In fact it would be much nearer truth to render *daṇḍanāyaka* as judge than as general. A *daṇḍanāyaka* was one who guided the application of *daṇḍa* to the particular issues at hand, thus a judge primarily, conceivably also a politician and statesman, rather than a general at the head of an army, though the term is indeed elastic enough to include this meaning also. We have seen that some *sēnāpatis* (generals) are also called *daṇḍanāyakas*, and this was not without good reason. But the employment of *daṇḍanāyakas* as *danādhikāris* and *śāsanādhikāris* charged with the duty of composing inscriptions is in fact a tribute to their learning rather than their martial valour.¹

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¹ *EI*, xv, 352-4.

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² *SII*, ix (i), 164, ll. 8-16 = Gaḍag, ll. 47-50.

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¹ See the end of Daulatabad, Miraj, and Nilgund plates, *HAS*, ii and *EI*, xii.

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Several other instances of important officers who served the empire may be gathered from the inscriptions.² One of the most illustrious careers of Vikramāditya’s reign, that of Anantapālayya, has been touched on in our account of the political history of that reign. He is perhaps the most conspicuous example of the limited class of very able generals and statesmen who stood in great favour with the emperor, and on whom he conferred the status and insignia which even the feudatories belonging to ancient ruling families did not always possess. For some years towards the close of Vikramāditya’s reign Anantapāla ruled the Telugu Districts of the empire as viceroy; he had a prominent part in the conquest of the Vengi Kingdom for the empire, and was duly rewarded for his services. An inscription from Tripurāntakam dated right at the end of Vikrama’s reign³ gives a long account of his pedigree and of the services of his relatives, including his sister’s husband and sons, to the empire—one more instance of public service becoming the established profession of whole families for several successive generations.

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Cites (31)