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State and Government in Ancient India c23.s6: Section VI: South Indian Administration

State and Government in Ancient India c23.s6

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Section VI: South Indian Administration

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¹ For a detailed account, see Dr T. V. Mahalingam, *South Indian Polity*. Madras University, 1953.

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We propose to survey here the general features of the administration of South Indian kingdoms like the Choḷa, Kerala, Pāṇḍya, Pallava, Chalukya, Hoysaḷa, and Vijayanagar. Neither the literary nor the epigraphical data are ample except for the treatment of the Local Government, which we have already dealt with in Chap. XI.

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The position of the king and the conceptions about his duties and responsibilities in South India were similar to those in North India already described in Chap. V.

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The Council of Ministers was as constant a feature of the south Indian administration as that of the north Indian one. The *Kural* of the Sangam age points out :—

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The king with none to censure him
Bereft of safeguards all,
Though none his ruin work,
Shall surely ruined fall.

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We have frequent reference to Amātyas in the Sātavāhana records and also in the Pallava ones (*E.I.*, VIII. 218). There is no doubt that in some cases these were district officers. but in others they were the advisers or ministers of the king. The Kadambas of Banavāsi had a council of ministers which was consulted when the king made land grants (*J.B.B.R.A.S.* IX. 275,284). The Pallava king Nandivarman had a ministerial council which has been referred to in the Vaikuṇṭha Perumal inscription (*S.I.I.* IV. 135) One Kālidāsa was a minister of war of the Chālukya king Jagadekamalla. Eastern Chālukya records also refer to Mantrins and Pradhānas. The official advisers of high status that are referred to in the *Śilappadikaram* and the *Maṇimēkalai*, often 18 in number, were probably of the ministerial status.

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We rarely get information about the portfolioes of the different ministers, or the way in which the council of ministers transacted its day-to-day business. Pradhānas, Mantrins, Sachivas, Purohitasand Senāpatis are some ministers that are often referred to. Their names suggest their functions. Some ministers used to have the charge of several portfolioes in the south as in the north; the Prime Minister was very frequently the Foreign Minister or the War Minister. Thus under Hoysal king Narasiṁha, Lokamaya was the Prime Minister as well as the War Minister.

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The qualifications laid down for the ministers in works like the *Kural* or *Āmuktāmālyada* are similar to those recommended by North Indian writers. The latter work recommends that the king should be always watchful of the actions of his ministers with the help of his spies, lest they should launch upon unnecessary and unprofitable works. It is quite possible that this precaution may have been taken in several administrations.

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The effectiveness of the advice of ministers largely depended on the character of the king and their own reputation. Kṛishṇadevarāya was a powerful ruler with a forceful personality; we find him declaring war against Bijapur inspite of the opposition of his ministers. But in one of his soliloquies we find the same king saying, 'I am sitting upon the throne but the whole world is ruled by ministers; who listens to my words?'¹

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¹ *Journal of the Telugu Academy*, II, 30

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Reference has already been made to some aspects of the working of the secretariat under the Cholas (Chap. IX, p. 189) We do not get any information about this institution during the earlier period. The graphic description of the Vijayanagar secretariat by Abdur Razzak may give us some further idea about the secretariat. 'On the right hand of the palace there is the Diwankhana or ministers' office, which is extremely large and consists of a forty pillared hall, and in its front runs a gallery higher than the stature of a man, thirty yards long and six yards broad, where the recrods are kept and scribes seated.¹ We may well presume that in the secretariat of the Pallavas and the Cholas also there were similar arrangements though perhaps on a smaller scale.

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¹ Elliot and Dowson, IV, 107

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There were officers to take down the oral orders of the king and the decisions of the king-in-council respectively known as Tiruvakkelvi and Tommandira Olai. One section of the secretariat used to issue the orders of the central government and another used to reply to the enquiries made by local officers. There was also a board of inspectors to tour the kingdom, the members of which were known as Karnams. The centre also periodically took the work of land survey, which was done very meticulously. An inscription in the Bṛihadiśvara temple reveals how a piece of land as small as 52,428,800,000 th part of a Veli was measured and assessed to revenue (*S.I.I.*, II. 62).

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Let us now consider the administrative divisions. In the early period the kingdoms of the south were usually small; but what may be called the provincial administration was not developed even in the Sātavāhana empire, whose inscriptions refer only to Āhāras or districts. The Rathikas, the Mahārathikas, the Bhojakas and the Mahābhojakas in the Sātavāhana empire were not provincial governors but feudatories. Provincial administration had not developed under the Pallavas, the Kadambas and the Gaṅgas, whose kingdoms were small. The Maṇḍalas under the Cholas usually consisted of about two or three modern districts; their number was nine when the Chola power was at its zenith. But from their extent and dimensions the Maṇḍalas appear to be more like Commissioners' Divisions than like provincial administrations.

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The Maṇḍalas were usually divided into Valanāḍus and the latter into Nāḍus, which were also known as Kurrams and Kottams. Between the Nāḍu and the village was the division known as Melāgram, theoretically consisting of 50 villages. Epigraphs, however, refer to Sthalas consisting of 53, 26, 14 or 11 villages.

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In northern India also there were similar divisions consisting of varying number of villages (*ante*, p. 218).

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The governors of the Maṇḍalas were sometimes royal princes, sometimes senior officers and sometimes also defeated kings, who had promised to become loyal and were kept under strict control. Maṇḍala governors had their own armies and courts. In the course of time, their posts tended to become hereditary and then they could not be distinguished from feudatory governors. Each of them had to entertain an imperial representative at his court, who acted like the Resident or the Political Agent under the British rule. He saw to it that the feudal chief entertained no treasonous ambitions and sent military contingents to help the emperor in his military undertakings. In order to keep himself in touch with the events and trends at the imperial capital, the feudatory governor also used to keep his own representative in the court of the emperor. He was required to be personally present to offer his greetings, presents and loyalty on the occasions like the coronation, marriage or the birth of a son or a daughter.

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Village councils were a special feature of the south Indian administration. Their early history is, however, shrouded in obscurity. Some early Pallava inscriptions show that villlages were organised under the leadership of the village leader called Grāmakeya or Mutaka, to whom the royal orders were usually addressed. The village government was transacted at the village Manram, which was an open place under the shade of a large tree. Popular courts were held here and matters of common interest discussed. Early inscriptions, however, hardly give any information about the village Sabhā or council.

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We begin to get detailed information about the village councils and their constitutions and functions only after the 9th century A.D. They were called Sabhās, when the villages were mostly inhabited by Brāhmaṇas and Urs, when they contained a very large section of non-Brahmin population. The full information about these two types of village councils has been already given by us in Chap. XI, pp. 231-5.

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The king was the fountain source of justice in the south as in the north. Some kings like Manunitikaṇḍa Chola used to hang the bell of justice at the palace door, which could be rung by any aggrived party who wanted justice from the king himself. The king was assisted by the Chief Justice, who also held his court in the capital. Provincial governors deputised for the king in the provinces and so naturally held their own courts of justice. Popular courts also coexisted with the royal courts throughout the ancient period. In the Sangam age they were known as Manrams, Avais and Avaikkulams. They continued under Vijayanagar also. Their constitution and functions have been already described in Chap. XII, pp. 250-5.

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Taxation in south India did not differ very much from that in North India. The land tax was the principal source of revenue ; it varied from 25 percent (on dry crops) to 50 percent (on wet crops under tanks). Village Sabhās or Urs were responsible for its collection in majority of cases. They could grant exemptions under suitable circumstances to individual land holders ; in such cases their share of tax was distributed over other holders. Village Sabhās would also grant perpetual exemption from the land tax on receiving the capitalised value of the tax due. Members of the Sabhā were personally responsible for the tax collection; in case of default the officers of the central government would make them stand in water or under the burning sun as a punishment.

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South Indian inscriptions show that there were taxes imposed upon the smiths, goldsmiths, shepherds, fishermen, weavers, toddy-drawers, etc. Smṛiti writers have recommended that the artisans should be made to work free for the state once or twice a month; in later times this liability seems to have been converted into a regaular tax in south India.

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Octroi dulties were collected at market places, ghats, rest houses and city gates.

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As in the north, there was a tendency to increase the demands of the state towards the end of the ancient period. There is a case on record showing how in the reign of Rājarāja a woman committed suicide because an ordeal was imposed upon her in connection with an unjust tax (*S.I.E.R.*, 1907, para 42). Villages and their Sabhās however used to organise a united opposition to unjust demands and were often successful. Under Rājarāja III the assemblies of five adjoining Nāḍus resolved to authorise the people to pay only those taxes that were legitimately due (*S.I.I.*, VI, Nos. 48,50 and 58). In the reign of Kulottuṅga I people decided that the government’s share was one fifth of the dry crop and one third of the wet crop under the tank (*E. C.* X, Mb. 49 a). Another record says, ‘Because we were unjustly taxed, we were about to run away. Then we realised that because the whole country was not united in a body, we were unjustly dealt with. Hereafter we shall pay what is just and in accordance with the yield of the crop (*S.I.E.R.*, 1918, para 68). If the Government did not yield, the people used to threaten to migrate in a body and even a mighty monarch like Kṛishṇadevarāya used to be perturbed by such a possibility. In his *Āmaktamālyada*, he says, ‘That king is never prosperous who has an officer who does not call back the subjects who leave the state on account of suffering (IV. 237).

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The available evidence thus shows that the taxation had a definite tendency to be oppressive from *c.* 900 A. D. and that people could save themselves only by organising a systematic and united opposition. Whether the government would succeed in realising its oppressive demand or whether people would succeed in resisting it depended largely upon their relative strength.

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We should however also note that there are cases on record of the Government granting relief in order to enable the tenants to overcome natural calamities like floods, famines, pestilences, etc. When in 1402 A. D. the Kāverī overflowed its banks and deposited heavy amount of silt, farmers were unable to carry on the cultivation and had to abandon the area as uncultivable. Government, however, soon took steps to rehabilitate the agriculturists by granting them various types of concessions in the rate and collection of land taxes (*S.I.E.R.*, No 629 of 1923). If a village suffered by plunder or civil war, a concession in the land tax was usually granted for a specific period.

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Unfortunately we have no sufficient statistical data to show whether the cases of oppressive taxation were more numerous than those of concessions to mitigate calamities.

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The items of expenditure in the south Indian administration were similar to those in the north Indian one. The royal court took a lion's share. Administrative posts were tending to become hereditary and were often paid by land or village assignments; so the cash expenditure on civil list did not appear to be very heavy. Wars between the different states were very frequent and so the expenditure on the army was considerable. It was held that 'the money which is utilised in buying elephants and horses, in feeding them, in maintaining soldiers, in the worship of gods and Brāhmaṇas and in king's own enjoyment could never be called an expenditure' (*Āmuktamālyada*, IV. 262). The Cholas and the Pāṇḍyas were maritime powers also and used to maintain a fairly strong navy. It is therefore very likely that the army and the navy together must have consumed about 50% of the state revenues, as is permitted by the *Śukranīti*. A number of Chola records show that the temples, like the Rājarāja shrine at Tanjore, enjoyed a number of grants made to them by the Government. There were a large number of temple colleges in the South, where students were not only taught free but were also given stipends for a number of years. Chairs or *adhyanana-vṛittis* were also maintained at a number of temples. The huge temples, which are a legitimate source of pride to South India, must also have meant a heavy demand on the public exchequer. South Indian administrations must have allotted quite sizeable sums to gods, temples, Brāhmaṇas, education and charity. If the Vedic scholarship of South India is a source of envy to North India or the so-called Āryāvarta, the credit must be largely given to the Sourth Indian states, which fostered Vedic scholarship and Sanskrit studies with admirable solicitude.

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As in the north, South India also used to set apart about 25 percent of the anual revenue to meet unexpected demands or calamities. This formed the so-called secret treasury, which was normally not to be opened or touched.

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