History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.322
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.322
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¹⁸² अष्टशतग्राम्या मध्ये स्थानीयं चतुःशतग्राम्या द्रोणमुखं द्विशतग्राम्याः खार्वटिकं दशग्रामीसंग्रहेण संग्रहणं स्थापयेत् । कौटिल्य II. 1. Vide Dr. Shamśāstri's note on these. स्थानीय has a similarity in sound and meaning to modern *ṭhānā*. Dr. Prān Nāth (in 'Study of the economic condition of Ancient India' p. 26) principally relying on a commentator of the Jain work called Prajñāpanopāṅga (which he misunderstands:) holds that 'grāma' does not mean 'a village', but 'an estate or survey village which can pay 18 kinds of Government taxes'. The learned Doctor says that he consulted many Sanskrit lexicons, but did not find this interpretation in any one of them. That should have induced him to be cautious. But he makes the bold and facile assumption that 'lexicons were compiled from a literary view-point and are not of much assistance as far as the technical meanings of words are concerned'. His great authority, the Jain commentator, says 'गामनिवेसेसु इत्यादि । ग्रसति पुरुषादीन्गुणानिति ग्रामः यदि वा गम्यः शास्त्रप्रसिद्धानामष्टादशकराणामिति ग्रामः'. Dr. Prān Nath's Jain authority is no better than lexicographers and their commentators. क्षीरस्वामी on Amara derives grāma as 'ग्रस्यते भोगिभिर्ग्रामः' i. e. the word ग्राम is derived from the root ग्रस्. The Jain commentator first derives the word ग्राम from ग्रस् and then from गम्. Dr. Prān Nāth forgets that a fanciful or scholastic derivation is not a *definition*.
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The rest of the reasoning on the new meaning of grāma is on a par with this and cannot be examined in detail. A commentator expressly states (*ibid* p. 27) that he gives only the *vyutpatti* (etymology) of grāma, but Dr. Prān Nāth pays no heed to this. He has not correctly grasped the scholastic discussion in the commentary quoted on p. 27. He misunderstands the word 'samagrāmāḥ' in Yāj. II. 152. The Amarakośa expressly says that 'sama' and 'samāna' are synonyms. He is often very dogmatic without looking into all ancient and medieval authorities e. g. on p. 51 he charges Dr. Fleet with misinterpretation of a Jātaka text (aḍḍha-tiyāni śatāni) which Dr. Fleet translated as 250, while Dr. Prān Nāth is sure that the meaning is '150'. He probably never noticed that so far back as the 2nd century B. C. the Mahābhāṣya had explained the word 'ardhatṛtīya' as Dr. Fleet does (अर्ध तृतीयमेषां or अर्धं तृतीयमनयोः, vide Kielhorn, vol I. p. 426 on vārtika 22 on Pāṇ. II. 2. 24). There is hardly any warrent for Dr. Prān Nāth's assertion that each grāma (as interpreted by him) contained only about five families and had only about 15 or 20 acres of cropped area (pp. 39-40). Kauṭ. (note 178) states that a grāma contains from 100 to 500 families. If the inscriptions so far published are carefully searched it will be found that grāma ordinarily meant a village in the modern sense and included several hundred acres of land. For example, in a grant of Pallava Yuvamahārāja Viṣṇugopavarman (I. A.
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vol. V p. 50) (*Continued from last page*) very detailed and accurate boundaries of a village of 200 nivartanas are given. A nivartana was equal to a square of twenty vaṁśas on each side, each vaṁśa being equal to ten cubits; so that a *nivartana* covered an area of 40000 cubits (200 x 200) i. e. about 90000 square feet, while an acre is equal to 43560 square feet. Therefore the village referred to in the above grant was over 400 acres in extent. The Mahābhāṣya (on vārtika 8 on Pāṇ. I. 1. 7) has an interesting discussion on the several meanings of the word grāma in popular language viz. a number of houses (as in 'the grāma was burnt), the village wall or ditch (as in 'he entered the grāma'), 'men' (as in 'the grāma had gone'), a village with its forests and bushes, with its boundaries (such as rivers and hills) and with embanked fields (as in 'a grāma was acquired'). 'ग्रामशब्दोयं बह्वर्थः। अस्त्येव शालासमुदाये वर्तते ... अस्ति सकारणके ससीमके सस्थण्डिलके वर्तते । तद्यथा ग्रामो लब्ध इति । As in modern times villages are found named after trees the same was the case in the days of Pāṇ. and Patañjali शिरीषाणामदूरभवो ग्रामः शिरीषाः तस्य ग्रामस्य वनं शिरीषवनम् । महाभाष्य on पा. I. 2. 51 (vol I. p. 224.).