Local Government in Ancient India c13.133

c13.133

In the first place the lands, not in private hands, nor reserved as crown lands or consecrated to the temple, were held in absolute ownership by the village assembly which exercised all the rights involved in such ownership. New accessions of lands to the village due to 'fresh clearing' were of course the property of the assembly (no. 11 in *South Indian Inscriptions*, vol. III, part I). Another source of the acquisition of new lands by the assembly was the dissolution of the private ownership of lands for which the payment of the fixed revenue was in arrears for a stated period. Nos. 620 and 647 of 1909 record the forfeiture to the assembly of the property of certain defaulters who absconded without paying the taxes due. By royal order defaulters for a period of three years were liable to the aforesaid confiscation (no. 9, *South Indian Inscriptions*, vol. III, part I). No. 164 of 1906 records another instance of the forfeiture to the assembly, and the sale by public auction, of lands belonging to two accountants who absconded without rendering proper accounts. Lastly, the assembly, as we have already seen, punished the seditious offenders against the village (*grāmadrohin* or *grāma-kaṇṭaka*), as in no. 112 of 1911 and other inscriptions cited above, by confiscating their lands.