Local Government in Ancient India c13.160

c13.160

No. 20 (ibid., vol. III, part I) shows, (*a*) the king ordering the grant of a village to a temple, (*b*) the king further ordering that the village ‘should be entered in the revenue register as tax-free temple land from the year forward', (*c*) the royal secretary communicating in writing the king's order, (*d*) the chief secretary and three citizens (named and planted stones and milk-bush round it’. Then the assembly formally assigned all rights to the donee. It is further stated in the inscription that the grant was executed in the presence of ‘the local authorities (i. e. the assembly), the ministers (probably the Adhikāriṇs), and the secretaries’, (literally, ‘those who heard the words of the mouth of the king’). The Cola inscriptions Kl 1111 and 1112 A. D. (*Epigraphia Carnatica*, vol. X) throw some further light on the procedure followed in such transactions. They show (cf. p. 240) that the *royal secretary* communicates in writing the king’s order; the *chief secretary* (named) along with three others (named) approve of the order and transmit it to the *revenue officers* who order ‘that it should be entered in the revenue register in accordance with intimation received’. ‘This order having been communicated by the revenue officers (eleven named), the *revenue accountants* (seven named) having met together made an entry in the revenue register. . . ’.