Local Government in Ancient India c13.161

c13.161

No. 635 of 1909, perhaps the first Cola epigraph on the subject (about A. D. 900), mentions the following officers as being connected with the execution of the king’s orders making certain grants of land, viz., (1) the *secretaries* (named), ‘who conveyed the orders (*ājñapti*) to the donee’; (2) the *uttaramantrin* (named) ‘who orally questioned (i. e. reported?) the order to the donee’; (3) the *copyist* (named) ‘who signed the document' and (4) the chief *executive* officer (named Olai-nāyakari), 'who attested it'. The inscription also records how the royal orders were obeyed and 'carried on their heads' by the assembly of the village where the lands granted were situated. No. 150 of 1919 (App. B) gives the further information that 'the engravings on stone and copper of the edict issued by the king were compared carefully with the original documents on palm-leaves (*ōlai*), preserved in the Imperial Office of Registry' (*Mad. Ep. Rep.* for 1919, p. 100).¹