Local Government in Ancient India c13.72

c13.72

A large number of Coḷa epigraphs reviewed in the *Madras Epigraphy Report* for 1915–16, p. 115, gives additional interesting details regarding the working of the village assemblies. The village of Brahmadeśam in a *taluk* of North Arcot district in which these epigraphs were found was an *agrahāra* with an organized village assembly, called *gaṇa-pperumakkal*, or *Gaṇavāriyapperumakkal*, with many committees working under its control. One of them was a committee to manage the affairs of the village (*grāma-kārya*), and another to manage those of the temple. The latter committee had an accountant entitled *Trairājyaghaṭikā-madhyastha*, ‘the arbitrator of the college (*ghaṭikā*) (named) *Trairājya*’ (see no. 194 of 1915 B, ibid., p. 18). The grants recorded in nos. 192 and 194 are stated to have been entrusted by the Mahāsabhā to the great people of the Gaṇavāriya doing duty in that year (‘the members of the Saṃvatsara-vāriya who looked after the *grāma-kārya*’) (according to no. 192), and if they failed in their duty it was stipulated that the *śraddhā-mantas* (i. e. those who interested themselves in the charity) should collect a fine from each member of that committee on behalf of the king. The assembly also evidently had under its control a body of *madhyasthas* or arbitrators (no. 226 of 1915), who wrote the tank accounts and received for maintenance a fixed quantity of paddy, a pair of cloths, and some gold. ‘In presenting accounts for audit by the assembly each of these was required to undergo the ordeal of holding the red-hot iron in his hand. If he came out safe and hence also pure, he would be presented with a bonus of one quarter of the surplus. If, on the other hand, he burnt his hand, and hence was in default, he would be fined 10 *kalañju*, without of course further bodily punishment inflicted upon him’ (*Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1915–16, p. 116). No. 178 of 1915, ibid., p. 16, mentions the accountant of the Samvatsara-vāriya committee, who was one of the signatories to an agreement into which the Mahāsabhā entered. ‘The Committee of the Assembly’ is referred to in an inscription at Ambāsamudram of Varaguṇa-Mahārāja, who reigned probably at the beginning of the ninth century A. D. (*Ep. Ind.*, vol. IX, p. 86). The committees called *pañcavārī* and *vāragoṣṭhi* (i.e. committee-assembly) are mentioned in an Eastern Cālukya copper-plate grant of the first half of the tenth century A.D., which speaks of ‘youths eloquent at committee-assemblies, honoured by the chief people who have made them serve on the committee of five’ (*Ep. Ind.*, vol. V, p. 138).