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Local Government in Ancient India c15: Chapter IX

Local Government in Ancient India c15

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Chapter IX

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PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS

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We have now considered the subject of local government in ancient India in all its aspects on the basis of our available evidence, but our study will be incomplete without a reference to the growth of the various kinds of public institutions, which was one of the most remarkable characteristics of communal life, proving the success, to some extent, of the indigenous administration. We have already referred to the existence of public halls in the villages and towns of ancient India, where meetings of the assembly and other public functions were held. But besides these halls there were also other kinds of public buildings and institutions which may be noted in this connexion. One inscription registers the gift to a temple of a Maṭha (= a college) in the western street for reciting the Veda (ibid., p. 125). Another refers to the Maṭha of Āṇḍār Sundara-Perumāl at Kāñcīpuram (ibid., p. 123). A third inscription (ibid., p. 86) registers the gift of one house and a house-garden of 41 feet for purposes of a Maṭha, together with some land mortgaged to it as a guarantee for the regular supply of rice. 'The succession of pupils (of the donee) shall enjoy this Maṭha as long as the moon and the sun endure.' An inscription attributed to Kṛṣṇa III of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa dynasty [A. D. 940–56] mentions fines payable into court called *dharmāsana* (ibid., vol. III, p. 12). An inscription of the eastern Cālukya dynasty mentions two *sattras* (i. e. almshouses for Brāhmaṇas (*S. I. Ins.*, vol. I, p. 61), and another speaks of a *maṇḍapa* 'which was to be used as a watering-shed and *sattram*' (ibid., p. 136). No. 465 of 1909 (*Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1910, p. 41), assigned to Kulaśekhara I, records a gift of two villages for a Vaiṣṇava Maṭha, where learned Brāhmaṇas from eighteen Vaiṣṇava countries were to be fed. No. 181 of 1912 refers to a maṭha-pati, who is an important functionary frequently appearing on temple councils in later records. No. 509 of 1912 (*Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1913, p. 57) records a sale of land belonging to a temple for a Maṭha. An interesting series of inscriptions from the Kurnool district, assigned to the middle of the thirteenth century A. D., refers to a famous Maṭha named Golaki Maṭha, which is stated to have wielded its spiritual influence over three lakhs of villages under a succession of famous teachers. Another important Maṭha was that of the Mahāvratins mentioned in no. 423 of 1914 (*Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1915, p. 42). A series of epigraphic records in South India relates to Maṭhas connected with Śaivism, which grew in power and popularity under the Cola kings, so that by the thirteenth century we notice a number of them under Śaiva Sannyāsins influencing the greater part of the Tamil country. No. 467 of 1908 refers to a Maṭha called Tiruvāgīśam-Rājendraśolan at Tirucchattimuram, and another Maṭha at Śembaikkuḍi (*Mad. Ep. Report*, 1908–9, p. 103). Other Maṭhas connected with the Śivayogins or Māheśvaras are mentioned in nos. 164, 177, 402, 583 of 1908. Besides the Maṭha there was also another institution called *guhai*, or a monastery. No. 471 of 1912 records the gift of such a monastery for a Śaiva saint by a village, which also provided for the feeding of all strangers who might visit it. The property of this monastery was confiscated in the twenty-second year of Kulottuṅga Cola III, when there was a general crusade against these non-Brahmanical Śaiva Maṭhas instigated by the Brāhmaṇas. The Maṭhas were not, however, altogether suppressed, since we find them flourishing in the time of Rājarāja III.

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Villages had not only their public halls and temples, Maṭhas, and monasteries, but also schools of learning. One of the most interesting of such schools is mentioned in no. 202 of 1912 (*Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1912–13, p. 110), which registers the generous gift of a donor who assigned some land for the maintenance of a grammar-hall in the temple at Tiruvorraiyūr called ‘*Vyākaraṇa-dāna-vyākhyāna-maṇḍapa*, for the upkeep of the teachers and pupils who should study grammar there, and for the worship of the god Vyākaraṇa-dāna-Perumāl (i. e. Siva), who in that very *maṇḍapa* was pleased to appear before Pāṇini-Bhagavat for fourteen continuous days and to teach him the first fourteen aphorisms (with which Pāṇini’s grammar begins) known as Māheśvara Sūtras’. This famous school of grammar is referred to in other later records. No. 110 of 1912, assigned to the thirteenth year of Sundara-Pāṇḍya-Deva III, registers an agreement by which the residents of Pular-Kottan submit to a special tax levied in the northern and southern divisions of Tiruvorraiyūr for maintaining this historic Maṇḍapa and other similar buildings of the temple. No. 201 of 1912 in the thirty-eighth year of Kulottuṅga Cola III, registers the gift by a private person of a village for the upkeep of the same grammar-hall, and refers to the king’s declaration making the village rent-free. No. 120 of 1912 again registers the king’s gift of a village and some gold ornaments to the god Vyākaraṇa-dāna-Perumāl at the instance of a female devotee, the king being Kulottuṅga Cola III. One of the temple priests was also called Vyākaraṇa-dāna-bhaṭṭa after the god Śiva, who ‘gave’ grammar to Pāṇini.

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Similarly, no. 182 of 1915 refers to the benefactions of a Vaiśya named Mādhava, who constructed the surrounding halls of a temple, and also a Maṇḍapa called Jananātha-maṇḍapa where, by the royal grant of Vīrarājendra-Deva (A. D. 1062), were established (1) a school for the study of the Vedas, Śāstras, Grammar, *Rūpāvatāra* (perhaps the name of a grammatical work recently discovered), &c., (2) a hostel for students, and (3) a hospital. The students were provided with food, bathing-oil on Saturdays, and with oil for lamps. The hospital was named Vīraśolan (*scil.* Vīra-Cola), and provided with fifteen beds for sick people. The staff and establishment for the school-hostel and hospital comprised one physician in whose family the privilege of administering medicines was hereditary, one surgeon, two servants who fetched drugs, supplied fuel, and did other services for the hospital, two maidservants for nursing the patients, and one general servant for the hostel and hospital. Among the medicines stored in the hospital are mentioned *āsā-harītaki*, *gomūtra-harītaki*, *bhallātaka-harītaki*, *bilvādi-ghṛta*, *vajra-kalpa*, *kalyāṇa-lavaṇa*, and some varieties of *taila* or oils—medicines which are still in use under the indigenous medical systems of the land.

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This is probably one of the best pieces of available evidence on the schools, hostels, and hospitals of ancient India.

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No. 518 of 1915 similarly registers the gift of a Cālukyan queen to the 140 *mahājanas* of a village belonging to her for ‘the maintenance of a feeding-house (*sattra*), the commentator (on *śāstras*), the reader of the Purāṇas, and the teacher of the *Ṛgveda* and *Yajur-veda* to students.’ No. 233 of 1911, which is a Cola epigraph, registers the sale of land by an assembly to a generous man who made a gift of it as a Bhaṭṭavṛtti to those learned scholars who expounded the Prābhākara (i.e. the Mīmāṃsā philosophy of Prabhākara) in the temple. This shows how the scope of literary patronage was gradually extending to subjects other than the more usual and orthodox ones like the Vedas, the *Mahābhārata* or the Purāṇas. The temple had become the centre not merely of purely sacred or popular learning, but also of hard scientific and scholarly studies, handing down traditions of the different schools of Hindu Philosophy. The popularity of the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā is of course an index to that of the Vedic ritual for the thorough study of which it had become almost indispensable. Nos. 110, 136, and 146 of 1912 refer to an assembly making itself responsible for the taxes of a village, which is thus given away unencumbered to maintain the hall of instruction named in the record as Vyākhyāna-maṇḍapa. Reference has been already made (p. 274) to the inscriptions nos. 201 and 202 of 1912, and no. 195 of the same year refers to a Vyākaraṇa-dāna-maṇḍapa. It is thus apparent that the temple premises were used not merely for purposes of religion but also for the study, teaching, and promotion of sacred learning which constituted the strongest support of religion itself. No. 259 of 1905 (about 1122 a. d.) records a most munificent educational endowment of not less than forty-four villages which were consecrated to the temple for the specified purpose of giving food and clothing to the students of the Vedas, to teachers of religion and ascetics. A part of the income of the endowment was also devoted to the entertainment of a fixed number of visitors, namely, fifty-four. No. 323 of 1917 records a gift for maintaining a hostel to feed daily fifty Brāhmans and ten Śivayogins who were also given oil for bathing. Out of the same gift was also employed a teacher for a free school (*dhanmapalli*).

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Another most remarkable example of secular charities, of the establishment of a school, a hospital, and a feeding-house, is recorded in a huge pillar inscription at Malkāpuram in the Guntūr taluk of the Guntūr district, which 'is of very great interest both for the historical information it supplies regarding the Kākatīya kings and for the detailed account which it gives of the famous Pāśupata teachers who preceded Viśveśvara-Śivācārya of the Gauḍa country, who was himself the royal preceptor and a highly learned scholar' (*Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1917, p. 122). This celebrated religious leader used one of the many royal gifts bestowed upon him to found at Mandaram (the present Mandadam) all the institutions necessary for the commonweal, viz. temple, monastery, feeding-house, settlement of families of (Drāviḍa) Brāhmaṇas, schools of students of Śaiva Purāṇas, together with a maternity home and a hospital. Three teachers were appointed for teaching the three Vedas, and five for logic, literature, and the *āgamas*. There were also appointed one doctor and one accountant (Kāyastha). For the Maṭha and feeding-house were provided six Brāhmaṇa servants. Village-guards called *Vīrabhadras* were also appointed, together with village craftsmen called *Vīramuṣṭis*, who had to perform the duties of goldsmith, coppersmith, mason, bamboo-worker, blacksmith, potter, architect, carpenter, barber, and artisan. In the feeding-house arrangements were made for the feeding at all times of men of *all* castes from the Brāhmaṇa down to the Caṇḍāla—a remarkable instance of toleration and catholicity worthy of the creed followed by the donor. It was also directed that the presiding teacher appointed to supervise these charities should be liable to removal for neglect of duty or misconduct by the entire Śaiva community (*sāntānikā*). There are other inscriptions to show that the same strict regulations applied to Śaiva teachers appointed as heads of Maṭhas (ibid., and *Ep. Ind.*, vol. XII, p. 290 f.).

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The *Madras Epigraphy Report* for 1918 brings to light a very valuable and interesting piece of evidence. It is an inscription (no. 333 of 1917) of the time of Rājendra-Cola I, not earlier than a. d. 1023. It records the endowment, by the assembly of the village named Rājarāja-caturvedimaṅgalam, of certain charities in connexion with a temple with the object of securing success to the arms of that Cola ‘Napoleon’ through the grace of the deity. The charities were mainly intended for maintaining a college for Vedic study and also an attached hostel for students. Arrangements were made for feeding students as described below :

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(*a*) 75 studying the Ṛg-veda ;
(*b*) 75 studying the Yajur-veda ;
(*c*) 20 studying the Chāndoga-sāman ;
(*d*) 20 studying the Talavakāra-sāman ;
(*e*) 20 studying the Vājasaneya ;
(*f*) 10 studying the Atharva ;
(*g*) 10 studying the Baudhāyanīya Gṛhya and Kalpa and Gaṇa ;

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(*h*) 40 learning the Rūpāvatāra;
(*i*) 25 learning the Vyākaraṇa;
(*j*) 35 learning the Prābhākara;
(*k*) 10 learning the Vedānta.

340

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Thus the total number of students of this Sanskrit college who went into residence comes up to 340. The tutorial staff of the college included, among others, the following ten professors of the Vedas:

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(*a*) 3 for the Ṛg-veda;
(*b*) 3 for the Yajus;
(*c*) 1 for the Chāndoga-sāman;
(*d*) 1 for the Talavakāra-sāman;
(*e*) 1 for the Vājasaneya;
(*f*) 1 for the Baudhāyanīya Gṛhya and Kalpa, and Kāṭhaka.

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It is interesting to note that the teachers in some of the subjects were paid for their instruction according to what economists know as the 'piece-work' system. Thus the professor of Vyākaraṇa was paid one *kalañju* of gold per *adhyāya* taught.

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No. 343 of 1917 refers to the hostel attached to the temple where provision was made for feeding no less than 506 Brāhmans, among whom were the Brāhmans versed in the Vedas, Brāhmans in general, and the Śrī-Vaiṣṇavas. This number probably included the 340 students and ten Professors of the Sanskrit college mentioned above. It is also stated in the record that ‘the great men in charge of the *ūrvāriyam* (i. e. the village supervision committee) were made responsible for the daily supply of the firewood required for the hostel. It is further stated that Brāhman merchants were lent some money by the assembly, the interest on which was paid by them in kind, in the shape of supplying sugar and other necessaries; and half the surplus quantity of *ghī*, milk, and curds left after meeting the requirements of worship was made over to the hostel.

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We have another piece of very interesting information regarding the maintenance of a Sanskrit college of a somewhat earlier date. This information is given in an extract from a set of five copper plates of a Pallava King Vijaya-nṛpatuṅga-varman given in the *Epigraphia Indica*, vol. IV. The extract is in Sanskrit. It records the gift of three villages to a college termed Vidyā-sthāna situated at Bahugrāma (identified with Bāhūr in French India). This college was maintained by the learned men of that village and is said to have been supported by them ‘like the Gaṅgā borne by Śiva on his matted locks.’ The college provided for instruction in what has been called the fourteen Gaṇas, which are supposed to be the fourteen divisions of Sanskrit learning made up as follows:—Vedas (4), Aṅgas (6), Mīmāṃsā (1), Nyāya (1), Purāṇa (1), and Dharma Śāstra (1). No.

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176 of 1919 (Appendix C) records another endowment by an assembly of a Sanskrit residential college (\textsc{a. d.} 1048). The staff of the college in its Vedic departments comprised twelve professors, three for teaching the Ṛg-veda, three for the Yajurveda, and one for each of the following subjects, viz. Chāndoga-sāman, Talavakāra-sāman, Apūrva, Vājasaneya, Bodhāyanīya and Satyāṣṭa (āḍha)-Sūtra. In the department of Śāstras there were seven professors to teach seven different subjects, such as Vedānta, Vyākaraṇa, Rūpāvatāra, Śrī-Bhārata, Rāmāyaṇa, Manu-śāstra, and Vaikhānasa-śāstra. The number of students of the college is also given. The Ṛg-veda claimed sixty, the Yajur-veda sixty, the Chāndogasāman twenty, and the other Śāstras together fifty, thus bringing the total number of students to 190.

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It may be interesting to note in this connexion that the subjects of study in these days embraced a very wide field. Besides those connected with the Vedas, the Mīmāṃsā (Pūrva and Uttara), Vyākaraṇa and the Śrauta Sūtras, all of which are arts subjects, there seem to have been subjects connected with science as well. This is shown in a Nellore inscription which refers to the following eleven sciences as being studied, viz. Rasa, Rasāyana, Pādāñjana, Khaḍga-yāga, Ghuṭika (magic), Kanyakā-vāda (erotics), Mantra-vāda (spells), Dhātu-vāda (metallurgy), Dhūmra-vāda (art of producing optical illusions in smoke), Gāruḍa-vāda (science of birds), and Rasa-vāda (chemistry). The extent of knowledge acquired by some of the most successful scholars of the times is surprising. Jyeṣṭhapāda-Somayājin, one of such scholars, who was granted a village for his learning, is described as having mastered the Vedas, the chanting of Sāman, six Vedāṅgas, ‘words, sentences and subjects’ (i. e. grammar), Karma-kāṇḍa, Jñāna-kāṇḍa, Śruti, Smṛti, all sacred and secular learning (‘Sarva-Jñāna-Vijñāna’) such as ‘poems, dramas, stories, epics, and legends’. He seems, however, to have been steeped exclusively in the arts or humanities and absolutely innocent of the sciences (No. 73, *S. I. I.*, vol. II, part III).

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But besides these colleges of instruction for students, the evidence of inscriptions points to the interesting fact that there were public benefactions for the purpose of establishing what may be called colonies of culture and learning, made up of households of genuinely pious and scholarly Brāhmans. No. 99 in vol. II, part V of *South Indian Inscriptions*, gives an interesting account of a gift of a village for the purpose of supporting 308 learned Brāhmans in the pursuit of their sacred avocations of studying and teaching as prescribed in the Śāstras. Regarding the qualifications of this select body of Brāhman scholars, it is stated in the inscription that they had all studied the three Vedas and Smṛtis. The inscription applies to them various learned designations such as Caturvedin, Trivedin, Somayājin, Ṣaḍaṅgavid, Bhaṭṭa, Kramavid (proficient in the Krama-Pāṭha of the *Ṛg-veda*), Sarvakratuyājin, Vājapeyin, &c. A similar gift for establishing a similar colony of 308 Brāhmans is also registered in no. 7 of 1912. No. 277 of 1913 refers to the establishment of another cultured colony of 108 Brāhman families equipped with all the necessaries of life and even with a library called Sarasvatī-Bhāṇḍāra. No. 278 of 1913 registers a similar grant for the same number of Brāhman colonists. The significance of these records is that it was widely and popularly understood and recognized that the cause of learning and culture could be best promoted through a variety of institutions, and not merely through the one usual and prevailing type represented by a school proper meant for the instruction of formal students. It is by means of a liberal endowment of research and support of mature and advanced scholars devoting themselves to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake that the advancement and diffusion of knowledge can be best acccomplished. The idea of establishing colonies of cultured men in specially selected areas away from the distractions of the busy haunts of men, and setting free their mental energy for the exclusive pursuit of knowledge by placing them above all material wants and worries of life, is in accord with the highest academic ideals of the modern age, which even the most progressive peoples of the West are yet far from realizing.

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In addition to the colleges for students, and colonies of advanced scholars, we sometimes find the assembly itself directly performing some kind of educational work. No. 198 of 1919 records the interesting case of an assembly holding a special meeting in response to a royal order which requested them to adjudge the merits of a literary work composed by a poet. The work was recited before the assembly, and the author obtained as the reward for his labours a grant of land to be held in perpetual ownership. 'Students of Tamil literature may find here a lingering literary tradition of the more ancient Dravidian *sangam* established in Madura to scrutinize the works of Tamil poets and advance the cause of Tamil literature.' (*Mad. Ep. Rep.* for 1919, p. 98.)

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Some of these Brahmanical colonies of culture are also mentioned in the inscriptions of the Mysore Province, which give additional interesting information. It would appear that these colonies were known by special names to distinguish them from the ordinary schools of instruction. These names are *Ghaṭikā*, *Agrahāra*, and *Brahmapurī*.

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In addition to these, the various Maṭhas of the country, as has been already stated, also served as centres of higher learning where advanced scholars gathered together to widen and deepen their favourite studies, under the guidance of distinguished specialists in the subject of their choice. The term Ghaṭikā or Ghaṭikāsthāna has been variously explained as a place of public assembly for Brāhmans, or a religious centre, or an educational colony. Sk 176 (*Epi. Car.* VII) refers to a disciple who, with his *guru*, went to Kāñci, and desiring to be proficient in *Pravacana*, entered into every Ghaṭikā and thus became a quick or a ready debater. Sk 23 of A. D. 1167 mentions a temple as the great Ghaṭikāsthāna of the city in which it is situated. But in Sk 197 of A. D. 1182, the Ghaṭikāsthānas are described as ‘supports to Dharma and mines for enjoyment’.

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The Agrahāra was, however, the more usual term to indicate settlement of learned Brāhmans. It seems to have been a body corporate with its own means of maintenance, granted to it by generous donors, and powers of self-government. It started as an independent body as regards its resources and internal control. The administration of the Agrahāra vested in its Sabhā. Proceedings of some of these Sabhās are recorded in the inscriptions (*Ep. Car.*, vol. IX, pp. 127–132).

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The most distinguished centre of education in ancient Mysore seems to have been a place called Belgami in the Shikārpur taluk, which consisted of no less than seven Brahmapurīs, three Puras, five Maṭhas, and several Agrahāras. Sk 186 records the interesting story that a king, not finding a viprakula or a Brāhman family in the Dakṣiṇā-patha. imported from the north thirty-two Brāhman families whom he settled in the Agrahāra of Tālgunda near Belgami. This is a grant of a Kadamba king of the third century. An earlier Śātavāhana grant of the first or the second century (Sk 263), however, refers to a similar grant for a Brāhman settlement. Sk 177, 178, 185 show how the educational impulse given by the grant of Sk 186 resulted in the growth of considerable literary activity, centring in an Agrahāra of considerable dimensions deriving its maintenance from no less than 144 villages, all acquired as fees for as many as eighteen horse sacrifices performed by the Kadamba king Mayūravarman.

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Sk 14–18 refer to grants made to 1,300 Brāhmans of Begur situated in the northern Edenad 70 of Banavāsi 12,000 (the figure indicating the revenue value attached to the place). These inscriptions are very valuable as showing the circle of knowledge then available and cultivated. There are mentioned the four Vedas with their Aṅgas and Upāṅgas; Mīmāṃsā, Lokāyata, Bauddha, Sāṅkhya, Vaiśeṣika, and other Śāstras and Āgamas; eighteen Smṛtis, Purāṇas, Kāvyas, and Nāṭakas. Sk 92 and 96 describe the attainments of the learned chief of the Kodiya Maṭha at Belgami named Vāmaśakti. In grammar he was Pāṇini, in drama and music, Bharata, in poetry, Subandhu or Magha, in Siddhānta, Naku-līśvara.

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Belgami, besides these educational institutions, possessed three medical dispensaries according to the evidence of Sb 277 in 1158. Sk 102 shows that in 1162 the Kodiya Maṭha was known as a place for the treatment of destitute sick persons.

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Most of these institutions are of the twelfth century, the time of the great Liṅgāyat revival throughout the Kannaḍa-speaking countries, superseding the Jains and ousting the Brāhmans. Hence the growth of such institutions for the protection of Brahmanical culture, as rightly pointed out by Rice (*Ep. Car.*, vol. III, p. 8).

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Examples of these benefactions help to modify the impression that religious charities in India have always flowed in one particular channel and assumed one stereotyped form, viz. the direct furtherance of the worship of the gods. The type of charities we have just considered shows conclusively how the religious sense of the people in these ancient times was quite sound and even ‘modern’ in its tendencies, by endowing not simply the temples of gods but also the hardly less sacred temples of learning, with institutions aiming at the relief of human suffering, thereby recognizing that the service of man was not the least important mode of serving and worshipping God.

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PROOFS OF EFFICIENCY

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We have now considered the growth of local administration in ancient India in its various aspects and spheres of activity, together with the machinery of government evolved to cope with the manifold interests of communal life in ordinary and normal times and situations. But the test of the efficiency of a government lies in its capacity to deal with extraordinary circumstances and abnormal situations and to develop a proper degree of public spirit in the governed. There are numerous proofs and instances on record which will enable us to conclude that, judged by those two tests of government and the criteria of its efficiency, our ancient system of local administration will not be found to be wanting or to break down. In trying times and exceptional situations, such as those of a famine for example, we find that the assemblies rise to the occasion and to a full sense of their responsibilities in that regard. A South Indian inscription of about a. d. 1054, for instance, records how a village, being visited by a famine, the assembly of the village, expecting no succour from the king, themselves moved in the matter of securing relief for the people. They secured a loan of 1011 *kalañju* of gold and 464 *palam* of silver in jewellery and vessels from the local temple to which they mortgaged 8¾ *veli* of the common lands of the village, from the produce of which the interest on the loan was to be paid (*Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1899–1900, p. 20). Another case of famine is reported in the reign of Kulottuṅga Cola III in inscriptions nos. 274 and 279 of 1909 (*Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1909–10, p. 95) when the assembly of Tirukkacchūr borrowed 15 *kāśu* of a generous individual, and for interest gave him a piece of land belonging to the whole village, the government dues on which they themselves paid. Thus where there was even no remission of taxes by government the assembly were more mindful of their duties. The private person was a generous donor who provided for temple worship, seeing it was neglected during the time of the famine. No. 397 of 1913 also records a similar case of famine, or ‘bad time and scarcity of grain’, and a loan which was arranged by the assembly to tide over the difficulty by borrowing from the temple treasury sums amounting to 60 *kāśu* with interest at 2 *tūṇi* and 3 *kuruṇi* of paddy on 1 *kāśu*. No. 353 of 1909 records another interesting case. Rājendra-Deva (A.D. 1052) paid some gold to an assembly for building a stone temple. They had built five *aṅgas* of the temple for half the money when famine occurred and the assembly could neither complete it nor return the money. The temple authorities complained against them, and the assembly was eventually let off on supplying an image of the god found wanting in the temple. This is another case of royal indifference, contrasted with the assembly’s concern in the matter of the popular weal.

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Most of the famines mentioned relate to the time of the decline of Coḷa power towards the latter part of the reign of Kulottuṅga III, who reigned from about a. d. 1287 to 1327, when there was considerable unrest in the country. One of the signs of that unrest or unsettlement is indicated in no. 264 of 1913 (*Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1913–14, p. 30), which registers the gift of a lamp, oil, and wicks to be provided out of the interest on 1,100 *kāśu* deposited only for a fixed period of five years and not permanently, so that the assembly had to produce the amount of the deposit every five years before it was renewed. This condition betrays a want of confidence and a sense of insecurity due to the weakening of the central authority in the country. Even temples had to part with their jewellery to pay for the cost of erecting certain necessary structures during those days of famine in the reign of Kulottuṅga III (see no. 458 of 1913). In such hard times it is refreshing to observe proofs that the local administration did not break down. When the strong arm of a vigorous central government was withdrawn, we find a local administrative body stepping forward to afford full protection to the people under its charge in the disturbed state of the country. No. 273 of 1914 states that 'the assembled people (*nāḍu*) of Valla-nāḍu declared that thenceforward they will afford protection to the cultivators residing within the four boundaries of the sacred village of Tiruvaraṅgulam and its *devadāna* villages. If in the course of this protection any one of the assembly was found to rob, capture the cows of the cultivators, or do other mischief to them, the assembly agreed to assign two *mā* of wet land to the temple by way of fine for the offence committed' (*Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1914-15, p. 99).

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Besides their capacity to cope with difficult situations, the indigenous local administrations must also be credited with producing a high level of public spirit in the citizens. We have even some instances in which the public spirit or patriotism becomes a passion leading to extremes. No. 411 of 1912, assigned to the eighth year of Rājarāja I, (about A.D. 992) records that 'a certain Kalipperumān lost his life in the act of affording protection against ruin to his native village. Perhaps he sacrificed his life voluntarily, or in defending the village against an invading enemy. The good residents of the district in which Marudāḍu was situated provided for a permanent lamp to burn in the temple of Perundirukkoyil-Āḻvār at that village in order to secure merit for the martyr' (*Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1912–13, p. 96). Here the patriotism of the individual has been rewarded by the gratitude and abiding recognition of his community which immortalized, by a monument more enduring than brass, the memory of a man who gave up his life for them. Another notable instance of individual service and communal appreciation is recorded in nos. 119 and 120 of 1908. The temple of Tiruttaliyāṇḍa-Nāyanār at Tirupputūr is stated in those records to have been occupied by the encamped Muhammadans (probably under Malik Kāfūr in A. D. 1310), and to have been consequently ruined and desecrated. The inhabitants of Tirupputūr were therefore very much unsettled.

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At this juncture a certain Viśālayadeva of Kuraikkuḍi, surnamed Avaiyan Periyanāyanār, reconsecrated the temple and saved the people apparently from imminent moral and religious degradation. ‘The villagers of Tirupputūr, of their free will, agreed among themselves to show their gratitude to Viśālayadeva by assigning to him a specified quantity of corn from the harvest reaped by each individual and to confer on him certain privileges in the temple of Tiruttaliyāṇḍa-Nāyanār’ (ibid., 1908–9, pp. 82, 83). Some inscriptions from the Madaksira taluk of the Anantapur district, ranging over a long period from the early ninth century, illustrate the heroic sacrifices of certain ‘village Hampdens’ and the grateful appreciation of the villagers concerned. No. 479 of App. B of 1916 mentions the case of a villager successfully repelling two or three destructive raids for which he was rewarded by a grant of land. No. 753, ibid., mentions the death of both son and father in a battle for their village. No. 17 of App. C of 1916 records the fame of a village warrior who defended his village against attacks. A heroic fight is described in no. 33 of App. C, in which the hero is said to have dispersed the attacking army of 1 lakh (?) infantry and 1,000 horse, and killed 500 men and 100 horse. Nos. 19 and 58 of App. C mention a rent-free grant of land as the reward of blood spilt in the cause of protecting the community or village (all the above inscriptions are in *Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1916–17).

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In this connexion we may refer to the *vīrgals* or hero-stones of Mysore, which mostly record grants of land in addition to commemorating the deaths of heroes. An inscription on the Begūr stone and also a sculpture found in the Bangalore taluk record the death of the commander of the Nāgattara troops in a battle that was fought between the forces of Ayyapadeva and those of Vīramahendra, and also the appointment of his successor and grant of villages to him (A. D. 908–38; see *Ep. Ind.*, vol. VI, p. 45). A second clause in the supplementary inscription on the Ātakūr stone of A. D. 949–50 (see ibid., p. 57) gives another instance of a grant of villages in recognition of bravery in the battle-field to a hero who fought and survived, and we further learn from this record that grants of this kind were sometimes accompanied by the ceremony of washing the warrior’s sword, just as religious grants were usually accompanied by the ceremony of laving the feet of the priest into whose hands the donation was actually given (Fleet, in *Imp. Gaz.*, 1908, vol. II, p. 60). The Ablūr stone of about A. D. 1219 in the Dharwār district commemorates the death of the brothers Māca and Goma fighting valiantly to repel a cattle-raid against their village led by Īśvaradeva of Belagavatti, modern Belagutti, in the Honnāli taluk of the Shimoga district (*Ep. Ind.*, V, 262). The tablets of Kil-Muttugūr, Ambūr (villages in N.

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Arcot district), Naregal (Dharwār district), and Baṅgavāḍi (Kolār district) similarly preserve the memory of other village heroes who sacrificed themselves in repelling cattle-raids (*Ep. Ind.*, vol. IV, 178, 182, 183; vol. VI, 162; VII. 22). Many other cases might be cited.

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The inscriptions regarding the heroism of the Indian 'village Hampdens' sacrificing themselves for the good of their communities are indeed too many to be noticed. We can only select some further typical examples. No. 1 of 1896 records how a rural hero sought to recover the village cattle seized by a king of the Western Gaṅga dynasty but unfortunately perished in the attempt. No. 199 of 1897 records the death of another warrior under similar circumstances. In fact cattle lifting seems to have been a most common occasion for the display of rural patriotism and military spirit. We have a number of records of a single year (1905) testifying to this particular variety of these heroic examples (e.g. nos. 288, 290, 291, 292, 298, 299, and 300). No. 7 of 1896, which is a Pallava record, tells of the death of a man's son and nephew in resisting a cattle raid upon his village; and, what is more interesting, the attached sculpture contains the representation on stone of one of the warriors figured with bow and arrow in his hands and himself pierced by the arrows of his enemy.

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Sometimes the causes of such heroism were distinctly political and truly patriotic in their character. We have a few more records to show this. No. 411 of 1912 records how a man fell in his attempt to fight against the enemies of his village. No. 427 of 1906 records a similar example of a hero who, after effecting the rescue of his village from hostile attacks, afterwards perished from the wounds he received in the fight. The grateful villagers have tried to immortalize his memory by having carved on stone the figure of their hero with a club in each hand.

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No. 318 of 1912 records the interesting instance of a servant dying in a battle for his master. No. 337 of the same year records the noble example of one dying in a battle for the sake of his friend. No. 2 of 1896 records the case of a more fortunate man who served his village by killing a different kind of cattle lifter, namely, a tiger.

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It may be noted that this record of rural heroism and public spirit has come down to comparatively later times. There is a Madura taluk record of about 1705 a. d., which registers a rare and singular case of self-sacrifice. It seems that some officers of Government tried to make undue collections of taxes from some villages belonging to a temple which were tax free. Hopeless of any effective remedies against this unjustifiable extortion, a devout servant of the temple determined to sacrifice his life as a protest in a spirit of extreme passive resistance, which will put to shame many a modern follower of the creed. The man went up to the top of the tower of the temple, from which he let himself fall down as a sacrifice at the altar of his religion. The State officials were of course brought to their senses after this extreme protest. Another record of the same place relates that when a regiment of Europeans, after destroying the temple, had seized the town and were advancing further, a certain Kutti was persuaded by the managers of the temple and the local people to throw himself down from the tower. After his death, the grateful public made a free gift of some lands to his descendants and also granted them a share in the food offerings to the temple.

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Thus the evidence conclusively shows that the system of local government as it obtained in these ancient times served to produce a public spirit in the people, which exhibited itself in many forms, and did not fail to obtain due recognition at the hands of those it served.

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Religion, like patriotism, has also its own record of self-sacrifice. An eighth-century record in the Pudukkoṭṭai State commemorates the names of six ascetics who wandered from home into homelessness in the interest of their spiritual life. Military heroism was as much honoured as the more peaceful, but hardly less difficult, one that renounced the world for the quest of truth.

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But the public spirit of the people generally flowed along other and diverse channels. It determined the character of the communal assembly also. Both the assembly as a collective body and the individual members often vied with one another for the promotion of the public good. To the public spirit, patriotism, and religious sense of both parties the villages owed all the public institutions in which was centred the intellectual and spiritual life of the community. The religious spirit decorated the villages with new temples and shrines; created liberal endowments for their repair, maintenance, and development; and made provision for the multifarious necessaries and accessories of worship elaborated or invented by a pious imagination. It is difficult indeed to enumerate the manifold forms assumed by the popular religious offering. The commonest form repeatedly evidenced in numerous epigraphic records was the provision of the sacred lamp eternally burning before the gods of the temples, implying the provision of a perennial supply of the necessary oil and wicks. Sometimes improvement was made upon that by the provision of camphor lamps. In other cases the piety of the people loved to associate itself with a more direct service to the gods: some took charge of their food, creating the necessary endowments for its constant provision; others concerned themselves with the supply of the proper bathing-water, worthy of the deity, for which the necessary scents were permanently assured; others interested themselves in the gods' anointing; others were more anxious to assure that the processions of the gods on festival days should always be carried out with due dignity and pomp, and must be under no risk of discontinuance due to want of funds; in others, again, the pious imagination seized upon the beating of drums at festivals as the fittest form of worship that could be offered. We have already cited the inscriptions recording these various forms of devout offering. There are again cases in which the gift of provision for processions is followed up by that for procession paths. No. 45 of 1914 (*Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1914-15, p. 13), of Rājarāja II, found at Tiruppanandāl, records a grant of land for laying out a road called *Rājagambhīran-tiruvidi* for the god to pass through to the river Kollidam for the sacred bath festival. The inscription adds that 750 coco-nut trees were to be planted and cherished on both sides of the new road, and the income derived from them to be spent on providing lights and sundry other expenses in the temple. Similarly, no. 66 of 1913, App. C (*Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1912-13, p. 77), of Kulottuṅga-Cola III refers to lands purchased by a private individual for the purpose of laying out a road through which was to be carried in procession the image of Śīrāla-Pillayār from the shrine of Śiruttoṇḍadeva at Tiruccheṅgāttāṅgudi to the village Marugal. These lands were removed from the list of taxable lands under orders of the king. No. 397 of 1914 (*Mad. Ep.

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*Rep.*, 1914–15, p. 40), again, records the collective gift by about twenty-five individuals of a temple, a golden shrine, stone and metallic images of gods, together with provision for processions, and the construction of a watering-shed and well for the use of devotees, with the assignment of sufficient lands for the upkeep of the aforesaid charities. Sometimes, again, the offering took the more useful form of providing for the recital of the *Mahābhārata* for the edification of a village (no. 163 of 1909, *Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1909–10, p. 19). There are again instances of public amusements being provided for in connexion with the temples. No. 65 of 1914 (*Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1914–15, p. 16) records a gift of land by the great assembly of Kāmaravalli-caturvedi-maṅgalam to Śākkai Mārāyan Vikramaśolan for performing the dance (*sākkaikūttu*) thrice on each of the festivals *Mārgalitiruvādirai* and *Vaigāsitiruvādirai*. No. 253 of 1914 again records a similar gift of land to a lady for giving nine performances of dancing before the god at Tiruveṅgavāśal in the fourteenth year of Vikrama-Cola. It may be noted that such public amusements were also encouraged by the kings. Rājarāja I instituted the representation on the stage of a drama entitled *Rājarājeśvarī-nāṭaka* (*South Ind. Ins.*, vol. II, p. 306). No. 211 of 1912 (*Mad. Ep. Rep.*, 1912–13, p. 29) records the personal attendance of Rājarāja III at a singing party in the *Rājarājan-maṇḍapa* at Tiruvor-raiyūr. Sometimes again the religious benefaction took the remarkable form of providing hereditary servants for temples. No. 122 of 1912 records an instance in which five women with their descendants were assigned to the temple of Tiruvorriyūr for husking paddy. This temple, it has been seen (p. 274), possessed the famous grammar-hall for teaching Pāṇini's grammar, and was a great centre of intellectual and religious activity. We have again seen instances where the religious feeling expressed itself in the rescue of images that were being removed, the reconsecration of desecrated temples, or the restoration of a worship that had been neglected owing to bad times. Lastly we may instance, as further expressions of the same feeling, the foundation of Maṭhas and monasteries which served as strongholds and centres of both religion and learning, where the higher elements of the culture of the race were conserved. Such colleges were the agencies of popular education, diffusing the light of both knowledge and religion.

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It is worthy of note, too, that this religious spirit was not confined only to the cultured classes of the community but it pervaded all its ranks. There are many instances on record of the lower and poorer classes making gifts to temples. No. 241 of 1912 mentions the gift of five lamps by shepherds. No. 274 of 1910 records another gift made by twelve families of fishermen under an agreement signed by the overseers of the division (*Nāḍu-kan-katchi*).

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Like the religious spirit the patriotism of the community also expressed itself through appropriate secular charities. We have already seen how the Smṛtis lay down among the duties of the assemblies or *samūhas* the preservation and maintenance of public halls, wells, water-courses, and tanks for supply of water both for drink and irrigation, as also relief of the normally helpless and the occasionally helpless, in times of famine for example. Actual performances of these ideal precepts are amply recorded in our inscriptions, both North and South Indian, as we have already seen. Although the quantity of religious benefactions is much greater than that of the secular, yet we do find some remarkable examples of the latter. In the northern inscriptions, for instance, we find gifts of a cistern (*pānīyaka* and *poḍhi*) or a water-cistern (*pāṇīya-poḍhi*), benches, chairs, and walks (nos. 986, 995, 998 in Lüders's list). But the quantity of evidence in South Indian inscriptions is, as usual, more copious. We have already considered the numerous references in the epigraphic records to the gifts of tanks, sluices, and irrigation channels, the maintenance of which was accepted by the assembly as one of its legitimate duties, for the due discharge of which a separate committee was created, called the tank committee. The tank committee, along with the garden committee, had in fact as their main duties the administration of the benefactions and trust properties which the public spirit of the community always placed at their disposal in abundance. Nor should we omit a reference to institutions like the historic grammar-hall for the teaching of Pāṇini attached to the temple of Tiruvorriyūr, which was maintained for a long time by a series of benefactions both private and official.

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