Local Government in Ancient India c15.23

c15.23

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.