Local Government in Ancient India c15.41

c15.41

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.