Local Government in Ancient India c15.6

c15.6

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*).