Local Government in Ancient India c7.8

c7.8

¹ It is not, however, clear from our texts whether the same assembly exercised these various functions, or whether there were differently constituted and composed bodies for these different interests and works. There are, it will be seen, traces in the evidence furnished by the copper-plate inscriptions and grants, especially in southern India in the ninth and tenth centuries, of an elaborate and distinct machinery, popular in origin, though recognized and controlled by the state, having gradually appeared in the midst of the village communities themselves for the discharge of these various responsibilities of communal life.