Local Government in Ancient India c9.119

c9.119

It is interesting to find that very similar gifts are also recorded in some of the later South Indian inscriptions. A common form of pious offering consisted in the dedication of a lamp, i.e. providing for a continuous supply of oil or *ghī* for a lamp to be constantly burning before the image in the temple. In some of the Tanjore inscriptions we have mention of guilds of shepherds arranging it on receipt of the required sum of money or its equivalent value in sheep or cattle from the donor. The cost of thus maintaining one sacred lamp was 96 ewes, or 48 cows, or 16 she-buffaloes. ‘The shepherds who received the cattle, themselves and their people, viz. their relations and the relations of the latter, had to supply *ghī* to the treasury of the Lord, as long as the sun and moon endures, at the daily rate of one *urakku* of *ghī* … for each sacred lamp’ (Hultzsch, *South Indian Inscriptions*, vol. II, part III, p. 251). Quite in accordance with the obligations of partnership indicated above, we find in another inscription¹ of Rājendra-Coladeva at Tanjore an agreement by which the entire guild binds itself to a contract executed on its behalf by an individual member of the guild for the supply of oil in perpetuity for a sacred lamp. The inscription runs as follows: ‘We, all the following shepherds of this village … agree to become security for Eran Sattan, a shepherd of this village, (who) had received 90 ewes of this temple in order to supply *ghī* for burning one perpetual lamp. We shall cause the shepherd Eran Sattan to supply daily to one perpetual lamp one *ulakku* of *ghī*. … If he dies, absconds, or gets into prison, fetters (or) chains, we, all these aforesaid persons, are bound to supply *ghī* for burning the holy lamp as long as the sun and moon endure.’ The inscription gives the name of the local merchant also who may have been the donor of the lamp.¹ The legal phraseology of the inscription is worthy of a modern corporate body, enumerating, as it does, the various conditions under which the responsibility of the guild is acknowledged. The length of the term contemplated for the contract shows the longevity of the institution, surviving the death of particular individual members and continuing its collective life throughout the changes in its personnel. It also appears that the guild served as a bank for the community, holding as trust-properties the religious benefactions of individuals who are assured of the permanent and perpetual contribution of their pious offering and worship by the comparatively immortal character of these institutions.