Local Government in Ancient India c9.129

c9.129

There are several inscriptions in the temples of the village called Tirunamanallur in the South Arcot district assigned to the tenth and eleventh centuries of which no less than five supply the evidence we require (*Ep. Ind.*, vol. VII, pp. 132–8). Thus an inscription of Parāntaka I (A.D. 900–940) records the gift of two perpetual lamps with lamp-stands by a servant of his queen who gave for the purpose ‘90 undying and unaging big sheep’ [which implies that ‘those sheep which died or ceased to supply milk had to be replaced from among the lambs that had grown up in the meantime’ (Hultzsch)], and the gift was placed under the protection of all Māheśvaras. The second records the gift of the queen of Rājādityadeva, son of Parāntaka I, of another sacred lamp for which she gave 100 undying and unaging big sheep and a lamp-stand weighing seventy *palam*. The third inscription dated in the seventeenth year of Kannaradeva, i.e. the Rāṣṭrakūṭa king, Kṛṣṇa III, records the gift of a perpetual lamp with lamp-stand by a chief of Milāḍu for which he gave 10 *kalañju* of gold to the village guild, the members of which entered into the following agreement, viz. ‘Having received these ten *kalañju* of gold, we, the members of the assembly (*sabhā*) . . . shall have to bring every year 100 *nāli* of *ghī* and shall have to pour (it) out (i.e. measure it) by the *mādevi* (i.e. a measure called after the chief queen, *mahādevī*) as long as the moon and the sun shall last.’ Another inscription, D (in the Śaka year 875) records a similar gift of lamp for which the donor assigned 100 undying and unaging big sheep to the village assembly who ‘having received these 100 sheep . . . shall have to pour out *ghī* to burn as long as the moon and the sun shall last’. The fifth (in the Śaka year 876) records a similar gift of lamp and sheep for which the villagers agree ‘to pour out daily one *ulakku* of *ghī* by the *mādevī*’.