Local Government in Ancient India c9.s2.14

c9.s2.14

In conclusion, it may be observed that the South Indian religious endowments were, as we have seen, mostly assigned or entrusted to village corporations, the scope of whose functions and activities seems to have been much wider than that covered by the industrial guilds contemplated in the North Indian inscriptions (of which the precise scope is not ascertainable from the available evidence) and to have embraced the totality of the manifold interests of communal life. We now turn to the methods of administration of that life through the local bodies.