Studies in Cola History and Administration c10.19

c10.19

Though there is a great amount of uncertainty about the origin and the early history of these organisations, the suggestion may be made that the Ūr represents in every case the more primitive local organisation indigenous to the Tamil country, the lineal descendant of the ancient *manram*; and that the *Sabhā* was, generally, a later superimposition. It is clear, at any rate, that as the *Sabhā* was the general local assembly in *Brahmadēya* villages, the *Ūr* was the prevalent form in some other types. And the simplest explanation of the existence side by side, as in Uttaramērūr, of both the organisations is to suppose that the *Ūr* was the more ancient form and that the *Sabhā* came on top of it when, at the will of some king or chieftain, a considerable number of new Brahman residents, often representing the highest learning in the land, were settled in the village, and endowed with perpetual rights of property in a part of the village lands. That *dānas* (gifts) came to take the place of importance among acts of religious merit, and that the *bhūdāna* (gift of land) was considered more meritorious than any other *dāna* in the period we are dealing with, are facts sufficiently well-established on the evidence of epigraphy and literature. The lands were usually purchased by the donors from previous owners, individuals or corporations of one kind or another, and then given away for the purpose intended. Several instances can be cited in which all the previous owners of the lands in a certain locality were bought out and the existing leases for cultivation terminated by payment of compensation,[*] in order that an absolutely unencumbered *dēvadāna* might be made, or a fresh *brahmadēya*, usually a *caturvēdimaṅgalam*, might be formed. But doubtless there were villages which, though too large to be so bought up, on account of the numbers involved and the extent and complexity of property-rights in them, yet afforded ample facilities