Studies in Cola History and Administration c12: VI. Uttaramērūr: II. The Parāntaka Inscriptions

Studies in Cōḻa History and Administration c12

Language: English

VI. Uttaramērūr: II. The Parāntaka Inscriptions

The remarkable progress of South Indian Epigraphy in the last thirty years has added much to our knowledge of the social and political affairs of South India in ancient and mediaeval times. With this increase in knowledge, old ideas on the constitution of village assemblies in South India are becoming obsolete, and we are called upon to review them in the light of later discoveries. To many questions concerning the rural life and administration of the country, we can yet offer only tentative answers; but we know more about these matters now than was known in 1904 when Venkayya edited the texts of the celebrated Uttaramērūr records which he had first noticed in great detail a few years before.∗ It is the aim of this study to discuss some of the points which Venkayya left open, and suggest a few corrections and improvements in his interpretation of the records. This is done best by our furnishing annotations on the more difficult parts of the published texts of the two inscriptions of the twelfth and fourteenth years of Parāntaka I distinguished by Venkayya as ‘A’ and ‘B’ respectively.†

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∗ *A. R. E.* 1899 paragraphs 58-73 and *A. S. I.* 1904-5 pp. 131 ff.

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† I verified Venkayya's text directly from the stone and found it perfect in its readings. I acknowledge with thanks the assistance rendered on the occasion by Mr. T. N. Ramachandran of the Madras Museum.

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‘A’ line 1: *sabhaiyōm*. Venkayya recognised the existence of village assemblies before the date of this record and drew attention to some earlier inscriptions mentioning village assemblies.* Perhaps the earliest mention of the Sabhā of Uttaramērūr itself is that found in No. 80 of 1898 of the seventh year of Dantivikramavarman (c. A. D. 782)† Of about the same period is the Pāṇḍya record from Mānūr in the Tinnevelly District (No. 423 of 1906) which in some important respects seems to anticipate the records of Parāntaka Cōḷa by more than a century.‡

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‘A’. lines 1-3: *ivvāṇḍu-mudal . . . pariśāvadu*: Venkayya’s translation of this passage can hardly be accepted as a satisfactory rendering of the original. It will be observed that the phrase ‘*irundu vāriyam-āga*’ in l. 2 is applied by him to the royal officer Tattaṇūr-mūvēnda-vēḷān and rendered into: “Sitting (with us) and convening (?) the committee”; and his translation of the corresponding passage in ‘B’ runs: “Sitting (with us) and convening (?) the committee in accordance with the (royal) command.” It should be observed that there is nothing in the text corresponding to “convening (?)” of the translation. The question is to decide whether ‘*vāriyam-āga*’ must be taken to refer to the royal officer, as Venkayya does, or to read it with what follows as: “*vāriyam-āga āṭṭorukkālum samvatsaravāriyamum......iḍuvadarkku*.” If we follow Venkayya, ‘*vāriyam-āga*’ must describe some function performed by the royal officer, and the text does not help us to explain what this function is, and the device of interpolating a new conception like convening a committee does not seem proper. The word *vāriyam* is generally taken to mean ‘committee’, and that is doubtless its real meaning in phrases like ‘*samvatsara-vāriyam*,’ ‘*tōṭṭa-vāriyam*’ etc., in this and other records. It is doubtful if ‘*vāriyam*’ can be said in any other

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∗ A. S I. 1904-5 p. 135 † *Ante* p. 118. ‡ *The Pāṇḍyan Kingdom* p. 93.

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context to be used to describe duties to be performed by an individual. The Mānūr inscription of Māṟaṉ Śaḍaiyaṉ contains the earliest use of ‘vāriyam’ known to me in the phrase: * “muḷuccirāvaṉai illādāṉai evvakai - ppaṭṭa - vāriyamum ēṟaṇḍa - pperā - dārāgavum” that is, ‘that they shall not appoint to any vāriyam anybody who does not possess a full share’. ‘Vāriyam’ here may well mean a committee; but there is nothing in the context to preclude its being some office or privilege held by an individual. The Tamil dictionaries simply give the meaning ‘income’ for the word ‘vāri’; but Kittel, in his Kanarese-English dictionary, gives under the word ‘vāri’ the meaning “unrelenting demand”, and this suggests a possible meaning, “collection of dues or taxes,” for the word ‘vāriyam.’ If this meaning is adopted, it will follow, further, that this collection may be the work of an individual or a group of men, a committee. Thus ‘vāriyam-āga’, that is ‘becoming vāriyam,’ as applied to a royal officer may mean that he was there in Uttaramērūr representing the king and collecting certain royal dues from the village. On this view, the phrase ‘ivvuṇḍu mudal’ meaning ‘from this year’ must be taken both in ‘A’ and ‘B’ to mark the year from which the officer named in either case was appointed as ‘vāriyam’; but there seem to be no other instances of such a permanent deputation of an official of the king’s service for the collection of royal dues from Brahmadēya villages. The only other supposition we can reasonably make is that the officer became a member of the vāriyam; but this raises a difficulty as there were many vāriyams in the village, and there seems to be no method of deciding to which of these the king’s officer was assigned.

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∗ The inscription is unpublished.

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It seems simpler on the whole to adopt the alternative construction suggested above, and read ‘vāriyam-āgu’ with the following words. This would perhaps imply that the committee-system was being adopted by this resolution for the first time in Uttaramērūr, or at least the committee-method (vāriyam) in local administration was improved and extended by this resolution. This view receives support from two considerations. First, in the records of an earlier period from Uttaramērūr there is no mention of ‘vāriyam’ as a committee* for a specific purpose. Secondly, from the inscriptions ‘A’ and ‘B’, the officials deputed by the king do not seem to have performed any special function other than representing the king to witness the proceedings of the assembly on the two important occasions when it adopted fundamental changes in its constitution. This becomes clear from the phrases ‘uḍan-irukka’ in l. 12 ‘A’ and ‘uḍan-irundu ippariśu śeyvikka’ in l. 17 ‘B’; of these, the second form appears to state more explicitly what is implied in the first. These expressions will be discussed further below.

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Again, the words ‘engaḷūr śrimukhappaḍi āṇaiyiṉāl’ (ll. 1-2) are understood by Venkayya as governing ‘vyavasthai śeyda’ (ll. 2-3), so that according to him the revision of the constitution was undertaken by the assembly at the instance of the king. This interpretation overlooks the participle ‘irundu’ (l. 2) occurring immediately after the name Tattaṇūr-mūvēnda-vēḷāṉ, and standing in much closer relation to ‘āṇaiyiṉāl’ than to the words at the end of l. 2. There

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∗ There are found, however, the general terms vāriyar and vāriyapperumakkal-see e.g. 63 of 1898 of year 16 of Nṛpatuṅga and 74 of 1898, Dantipottarasa. No. 11 of 1898 of the 10th year of Vijaya Kampavikramavarman mentions the tank committee; but his date is uncertain, and if the argument here presented is correct, he must be of a later time than is sometimes supposed.

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seems to be no doubt that the royal sanction or order related only to the name of the officer who was appointed to be present on the occasion.

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In the light of the remarks offered so far, this part of the text may perhaps be translated as follows: “We, (the members of) the assembly of Uttarameru-caturvēdimaṅgalam, Tattaṇūr-mūvēnda-vēḷān being present in accordance with the order (conveyed) in the śrīmukha (royal letter addressed) to our village, made the following settlement* for choosing as committees every year from this year forward the annual committee, the garden committee and the tank committee.”

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Much of this discussion applies also to record ‘B’ which employs almost the same expressions.

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‘A’ *l. 5*: *arthaśauśamum ātmaśauśamum uḍaiyarāy*: “possesses honest earnings and has a pure mind” (Venkayya). The expressions employed here are clearly reminiscent of the *upadhāśauca* of the Arthaśāstra literature, though in the context they seem to be used in a rather loose non-technical sense. Perhaps, ‘possessing material and spiritual purity’ is a better rendering. Reference may also be made to the *Tiru-kkuṟal* verse 501.

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‘A’ *ll. 5-6*: *mūvāṭṭin* . . . . . *aṇiyu bandukkal allāttūrai*: substituting the literal translation† of the phrase ‘*mūvāṭṭin ippaṟam*’ viz., “on this side of three years,” for ‘the last three years’ of Venkayya, we may accept his translation of this passage as correct. Indeed the text is easy Tamil and presents no difficulty.

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∗ Venkayya observes (*A. S. I.* 1904-5 p. 138 n. 3): ‘The wording of l. 12 seems to show that the settlement was made by the assembly, though the point is not quite clear here’. The foregoing discussion has shown that Venkayya’s doubts were due to the rather forced construction he adopted.

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† See *A. S. I.* 1904-5 p. 138, *n* 6.

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It is in the interpretation that we find it utterly impossible to follow Venkayya. There seems to be no evidence in the texts of the records that can sustain his somewhat lurid view of the occasion for the reform undertaken by the assembly of Uttaramērūr. He says:* “One point that is common in both (A & B) is the implied indignation against the committee members who had just then vacated office and who appear to have brought the administration of the village into disrepute. They must have embezzled communal funds and would not submit themselves to any sort of scrutiny. The wholesale condemnation in ‘A’ of committee members who held office at the time the rules were made, is sufficient evidence on the point. This clause must have operated harshly during the second year of its introduction and must have restricted the choice within a smaller number, who might not possess all the requisite qualifications. In view of this difficulty better counsel prevailed in A. D. 920-21, and the prohibition was restricted only to defaulting committee members and their relations.”

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In all the numerous and profound contributions of Venkayya to South Indian Epigraphy, it is hard to find another paragraph which beats this, or even approaches it, in its utter disregard for the sources. As we have seen already, the Sabhā of Uttaramērūr appears to have adopted the committee system (vāriyam) for the first time in the twelfth year of Parāntaka. The speculations of Venkayya concerning the reasons which led to the reform are based entirely on his translation of ‘mūvaṭṭin ippaṛam’ (l. 5) into “for the last three years.” He also introduces a new word ‘(just)’ in his translation of the phrase ‘*vāriyañjeydoḷinda-perumakkaḷukku*.’ The extent to which the meaning of our simple text is distorted as a result of these slight devices in translation can be seen by placing Venkayya’s version by the side of a more literal rendering given as far as possible in his own words. Venkayya’s version is: “From among (the residents) who have not been on (any of) the committees for the last three years and who are not close relations of the great men (just) retired from the committees” (*italics ours*). A more literal rendering would be: “From among those who have not done *vāriyam* on this side of three years and who are not close relations of the great men who have done *vāriyam* and retired.” There is nothing here* either about the men who served on committees at the time the settlement was made or during the three years preceding the settlement. There is also no evidence of ‘implied indignation’ against or ‘wholesale condemnation’ of any body of persons. Venkayya’s speculation about members of committees bringing the administration of the village into disrepute by their embezzlement of communal funds and their refusal to submit to any scrutiny is utterly groundless. The only reference to such transgressions in the two records of Uttaramerūr occurs at the end of l. 4 of ‘B’ where it is laid down that failure to produce accounts for audit at the end of a period of office (*vāriyam*) shall permanently disqualify a person and his relatives for election to the *vāriyam*. This provision is part of a more detailed statement of disqualifications for election to the *vāriyam* that distinguishes the later record from that of two years before. In other words, what we have here is not the statement of a concrete fact, but provision against a possible contingency.

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∗ *Ibid* pp. 185-6. See also A. R. E. 1899 paragraph 69.

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∗ A prohibition at the end of l. 9 and beginning of l. 10 in ‘A’ is very obscure on account of gaps in the record. It has to be left on one side as it helps neither Venkayya’s argument nor mine.

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It is not contended that village administration was always pure, or that dishonesty and embezzlement were unknown to the rural patriots of ancient times; cases of spoliation of temple funds and breaches of trust are common enough in our records; and the provision in ‘B’ just noticed is in itself evidence that such offences had to be thought of and carefully guarded against. The substance of my difference with Venkayya is simply this. There seems to me to be no evidence whatever in these two records from Uttaramerūr that the administration of this village was in a bad way in the years preceding the reform, or that such maladministration furnished the occasion for the reform itself. These records were unique when Venkayya studied them, and in his enthusiasm to explain their importance, he appears to have given rein to his imagination and read into the records much that was in his own mind. This may account for his view of the relation in which the two records stand to each other. He suggests that the rule of exclusion as stated in ‘A’ unduly restricted the field of choice for election to the committees and that the assembly, after the experience of two years, went back on its own rule and as a result, “the prohibition was restricted only to defaulting committee members and their relations.” If by this, Venkayya means that there was no sort of restriction on members of committees who had served a term without being in default, this statement is not correct; for ‘B’ repeats * in identical words the rule from ‘A’ excluding from re-election to committees persons who had served on

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∗ A. S. I. 1904-5 p. 143 (ii), and p. 139 l. 4 ‘B’.

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them ‘this side of three years.’ We see then that both ‘A’ and ‘B’ are agreed in forbidding re-election to the committees within an interval of three years, and that this rule applies not only to ‘defaulting committee members’ but to all. We may reserve for later consideration the position of the kinsmen of committee members in ‘B’ with reference to that in ‘A’.

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In fact, if we put aside the ideas suggested by Venkayya’s comments and his emendations of the text in his translation, and if we concentrate attention on the words employed in the text of which a more literal rendering than Venkayya’s has been furnished above, we can recognise only two conditions stated in it; (1) persons nominated for election to the committees should not have served on them during the three years preceding the date of election, and (2) they should not be close relations of those that had so served. We have shown that condition (1) is retained intact in the later record; condition (2) is indeed modified. We shall discuss the modifications and the reasons therefor later in dealing with ‘B’. But the main point is that in the language employed in ‘A’, there is no evidence of any dissatisfaction felt towards any persons for abusing their position and power, and not a trace that the rule of exclusion is based on the past conduct of malefactors. It is the dry and neutral language of a legal document laying down a rule of procedure for future observance. The reason underlying the main rule forbidding re-elections within three years is not hard to seek; it is to make offices go round. Venkayya himself once recognised this* when he pointed out that the annual change of office-bearers and re-election to new committees after intervals of three years must have stimulated a sustained civic interest. The motive for the exclusion of the ‘ close relations ’ (aṇiya bandukkaḷ) must have been similar; in a country where the joint family has been so important a social factor, one can understand a rule based on the feeling that a person may be taken to represent his family circle.

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∗ A. R. E. 1899, paragraph 72.

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‘A’ line 6: śadēri (śēri) vaḷiyē tiraṭṭi: “(The tickets bearing the names) shall be collected in (each) street (śēri),” (Venkayya). Perhaps this is better translated as: ‘The tickets bearing the names shall be gathered together according to śēris.’ It must be noticed that there were thirty kuḍumbus, constituted out of twelve śēris. Each kuḍumbu had to prepare (l. 3) name tickets (kuḍavōlai) (l. 6) answering to what we now call valid nominations, and when this had been done, the tickets were grouped together according to śēris before lots were drawn in the manner laid down in l. 7. Representation on the committees was according to śēri and kuḍumbu. These terms śēri and kuḍumbu occur in inscriptions from other places as well, and their exact place in local administration is yet to be worked out.

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The brief record of the mode of election to the committees contained in this inscription is by no means easy to follow in its details. The later record (B) says distinctly that thirty names were chosen for service on committees, one from each kuḍumbu, and lays down the elaborate procedure to be followed at the election. The earlier record (A) also implies unmistakably that the total number of men chosen in one election was thirty. It makes the following statements: (1) the ‘annual committee’ must be so chosen that there are twelve members, one from each śēri, after the tickets have been gathered together (from the kuḍumbus)

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according to the *śēris* (ll 6-7). (2) Before that * twelve men shall be chosen, as above (*mērpaḍi*), for the garden committee (ll. 7-8). (3) The remaining six tickets shall constitute the tank committee (ll. 8-9). (4) After the choice of thirty persons in this manner, they shall serve on the three committees for full three hundred and sixty days and then retire. There is nothing in the record to say how exactly it was to be secured that the two larger committees got one man from each *śēri* and from a different *kuḍumbu*, though this seems to be presumed throughout as the proper incidence of representation. On the other hand, it confuses the whole question by talking of tickets being collected according to *śēris*, of electing twelve, one from each *śēri* for one committee, and of twelve others elected similarly for another, and lastly, of the remaining six for yet a third. Again, while referring to future elections, it uses the phrase ‘by allotting pot-tickets to *kuḍumbu* (*kuḍumbukku-kkuḍa-vōlai-iṭṭu*) (l. 9). Moreover, for appointing twelve persons for the *pañcavāra* and ‘gold’ committees (l. 10), thirty tickets were to be allotted to the thirty *kuḍumbus* and twelve chosen therefrom, one for each *śēri*. This is doubtless a badly drafted record, and its wording must have given rise to differences of opinion as to the exact procedure to be adopted at the election. If we consider the distinct superiority of the later record in this respect and the clearness and precision of the procedure laid down in it, and contrast it with the vagueness and the clumsiness that characterise the earlier document, the conclusion seems to be forced on us that the main reason for the revision of the *vyavasthai* (settlement) that was undertaken by the *Sabhā* after an interval of two years, must be sought in the intolerable vexation arising from the imperfections of the earlier settlement which they had bound themselves to observe in perpetuity (l. 11).

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∗ Venkayya would change this and have ‘subsequent to this’, though the text is clear. See *A. S. I.* 1904-5 p. 138 and n. 12.

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‘A’ line 9: *vyavasthai-ōlai-ppaḍiyē*: ‘According to this order of settlement’- (Venkayya). I prefer ‘according to this deed of settlement.’ The word ‘ōlai’, indeed often occurs in inscriptions in the sense of ‘order’, especially ‘royal order’ and this is perhaps the reason why Venkayya* and almost all other writers after him have maintained that the constitution of Uttaramerūr was laid down in a royal rescript and that the *Sabhā* had only to signify its assent to a constitution ordered from above. But there is no justification for overlooking the express declaration of the *Sabhā* repeatedly made in these two records† that it made the *vyavasthai* in the presence of an official who attended its meetings by royal order. Though not of Parāntaka’s reign, there are not wanting examples of *Sabhās* stating clearly that they made certain changes in their constitutions at the instance of the king. These examples should warn us against disregarding express statements contained in our records. The proper meaning of ‘ōlai’ in this context is, therefore, not ‘order’ but ‘deed’ or ‘record.’ The word is used in many different connections; *kuḍavōlai* is thus closely analogous to *vyavasthai-ōlai*.

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† ‘A’ ll. 2-3; and ‘B’ ll. 2 and 17.

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‘A’ *l.* 10: *pañcavāravāriyattukkum poṇvāriyattukkum*: ‘Pañcavāra’ seems to have been some kind of a tax‡ or levy the exact nature of which is not clear, though the suggestion may be ventured that it might have been meant to provide against famine (*pañjam*).

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∗ “The royal order had evidently to be approved by the village assembly before it could take effect.” *A. R. E.* 1899, paragraph 60.

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‡ No. 131 of 1912 and *A. R. E.* 1913 II, 33; also *S. I. I.* II, p. 512 n. 3.

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The duties of the *pañcavāra* committee were perhaps connected with its assessment and collection. The discovery of the real nature of ‘*pañcavāra*’ antiquates Venkayya’s suggestion * that originally every village had only five committees, that it was the duty of the ‘*pañcavāra-vāriyam*’ to supervise their work, and that the name was kept on even after the number of committees to be supervised became more than five.

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The gold committee (*poṇ-vāriyam*) is generally taken to have regulated the currency. As it is not possible, however, to imagine how village committees can undertake this general function of administration, we must try and find a more satisfactory explanation. ‘*Poṇ*’ in the inscriptions of South India often means a coin of specific weight; but the standard of fineness seems to have varied with different types, and there are clear references in the records of money endowments to the fineness and weight of the gold made over by the donors for specified purposes. There must have been some person or persons to take charge of such endowments or at least to testify in a public manner to the weight and fineness of the gold in such instances. It seems probable that the ‘*poṇ-vāriyam*’ performed these functions.

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‘*A*’ *l. 10: muppadu kuḍumbilum.....paṇṇiruvārilum*: Here the procedure for election to these two committees is even less specific in one important respect; we are distinctly told that only thirty tickets were to be put in for all the thirty *kuḍumbus* in the first instance (*muppadu kuḍarōlai iṭṭu*) and that out of these thirty, twelve were selected for the two committees, one from each *śēri*. But how the first thirty were obtained we are not informed. Another instance of the imperfect drafting of the record.

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‘A’ *l.* 11: *piṇṇai avvāriyattukku kuḍavōlai iḍapperādadāgavum*: These words seem to imply that, under these rules, lots were drawn separately for each committee. If this was so, it did not matter whether the garden committee was elected *before* or *after* the annual committee.

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‘A’ *ll.* 11-12: At first sight these lines seem to support Venkayya’s translation which says that the royal letter issued by the emperor directed that from that year committees should be chosen for ever in the manner laid down. But this contradicts the claim of the *Sabhā* that it made the settlement. It will be seen also that Venkayya’s translation understands ‘*śrīmukham*’ as ‘the royal letter’ which laid down the constitution’ and ‘*āṇai*’ as ‘the royal order’ by which Tattaṇūr-mūvenda-vēḷān sat with the assembly. If we recall the phrase ‘*śrīmukhappaḍi āṇaiyiṉāl*’ (ll. 1-2) used earlier in this inscription, we shall notice easily the unsoundness of this separation of ‘*śrīmukham*’ from ‘*āṇai*’ in the translation of this passage. In fact the principal sentence in these lines is: *eṉṟum kuḍavōlai vāriyamēy iḍuvadāga Tattaṇūr-mūvenda-vēḷān uḍaṉirukka vyayasthai seydōm Uttaramēru-caturvēdimaṅgalattu sabhaiyōm*; and the numerous titles of the king followed by *śrīmukham aruḷicceydu varakkāṭṭa śrī āṇaiyiṉāl* are explanatory of *uḍaṉ-irukka*; the clause *nam grāmaṭṭu duṣṭar keṭṭu śiṣṭar vardhittiḍuvārāga* gives the general motive of the settlement. The translation of these lines may be revised as follows: “In order that the wicked men of our village may perish and the good prosper, we, the members of the assembly of Uttaramēru-caturvēdimangalam made this settlement: that in this

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manner, from this year forward as long as the sun and the moon endure, (we shall) invariably choose commiteess only by the method of pot-tickets—Tattaṇūr-mūvēnda-vēḷān being present with us by order in accordance with the letter received and shown to us as graciously issued by the lord of the gods, the emperor, Śrī Vīranārāyaṇa Śrī Parāntakadēva alias Parakēsarivarman."

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Duṣṭar keṭṭu śiṣṭar vardhittiḍuvārāga : In view of some statements made by Venkayya, it seems necessary to say that this expression has no very specific significance. It is the object of all government to restrain the wicked and promote the welfare of the good. Venkayya understands by 'śiṣṭa' 'the rest', and 'B' has 'viśiṣṭar' in the same context in the place of 'śiṣṭar'. But the whole formula occurring in the record of the proceedings of a Brāhmaṇ assembly has to be understood, it seems to me, in the light of the celebrated adage of the Gītā: "paritrāṇāya sādhūnām vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām" (IV. 8.) In any case, I cannot help feeling that Venkayya has treated these words as a more concrete account of the affairs of the village than in reality they are. He says: "We have reason to suppose that local administration was very near being wrecked in an important village not far from the premier city of the Cōḷa dominions, (Kāñcīpuram). The rules regulating the constitution of village assemblies (!) and the method of selection of committee members seem to have been lax, and unscrupulous and ignorant men appear to have taken advantage of the opportunity to embezzle communal funds, and would not render accounts.† The king deputed one of his Śūdra officers, with special instructions, in A. D. 918-9, to set matters right. Owing, perhaps, to his want of experience and to the excitement of the villagers over the evil doings of the ‘wicked men’ of the village, the rules which he promulgated (A below) must have made matters worse, and the consequences of his mistakes were felt during the second year the rules were in operation. The king had to depute a Brāhmaṇa officer of his from the Cōḷa country to improve upon the system devised more than a year ago. Accordingly, on the sixteenth day of the fourteenth year of the king’s reign (A. D. 920-21) a carefully worked out set of rules (B below) was framed and promulgated in order that the ‘wicked men of the village might perish and the rest prosper.’ The rules leave no doubt whatever as to who the wicked men were and wherein their wickedness lay.” These statements of Venkayya give a measure of the extent to which he allowed the general formula about duṣṭa nigraha and śiṣṭa paripālana so well established in the parlance of Indian Sanskrit culture to influence his view of the settlement of the constitution of the committees by the Sabhā of Uttaramērūr. And one can hardly fail to observe that the identity of the ‘wicked men’ who caused all the trouble does not seem to be so clear from the records as it was to Venkayya, or that the difference in the caste of the officers deputed by the king on the two occasions might have been anything more than an accident. In any event, there is nothing in the words employed in the inscriptions that cannot be explained without supposing that the Śūdra officer bungled it and that the Brāhmaṇa officer of the Cōḷa country was more successful in dealing with the situation. The reforms consisted, in our view, in the introduction in Uttaramērūr of a fully developed committee system of village administration

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for the first time in the twelfth year of Parāntaka by the Sabhā of that place, and in the clearer and more precise definition, two years later, of the rules governing the elections to the committees. The blame, if any, for the vagueness and uncertainty of the original rules, and the credit for the precision and clarity of the revised version must alike attach primarily to the assembly itself. The single official who was present by the king's order on either occasion, though he might have had a share in guiding the proceedings of the assembly by the respect he would have commanded as the king's representative, can hardly be held responsible for the settlement reached at the end or even for the form of expression adopted.

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Before taking up ‘B’ for consideration, the results of the foregoing discussion may be summed up. There is nothing to support Venkayya's view that ‘A’ embodies a reform of the administration of Uttaramerūr undertaken and carried out by the Cōḷa king Parāntaka I to rescue it from the corruption and inefficiency caused by wicked men having gained control of it. For its plausibility this veiw depends on (a) a too literal understanding of the general phrase at the end of ‘A’: ‘so that the wicked may perish and the good prosper’, which gives the rationale of all government and regulation, and (b) a reading into the earlier record of notions derived from the later one about embezzlement of public funds and failure to submit accounts. If we put aside the false suggestions arising from these faulty steps—even ‘B’ speaks only of accounts not being submitted, not of embezzlement (end of l. 4)—we see clearly the nature of the rules governing service on committees, and realise that, far from being the result of indignation against particular persons who had ruined the village and the management of its affairs, they are only dominated by a natural desire to afford equal opportunities of service to all eligible men.

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What then were the nature and occasion of the reform and by whom was it effected? Its nature consisted evidently in the introduction of a well-developed committee system, apparently till then unknown in the management of the affairs of Uttaramērūr. The earliest mention of the vāriyam is in an inscription from the Tinnevelly district, and though no final account of the history of this organisation can be attempted in the present state of research, it seems probable that the system was of gradual growth. Earlier and tentative attempts to divide the work of the village among individual members may have grown in course of time into an elaborate system of management through committees with a clearly marked division of labour among them. And the presence of the king's official at the meeting of the assembly shows that the king had something to do with the reform. But the words of the inscription leave no doubt that the essential points of the decision were reached by the assembly at its meeting; there is, however, no means of deciding whether this reform was undertaken on the initiative of the king or of the assembly itself. If, as seems not unlikely, the vāriyam system was sought to be developed further at Uttaramērūr than was common at the time among the assemblies of other villages, the king would have had good reason to send out an officer to watch the nature of the changes introduced by the assembly of Uttaramērūr. And the novelty of the system more than anything else may go far to explain the imperfections of the first constitution.

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This brings us to a consideration of the differences between 'A' and 'B.' The most important of these

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aim at giving clearer expression to the qualifications of candidates for election to the committees and to the procedure to be followed in the elections. There are some other changes of a minor character. These will become clear in the course of the detailed comments that follow.

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‘B’ *ll.* 1-2: See the notes on ‘*ivvāṇḍu mudal*’ and ‘*śrīmukhappaḍi āṇaiyiṇāl*’ under ‘A’ *ll.* 1-2. The expressions used are more detailed throughout, e. g., ‘*eṅgaḷukku śrīmukham varakkaṭṭa śrīmukhappaḍi āṇaiyiṇāl*’. The name of the king is mentioned here unlike in ‘A’, and the name of the Brahman officer deputed by the king is given fully with the country, district, and town from which he came. There is however nothing to show that in official status or in the scope of his reference he differed from Tattaṇūr-mūvenda-vēḷān of ‘A’.

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‘B’ *l.* 3: *eḷubadu pirāyattin kīḻ muppattaindu pirāyattin mēṟpaṭṭār*: The age limit here laid down is 35 to 70 as against 30 to 60 of ‘A’. Venkayya suggested * that this change was due either to ‘young men’ having kept the company of ‘wicked men’ or to experience having shown rashness still persisting in the administration of the committees. This will account for raising the lower age-limit from 30 to 35 but not for putting up the higher limit. It would seem that this variation in the age-limits prescribed for service on committees has no very special reason underlying it, unless it be a realisation that too many competent people in the village over sixty had been kept out by the earlier rule, and that the newer limits were more in accordance with the age-distribution of the population in the village. In other words, this may be only a minor change which was effected incidentally because a revision of the rules had been necessitated by more imperious reasons.

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∗ *A R E* 1899, paragraph 70

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‘B’ *l. 3*: *mantra-brāhmaṇam vallān ōduvittarivāṇai*: This expression takes the place of *vēdattilum śāstrattilum kāryattilum nipuṇar eṇṇappaṭṭiruppārai (l. 4)* of ‘A.’ The statements in this record concerning the qualifications of persons eligible for service on committees, the classes of persons who shall be excluded from such service and the period of such exclusion are very clear and definite. The qualifications include conditions regarding age, property and learning, besides general ability and character. The phrase now under consideration makes the educational qualifications more definite than before. To say that a person must have a reputation for being learned in the Veda and the Śāstra, as ‘A’ said, was to give no clear indication of the standard of learning that entitled a man to have his name included among the pot-tickets. This question of the exact standard of learning implied in the original rule was, we may presume, much canvassed among the meticulous *vaidiks* of Uttaramērūr. As a result, the standard was carefully laid down. Ordinarily a candidate had to know the *mantra-brāhmaṇa*¹ and possess experience in expounding it. It may be recalled here that, in a similar context, the Mānūr inscription requires candidates to possess a knowledge of *mantra-brāhmaṇa* and one *dharma*.

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¹ Monier-Williams gives this phrase the meaning ‘Mantras and Brāhmaṇas’ and also notes that it is the name of a work. Venkayya felt a slight difficulty with *ōduvittarivāṇ*, and suggested that it should be *ōduvikka arivāṇ*. But the former phrase means “one who has known teaching”, i. e. possesses experience of it.

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‘B’ *ll. 3-4*: *arailkānilamē......puga iḍuvadāgavum*: The assembly of Uttaramērūr apparently took account of the usual divorce between learning and riches, and

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fixed the property qualification of very learned men at half the usual standard. Thus a person versed in a Veda in its entirety and possessed of experience in teaching one of the four *bhāṣyas* might have only 1/8 *nilam* instead of the usual 1/4.

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It will be observed that the short sentences in this inscription are much easier to follow than the long-winded sentence in ‘A’ (ll. 3 7) which mixes up in one unwieldy statement the qualifications and disqualifications of members and the details of the process of election.

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‘B’ *l. 4*: *mūruṭṭin ippuṛam vāriyanjeydilattārai*: This phrase must be carefully noted as excluding from committees all persons who had served on them within the three years preceding the election simply by reason of such service. According to Venkayya this three year rule unduly limited the field of choice and was, as he mistakenly thought, dropped when, in A. D. 920-21 (the date of this record), “the prohibition was restricted only to defaulting committee members and their relatives.” As a matter of fact, by the arrangement of clauses in this record, not to have served on any of the committees in the three years preceding the year to which the particular election related, was as much one of the qualifications requisite for valid candidature as the possession of property, learning and character.

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‘B’ *ll. 4-6*: *eppērppaṭṭa . . . . puga iḍa pperāttār-āgavum*: This is the first of the series of clauses enumerating crimes and sins which resulted in a permanent or temporary exclusion of those who committed them from service on the committees. These clauses are for the most part new, as is also the phrase ‘*āsāramuḍaiyarāṇāraiyēy*’ among the qualifications in l. 4, of which phrase most of the new clauses constitute an explanation.

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The first prohibitory clause deals with those who had served on committees and were in default, and their relatives. The earlier record pronounced a general prohibition directed against the relatives of all persons who had served on committees. This general prohibition was perhaps too wide, vague and unjust in its incidence. First, it did not define the relatives in any more specific manner than by employing the adjective 'close' (*aṇiya*). Secondly, it did not specify any period of time to which the prohibition applied. For these reasons, and possibly out of a sense of the injustice of excluding for an indefinite period the relatives of all men, good and bad alike, who had served on the committees, the assembly felt the need for making the exclusions and prohibitions more specific in character and duration. We find, accordingly that this first clause only excludes those who, having served on committees, failed to render accounts, and twelve classes of their relatives from service on committees; but it specifies no period, and we have therefore to assume that a permanent exclusion of these persons was contemplated. The same must be taken to apply to all similar cases that follow.

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'B' l. 7: *kaiyūṭṭu*: Venkayya translates this into 'forbidden dish.' For this translation for which little or no support is derived from the dictionaries or from literary usage, he seems to depend on the reference to '*kṛta prāyaścittam*' which follows. This he thinks is a mistake for '*ghṛta prāyaścitta*' and cites * Manu XI 215 in support. But '*ghṛta prāyaścitta*' is not a term known to Dharmaśāstra literature; the drinking of hot ghee for three days is part of a long *prāyaścitta* known as '*taptakṛcchra*' (Manu XI 215) which Manu prescribes as

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penance for eating forbidden food (XI 157). The whole passage in the inscription is difficult, and ‘*kaiyūṭṭu*’ has been interpreted by the Tamil Lexicon as ‘bribe,’ which seems to be no more than a guess as no other text is cited in support of the meaning and as it makes the following reference to ‘*prāyaścitta*’ even more unintelligible.

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‘B’ *l.* 7 : ‘*avravar prāṇāntikam*’ : ‘To the end of his life’, (Venkayya). This phrase casts a doubt on the proper view to be taken of the period to which exclusions with no duration attached to them were meant to apply. The following is a resume of the clauses of prohibitions and the duration, if any, laid down by each:

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(1) members of committees who after their period of service did not submit accounts and their relatives (specified), no period;

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(2) those who committed incest and the first four *mahāpātakas* and their relatives as specified in (1), no period;

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(3) *samsargapatitas* (those who incurred sin by contact with sinners), till they perform *prāyaścittam*;

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(4) *sāhasiyar* (nature not clear owing to a gap in the inscription), no period;

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(5) those who stole others’ property, no period;

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(6) those who became pure by some *prāyaścitta* for taking *kaiyūṭṭu*, to the end of their lives;

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(7) those who became pure by *prāyaścitta* for committing *pātakam*, for having turned *grāmakaṇṭakas*, or for having committed incest, to the end of their lives.

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It will be observed that those who committed incest, *agamyāgamanam*, are included both in (2) and (7), and that while (7) gives the term of exclusion as the whole life-time of the persons concerned, (2) gives no period. We may perhaps conclude that all the prohibitions except (3) were intended to be permanent.

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‘B’ *l. 9*: *āga iccuṭṭappaṭṭa*...........*iḍuvadāgavum*: Here begin the rules of procedure for the election which, by contrast with the brief statement on this subject in ‘A,’ strike us as remarkably clear and full. The clause quoted here lays down clearly that the pot-tickets collected from each *kuḍumbu* were tied together in one bunch, and a descriptive label attached to it. The bunches of all the thirty *kuḍumbus* were then deposited in the pot in that form. Note the important points that the tickets were not, as laid down in ‘A,’ to be collected according to *śēris*, and that this change in procedure is very carefully marked in the language employed.

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‘B’ *ll. 9-11*: *kuḍavōlai parikkumbōdu*......*ōrō-pēr koḷvadāgavum*: These lines embody the arrangements calculated to secure full publicity and the elimination of all chance of fraud in the conduct of the election. The whole *Mahāsabhā* met; the temple priests had a special part; they sat in an inner enclosure and conducted the election in the presence of the entire *Mahāsabhā*. The phrase *mahāsabhaiyilē uḷ maṇḍapattilēy iruttikkoṇḍu* means not ‘be caused to be seated in the inner hall, (where) the great assembly (meets)’ (Venkayya), but “be caused to sit in the inner *maṇḍapa* of the assembly.” From what follows, we see that this inner *maṇḍapa* must have been so situated that a person standing in it might be seen by the whole assembly. The phrase *pagulē antaram ariyūdāṇoru - pāḷaṇai-kkoṇḍu* has been

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translated by Venkayya into ‘by any young boy standing close, who does not know what is inside.’ It corresponds, however, quite clearly, to ‘ēdum uruvariyādāṇ oru bālaṇaikkoṇḍu’ of ‘A’ (ll. 6-7), and surely means “by a young boy who cannot even by day distinguish (between one thing and another).” Note also the double use of the lot.

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‘B’ ll. 11-12: *ikkoṇḍa muppadu.....karai kāṭṭi-kkoḷ-vadāgavum*: These clauses deal with the personnel of the committees to be constituted from the thirty representatives of the *kuḍumbus* elected by lot in the manner prescribed in the preceding clauses. (1) The annual committee was to include persons who had served on the garden and tank committees and those who were notable for their age or learning. No statement is made as to the number of members of this committee; but we may infer that it was twelve from the way the next two sentences mention ‘twelve people out of the rest’ and ‘the remaining six’ as constituting the (2) garden committee and (3) the tank committee respectively. By its name, and by the special stress on previous experience in the committees and on pre-eminence in age or learning among its members, the annual committee appears to have been considered the most important among the committees. What the exact nature of its work was and how it was more important than that of the other committees can be ascertained only by a more detailed study of the working of committees in Uttaramerūr and elsewhere than can be undertaken here.

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The provision that ex-members of the garden and tank committees should, if elected, be preferred for the annual committee calls for some consideration. Except in the case of the annual committee, the rules in 'A' forbade the re-election of the same person, even after the three year interval, to the same committee ('A' l. 11). This restriction does not appear in 'B'. How many of the thirty representatives of the *kuḍumbus* chosen in any year possessed experience of service on committees was purely a matter of accident. If our view, that the committee system was first adopted for the management of the affairs of the *Sabhā* when 'A' was drawn up, is accepted, the rule against the re-election of any person who had served on a committee within the three years preceding the election would have precluded any person with such experience getting on the panel of thirty in the first year or two after 'B' came into force. On the other hand, there was nothing to prevent more than twelve such persons being included in the panel in subsequent years. In either event, the preference shown to age and learning would guide the choice of the twelve for the annual committee.

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The mode of choice for the garden and tank committees is described by the words '*karai kāṭṭi*' (l. 12) which as Venkayya rightly says * must be taken to mean the same thing as "*karai paṛittu*" of l. 15. Venkayya understood the expression to mean something like 'oral expression of opinion.'

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'B' *ll. 12-13*: '*vāriyañjeyyāniṉṟārai...oḻittuvuḍāgarum*': This is a clear right of recall which the assembly reserves to itself. It is unknown to 'A'. We are not informed whether a vacancy that arose by such recall was filled before the next annual election and what civic disabilities attached to a person so recalled. It was doubtless a power meant to keep the men in office on the straight path and exercised by the assembly only on rare occasions. No instance of the exercise of this power is known.

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∗ 23. *A. S. I.* 1904-5 p. 144 n 3.

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‘B’ *l. 13*: *paṇṇiraṇḍu śēriyilum dharmakṛtyaṅ-gaḷai-kkāṇum vāriyarē*: “The members of ‘the committee for supervision of justice’ in the twelve śēris” (Venkayya). It may well be doubted, *pace* Venkayya, if this body of men, with whom the initiative rests to ask the *madhyastha* to convene the meeting of the assembly for the annual elections, was a committee of the assembly like the other committees. Literally translated, the phrase means: “the *vāriyar* who supervise *dharmakṛtyam* in the *śēris* (shall) by themselves.” This looks different from a separate ‘justice committee,’* on a par with the ‘garden committee’, ‘annual committee’ etc. Further, supervision of ‘*dharmakṛtyam*’ may not be so much ‘supervision of justice’—it is hard to see what this might mean—as ‘administration of charitable trusts.’ When the term of office of one set of committees came to a close and a new set had to be formed, the ‘*vāriyar*’ who were in charge of the administration of charitable trusts in the twelve ‘*śēris*’ were to act together and request the *madhyastha* to summon the assembly for the elections. It is difficult to say if the ‘*vāriyar*’ were members of the committees of the assembly with the constitution of which the whole record deals, or if they were *ad hoc* officials who supervised charities and were appointed by the assembly in some manner of which we have no knowledge. On the former supposition, they might have been all members of the ‘annual committee’ which might have been responsible for the maintenance of charities.† But it is hard to see why, if this was so, the inscription does not make it clear. It is also possible that supervision of charitable works might have been divided among some of the thirty committee-men of a year irrespective of their membership in particular committees. However that may be, we have no evidence of a separate ‘justice committee’ here.

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∗ *Contra A. R. E. 1899 paragraph 71 where Venkayya admits that no rules are laid down for its choice and suggests that they were part of the annual supervision committee.*

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‘B’ ll. 13-15: *pañcavāra vāriyattukkum*........*karai parittu koḷvadāgavum*: For the choice of the *pañcavāra* and gold committees the process of election is the same as before up to the choice of thirty representatives, one from each *kuḍumbu*; and this is briefly but clearly indicated by the words used in the context. Then, there is a notable difference between ‘A’ and ‘B’ with regard to representation on these two committees. ‘A’ prescribed their election by *śēris*, so that every year each *śēri* had a representative on one or the other of these two committees. ‘B’ evinces an equal anxiety that the membership of these committees should go round; but representation on these committees is by *‘kuḍumbus’* (not *śēris*). And the twelve *kuḍumbus* which sent representatives in any one year were excluded from the next year’s election to these committees. The result was that after the first year’s election under the new rules, twelve *kuḍumbus* out of thirty were retired from the field of selection by an automatic rotation, and thus there would be, in any year, only eighteen eligible *kuḍumbus* from which twelve were chosen for representation on these two committees. In fact it becomes clear at this point that the most fundamental difference between ‘A’ and ‘B’ is to be sought in the manner in which ‘B’ seeks to avoid, at every step, the confusion that resulted from linking the *śēri* with the *kuḍumbu*, in the rules laid down by ‘A’, for purposes of representation on the committees. As a result we are able to follow quite clearly all the stages in the representative system laid down in ‘B’. The superiority of its technique over that of ‘A’ is unmistakable.

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But why exactly, both in ‘A’ and ‘B’, two elections of a like nature are contemplated, one for the election of the annual, garden and tank committees, and the second for the *pañcavāra* and gold committees, does not seem to be easy of explanation. It looks as if this feature in ‘B’ was the relic of the attempt made in ‘A’ to secure the equal representation of the twelve *śēris* thrice over—once on the annual committee, a second time on the garden committee, and lastly, on the *pañcavāra* and gold committees together. And it would appear that ‘A’ contemplated not two but three separate elections, though this, like so much else in ‘A,’ is far from clear. But the system broke down on account of its clumsiness, and the attempt to treat the *śēri* as a political unit of equal importance with the *kuḍumbu* had to be given up. The result is seen in the system of ‘B’ which linked the *kuḍumbu* directly with the committees. The number of members of the committees fixed by the original system was, however, retained; this necessitated the election in all of 42 persons for five committees (12, plus 12, plus 6, plus 6, plus 6), and there were only thirty *kuḍumbus*. Given the conditions of the problem, thirty *kuḍumbus* to form the constituencies, forty-two members to be chosen, and equality of representation to be attained, it seems hardly possible to improve upon the device of the double-election combined with the automatic retirement, by rotation, of some *kuḍumbus* every year from the second election.

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Linked texts (4)

Mānava Dharmaśāstra — Manu & Bhṛgu, Sanskrit
Bhagavadgītā — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit
Tirukkuṟaḷ — Tiruvaḷḷuvar, Tamil