Studies in Cola History and Administration c12.48

c12.48

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.