Studies in Cola History and Administration c12.81

c12.81

‘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.