Studies in Cola History and Administration c12.83

c12.83

‘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.