Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c15.25

c15.25

Although Manu recommends payment of lower class servants in cash or paṇa, he is the first lawgiver to ordain that fiscal and administrative functionaries should be paid by grants of land,⁵ a provision also repeated by Bṛhaspati.⁶ This again reminds us of the situation in which both religious and non-religious services are paid through land grants. Direct epigraphic corroboration of non-religious grants is not available because these were recorded on such perishable material as piece of cloth or the bark of the birch tree, but we have a few instances of land grants to secular parties in the fifth century.⁷ The term *daśagrāmi* used by Kauṭilya and *daśagrāmapati* by Manu¹ is however mentioned first in a Pāla inscription of the ninth century.²