A History of Agriculture in India v1.c29.s5: The Headman
A History of Agriculture in India v1.c29.s5
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The Headman
v1.c29.s5.1
The Jatakas refer to the headman generally under the designation 'gamabhojaka'. The Kulavaka Jataka refers to gamabhojaka who used to make money in sinful ways and who tried to harass innocent men. The appointment of the headman was either hereditary or was conferred by the village council itself. The villages of the industrial type appears to have had an elderman (*jetthaka*) as the head. The Suchi Jataka tells us that there was a 'jetthaka' at the head of the village of 1,000 blacksmiths. It indicates extensive use of iron for fabrication of agricultural implements. The headman appears also to have been sometimes a nominee of the king even during the Jataka period. According to the Kharassara Jataka the king appointed an 'amachcha' (minister) as the headman of a village and he collected the revenue (*bali*) from the village on behalf of the king. In the Gamani-Chanda Jatakas we are told that an officer named Chanda after retiring in old age from service took to farming in a village. The king made a grant of this village to him as a *Brahmadeyya* (full gift). Chanda thus became the headman of the village.
v1.c29.s5.2
The Kulavaka Jataka tells us that the members of the thirty families of a village met in the village to consider the common problems of the village community. We further learn that they kept the roads in repair, cut down trees that obstructed traffic, constructed cause-ways, dug water-reservoirs and built a hall.
v1.c29.s5.3
Kautilya refers to the headman (*gramika*) as well as to the village-elders (*grama-vriddhah*), who constituted the local assembly. The headman co-operated with the Gopa, a royal official, in maintaining the village register, which contained a full description of the tax-paying and non-tax-paying parts of the village, a record of gifts, sales, charities and remission of taxes. The Gopa attended to the accounts of five or ten villages. Villages were divided into the following categories: villages exempted from taxation, those that supply soldiers, those that pay their taxes in the form of grains, cattle, gold or raw material, and those that supply free labour and dairy produce in lieu of taxes. Kautilya enjoins: ‘When the headman of the village has to travel on account of any business of the whole village, the villagers shall by turn accompany him: those who cannot do this shall pay 1½ panas for every Yojana.’ This shows that the headman was assisted by the villagers in matters relating to the whole village. The village elders, with the *gramika* at the head, looked after the local administration. So far as affairs touching land were concerned, we notice them, in the first place, taking charge of property of the infants or minors and improving it. They looked after the temple-property (*deva-dravyam*). ‘In the absence of claimants to dilapidated religious buildings, villagers or charitable people may repair them. They also conducted the sale of buildings of different kinds, fields, gardens, lakes or tanks, etc. The property on sale was accurately described, so that the buyer could know exactly what he was going to and the sale was by auction. They decided disputes concerning boundaries of land within a village as well as those between two or more villages in consultation with the elders of other village. They also punished those who made encroachments upon the boundary-areas or destroyed the boundary-marks.
v1.c29.s5.4
The Prakrit inscriptions refer to the headman under the designations ‘gramika’, ‘gamabhojaka’, and ‘gamani’, and to a committee under the name ‘gotthi’ or ‘gotti’ which corresponded to the village assembly.¹
v1.c29.s5.5
¹ Gupta, K.N. *The Land System in South India*, p. 41-45
Cites (1)
- Jātaka — Pāli