SOUTH INDIAN VILLAGE SYSTEM
The organisation which was responsible for
the continuity of life and tradition in the midst
of frequent political changes in south India was
the village, and the vitality of this institute is
attested by hundreds of inscriptions from all arts
of south India. The degree of autonomy at the
south Indian village level was quite remarkable.
Participation of royal officials in village affaris
was more as advisors and observers than as
administratiors.
Type of Villages
The village with an intercaste population,
paying taxes to the king in the form of land
revenue, was the most frequent type.
Brahmadeya or agrahara villages were
villages granted to Brahmins and inhabited
entirely by them. These were less common than
the first type, but much more porsperous,
because of their exemption from tax.
Devadan were villages granted to god, they
functioned more or less in the same manner sa
the first type except that the revenues form these
villages were donated to temple, and, hence,
received by the temple authorities and not by
the state.
During the Pallava period, the first two type
were predominant, but under the Cholas when
temples become the centres of life, the third of
the last type gained more popularity.
The emperor was the pivot on which the
whole machinery of the state turned. He
discharged his onerous duties and responsibilities
with the advice and help of ministers and other
high offcers. The inscriptions of the Cholas prove
that there system of administration was highly
organise and efficient. Public revenue was
derived mainly from land and collected in kind,
or in cash, or in both, by village assemblies. Land
was possessed by individual and communities.
There were peasant proprietorship and other
forms of land tenure. The state’s demand of land
revenue seems to have been one third of the gross
produce in the time of Rajaraja I. The other items
of public income were customs and tolls, which
were taxes on various kinda of professions,
mines, forests. salt, etc. There were occasional
famines, general or local; the visitation of 1152
evidently belonged to the former category,
though there is evidence of the sympathetic
administration of the tax system-Kulottunga I
earned fame by abolishing toll some cases of
oppression are on record. The chief items of
public expenditure were the regular expenses of
the king and his court, army and navy, civil
administrative staff, roads, and irrigation tanks
and channels besides temples and religious
endowments.
The village assembly held society together
through its unique feature of an autonomous selfsufficient
village. The village was the primary
unit of society and polity. From inscriptional
records we are able to trace the presence of at
least three types of assembly held society
together through its unique feature of an
autonomous self-sufficient village. The village
was the primary unit of society and polity, from
inscriptional records we are able to trace the
presence of at least three types of assemblies
which played a regular part in local
administration, namely (a) the ur, (b) the sabha
or mahasabha and (c) the nagaram. The ur was
evidently the more common type of assembly of
the normal villages. Land was held by all classes
of people who were, therefore, entitled to
membership in the local assembly. The sabha was
apparently an exclusively Brahmin assembly of
the brahmadeya villages where, all the land
belonged to the Brahmins.
The nagaram was an assembly of merchants
and belonged to localities where traders and
merchants were in a dominate position.
Functioning and constitution of assemblies
The functioning of assemblies differed form
place to place according to local conditions. The
ur was open to all the tax paying adults of the
village, but in effect, the older members played
more prominent role with some forming a small
executive body, the ur had an executive body,
called alunganam, whose numerical strength
and the manner of the appointment of its
members are not clear. The sabha had a more
complex machinery, and it funtctioned very
largely through its committees called the
variyams. Both usually constituted smaller
committees of different sizes from among their
members for specialised work.
Election to the executive body and other
committees of the ur of sabha appears to have
been conducted by draw of lots form among
those who were eligible, though amendments to
the constitution and working of the ur or sabha
were made whenever necessary. The
Uttaramerur Inscription, behinging to the reign
of Parantaka I (10th century), gives us detail
about the functioning and constitution of the
local sabha. It mentions not only qualifications,
ranging from property and education to honesty,
but also disqualification of the local sabha. It
mentions not only qualifications, ranging form
property and education to honesty, but also
disqualifications such as lunacy and corruption.
Other inscriptions also give similar information,
though there are a few variations. The assembly
generally met in the premises of the temple. The
assemblies collected the assessed land revenue
for the government or the temple (assessment
could be either joint or individual). They levied
additional tax for a particular purpose such as
the construction of a water tank. They settled
agrarian disputes such as conflicts over tenures
and irrigation rights. They maintained records,
particularly those pertaining to charities and
taxes on larger assemblies.
The two Uttaramerur inscriptions of the
twelfith and fourteenth years (919 and 921) of
the Chola monarch Parantaka I may be
considered great landmarks in the history of the
Chola village assemblies. In these inscriptions,
we see the completion of the transition from the
appointment of individual executive officers (the
variyar) by the sabha to the establishment of a
fairly elaborate committee system. By this means,
important sections of local administration were
entrusted to committees (Variyam) of six or
twelve members according to the importance of
their functions. The first inscription laid down
rules for the election of the various committees,
and the second inscription, dated two years later,
amended these rules with a view to removing
some practical difficulties that had been
experienced in their working.
