State Formation in South India, 850 -1280- Heitzman

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1987 24: 35Indian Economic Social History Review James Heitzman

State formation in South India, 850 -1280

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State formation in South India, 850 -1280

James HeitzmanVillanova University,Pennsylvania

The present study utilises inscriptionalrecords from the Chola period (AD849-1279)in South India in order to address several major problems con-nected with Chola kingshipin particular and with early Indian polities ingeneral: (1) What were the mechanisms evolved by kings to exert theirauthority over relatively large areas and disparatehuman groups? (2) Towhat extent did the authorityof kingsvary over distance and in relation tolocal conditions of geographyand socio-economic organisation? (3) Whatwas the relationshipbetween royalpolitical systems and local or intermediatepowers?

I will describe the earlystate as a problem in intermediate authority, thatis, an attempt to unite largenumbers of localised social and economic unitswithin varyingecologicalniches into overarchingsystems of political controlthrough the creation or remodelling of mediating social institutions orcommunications. The goalof this descriptionis a view of kingship as anagency representing the dominatingclasses of an agrarian society butchallenging, through its impacton political and economic organisation,thepositions of dominant groups. The methodology employed for this studyutilises descriptivestatistics and strict controls over variables of time and

spacein order to relate

changesin state institutions at the

highestlevels to

changes in the productive and extractive modes operating in localenvironments.

The study addresses three models of state formation-bureaucratic,segmentary, and feudal-that portray the state in pre-modem South Asia.These models focus on the relationshipof state institutions to local andintermediate arenas of power, and their ultimate relationshipto forms of

Acknowledgements: Many thanks to David Ludden and Carol Breckcnridge,wh ~ read earlierdrafts of this paper and contributed helpfulcomments.

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productionand control of resources in an

agrarianworld. The models

disagree on the nature 6f the relationshipbetween royal administrativeorgans, however defined, and intermediate or local power-holders.Earlierscholars stressed central bureaucratic power,2 the students of feudalismhave stressed independent, intermediate political offices,3 and proponentsof the segmentary state have stressedlocal authorities. Each model takes itsposition within different approachesto time and space. The bureaucraticapproach is the most static, since it posits little structural change, ormotivation for change,from the time of the Mauryas(fourth-thirdcenturies ,Be) until the Muslim invasions of the eleventh century and beyond.The

1 Herman Kulke has discussed the three main models of pre-modern South Asian historio-graphy in Fragmentationand Segmentation Versus Integration? Reflections on the Conceptsof Indian Feudalism and the Segmentary State in Indian History,Studies in History, Vol. 4,No. 2 (1982), pp. 237-54. See also James Heitzman, Socio-Economic Formations in PremodernSouth Asia: Case Studies and Methodology, Peasant Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Fall 1985), pp.47-60.

2 R.C. Majumdar ed., The Historyand Culture of the Indian People, Vol. 2, Bombay, 1951,pp. 303-34; K.A.Nilakantha Sastri ed., A ComprehensiveHistory of India, Vol. 2, Calcutta,1957, pp. 50-66; Anant Sadashiv Altekar, The R&amacr;shtruk&umacr;tasand Their Times, Poona, 1934, pp.174-76; Krishna Murari, The C&amacr;lukyasof Kaly&amacr;ni(from circa 973 A.D. to 1200 A.D., Delhi,

1977, pp. 191-98; Romila Thapar, Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, Delhi, 1961,pp.98-123. Burton Stein has summarised South Indian versions of this historiography in The Stateand the Agrarian Order in Medieval South India: A HistoriographicalCritique, in BurtonStein ed., Essays on South India, New Delhi, 1975, pp. 65-69; Peasant State and SocietyinMedieval South India, Delhi, 1980, pp. 254-64.

3 Ram Sharan Sharma, Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India, Delhi, 1959, pp.199-230; Indian Feudalism: c. 300-1200, Calcutta, 1965;Sudras in Ancient India: A SocialHistory of the Lower Order Down to circa A.D. 600, Delhi. 1980, pp. 171,192-93,243,260-61;Perspectives in Social and Economic Historyof Early India, New Delhi, 1983. pp. 128-56; HowFeudal was Indian Feudalism? Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 12, Nos. 2 and 3 (1985), pp.33-36; D. D. Kosambi, The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline, New

Delhi, 1981, pp. 192-98; Ganesh Prasad Sinha, Post-Gupta Polity (A.D.500-750): A

Studyofthe Growth of Feudal Elements and Feudal Administration, Calcutta, 1972,pp. 198-219, B.N.S.Yadava, Secular Land Grants of the Post-GuptaPeriod and Some Aspects of the Growth ofFeudal Complex in Northern India. In D.C. Sircar ed., Land Systemand Feudalism in AncientIndia, Centre of Advanced Study in Ancient Indian History and Culture, Lectures andSeminars No. I-B, Calcutta, 1966, pp. 72-94.

4 Burton Stein, The Segmentary State in South Indian History, in Richard G. Fox ed.,Realm and Region in Traditional India, Durham, S.C., 1977; Peasant State and Society inMedieval South India, Delhi, 1980, pp. 101-09, 134-40, 173-82, 270-72;Politics, Peasants andthe Deconstruction of Feudalism in Medieval India, Journal of PeasantStudies, Vol. 12,Nos. 2and 3, pp. 61-65; State Formation and Economy Reconsidered, Modern Asian Studies, Vol.19, Part 3

(July 1985), pp.393-400; Kenneth Hall, Peasant State and

Societyin Chola Times: A

View from the Tiruvidaimarudur Urban Complex, IESHR, Vol. 18, Nos. 3 and 4 (1982), pp.393-96; R. Champakalakshmi, Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India: A Review

Article, IESHR, Vol. 18, Nos. 3 and 4, pp. 411-26;Vcnkata Ragotham, ReligiousNetworksand the Legitimations of Power in Fourteenth Century South India: A Study of KumaraKampanasPolitics of Intervention and Arbitration in Madhu Sen ed., Studies in ReligionandChange.New Delhi. 1983, pp. 150-66; David Ludden, Peasant History in South India. Princeton.1985, pp. 26-40. 214.



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segmentary state of Burton Stein contains explicit references to spatialvariability, since it originatesand flourishes in nuclear areas of peasantfarmingcommunities within irrigated zones in distinction to non-irrigated.drier zones; ritual control becomes more tenuous with increasingdistancefrom the nuclear zones, exhibitingcentral, intermediate and peripheralforms of political authority. The dynamics for systemic changeover timeare not as clear as spatial dynamicsin the segmentary mudel. Feudalism, onthe other hand, offers a clear-cut chronologicalprogression, from the crisisof an ancient socio-economic and political formation in the carly Christianera through subsequentfragmentationof state rights. The feudal hypothesisremains weaker in its

spatial aspects,since feudal relations

maybe described

almost anywhere in earlySouth Asia, poorly articulated with local modesand relations of production.66

In the following discussion, I will address the central problematic ofhistorical models of pre-modernstate formation-the articulation of central,intermediate and local authority-within parameters that explain spatialvariability and temporalchange. The Chola dynasty is the choice for thiscase study because the numerous records of the Chola period,amounting toover 10,000 inscriptions,providedata that allow statistical analyses impossiblein most other areas of earlySouth Asia for which data are scarcer and morefragmentary. The rich Chola-perioddata may produce insights that maythen be extrapolated to other areas of South India or South-Asia as a whole,where historical sources are less plentiful for earlytimes.

The Study Areas in the Chola Heartland

The sources for Chola-periodhistoryare inscriptionsfound almost entirelyon the stone walls of temple structures in Tamil Nadu and surroundingstates. These records describe gifts to Brahman communities and to templesin order to support ritual performances. Because almost all inscriptionscontain brief or lengthy preambles mentioningthe reigningking and hisregnal year, approximately90 per cent of the records engraved during theperiod of Chola hegemonymay be dated with great accuracy.7

5 Stein describes nuclear areas as nadus, or agrarian zones clustered around commonirrigation facilities and containing distinct social or kinshipzones (Peasant State and Society,pp. 90-140). His interpretations rest on the work of Y. Subbarayalu,Political Geography of theChola Country (Madras, 1973, pp. 19-55: The Cola State, Studies in History, Vol. 4, No. 2(July-Dec. 1982),p. 273.

6 See suggestions of the proto-feudalcharacter of the Chola State in M.G.S. Narayanansreview of Noboru Karashimas South Indian History and Society, in IESHR, Vol. 22, No. I(Jan.-March1985),pp. 95-101.

7 We must note the peculiar nature of the inscriptional record, which is predominantlylimited to records of donations for deities. On one hand, the inscriptionsare a goldmine ofinformation on contemporary social. political, and economic organisation, which emergesobliquely, and in a pristine form, from deeds that ostensiblyrecord religiousdevotion. On the



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For purposes of statistical aggregation, the inscriptions fall into foursub-periods, each lasting about a century, and conformingto discerniblechangesin the political fortunes of the Chola dynastyand the formats of therecords themselves. Sub-period one (849-985) saw the rise of the Choladynastywithin the central area of modern Tamil Nadu, with their capitals atTanjavur and Palaiyaru within the Kaveri river delta. Most inscriptionsduring this time were short, concentrating on gifts of perpetual lamps totemplesin memory of deceased relatives. Sub-periodtwo (985-1070)beganwith the accession of the greatest of the Chola kings, Rajaraja I, whoextended Chola militarypower throughoutTamil Nadu and over much of

peninsular India. Under his immediate successors, Chola militaryexpeditionstravelled as far as the Gangariver, Southeast Asia, and Sri Lanka. Inscriptionsduring this time became more detailed and often included poeticpreambles(prasasti, meykkirti) praisingin chronologicalorder the accomplishmentsofthe kings. Sub-period three (1070-1178) began with the accession ofKulottunga I, who inherited the thrones of the Chola empire and thekingdomof the Eastern Chalukyasin modern Andhra Pradesh. Despite the .union of two major royallineages,Chola militarypower entered a period ofslow decline. Inscriptionsfrom this time contain increasinginformation onland transactions.

During sub-periodfour

(1178-1279)the Chola

dynastycollapsed. The Pandyadynastybased in the southern town of Madurai, theHoysala dynasty from modern Karnataka, and local chiefs from northernTamil Nadu divided up the Chola realm. Inscriptionsrecord increasinglandtransactions and greater numbers of local leaders arrogating to themselveshigh titles and local powers.&dquo;8

The present approach, building on the lead of Karashima and others,9concentrates on five discrete study areas, each containing largenumbers ofindividual villages, each representing varying ecological, political and

other hand, the necessityof concentrating historical inquiryon temple records constantlyfocuses attention on a forum that was certainlyimportant, but probablyonly a singleenvironmentwithin a much larger universe of human activity. Even within the world of temple records,accidents of history have left us a limited view of the large number of social transactionsoccurring in the environs of religious institutions. In the present study, then, we analysesamplesof samples that represent central historical processes but do not exhaust the potentialfor alternative social formations.

-

8 The standard histories are K.A. Nilakantha Sastri. The Colas: A History of South Indiafrom Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar, London, 1958, pp. 173-210; T.V. SadasivaPandarathar, Pirkalac colar varal&amacr;ru, Annamalainagar,1958-61. The four-partchronologyused here appears first in B. Sitaraman, Noboru Karashima, and Y. Subbarayalu,A List of theTamil Inscriptionsof the Chola Dynasty, Journal of Asian and African Studies (Tokyo), No.11, 1976, p. 89; Noboru Karashima, Y. Subbarayaluand Toru Matsui, A Concordance of theNames in the C&omacr;laInscriptions,Madurai, 1978, p. xiv.

9 Noboru Karashima ed., Socio-Cultural Change in Villagesin TiruchirappalliDistrict,Tamilnadu, India, Part I, Pre-Modern Period, Tokyo, 1983; South Indian History and Society:Studies from Inscriptions A.D. 850-1800, Delhi, 1984.



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historical features characteristic of the Chola polity(seeMap 1.). The studyareas lie within the traditional circle of the Cholas (Cholamandalam),where we may expect the fullest possiblerecord of political processesfeaturingthe Chola kings.(1) Modem Kumbakonam taluk lies in the verycentre of the Chola polity, near the capitalof Palaiyaru,alwayscontrolled by.the Chola dynasty.Its economy was, and is, oriented to the productionofrice through artificial irrigation systems dependent on the Kaveri river andits effluents. (2)Tiruchirappallitaluk lies on the southern bank of the Kaveririver, where lands benefitingfrom riverine irrigationhave supported a riceeconomy and, in the Chola period,a number of important templesheaded

by sacred Srirangam.This area was a traditional part of the Chola homeland,but Pandya and Hoysala influence became more important as the Cholascollapsed after 1220. (3) Tirutturaippundi taluk lies on the ocean to thesoutheast, at the tail end of the irrigation channels carrying Kaveri riverwater. This area is a goodexampleof a political backwater, alwaysintegratedwithin the Chola empire but having no impact on political affairs. (4)Tirukkoyilurtaluk has a mixed economic base, with a zone of rice cultivationconcentrated alongthe banks of the Pennai river and around scattered tanksfarther away from the river, but with largeexpanses of poorly-wateredlands

supportingthe cultivation of millets and animal husbandry. This area had

the characteristics of a march or border on the northern edgeof the Cholaheartland. In the tenth century it was briefly overrun by Rashtrakuta armiesfrom the northwest, and in the early thirteenth century it fell under thecontrol of the rebellious Kopperuficinkan,whose kidnappingof RajarajaChola III signalledthe collapseof the Chola political order.&dquo;(5)Pudukkottairefers to the area of modem Pudukkottai district lyingnorth of the Vellarriver, the traditional southern boundary of Cholamandalam. This southernmarch of the Cholas had no natural access to major riverine sources forirrigationand remains the scene of dry cultivation and agriculturecentred onscattered man-made lakes. The Cholas conquered this area from the Pandyarulers in the late ninth century, but the resurgent Pandyas took over againafter about 1220.

The five study areas exhibit an ecologicaland agriculturalcontinuumrangingfrom Kumbakonam and Tiruchirappallitaluks, with goodavailabilityof irrigation waters, through the more intermediate or mixed zonesexemplifiedby Tirutturaippundi and Tirukkoyilur taluks, to the relativelydry zone of Pudukkottai (seeTable 1).2 Politicallyand. historically, the five

10 K.R. Venkataraman, The Hoysalasin the Tamil Country, Annamalainagar,1950, pp.7-18; J. Duncan, M. Derrett, The Hoysalas: A Medieval Indian Royal Family, London, 1957,pp. 105-28; Nilakantha Sastri, The P&amacr;ndyanKingdom,Madras, 1972, pp. 124-37.

11 Altekar, op. cit., pp. 115-19;S.R. Balasubrahmanyam,Kopperuncinkan, Madras, 1965,pp. 14-15, 124-37; Nilakantha Sastri, The C&omacr;las,pp. 128-34, 417-44.

12 For historical characterisation of wet and dry zones in Tamil Nadu, see David Ludden,Patronage and Irrigation in Tamil Nadu: A Long-term View, IESHR, Vol. 16, No. 3 (July-Sept. 1979), pp. 349-65; Peasant History in South India, pp. 81-94; Christopher John Baker,



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areas displaya somewhat similar continuum from those zones closer to thecentre of the Chola political system and controlled by the Chola kingsforlonger periods, to the outlying zones where political fortunes and distancefrom the centre contributed to shorter periods of control by the Chola kings.

TABLE I

Ommavat= of Fr11f!Shady An-

The methodology for this study involved the collection and reading of allextant Chola-periodinscriptionsfrom the five study areas, the compilationof references to key terms relating to state formation within the collectedinscriptions, and the breakdown of the distribution frequencies of thoseterms within the four sub-periods of the Chola period.&dquo;Changes in thedistributions of the terms within the five study areas and over time suggestrelative differences in political integrationwhich may then be correlatedwith the ecological,political, and historical characteristics of the differentareas. The terms chosen for analysisrefer to the king and the royal family,officials of the king,taxation, and control over local property rights.

TheKing

and theRoyal Fantily

The kings personally appear very rarelyin the Chola-periodinscriptions, Ina few records pious donors instituted rituals producing merit for the

An Indian Rural Economy 1880-1955: The Tamilnadu Countryside, Delhi, 1984, pp. 22-34;Hans-GeorgBohle, The Cauvery Delta: An Investigationinto the History and Determinantsof Agrarian Development and Rural Underdevelopment, Indian Geographical Journal, Vol.58, No. 1 (1983), pp. 29-46; Bewasserung und Gesellschaftin Cauvery-Delta(Sdindien),Wiesbaden, 1981, pp. 10-38.

13 Chola-period inscriptions are all extant records from the five study areas containingreferences to Chola kings and/or regnalyears that situate those records within the time period849-1279. Also included within the data base are Rashtrakuta inscriptions and pre-1250inscriptionsof Kopperucinkanfrom Tirukkoyilur taluk, and pre-1250records of Pandyan orHoysalakingsfrom Tiruchirappallitaluk and Pudukkottai. The following discussions of theroyal family and officials utilise only records inscribed under the authority of the Chola kings.The later discussions of tax and property terms utilise the entire data base.



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well-beingor success of the king,indicatingthat some localities were officiallyconcerned over the rulers illnesses or militaryadventures.&dquo;In one case thegreat Rajaraja I appears on a tour of inspectionthrough the Tiruchirappalliarea, and in several cases the kings personally intervened in the arbitrationof local disputes.&dquo;But if we expand the concept of royalpresence to includemembers of the Chola lineage, and especiallythe wives of the kings andprinces,we obtain a largerpopulationof records describingthe activities ofthe royal house as a whole. 16 The policiesof the Chola house fall into the twomain categoriesof donations and royalorders.

Donations include a number of gifts to temples by the king or other

members of his familyin order to institute and support brahmanicalsacrificesand/or the worship of the god Siva.Most of these donations were largegiftssuch as ornate shrines, imagesand ornaments of preciousstones and metalsto adorn images, funding for the expensive and elaborate consecrationceremonies initiating templeworship. Even in this sphere the kings them-selves appearedrelativelyinfrequently,since queens or princessesusuallyperformed the honours. The ritual leadershipof the royalfamilyappears quitedominant in the large-scaledonations, when the ostentatious publicsupportof the moral universe, in the name of personalpiety, was the explicit message. &dquo;I

Royal orders occur in altered contexts featuringdirect royalinterference intolocal templeaffairs. A standard scenario for the issuance of a royalorder beganwith the presentationof an official request (vinnappam)by a person be,-Uinghigh honorific titles, typicallyaskingpermissionfor the deferment of taxes onagriculturalland and their transfer for the fundingof rituals at a specifictemple.The king, hearing the request, granted permissionfor tax deferment andordered that the official transfer of taxes to the templebe entered in publicrecords. Some inscriptionsappear to be word-for-word transcriptionsofthese interchanges, indicating that the king was personally involved.&dquo;

14

SII23: 252; IPS 169;KK

128; ARE 1917: 280.

Followingare the

compendiaof

publishedinscriptions used in this study, with their abbreviations: Annual Reportson Epigraphy (ARE);EpigraphiaIndica (EI); Inscriptions of the Pudukkottai State (IPS) KutantaiKalvettukkal(KK);South Indian Inscriptions (SII); Tirutturaippunti kalvettukkal (TK). All ARE referencesindicate unpublishedrecords viewed in transcriptor estampage form in the EpigraphyOffice inMysore.My thanks to Dr K.V. Ramesh, Chief Epigraphist, and his staff for their assistance inreading unpublishedinscriptions.

15 SII23: 310; ARE 1908: 468; 1914: 109; 1918: 1; 1927: 229, 231, 1931-32: 70, 71.16 George W. Spencer, When Queens Bore Gifts: Women as Temple Donors in the Chola

Period, in K.V. Raman ed., Srinidhih:Perspectives on Indian Archaeology. Art and Culture,Madras, 1983,pp. 361-73.

17 Examplesof the kingsdonations include SII 3: 276; 6: 28, 33; 23: 52, 307; KK 18, 43.Importantexamples of donations by female members of the royalfamilyinclude SII 3: 96; 4:542; 8: 237; 13: 197; 23: 42; KK 144, 147, 154; ARE 1908: 459. Donations by members of theroyalfamily outnumber donations by the kings67 to 11in the five study areas.

18 SII 5: 723; 7: 1012; IPS 141, 153; TK 39. Related phenomenaare inscriptionsdescribingthe exact location of the kingor queen during the issuingof a royalorder: SII5: 706; 8: 223: 23:48. 272. 351: ARE 1921: 533; 1934-35: 184; 1937-38: 3.21; 1961-62:429.



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The royal order was called the tirumukam, or sacred face of the king;whenthe written form of a royalorder reached local villagesfor implementation,village leaders greeted and reverenced it as if it were the king himself.9Descriptionsof court proceduresshow that, in keepingwith the quasi-sacredcharacter of the royal order, careful transcription and checking of thewritten forms was standard procedure. 20It seems certain that even thoseinscriptionsbeginningwith the simplephrase according to the royal order(tirumukattuppati) reflect the final, locallyinscribed versions of a decision-makingprocess revolvingaround the kingpersonally.It is doubtful whetherthe ceremonial issuance of the royalorder indicated in all cases royal controlover local resources, since in

manyinstances the official

request bylocal

leaders may have marked local initiatives with the simple acquiescenceofthe king.2Nevertheless, the centrality of the ruler in these transactionsdemonstrates a marked interest in, and ultimate control over, the resourceallocations associated with templesat the local level. In distinction to royaldonations, usually involvingone-time gifts within a cash nexus, royal ordersreflect penetration into local agrarian economy.

Table 2 portrays the number and relative frequencyof inscriptionscon-training references to either donations of the Cholas or royalorders of thekings.The spatialdistributions reveal a clear concentration of the activitiesof the kingsand their familymembers within the two central areas ofKumbakonam and Tiruchirappallitaluks, for these two areas yield 134 outof 167 total records, or 80 per cent of all references. The other more distantstudy areas yieldvery few references, especiallyin the category of donations(9 out of 68 records, or 13 per cent), suggestingthat the kings and othermembers of their families rarelywent outside the central areas around theKaveri river. Changes in the distributions over time reveal a consistentdecline in references to donations and a consistent increase in references to

royal orders, a trend visible in all study areas. In Kumbakonam taluk, for

example, royal orders increased from only three in the tenth century totwenty-one in the thirteenth, while donations declined from a high oftwenty-eight in the eleventh century to only two in the thirteenth.

The originaldominance of donations earlyin the career of the Cholas maymirror an emphasis on displaysof ritual primacyin the construction orconsecration of templesand the patronage of brahmanical rituals, a policythat peaked during the period of greatest Chola power in the eleventhcentury. But the eleventh century also witnessed a shift toward greaterpenetration of the royalwill into local arenas of power throughthe issuingof

19 Villageleaders, along with the person requestingthe royal order, met the order when itarrived, placed it on their heads to show obeiscence, and then circumambulated donated landswith the royalorder, mounted on a female elephant (SII3: 72; 23: 264; ARE 1931-32: 74).

20 SII8: 222, 223; ARE 1931-32: 74.21 Burton Stein, All the KingsMana: Perspectiveson Kingshipin Medieval South India, in

J. F. Richards ed., Kingshipand Authority in South Asia, Madison, 1978, pp. 136, 144-46.



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TABLE 2

DirtribfItioru of Refen!ItCG 10 DoNIIiora anIl RoyalOrden of 1M ChoIi ill FIVe Study Anm

* Ratios refer to the number of occurrences in each sub-period to the total of all inscriptionsin that sub-period.

royal orders, an activitystill surrounded by an ideologyof ritual primacybutentailingan active royal role in the allocation of resources at the local level.This policyof local involvement continued to grow even as the Chola statecontracted in the thirteenth century.

The Officials of the Chola Kings

The identification of officials working for the Chola kings is a continuingproblem that revolves around the interpretationof personal names in theinscriptions. As they appear in the survivingrecords, personal names followa typicalsouth Indian format: first comes a place intimatelyassociated withthe person, perhaps his/her native place or a village where property is

owned,then comes the

fathers/husbands name,then the

personalname.

Additional names and terms usuallyfollow the personal name as aliases,including a variety of honorific terms denoting high status (ar3yan)ormodelled after the epithets of the Chola overlords (e.g. Rdjardja colamuventave!n),and a separate series of titles that seem to denote functions..Historical scholarshiphas tended to concentrate on all these additionalterms as markers of participationin state structures. Older studies assumed



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that all honorific titles indicated a role within the administrative system of

the bureaucratic state, an approachthat has continued with modificationsuntil today.22Burton Steins segmentary state model has suggested that alladditional terms were pure honorifics perhaps bestowed by the kingsbutempty of administrative functions outside those already performedby localityleaders.23 In the present study I will avoid these two extreme viewpointsandconcentrate instead on the more limited group of terms that more obviouslypoint to supervisory functions .2&dquo;These functional terms are divisible intotwo general categories.

The first group of terms appear at first sightto denote personswhose roles

maywell include

participationwithin an articulated administrative frame-

work. A category of men performingthe settlement of the nadu (natuvakaiceykinra) in inscriptionsof the tenth and eleventh centuries is reminiscent ofthe more recent officials who compiledsettlements of land revenue inBritish India. In a typical example, the chief superintendant (kankcinindyakan) called together templeofficials at Tirunamanallur to determinethe amounts due annually from several villages and assemblies, and therequisite allocations for temple deities.2- There are also administrators(adhikri) appearingat court and also in more outlyingareas, taking care ofa variety of supervisory tasks, along with leaders of the army(senapati).For example,a record from Tiruvidaimarudur describes the intervention ofadhikdri Cirrinkan utaiyan,performerof sacred work (srikdryam) at thetemple. He hears various arguments concerningthe revenue obligationsofthe local community,orders leaders to producerelevant documents, and onthe basis of these records adjuststhe scale of allocations for worship. 26Thenthere are a number of persons associated with the retinue (parivaram)of thekingand the royalfamily(e.g. pa1)imakan, or work son), concentrated nearthe palacesbut also appearingas donors in other areas of the Chola Heartland. 27

22 Krishnaswami Aiyangar, op. cit., pp. 264-72, 376-77; Nilakantha Sastri, The Colas, pp.462-74; Sadasiva Pandarathar, op. cit., pp. 477-86; R. Champakalakshmi,op. cit., pp. 415-17.

23 Burton Stein, Peasant State and Society,pp. 257-58, 270-73.24 Earlier studies in this vein are Karashima, et al., A Concordance of the Names in the Cola

Inscriptions,Vol. 1, pp. xlv-lvi; Y. Subbarayalu,The State in Medieval South India 600-1350,Ph. D. dissertation, Madurai Kamaraj University,1976, pp. 134-63, 192; The Cola State, pp.281-85, 288-91.

25 ARE 1939-40: 228. See also SII7:988; 8: 580(a);IPS 90; Transactions of the ArchaeologicalSocietyof South India, 1958-59,pp. 84-110.

26 SII3: 202, 203; SII 5:718. See alsoSII 7: 1000; 23: 225;IPS 234; TK95; ARE 1914: 6. M.T.Rajakumar has stressed the importanceof these types of interventions in local decision-makingfor political unification under sacred kingship:K&omacr;yilporulitdrattil-aracin panku, Cenkaim&amacr;vattavaral&amacr;rrukkaruttaranku, ed. R. Nagaswamy,Madras, 1978, pp. 124-29.27 Most often these persons are part of the entourage(parivaram)of the kingor other membersof the royal family(SII5: 706, 723; 8: 234).Manyof these persons appear as donors of memoriallamps after the death of princeRajaditya in battle in 949 (SII7: 954-66).Other palace servantsworked as dancers, waitingwomen or accountants in one of the palaces(velam)in a capitalof theCholas. Some of the associates of the rulers appear as intimates (anukkan)or friends (saciva)ofthe kings; these latter persons often claim ranks higher than those of other palace servants,includingtitles of lordship(araiyan,nayakan,udaiyan)(SII23: 243, 286, 339: ARE 1927: 336).



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A close inspectionof the circumstances in which all these officials appearprovidesa composite picture of their functions. When the officials do not actsimplyas donors in their own right, they act as arbitrators of local disputes,perhaps resolvingproblems concerning amounts due for the god fromparticularplotsof land. Typically,an official comes into a village, investigates(aroy)relevant documents and hears relevant testimony, and in the presenceof local assemblies delivers a judgement that has the force of law. With veryfew exceptions,all persons bearing functional titles who perform suchinvestigationsr--nadusettlement performers, adhikdris, senpatis-seem toact either on their own initiative or with a generalised fiat from the Chola

king,and have no apparent relationshipwith royaladministrative machineryor with standardised procedures. There was a body of persons bearing thesetitles congregatedat the royalcourt, and it appears that as local disputesarose and came to the courts attention someone from this floatingbody ofloyal, honourable men would receive the commission to handle theproblem.28The various performers of tasks for the royal family fit thepattern of a household staff rather than a ramified administrative organisa-tion. Investigation of these official terminologies reveals, then, littleindication of a ramified bureaucratic system for rulingthe Chola state, butrather an extended court

peopledbyhigh-rankingassociates of the

king,including the creatures of the king,scions of other noble families allied to theChola dynasty, and close relatives of the royal family.Despite the rather adhoc basis for the interventions of these royalrepresentatives,they do functionas arms for royal penetration into local affairs and therefore performcrucialroles for the extension of royal influence outside the framework of acentralised bureaucracy.

Later inscriptionsinclude references to a quite different group of royalrepresentatives described as members of the land revenue department(puravuvari tinaikkalam). While the agents of the extended court performedwide rangingactions; members of the land revenue departmentfocus on oneobjective: the recording of land measurements and the amounts of taxes duefrom lands for the royal government or its chosen beneficiaries. Often thedepartment appeared in records featuringroyalorders, and several longinscriptionsportray the role of the department in effectingthe kingswill andits articulation with other political structures. When the king issued anorder, ic was transcribed and then witnessed by several high-rankingpersonsin the royal presence, and often by a host of adhikris who happened to bepresent. Only then the royal writ came to members of the land revenue

department, who in distinction to the rather undifferentiated mass ofadhikris appearedas holders of specific, hierarchicallyorganised officesassociated with the processingof the royal border and its transmission to thelocality it affected. Tasks included the overseeingof the department, copying

28 These courtiers are the overlords who have joined together(utanK&umacr;ttattuatik&amacr;rikal).



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47

of the record, and affixingof the royalseal, and in several cases linked withlocal agents or with the activities of other accountingdepartmentsin thepalace.29The rationalityof proceduresand recruitment in the land revenuedepartment must not be carried too far; some of the stages in documentprocessing seem quitegeneralisedand even redundant, and a majority ofmembers in the departmentappear as possessors(u4aiydr)of landedwealth in their own right, thus members of the class and status group thatproduced the adhikris.30 Nevertheless, the land revenue department exhibitssystematic, centralised features-a specific topic of activity, a chain ofcommand with differentiated, hierarchised roles, and subordination to the

orders of the king-that mark thisas a

bureaucratic state organ.Table 3 portrays the relative frequencies of inscriptionsfrom the fivestudy areas yieldingreferences to either extended-court or bureaucraticagents of the Chola kings.The spatialpattern displayed here is familiar fromthe discussion of the royal family above; the central study areas ofKumbakonam and Tiruchirappalli generallyprovide larger numbers ofreferences to officials than do the outlying taluks. The two former areasalone yield 159 out of 239 total records, or 67 per cent of all references. Thegeneral pattern over time againresembles patterns seen for changesin theactivities of the

royalfamily;agents of the extended court form the

largestcategory in the earlyChola period,but tend to decline subsequently, whilethe bureaucratic agents of the land revenue department appear more fre-quently after the beginningof the eleventh century. In Kumbakonam taluk,for example,twenty-sixrecords of the extended court in the tenth centurydeclined to three records in the thirteenth, while references to the landrevenue departmentsimultaneouslyincreased from none to twenty-one.

The data in Table 3 portray the progressive replacement of more arbitra-tional, occasional administrative policiesby those involvingdirect penetrationinto local economy and precisedetermination of royal rights and theirallocations throughroyal orders. Duringthe early stages of Chola rule, themore decentralised policieswere in order, as the polity rested on the ritualsupremacy of a generallydistant king. After about 1000, with the triumphsof Rajaraja I, royalpoliciescontinued to stress ritual leadership but began tosubtly change the rules of the game by introducing the land revenue depart-ment and royalorders more frequentlyinto local arenas. Ritual, arbitrationalforms were thus the hallmark of earlypolitical integration,more centralisedforms were the result of later and more formalised central control. The datafrom Tiruchirappallitaluk provide the exception that proves the rule.

29 SII 6: 34;8: 222, 223;23: 288, 389, 292;24: 46, 142; ARE 1931-32: 74, 115; 1978-79:291.30 Y. Subbarayalu, The State in Medieval South India, pp. 151-52. For discussions of

possessors,see Noboru Karashima, South Indian, Historyand Society,pp. 15-23, 26-30, 57-58.The concept of bureaucracyused here conforms to Max Webers idea of rationalityunder legalauthorityin The Theoryof Socialand Economic Organasation,Talcott Parsons ed., New York,1964,pp. 328-45.



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T.BBLE3 3

Distributions of Referercresto the Extended Court anddte Land Revenue Deparonett in Five Study Areas

* Ratios refer to the number oi occurrences in each sub-period to the total of all inscriptionsin that sub-period.

Unlike the other study areas, where manifestations of the extended courtwere decreasing by 1070, in this area they increased dramatically.thisphenomenon may be traced to dislocations connected with the accession of

KulottungaI and concomitant incursions of Hoysalasand Western Chalukyasinto the Tiruchirappalli area at that time.3 The renewed instability of thewest resulted in an increase in displaysof ritual sovereigntyaround Srirangam,followed later in the twelfth century by an increased presenceof the landrevenue department.The segmentary state and the ritual polity Juis appearas stages in political development which the Chola dynasty took steps toabolish as far as they were able, once their military control was firmlyc;stahlisheci. The extent of the changesthey were able to effect depended,however, on distance from the centre of the polity and on the military

strength of opposing monarchs.Taxes and Tax Collectors

Terms generally described as taxes (vari) usuallyappear in lists at the end ofinscriptionswhich record the transfer of rights to the produce from land.

31 Nilakantha Sastri, The Colas, pp. 305-10.



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The purpose of such donations was to endow tax-free land for religiousinstitutions, and the tax lists provide the names of various cesses defrayedfor the purposes of religioussacrifice and worship. 32The followingdiscussionpursues the analysisof tax terminology-importantfor an understandingofany states financesr-by definingmajor categoriesof taxes, tracingchangesin the distribution of major tax terms over time, and finally studying theagenciesmost likely to collect these cesses in different study ai eas.

Two main divisions of land cesses existed during the Chola period inrelation to the processes of productionand distribution of agrarianproduce.&dquo;( 1 ) At the local level, a varietyof duties were incumbent on the controllers oflands to pay for the annual expenses associated with maintenance of irrigationfacilities and local processes of self-governmentwithin the villages. (2)Beyond the local level there were demands from superior agencies forproportions of agrarianproduce, in turn entailingseveral kinds of exactions.Land taxes called kadamai were generallypaid in kind, accordingto schedulesthat were, at least in the central area of the Chola heartland, determinableby the land revenue department. Additional payments in cash or kind werenecessary to defray the expenses arisingfrom the collection of land taxes,especially for the temporary maintenance of collection agents. The two maindivisions of

agriculturalcesses found

expressionin the

categoriesof the

upper share (melviram)due to the superior agents and comprisinglandtaxes in kind and collection expenses, and the lower share (kijvram)retained by the controllers of the land and used to pay all cultivatingexpenses. 3,1

32 These lists of terms only rarelyprovide hints concerningthe meaningof individual terms,and much of the work done on these terms has concentrated on glossariesor, more recently,large scale studies of their distributions; T. V. Mahalingam,South Indian Polity, Madras, 1954,pp. 421-28; T.N. Subrahmaniam, South Indian Temple Inscriptions,Vol. 3, Madras, 1953-57,Part 2, Annexure; D.C. Sircar, Indian EpigraphicalGlossary, Delhi, 1966;Noboru Karashima

and B. Sitaraman, Revenue Terms in Chola Inscriptions, Journal of Asian and AfricanStudies, No. 5 (1972), pp. 87-117. See also Nilakantha Sastri, The C&omacr;las,pp. 520-45;P. Shanmugam, Revenue System under the Cholas (850-1279 A.D.), Ph.D. dissertation,University of Madras, 1977; R. Tirumalai, Studies in the History of Ancient Townships ofPudukkottai, Madras, 1981, pp. 199-268, 357-58.

33 This discussion passes over a varietyof commercial cessessignificanttransactions in thedynamic economy of south India duringthe Chola periodleviedon or collected by mercantilegroups. In the five study areas, such commercial cesses appear rather rarely, concentratedmostly in Tirukkoyilur taluk. See James Heitzman, Gifts of Power: Temples, Politics andEconomy in Medieval South India, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1985, pp.388-92. This concentration may relate to an extended commercial network focused on Kanchipuramto the north. See Kenneth Hall, Trade and

Statecraftin the

Age of theColas,New Delhi, 1980,

pp.83-97, 123-30;Kenneth Hall and GeorgeW. Spencer, The Economy of Kanchipuram, A SacredCenter in Early South India,Journal of Urban History,Vol. 6, No. 2 (Feb. 1980),pp. 128-33

34 These terms are rarelymentioned in the Chola-periodinscriptionsof the five study areas,but the existence of the broaddivisions between upper and lower shares is well-known (anddebated) in a number of studies and in modem parlance: A. Appadorai, Economic Conditionsin Southern India (1000-1500 A.D.), Madras, 1936, pp. 171-78; Nilakantha Sastri, The Colas,pp. 522-27; Leonid Alayev, The Systemof Land-Rightsin Southern India (900-1300 A.D.). in



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Aside from isolated and random references to fees for various forms of

villagegovernment,&dquo;the largestnumber of local cesses concerned expensesfor the annual or occasional upkeep of irrigation facilities, so crucial for aneconomy dependenton water for rice cultivation. Terms relating to irrigationdues carried with them connotations of local collection and expenditure, attimes in cash but mostlyin personal labour; the frequencyof these termspeaksin the records of the earlytwelfth century but declines thereafter.36 A separate term for dues of cultivators (kudimai) refers to similar types oflocal personal labour, but occurs more often in contexts suggestingcollectionby superior agenciesoutside the village; this term is rare in the earlyCholaperiod but steadily increases in frequency during later times. 3*1Similarincreases occur for the more generalisedterm viniyogam,which contextuallyincludes the cesses for local personal labour with an element of supra-villagecontrol (seeTable 4).38The data on labour dues suggest a twelfth-centurydecline in local responsibilitiesin relation to an increase in the involvementof supra-villageagencies.

The singlegreatest demand for agrarianproducewas the land tax, katjamaior more rarely irai.39 It is currentlyimpossibleto determine the percentageof the yield demanded as kadamai, but there was an attempt during theeleventh century to standardise the evaluation and measurement of rice landand to impose standard land tax rates in the areas around the Kaveri river

Proceedingsof the Fifth International Conference-Seminarof Tamil Studies,Vol. 2, Part 14,Madras, International Association of Tamil Research, 1981, pp. 17-22; R. Tirumalai, op. cit.,pp. 204-06; Kathleen Gough,Rural Societyin Southeast India,Cambridge, 1981,pp. 110-11, 152.

35 These terms range from cesses for villagegovernment (r&amacr;cci,ritu vari, rkalancu)ornadu government (ntcci)to fees for plough teams (erppon), marriage(kann&amacr;lakk&amacr;nam)orlegal expenses (vivastai). The terms are scattered randomly throughtime and space, and thereare not more than six references to any individual term. We may assume that such local cesseswere ubiquitous, but rarely crop up in inscriptionsbecause they were rarely defrayed indonation arrangements.

" Terms for irrigationdues include several kinds of vetti and vetinai(oftenglossed as forcedlabour),kulai and kurampu (terms for embankments), nir (water)or &amacr;l(manual)amanci,muttaiy&amacr;land cutti.

37 Most occurrences of the term kudimai refer to labour services for local agencies, especiallytemplesor other public buildings(e.g. SII 24: 58, 94; ARE 1927: 211, 355; 1931-32;89). Oneinstance records kudimai levied by the nadu (IPS 327). A number of references describekudimai goingfor the sacred victorious gate(tiruk korra vcal),meaningeither the templeorthe kingspalace but probably the latter (SII24: 64; ARE 1917: 276). How or when labourservices for the kingwere enforced remains unclear, althoughperiodic militaryor constructionlabour seems plausible.

38 There are viniyogamsfor the village, the Brahman assembly,and agriculturalcastes (TK 132, 190),and viniyogamincludinga variety of local labour cesses(TK 212; ARE 1927-28: 205).See also irjaniyogam(SII17: 540)and viniyogamincludingkudimai and kadamai (TK 163).

39The term kadamairarelyappears in a generic sense as a duty topay all kinds of taxes (e.g.SII 24: 53).Irai takesthe place of kadamaiat times in Kumbakonam taluk (e.g. SII8:611; ARE1917: 227) and often in Pudukkottai (e.g. IPS 135, 151, 158, 190):

40 Noboru Karashima, South Indian Historyand Society,pp. 94-105.



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TABLE 4

Distribution of Major Tax Terms in Five Study Areas

* The ratios refer tax term to total inscriptionsfrom each sub-period.

During later centuries the growingland revenue department was concernedprimarily with the determination of kadamai rates on agriculturalland ofvarious sorts. Occurrences of the term kadamai increase constantlyin theinscriptionsof the Chola period.(seeTable 4.) Parallellingthis increase wasa rise in the occurrence of a general term for the largetax (peruvari)whichapparentlyappliesto the cesses of the upper share or kadamai.41

Expenses for the collection of superiortaxation fell into the earlyconceptof eccoru, a term referring to various suppliesof cooked rice provided forofficials.2 This term was prevalentduring the earlyChola periodbut steadilydeclined over time (seeTable 4). Simultaneouslyanother term referringtointermediate income (antariyam) steadily increased in frequency,contextually connected to several other words suggesting expenses of thethreshing floor and ratios of produce. The intermediate income was a tax incash coupledconsistentlywith the land tax in kind, and determined by theland revenue department as part of the share for the Chola kings. 43Thedecline of eccoru, a term connotingoccasional provisions tendered in the

41 Whereas the term peruvari does not occur in the data base in contexts that explain its

meaning, references to the pairedterm for small tax (cilvari) often include descriptionsofother, local cesses comprisedwithin it. The term lower tax (klirai) reinforces a parallelbetween large taxes as part of the upper share and small taxes as part of the lower share (IPS 90;KK 72, 73, 74; ARE 1931-32: 93).

42 P. Shanmugam,op. cit., pp. 39-40.43 Heitzman, op. cit., pp. 395-97. For explicit references to royalcollection of antaryam,

see SII6: 33; 23: 49; ARE 1911: 211.



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village, relates to the r.3e ot antarayam, a cess linked to a more standardisedand centrallymanaged tax structure.

Table 4 portrays the frequencies of important tax terminologyduringthefour temporaldivisions of the Chola period.The central changesin taxationduring that time are visible by treatingthe six niajor terms as three separatepairs. Eccoru and antarQyam, referring to the expenses of superior taxcollection, show an obvious inverse relationship,with a steady decrease inthe frequencyof the more nebulous and perhapsoccasional eccoru cess anda steady increase in the frequencyof antarayam, a cess determ1ned by therevenue department of the Chola kings. A similar relationshipexists betweenthe aggregated terminologyconnected with local irrigation cesses and theterm kudimai which was more closelyassociated with collection by superiorstate agencies. As the term kudimai came into more general use, increasingfrom one occurrence in the tenth century to thirty-nine in the thirteenthcentury, the local terms declined after the late twelfth century. Meanwhile,relative frequencies of the land tax (kadamai)and other general tax terms(peru vari and viniyogam),officially the prerogatives of the Chola kings,continually increased over time, occurring by the thirteenth century in 15per cent of all inscriptions. A consistent

pattern emergesfrom the

studyof

majortax terms

duringthe

Chola period, pointingtoward a greater concentration of tax-collectingpower in the hands of superior agencies and a decline in the importanceofcesses collected and officially controlled by village administrations. Thesefindingssuggest an increasingpenetration of the village environment byoutside agencies officially subordinate to the Chola kings.Comparisonoftax developments with the changesin the actions of the Cholas themselvesand the duties of their official representativessupports the view of evergreater royal authorityand control of local agriculturalenvironments duringthe time after around AD 1000.

Kumbakonam, Tiruchirappalli,and Tirutturaippundi taluks, all partic-ipatingto various degrees in the irrigation ecoiiomy connected with Kaveririver water, provide no indications that agencies other than those of theChola kings (especiallythe land revenue department)were in chargeof thecollection of taxes. Central royal control was tied to the presence of the kingsthemselves and the concentration of their officials within the geographicalarea of the Kaveri river basin. This centralityof state control is less visible inthe more outlying study areas.

The Tirukkoyilur area was the centre of operations for subordinate familieseven at the dawn of written records, when Malaiyamanchiefs ruled there atthe beginningof the Christian era and defied the ancient Chola,Pandya andChera kings.During the late tenth century, as Rajaraja I consolidated theempire, a familyof Miladu chiefs came to power in Tirukkoyilur andretained local prerogatives in return for service to their Chola overlords.

After 1070, the leaders of the Tirukkoyilur area called themselves



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/53

fdalaiyaman, hearkening back to the glories of their more ancientpredecessors, and supported the Chola cause to the bitter end around1250.&dquo;1hese latter Malaiyaman chiefs appear in numerous instances ascollectors of specialprotectiontaxes (p{iikval),cesses almost unknownfrom the other four study areas during the Chola period. 41In addition,several cases suggest that the Malaiyamdnfamily at times collected landtaxes (kadamai)and other cesses associated elsewhere with the superiorrights supposedlydue to the kings.&dquo;It appears that the Chola kingsmadearrangements with locally powerful families in the Tirukkoyilur area,allowing a certain amount of local autonomy in finances in return for

militarysupport and the handlingof local administration.In dry Pudukkottai to the south, some of the administrative and tax-collectingactivities elsewhere associated with agents of the king remainedthe responsibilityof the nattar, or assemblyof nadu leaders. A large per-centage of references to the nfufr within the five study areas comes fromPudukkottai alone. despitethe fact that this area has yielded relativelyfewinscriptions.47When the n!!r met together in Pudukkottai, they sometimesperformed the arbitrational activities of adhikiris or allocated taxes in themanner of the land revenue department.48But within Pudukkottai they didnot

alwaysact in this way.

Largerpercentages of

inscriptionsrefer to their

activities in the tenth and the thirteenth centuries, with a distinct fall inreferences during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 49 It is surely nocoincidence that the periods of their decline correspondto the times ofgreatest Chola power, while the periods of their greatest visibility were timeswhen royal authoritywas most tentative. The Chola kings and their officialsextinguishedthe primacy of local assemblies when they consolidated powerin the south, but as the Chola kingsand their administrative organs retreatedthe local assemblies bounced back to establish their own local dominance.

It is possiblenow to discern three types of supra-localpolitical authoritycompeting with varying success for tax revenues extracted from the villageeconomies. At times of imperialweakness, dry and tank-irrigatedzones,with their discrete and fragile economic bases, supportednattar assemblies

44 S. Srinivasan, A Studyof the Historyof Tirukkoyilurdown to A.D. 1600, Ph.D. disserta-tion, Karnatak University, Dharwad, 1980,pp. 117-19, 147ff.

45 Y. Subbarayalu,The State in Medieval South India, pp. 53-54; P. Shanmugam,op. cit., pp.60-61: Karashima and Sitaraman, op. cit., p. 91. Within the inscriptionsof the five study areas,references to p&amacr;dik&amacr;valnumber 54,with 47 occurrences from post-1070Tirukkoyilurtaluk.

46 ARE 1906: 158; 1934-35: 135, 186,190.47 Total numbers of Chola-period inscriptions from the five study areas are as follows:

Kumbakonam taluk743;Tiruchirappallitaluk541;Tirukkoyilurtaluk631;Tirutturaippunditaluk231;Pudukkottai245.References to the n&amacr;tt&amacr;rin the data base total 43; references tothe n&amacr;tt&amacr;rfrom Pudukkottai alone number 21, or 49 per cent.

48 SII17: 462, 540; IPS 125, 285.49 Thirteen total references to n&amacr;tt&amacr;roccur in records pre-dating 985, seventeen references

occur in records post-dating 1178. The time of greatest royalpower (985-1070)yieldsonlyfivereferences to n&amacr;tt&amacr;r.



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which balanced local political tensions and performedarbitrational functions.The limited zones of riverine irrigation around the Pennai river supportedthe lineages which acted as little dynasties,complete with ancient legendsand the poeticpraisessurroundingroyalfamihes.10 The bigirrigation systemswithin the Kaveri river basin supported the imperial Cholas, the biggestkings. The Cholas were so big that their militarypower and ritual pre-eminence overshadowed the outlying areas of central Tamil Nadu. Theydestroyed for some time the effectiveness of discrete ndndr assemblies andreduced to subordination the smaller kingsof the smaller river systems.The boundaries of these three types of political institutions were never fixed;the outlying parts of the Chola country experienceddifferent mixes ofcentralised, chieflyor nattar administration, dependingon the energy of thecentre and the resistance of the localities. In this way the Chola agents andthe n!!r acted side-by-sidein Pudukkottai, or Chola agents, nattar andMalaiyaman chiefs acted side-by-sidein Tirukkoyilur taluk. The generaltendency seen in the variables of royal activity, official presence, andimportant taxation favours a period of increasing central dominance from atleast 1000 to 1150, as morse. segmentary or feudal political organisationssuccumbed to royal dominance. After 1150, the political forms typicalof

local ecology and economy reemergedas

significant arbitersof revenue

allocation and political power.

Changing Property Relations in the Chola Heartland

Necessarycauses of the Chola collapsewere invasions by external enemies(theHoysalasand Pandyas)and rebellions of chiefs in the northern parts ofthe Tamil country. But were these sufficient causes for the decline of theChola state? The evidence indicates that the Cholas were engagingin evermore effective involvement in local economic spheresand the manipulationof tax revenues as time went on. Royal orders and central taxation generallyincreased in all study areas until the thirteenth century, although con-centrated as usual in the central areas of the empire. If the dominance of theChola polity rested on the ability of the kingsto direct or mediate theallocation of local resources, then the very moment of its collapsewasparadoxically the time of its greatest central authority.The power base thathad allowed the Cholas to dominate their neighboursfor so long failed themagainst those same enemies. Some weaknesses in that power base may have

underlain this failure.Evidence from the inscriptionsconcerningproperty relations holds a keyto an understandingof changinglocal power duringthe Chola periodand theinfrastructural developmentsthat actually weakened royal control as it

50 R. Nagaswamy,Tirukk&omacr;yil&umacr;rpp&amacr;ttu,Madras, discusses the extended praisesof the landand rulers of Tirukkoyilur in SII7:863.



22/28

/55

expanded. The evidence concerns frequencydistributions of a crucial termfor control over property-kani.

The term kani, related to the verb to see (kan), has immediate connota-tions of overseeing some right or thing, and in later times referred topossession, right of possession,hereditary right.&dquo;Within the five studyareas, the term occurs within three main contexts: (1) Occupationalkanidescribes a situation in which property or possessionentailed performanceof a specifiedduty within a village or a temple. The relatively few extantreferences to this type of rightpoint to a general custom of granting villagelands as the property of occupational specialists-accountants, securitypersonnel, musicians,doctors-conditional upon their perfornnanceof theirduties. -12 (2) Kani in temples refers to the enjoyment of properties orprerogatives in connection with membership in a temple staff. The per-formance of rituals or administrative tasks in a templedependedon supportof personnel through grants of temple land which remained the personalproperty of the holders as long as they performed their stipulatedtemplefunctions. 13 (3) Kdni in land appears in three forms: (a) Donors possessedtheir own kani land, inherited it, or purchased it from third parties, oralienated it to religiousinstitutions with all rights to cultivation..54 (b) Theland tax in kind is called

kani kadan,or the dues from

kdni,indicatingthat

royal cesses were due from land that was officially possessedby persons orcorporate bodies.&dquo;(c) Temple lands were property of the holy name(tirun4mattukkini), obtained at times throughalienation of the rightsof thedonors described above.sb

Several aspects of the term kdni indicate that it refers to the privateproperty of individuals. Donors had the right to inherit, bequeath,alienateor subdivide their kdni land. Possessors of kani in temples, typicallyBrahman, at times seem to have manipulatedtheir land as their own private

51 Tamil Lexicon, p. 859; Noboru Karashima, South Indian Historyand Society,p.18. Otherrecent discussions of the term k&amacr;niare Peter A. Granda, The "Gift after Purchase" inVijayanagaraInscriptions, Journal of the Epigraphical Society of India, Vol. 6 (1979),pp.25-31; Property Rights and Land Control in Tamil Nadu: 1350-1600, Ph. D. dissertation,University of Michigan, 1984,pp. 89-110,142-44,221-22,409; Dharma Kumar, Private Propertyin

Asia? The Case of Medieval South India,ComparativeStudies in Societyand History,Vol. 27,No. 2 (April 1985), pp. 340-66; David Ludden, Peasant History, pp. 38-39, 85-88.

52 In the five study areas, there are twenty-five total instances of this type ofk&amacr;niholding.Formore extended discussions of all types of k&amacr;ni,see Heitzman, Gifts of Power, pp. 123-47.

53 Possessors of these rights are typicallycalled the Siva Brahmans possessing k&amacr;ni (k&amacr;niutaiya civapir&amacr;mmanar)in Chola-periodinscriptions.There are fifty-six total instances of theseterms in the data base.

54 In a typicaltransfer of k&amacr;ni, a Brahman assemblysold waste land (p&amacr;l) in their villageto acertain Tanttottam udaiy&amacr;n,who enjoyedthe land as his k&amacr;ni, with crops of his choice, payingkadamai and kudimai taxes (SII23: 303).

55 There are fifteentotal references to k&amacr;ni kadanin the data base, fourteen from Kumbakonamand Tiruchirappallitaluks alone.

56SII 23: 187; TK 131.213,223; ARE 1939-40: 242, 389; 1978-79: B293.



23/28

56

property..57Taxation depended on payment by the official possessor of kniland. Temples possessedkani lands in their own right as corporate owners.

-

On the other hand, other contextual aspects of kani imbued the individualrights it conferred within a varietyof social duties. Occupationalkini andkciiii in temples were contingent upon the performanceof public services,while kuni in land necessitated the payment of taxes. Official title to landalso masked a varietyof social limitations on individuals initiative. Privatelypossessed holdings were shares (pangu) within village communitiesdominated by assemblies of village notables who often made collectivedecisions over land use, includingat times the essential questionsof irrigationwaters, agriculturallabour, or cropping. 58Inheritance customs put forwarda singleperson as official possessor of property, but there were limits to theability of that person to alienate or alter property without consideration offamily dependents .51Embedded within ramified systems of social claims,and perhaps existing in the absence of a land market, kipi nonethelessreferred to an indigenous structure of ownership that was invoked forofficially private purposes in a number of Chola-periodrecords.

Table 5 displaysthe changesin the relative frequencies of references to

TABLE 5

Total Nuntbers and PeTIII/Igof Records Referringto Iui1:in Five Study Amm

* Note that there are no reference to k1)ifrom the inscriptionsof sub-period 1 (849-985).The ratio refers to the number of records from each sub-penod containing references to

kii1)idivided by the total number of records from that sub-period.

57 ARE 1906: 130, 146. 147. See also daysin the temple as transferable rightsof Brahmans( ARE 1911: 267; 1914: 46; 1931-32: 115).

58I udden, Peasant History, pp. 86-89. Kathleen Gough has interpreted the system of sharesas a type of villagecommunal property, with the king as landowner, in Modes of Production inSouthern India, Economic and Political Weekly,Vol. 15, No. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 1980), pp. 343-46.

LatelyBurton Stein has stressed communal

ownershipin Politics. Peasants.

pp.75. 82.

59J. Duncan M. Derrett, Essays in Classical und Modern Law, Vol. 2 Leiden, 1977. pp.21-25. 86-91; Gunther-Dietz Sontheimerand J. Duncan M. Derrett, Der Begriff desEigeutumsin Hindurecht, in J. Duncan M. Derrett, Gunther-Dietz Sontheimer and Graham Smith,Beitrge zuIndischem Rechtsdienken. Wiesbaden, 1979, pp. 90-93, 103; Yvonne Bongert, Lanotion de Propritdans lInde. Travaux et Recherches de lInstitut de Droit compardel Universitde Paris,23. Etudes des Droit Contemporain.1962, pp. 156-59), 162.



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k1)i in the inscriptionsfrom the five study areas. Notable is the lack ofreferences before 985, and the relatively few occurrences until about 1070.The relative and absolute number of references continue to increase

dramatically thereafter, especiallyin those areas more closelyconnected toriverine irrigation. For example,in Tiruchirappallitaluk two references inthe eleventh century increased to sixty-one references in the thirteenthcentury. The percentages of records containing references to kani eventuallyoutstrip those records mentioningthe king,his officials and even centrally-oriented taxation. Compare the greatest presence of the iand revenue,department in Kumbakonam taluk (appearing in 17 per cent of the records)with the much higher figurefor kani (75per cent) in the thirteenth century(Tables 3 and 5).

The interpretationof this terminological shift depends on the connectionsbetween word usageand local property control. Karashima has seen thegrowth of k1)i in Tiruchirappallias part of the consolidation of larger,privatedomains in the hands of possessors(ulaiyr)during the later Cholaperiod, at: influxes of plunderedwealth and religiousdonations disruptedearlier communal properties within villages Transfers of kani land totemples within the five study areas do reveal a predominance of possessors

amongsecular donors .6

Althoughthe

phenomenonof

propertydifferentia-

tion may indeed have been importantin the twelfth and thirteenth centunesthe more generalised increases in k1.1i references may reflect a greaterspecificationof individual rightsrather than originationof a completelynewsystem of property rights.

A key may lie in parallel although rarer increases in terms specifyingcultivators rights(ktidi kiiii), the official recognition of the right to cultivateland even without title to that land as a pnvate possession.Records especiallyfrcm Pudukkottai describe donation arrangements with provisos that thecultivators of donated land may not be excluded (kuclininkd; from tenancyunder the new temple owners. At times it seems that those permanentcultivators are the donors themselves. 12 These provisos may provide a clueto proceduresunderlyingmany other land donations featuringkani transfers.Official changes in ownershipof property could entail retention by previousowners or their previous tenants of considerable rights to agrarian produce.Increasing specificationof-ktilit rights was thus part of a larger movementtoward greater specificationof all kinus of property rights, in order to insure thepreservation of local privilegeswithin the framework of religiousendowments.

60 NoboruKarashima.South Indian

History and Society. pp.21-35.

61 Out of 65 recorded transfers of k&amacr;niland in the data basen, 43 instances (74 per cent)involved persons whose names included thehonoritic titles for possessor(udaiy&amacr;r),elder(kilavan). or lord (araivan).

62 A total of 26 references to the term kudi n&amacr;ng&amacr; inthe data base includes 16 references frompost-1070Pudukkottai. See donor-cultivators inSII 23: 257: Transactions of the ArchaeologicalSociety of South India. 1958-59. pp. 84-110. Plate 13.



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A major cause of class differentiation and terminological change may liein the activities of the Chola state that we have traced in this paper. Thekings gradually and inexorably altered the rules of the political game bymoving into local arenas such as Pudukkottai, traditionally dominated bylocal leaders or naftcr. The main weapon for this penetration was increasinglya taxation system attempting to effectively control allocations of largeproportions of agrarian produce. The kings simultaneouslycontinued theirsupport of ritual integrationby buildingand endowingtemples, a policythatin earlier stages of political consolidation was crucial for political integrationof local allies. The nattar, appearing less frequentlyas arbiters of local

administration, were increasinglythreatened in their own backyards.Paradoxically,a way out was providedby the kingsthemselves, and lay inreligiousdonations. A local possessor could on one hand establish his ownposition as a protector of the moral universe and supporter of the Cholakings,and ensure continued control over the distribution of local agrarianproduce, by alienatinglands to temples. On the other hand he could createprovisos entailingcontinued rights to cultivation for himself or his clientcultivators, or retain unofficial rights to appointmentof ritual specialists orallocation of sacralised food connected with the ritual enactmentssupported .by donated lands. 13 Most donated lands were made tax-free by

royalorders

after local requests, or were made tax-free through lump sums given bydonors to defrayall future taxes; it may have been worth an initial expense toeliminate later royal taxation in an environment where those taxes showedsignsof rising further. Alienation of titles to temples in these ways did notentail a decrease in the burden of the upper share extracted from the

producers, but signifieda redirection of control over its uses that ultimatelyfavoured local authorities.

rhe donation of lands to temples, and the verification in inscriptionsofthe particularrightsenjoyedby all participatingparties, were thus the signsof an increasing flight from royalcontrol and the creation of tax shelters inreligious institutions. The greater implementationof a centralised Cholastate thus led to ever greater alienation of officially individual rights totemples, and the progressive starvation of the central state at its time ofgreatest need. In this view the local leaders were major actors in the growthof religiousinstitutions, especiallytemples, and their need for differentiatedand specified property rightsspurred on a widespreadterminologicalchangethat mirrored renewed political localism. But as the central state fell apart,temple endowments expanded until the temples themselves became the

greatest institutions in South India, major landlords and political forces inthemselves.

63 Arjun Appadurai, Kings, Sects and Temples in South India, IESHR, Vol. 14, No. 1(Jan.-Mar. 1977), pp. 47-73; Arjun Appadurai and Carol Breckenridge,The South IndianTemple: Authority, Honour and Redistribution, Cuntributiom to Indian Sociology,Vol. 10,No. 2 (July-Dec. 1976),pp. 187-211.



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Conclusion

The study of the Chola period has revealed two main policies of royalpolitical unification. The first and earliest policydisplaysthe characteristicsof the ritual, segmentary state, throughwhich the Chola kings attempted tounite disparateand fairly autonomous local leaders under a single, mediatingagency throughritual means. Keys to this mediatingroyalrole were (1) themanifestation of royal protection over religious institutions (Brahmansettlements and temples) throughestablishment of tax-free revenue grantsand construction of shrines, and (2) periodic arbitration of local disputes,typically involving religious institutions, either in person or more oftenthrough representativeswho were drawn from allied local elite groups. Asecond and later policyinvolved a tighteningof royal control over localresources through the recruitment of elites into a more bureaucratic taxcollection agency, and the implementationof tax collection or reallocationwithin the rich agriculturalzones that supportedreligiousinstitutions. Thissecond policy reveals a drive toward increased revenue extraction andgreater centralized control within the core area of the empire. The Cholakings remained ritual leaders, but aspiredto be managers in the ArthilSstra

style.The success of royal integrativepoliciesdepended on local variables ofgeography.The most strikingfeature of the data presented here is the rapiddecrease in the penetration of all aspects of royalinfluence with increasingdistance from the centre of the polity. Even within the outer reaches ofCholamandalam, the core area of an extended polity, the kings were morelikely to strike deals with local leadership than to implement a centralisedadministrative apparatus. The nature of local leadership in turn variedaccording to ecologicalcharacteristics that underlay varying productiveregimes. Smaller riverine tracts, with their relatively greater and assuredagriculturalsurpluses,supporteddominant lineagesthat appropriated someof the ritual or administrative characteristics of kings. When the Cholasoverran peripheral riverine tracts, they reinstalled or created dominantlineages which supported their overlords in return for continuing local.autonomy, in a process that resemblesmore closelyfeudal political sub-ordination. In drier zones, with discrete and more insecure productiveregimes based on rain-fed fields or small artificial lakes, the kings en-countered collective assemblies of many local power-holders. The localassemblies became insignificantas the waxingroyalsystem absorbed leader-

ship into roles as nadu ,settlement officials, adhikiris, and eventually taxdepartment members. But as royal power waned, the assemblies of localleaders again came into view as forums for articulatingand adjustingthedisputes of the dry zones.

The three configurationsof political dominance-royal centralisation,feudal subordination, or ndttar assembly-thus rested ultimately on theecology and modes of production that underlay them in different areas.



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The determinative impactof ecologicalfeatures intersected with the historicalprocesses whereby the Chola kings,through their militarysuccesses, con-solidated enough power to allow a greater penetration of their own agentswithin the peripheralzones during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Despite the importance of the varying interactions of these superiorpolitical organisationsor alliances for the historical development of theChola state, the underlyingdynamics of state formation rested on the abilityof those superior agencies to coordinate the aspirationsof elites emergingdirectlyfrom the village level. Political and economic leadership within thepredominantly agrarianeconomy rested on the possession of land and/orrights to the produce from land. The contexts of the term~kani in the Cholainscriptionssuggest that power over land and its produce was not communal(despite a variety of collective controls), but was instcad divisible into anumber of officially determinable legal rights or ownerships. Differentialaccess to these rights raised up locally-dominant kinship groups andindividuals representing their interests-individuals who entered nattarassemblies, who called themselves possessors,and who ultimatelyinteractedwith superior state agents. The policiesof these local leaders included thepreservation or extension of their authority over agricultural resources.When

superior state organisations encouraged these local prerogatives,local leaders offered support; thus the earlypoliciesof the Chola kings,whoentered rarely into local affairs but offered avenues for local legitimationand opportunities for booty, enlisted support for imperil policies. But whena superior state attempted to manipulatethe villageeconomy more directly,the arbiters of villageaffairs were naturally willingto abolish that state; thuspoliciesof royal centralisation called forth the creation elf tax shelters andultimately open rebellion by the thirteenth century. In these ways thebehaviour of local elites within fertile agriculturaltracts was crucial to the

politicalfortunes of

premodern dynastsin South India.

The results of the present study exemplify the qualitative differencesbetween nuclear areas-zones of rich alluvial soil and abundant water-and zones where stable agriculturewas less rewardingor more insecure. Theemergence of the Kaveri river delta as a dynamic agricultural tract was thesalient feature underlying the hegemonyof the Chola kings, who in turninitiated projects designed to stimulate further agrarianexpansion. Thedynamism of the Kaveri delta fuelled an :mperialismthat further stimulatedinveatnrent in land reclamat.on and irrigation expansionwithin other, lesserriverine tracts and in peripheral areas. The impact of the Chola state was,then. to provide formats for the expansionof leaders within the agrariansocietyof Tamil Nadu. Several levels of leadership represented the upperlevel of a hierarchicallyorganized production process mat exploitedadvantagesof land and water to create fertile agriculturaltracts. The Cholaperiod was thus a time when the riverine zones were being filled up, whencomplex, unequalsocial management brought techmques of lanci and water



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exploitation toward the limits of the riverine zones. The political figuresinthis drama were themseveral layersof nobles and landowners, restingon thefruits of peasant cultivation, who interacted with the kings and constitutedstate institutions. The Chola politywas an earlystate&dquo;in the sense that itsagrarian base and the political power of its elites were in an earlystage ofexpansion.

What were the legaciesof the Chola polity as an early state? Perhapsthemost striking imagesof secular changewere the numerous and beautifultemples that dotted the landscape of fertile agricultural zones in southIndia-the legacyof an imperialpolicythat encouraged ritual. manifestationsof temporal authority. Behind the temples was an expanded agrarian andcommercial base that found its expression in the urbanised environment thutgrew up around the holy sites and in larger areas of green fields at harvesttime tilled by peasant cultivators. Four centuries of relative peace andencouragement of local initiatives had spurred or. the medieval expansion,but the Chola kings had also instituted a new level of governmental involve-ment in the fertile nadus, includingperiodicoverseeingof economic activities,the mediation of centrally-sanctionedofficials, and the collection of taxes.The accomplishments of the Chola period--expansion, urbanisation, andcentral involvement in local affairs-were not lost

duringthe

succeedingPandyan and Vijayanagaraperiods,but were exploited by later dynasts tobuild largerand more impressivestate structures.

64

See discussions of the features of the earlystate in H.J. M. Claessen and Peter Skalnik, TheEarlyState, The Hague, 1976. The authors conclude that political organisation was a relativelyclosed system standing outside and exploitinglarge number of local communities, a featurecorrespondingto Marxs ideas of the Asiatic mode (pp. 546-54.604-06.642-43). The emphasisof the present study on intermediate authorities suggests that a variety of elite groups emergingfrom village-levelproductionrotations could interact with the central state apparatus and wieldeffective power in their own right in the early state.

State Formation in South India, 850 -1280- Heitzman

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