Visiting the Extraordinary Village Administrative Universe of Ukkal - Sandeep Balakrishna

AFTER ABOUT A HALF HOUR OF TRAVELLING southwards from Kanchipuram towards Vandavasi, we reach Koolamandal, one of those typical nondescript villages. Once a flourishing hub of piety and prosperity sustained by a vibrant Sanatana society. Now unknown, uncared for…remembered only during elections.

Koolamandal (its earlier name: Kulambandal) was one of the cynosures of the grand Chola Empire. Its formerly magnificent — and now restored Gangaikondacholeesvarar Temple was built by the formidable Rajendra Chola I in 983 CE under the guidance of his spiritual Guru, Ishana-Shiva Pandita.

A mile-long eastward journey from Koolamandal leads us to another site of civilisational amnesia and cultural apathy. This is the Ukkal village. You would look at me strangely if I told you that for about three unbroken centuries, Ukkal reigned as one of the exemplars of village administration that had touched the summit of perfection.

Even this glorious heritage would have been lost to us but for the diligence of Sri K.V. Subrahmanya Iyer who in 1893 discovered seventeen inscriptions in the ruins of an ancient Vishnu temple. Of these, only fourteen were reasonably well-preserved. Of these fourteen, only twelve give us precise details of how the aforementioned village administration functioned.

Sri Iyer sketches a brief portrait of the heartbreaking condition of that temple: “Of the shrine itself, only the lower portions remain standing, and the mandapa in front of the shrine threatens to collapse at any moment.” After much tedious searching, I could identify the present name of this temple as the Arulmigu Bhuvana Mangala Perumal Temple.

The inscriptions cover the period from the eighth to the eleventh century spread over the suzerainties of the late Pallavas, the Rashtrakutas and the Cholas. They inform us that this Vishnu Temple was originally called Puvanimanikka (i.e., Bhuvanamanikya) Vishnugriham. Rajaraja I referred to its deity as the Tiruvaymolidevar (i.e., the Deity of the Tiruvaymoli), a direct reference to the Nalayiraprabandham composed by Nammalvar.

At various points in its long history, Ukkal was also known as Utkar, Utkal, Sivachulamanimangalam, Vikramabharana-chaturvedimangalam and Aparajita-chaturvedimangalam (a reference to the Pallava King, Aparajita).

An Unbroken Inheritance of Sanatana Statecraft

WITHOUT EXCEPTION, EVERY HINDU EMPIRE faithfully adhered to the ancient dictum of Santana statecraft that the lowest unit of administration must have the maximum autonomy. Interference from the central government was kept at the barest minimum as we have seen in this ennobling story of the Yogic village of Sorade. We notice the same feature in Ukkal as well.

In fact, a close study of these fourteen inscriptions opens up highly illuminative insights regarding the setup, constitution and functioning of village administration in South India. Its contents attracted the attention of no less a stalwart than R.C. Majumdar who wrote quite extensively about their value…sitting far away in Calcutta.

Ukkal was governed by an assembly known as the Sabha or Mahasabha, an unbroken administrative inheritance from the Sabhas and Samitis of the Vedic Era. The village assembly was subdivided into various committees tasked with specific functions. Committee members, technically known as Perumakkal (Distinguished Men), were elected each year. Transactions of the assembly were scrupulously recorded in registers and ledgers and other official books by an officer known as the Madhyastha (Arbitrator). Its accounts were maintained by the village accountant known as the €™Karanattan (its Telugu variant is Karanam, a familiar surname in south India). Sometimes, the Madhyastha also performed the duty of the Karanattan.

Here is the list of Committees constituted for Ukkal:

1. Distinguished men elected for the overall village assembly

2. Distinguished men elected for charities

3. Distinguished men elected for the village tank

4. Distinguished men elected for gardens

5. Distinguished men who manage the miscellaneous affairs of the village

If this sounds similar to the more renowned Uthiramerur inscription, it is because it is similar. The difference is only in the details. In other words, the constitution of such village assemblies differed in different localities and at different periods in history. Specific aspects of administration in each village were periodically upgraded or modified based on changed conditions or needs.

The Ukkal Inscriptions: A Summary

LET’S HEAR IT DIRECTLY from the horse’s mouth. The following short summary of twelve inscriptions discovered at Ukkal, offer firsthand evidence of the specifics of village administration. The numbers indicate the inscription number.

1. The Assembly of the village received a deposit of an amount of gold from one of the commissioners ruling over another village on the condition of feeding twelve Brahmanas and doing other useful works from the interest on this sum.

2. A certain person donated a plot of land to the great Assembly on the condition that its produce should be utilised for supplying the God with a stipulated quantity of rice. The inscription concludes as follows: “Having been present in the Assembly and having heard their order, I, the Madhyastha wrote this.”

3. A certain person had purchased a plot of land from the Assembly and assigned it to the villagers for the maintenance of a flower garden.

4. On receipt of a plot of land, the Assembly undertook to supply paddy to various persons engaged in connection with a cistern which the donor had constructed to supply water to the public.

5. The Assembly undertook to supply an amount of paddy per year by way of interest of a quantity of paddy deposited with them. The Perumakkal elected for the year would cause the paddy to be supplied.

6. A meeting of the Assembly, including the Perumakkal were elected for the management of charities and the commissioners in charge of the temple of Sattan in the village. The Assembly assigned a daily supply of rice and oil to a temple. The Perumakkal elected for the supervision of the village tank shall be entitled to levy a fine of (one) kalanju of gold in favour of the tank fund from those betel-leaf sellers in this village, who sell betel-leaves elsewhere but at the temple of Pidari.

7. The Assembly accepted the gift of an amount of paddy on the condition of feeding two Brahmanas daily out of the interest on this amount.

8. The Assembly has received a royal order authorising the village to sell lands on which tax has not been paid for two full years. Accordingly, these lands have become the property of the village.

9. This is the record of a sale of a plot of land by the village Assembly, which was their common property, plus a sale of five water levers, to a servant of the king who had assigned this land for the maintenance of two boats plying on the village tank.

10. The great Assembly — including the Perumakkal who were elected for the year and the Perumakkal elected for the supervision of the tank — being assembled, assigned, at the request of the manager of a temple, a plot of land in the fresh clearing for various specified purposes connected with the temple.

11. The village Assembly grants a village to a temple, including the flower garden, for the requirements of worship there. The terms of grant include the following: “We shall not be entitled to levy any kind of tax from this village. We, the Perumakkal elected for the year, we, the Perumakkal elected for the supervision of the tank, and we, the Perumakkal elected for the supervision of gardens, shall not be entitled to claim forced labour from the inhabitants settled in this village. This is confirmed at the order of the Assembly. If a crime or sin becomes public, the God (i.e., the temple authorities) alone shall punish the inhabitants of this village. Having agreed thus, we, the Assembly, have engraved this on stone.”

12. The son of a cultivator in the village assigned a plot of land in the neighbourhood. From the proceeds of this land, water and firepans had to be supplied to a mandapa frequented by Brahmanas. Further, a water lever was constructed in front of the cistern at the mandapa. The Perumakkal who manage the affairs of the village in each year shall supervise this charity.

Lessons and Insights

CLEARLY, THE UKKAL INSCRIPTIONS give us a rather comprehensive and unambiguous idea of the powers and functions of the village Assembly, and the perfection they had reached in administration. Nothing was left to chance or individual whim. Annual elections prevented monopolies and concentration of power. Every transaction was written down to the last detail and publicly ratified.

The macro dimension of Hindu statecraft and administration also reveals the fact that village assemblies were regarded as inextricable parts of the constitution of the country. As we mentioned earlier, they were entrusted with the entire management of the village in a truly autonomous fashion. Sabhas and Mahasabhas were absolute proprietors of village lands and they had full authority to create fresh clearings. They owned corporate property which they could sell for public purposes such as supplying the necessities of temples, digging wells and growing gardens. In essence, the village assembly exercised all the powers of a state within its own sphere of activity. In return, it had to deposit annual revenues to the imperial treasury and maintain peace and order and prevent rebellious or anarchist feelings.

In some cases, the Mahasabha of one village exercised jurisdiction over other villages. Inscription 11 cited above presents one such example. It shows that the Ukkal Assembly owned another village situated about three miles away. This village was given as a tax-free grant in order to provide for the necessities of a temple in Ukkal itself. This is how the inscription reads:

We, the assembly of Sivachulamanimangalam, alias Sri-Vikramabharana-chaturvedimangalam [Ukkal] ordered as follows: “To the god of the Puvanimanikka-Vishnugriham in our village shall belong, as a divine gift (deva-bhoga), the village called Sodiyambakkam, a hamlet (pidagai) to the north of our village, including the great flower-garden which belonged to this (temple) previously. The site of the village, the tank, the wet land, and dry land, and everything within its limits, on which the iguana runs and the tortoise crawls, for the worshippers of the god of his Puvanimanikka-Vishnugriham, for the requirements of the worship, for oblations (Tiruvamridu) at the three times of the day, for two perpetual lamps, for rows of lamps at twilight, for festivals, for the bathing of the idol at solstices, equinoxes and eclipses, for offerings (sribali), for supplies to the store-room of the temple, and for all other purposes. We shall not be entitled to levy any kind of tax from this village… If we utter the untruth that this not as stated above, in order to injure the charity, we shall incur all the sins committed between the Ganga and Kumari. We, the assembly, agree to pay a fine of one hundred and eight kanam per day, if we fail in this charity through indifference.

To round off this essay on a depressing note, the following photographs show the present condition of Ukkal.

Postscript

Clearly, the Ukkal inscriptions showcase a high degree of administrative sophistication and perfection both in theory and practice, attained in an era sans technology, where primacy was placed on the human element.

Courtesy: https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/visiting-the-extraordinary-village-administrative-universe-of-ukkal

A Glimpse of the Criminal Justice System in Hindu Villages of South India through Historical Anecdotes - Sandeep Balakrishna

THROUGHOUT THE CENTURY of the modern Indian Renaissance, it was an article of truth that one could not offer cogent and honest interpretations of the Sanatana civilization unless one imbibed its spiritual core. Writing in 1927, this is what N.N. Law said:

In the case of the ancient Hindus, the value of the spiritual side of their civilization is very difficult to be realized by a man of the twentieth century because of the frame of mind that is generally developed in him under the influence of the current thoughts and environment. But it was this spiritual culture which was indissolubly bound up with every phase of the ancient Hindu civilization, and influenced and determined…their manners, customs, and institutions, through which their thoughts and feelings found expressions.

Nowhere is this truer than in the political systems, institutions, traditions and practices that Hindus founded and nurtured throughout the ages. More than merely bookish codification, this political system operated via customs, which in turn acquired great authority because they were actually values lived by real people and were generationally transmitted. We cited one such glorious example in our essay on the ancient, Yogic village of Sorade.

Thus, when we remove this spiritual element from our politics and statecraft, we get the crude type of competitive politics that we observe in Western democracies. It is unfortunate that we blindly adopted the same system without first conducting a philosophical debate as to its feasibility for a spiritual civilization like India, which had just emerged from a millennium of oppression. The Western model of democracy is essentially competition and competition divides, and there is no telling when competition culminates in bloodletting. However, the Sanatana theory and practice of statecraft whose roots are moored in Vedanta, recognizes what is known as tara-tama bhava, or the hierarchy inherent in nature. In its political expression, this was transformed as a continuous attempt at harmonizing the various elements of this hierarchy after giving due recognition to the value of each element. This is how social and other conflicts were minimized and a mechanism for self-rectification was built into our civilisation and culture. The inseparable companion of self-correction is self-renewal: the lake renews itself when the silt at its bottom is cleared out. This is the Sanatana method.

The other facet of harmonizing the aforementioned hierarchical elements shows itself in the near-ideal decentralization of the administration, in its widest possible meaning. For several millennia, Bharatavarsha had almost perfected the system of what is today fashionably known as “last mile delivery of governance,” i.e., the village. It is not a coincidence that the luminaries of the modern Indian Renaissance and Mohandas Gandhi repeatedly stressed on the fact that the “real India lives in her villages.”

Successive monarchs throughout our history recognized and respected village autonomy and rarely extended their imperial hand upon it. Quite the contrary. They actually made it a point to honour the village, its headman and its councils. The Gupta, Pallava, Chola, Chalukya, Rashtrakuta, Hoysala, and Vijayangara monarchs made liberal gifts to villages and endowed their temples with various sevas. The reason was rather straightforward: the villages were self-governing in every sense. They knew their place in the hierarchy of the Empire and were endowed as self-restraint. They did not impinge on the affairs of other villages and vice versa. They were the preservers of their own unbroken traditions, which in turn, was a subset of the umbrella of Sanatana Dharma, which they obeyed unquestioned. The king or central government also knew his place in this umbrella: it was impossible for one person to adjudicate on matters purely local or unique to each village or locality. Our greater admiration for this system is the fact that the king had the humility to understand this limitation and conducted himself accordingly. Thus, when we today notice supreme court judges making authoritative pronouncements on every Hindu cultural tradition and even upon our sacred Devatas based on a superficial understanding, it is clear that our democracy seems to be premised on an inversion of Dharma.

The village was an independent republic in a manner of speaking. It had its own administrative machinery, revenue-collection mechanism, police, and above all, the timely delivery of justice. In this essay, we shall look at some glimpses of how justice, especially criminal justice was delivered in the villages of South India. These are derived from epigraphic records spread over seven centuries: from the 11th century to the 18th century, cantered mainly around Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

What Real History Tells us

We first provide some real-life incidents of crime followed by the verdict of the respective village council. All the incidents occurred in various villages in the South Arcot district between the 11th and 12th centuries.

1. Two men had gone out for hunting in the forest. One of them, endowed with poor marksmanship, mistakenly shot his companion with the arrow which he had aimed at a deer. A case was lodged. The verdict: the crime was unpremeditated, and the shooter was required to give a gift of 64 cows to the Tiruttandonri Aludiyar Temple for burning a lamp to the deity.

2. In a friendly swordfight in which the practitioners tested their skills, a thrust by the sword unfortunately killed one of the participants. The verdict: the offender had to provide 32 cows for the burning of a lamp in the Tirunageshwaram-Udaiyar Temple.

3. A drunk husband, in a fit of anger, pushed his wife down and the poor woman died. The verdict: the guilty man had to work free of cost at the local temple for a specified period. At the end of each day, he had to light a lamp at the same Tiruttandonri Aludiyar Temple and recite stotrams praying for the peace of his wife’s Atman.

4. An ill-tempered mother once flung a stick at her daughter. However, the stick missed its target and instead hit another child who was standing nearby. Twenty days later, the child died as a result of the injury. The verdict: the husband of the woman had to present 32 cows to the Urbagangondarulina-Nayanar Temple for the merit of the deceased child.

All the four instances are clear demonstrations of what is known as prayaschitta or expiation or atonement, one of the main pillars of the Hindu justice system. It is equally clear that this was not just any form of prayaschitta but a specific one involving donation and service to the temple. The annals of Sanatana literature—both sacred and worldly—are replete with hundreds of stories and real-life examples of the value of prayaschitta as a form of punishment, a guiding ideal of life, and as a soul-purifying agent. In these four instances, it is significant that prayaschitta was recommended because of the purely accidental nature of the offence. Even more significant is the fact that these judgements were engraved on the walls of the respective temples.

On the purely mundane plane of life, the donations to these temples also helped to keep the economic engine of the villages well-oiled.

We can also cite some more examples of a similar nature.

1. A merchant had a concubine whom another man attempted to outrage. The merchant stabbed the latter and killed him. The verdict: strictly speaking, this was not a crime in those days. However, it was also held that the act of murder should not go unpunished. And so, after the village council consulted with the dead man’s relatives, the merchant was ordered to offer a perpetual lamp to the Tanronri-Alvar Temple in the name of the deceased. Period: 1012 CE, Tamil Nadu.

2. A village official demanded heavy taxes from a woman and repeatedly harassed her. The unfortunate woman took poison and died. The over-zealous tax-collector was found guilty and excommunicated from the village. He was also ordered by the village assembly to expiate his sin by paying 32 Kasu (money, cash or coins) to the Tiruttandonri-Mahadeva Temple and lighting a perpetual lamp. Period: 1054 CE, Tamil Nadu.

3. A poor man named Chedirayan was responsible for the death of a fellow villager by some indiscreet act of his. The verdict: the murderer’s uncle was ordered to give a gift of lands to the temple to atone for his nephew’s crime. Period: 1170 CE, Kerala.

4. Two men severely beat a man who had allowed his buffalo to trespass into their field. The buffalo had caused substantial damage to the crops. Unfortunately, the victim died. The verdict: the Bhattas of the village ordered the offenders to provide for a lamp in the temple. Period: 1190 CE, Kerala.

Punishing Royal Offenders

Apart from the common citizenry, royalty was also unexempt from punishments ranging from the mild to the harsh. We can cite a few instances of this from the Travancore kingdom.

First, we have an interesting inscription from Kollam dated 1702 CE. It narrates how a high-ranking temple official assaulted some of his juniors. As punishment, he was suspended and ordered to pay a huge fine to the temple treasury.

Now we can see some instances of royalty being punished.

1. The Chera king Kulashekhara-Chakravartin (1102 CE) was once summoned to trial by the town council, which met in Panaingavu Palace at Kollam. He had been found guilty of killing some Ariyars (Brahmanas) who were functioning as Archakas in the Rameshwara Temple. The verdict: the king had to make a substantial land grant to the temple and had to undergo some prescribed penance for atonement.

2. In 1344 CE, Vira Keralavarman of Tiruvadi was found guilty of murdering some Brahmanas and other temple officials. The verdict: he was ordered to pay land compensation to the survivors. He also had to make substantial donations to the temple.

3. In 1382 CE, Vira Martandavarman atoned for certain atrocities he had committed against various people, by giving the gift of silver pots and fines to the temple.

4. In 1416 CE, Vira Ravivarman paid a huge penalty for having killed some men in a petty scuffle. The survivors were suitably compensated.

The epigraphic records that narrate these incidents say that these penalties were called garvakkattu or amercement for high-handed conduct. The delinquent kings were forced to pay them in order to pacify popular anger and to bring the offender to justice no matter how powerful he or she was. The penalty and punishments were awarded by the local assemblies which wielded enormous power in those days. Clearly, it is noteworthy that the kings allowed themselves to be fined. But then, they were merely adhering to the timeless Sanatana dictum that the power of the king is derived by the popular consent of the people. This is the exact opposite of that criminal generalization peddled by our “history” books about Hindu kings as being uniformly despotic. Indeed, as DVG correctly observes: “wherever there was a Hindu sovereign, there was no tyranny.”

Hindu kings subjecting themselves to trial and punishment also finds several echoes in Sanatana jurisprudence. It may be summarized as follows: the ruler, who is a servant of the people and receives his revenue of rakshabhaga, or remuneration for his services, is thus logically liable to pay fines for wrongdoing.

In a majority of cases, justice and punishment depended on Deshachara (customs specific to a region) and Kulachara (customs specific to clans, etc). Thus, some village assemblies or councils or other local bodies which wielded judicial powers within their own jurisdictions, did not award punishments commensurate with the degree and circumstances of the crimes which they adjudicated. It could be argued today that the clemency they showed towards the murderer was quite unjustified. It also appears that they only provided for the spiritual welfare of the soul of the murdered individuals by ruling that the culprits shall offer lamps, donate cows, and similar Dharmic actions.

One reason for this could be a conscious and time-honoured custom of trying to reduce the tendencies of extreme vengeance on the part of the victim’s survivors. Simultaneously, it was also meant to induce the feeling of remorse within the perpetrator by putting him in front of the Devatas, the real judges. The idea of all Hindu lawgivers was to mitigate ill-will within the society as far as possible through a determined pursuit of the spiritual. Conscious forgiveness on the part of the survivor and conscious expiation on the part of the perpetrator are two sides of the same coin.

In a paper written in 1925, the Trivandrum-based academic, Dr. Ramanatha Ayyar puts this beautifully:

This humane legislation compares very favourably with the barbaric severity of the penal laws of the so-called ‘enlightened’ nations of the West, which till the last century punished such trivial offences as the breaking of a window and stealing of two pence worth of paint, with death.

There is much food for thought when we think about it in a different light: violent prosecution of a criminal as opposed to ordering the criminal to light lamps in a temple daily without fail. Hopeful reform and self-purification.

Our ancients chose wisely.

Courtesy: https://www.dharmadispatch.in/culture/a-glimpse-of-the-criminal-justice-system-in-hindu-villages-of-south-india-through-historical-anecdotes

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