North Indian Inscriptions

THE GUPTA SYSTEM OF ADMINISTRATION

ādhikaraṇa was a body which was independent of the Adhishṭhān-ādhikaraṇa, because each had a conveyance and record department of its own. How the two exactly worked where they co-existed is somewhat difficult to understand. Because the Adhishṭhān-ādhikaraṇa conveyed lands which were outside the strictly territorial limits of the Adhishṭhāna, whereas the Ashṭakul-ādhikaraṇa does not seem ever to have included any adhishṭhāna in its jurisdiction. Nevertheless, both forms of Pañchāyat were prevalent side by side in Ancient Bengal,-the Pañchakula and the Ashṭakula, each with a conveyance and record department of its own.

       We have now to find out something further about Ashṭakula. We know that like the Pañchakula, it was connected with the sale and purchase of land. Did it share any other characteristics of the Pañchakula ? Unfortunately our information on this subject is of a very meagre character. Nevertheless, there is evidence to show that it had power to settle disputes. And curiously enough this evidence is forthcoming from Buddhist sources. We have elsewhere pointed out how Buddhist commentaries afford us interesting glimpses into the manner in which land was administered in the Lichchhavi or Vajji kingdom. When a culprit was found, we are told, he was, in the first instance, sent to an officer called Viniśchaya-Mahāmātra. If he was found guilty, he was transferred to the Body of Vyavahārikas, then to the Sūtradhāras, thence to the Board of Ashṭakulikas, thereafter to the Sēnāpati, Uparāja and finally to Rājan (king), who consulted the Paveṇi-potthaka or “Book of Precedents”, and inflicted a suitable punishment.¹ The Ashṭakulikas mentioned here must be the Ashṭakul-ādhikaraṇa of the Dāmōdarpur and Dhanaidāna plates, and were certainly endowed with power to try criminal cases under the Vajjian constitution.

       Nothing further is definitively known about the Ashṭakul-ādhikaraṇa. We may, however, indulge in a little speculation about its composition. We have already seen that the Adhishṭhān-ādhikaraṇa was a Pañchakula, the four constituent members of which represented the four different interests of the Adhishṭhāna, such as Industry, Commerce, Zemindary and Revenue. Ashṭakula must similarly have been connected with the eight-fold interest of a village or village group, with the Mahattara as the head. It may have been a cosmopolitan body, a recognised permanent council of village representatives of the classes which had traditional rights and claims such as was the case in Mahārāshṭra. They are called Balutedārs, or public servants of a village entitled to Balute, or share of corn and garden produce for subsistence. They were generally twelve in number over and above the regular Government Officers such as Pāṭil (village headman), Kuḷkarṇī (village accountant) and so forth. There were different Balutedārs for different districts. They represented the important castes or artisan guilds of the village community, not the least important being the untouchable Mahārs and Māngs. If we compare this characteristic of the Village-Council of Mahārāshṭra with what we have culled about the composition of the Ashṭakul-ādhikaraṇa from a critical study of inscriptions, it seems that Pāṭil and Kuḷkarṇī of the former correspond with the Mahattara and Viśvāsa of the latter and the Balutedārs of the former with the Grāmikas of the latter. The Grāmikas were headmen, not of the village as a whole but of its constituencies, the village guilds of artisanship. As in Mahārāshṭra so in ancient Bengal, this village council must have supervised the local affairs and seen that religious and social customs and traditions were properly adhered to.

       Let us know proceed one step further. We have already noted that the names Pañchakula and Ashṭakula have the ending word kula in common. What does it mean ? This term in the
_______________________________________________________________

¹ Carmichael Lectures, 1918, pp. 154-55. The Vajjian administration has been described by Buddhaghōsha in his comment upon porāṇam Vajjidhamman’ ti occurring in Dīghanikāya (P.T.S. edn., Vol. II, p. 74, line 10) in his Sumaṅgalavilāsinī, ed. H. Dharmmakitti Siri Devamitta Mahāthera, Vol. I, p. 356, Colombo, 1918, Singhalese edn.). For this information, we are indebted to C. D. Chatterji.