North Indian Inscriptions

SOCIAL HISTORY

532 A.D. As has been pointed out in another chapter, these charters throw a flood of light on the system of administration prevalent under the Imperial Guptas. The provinces were ruled-by governors appointed by the king, and, further, the district towns themselves were administered by Vishayapatis, Kumārāmātyas or Āyuktakas selected by them, being helped by a council of four consisting of Nagara-śrēshṭhin, Sārthavvāha, Prathama-Kulika and Prathama-Kāyastha. One minor but not insignificant official of the district was the Pustapāla. Now in these Dāmōdarpur plates, we do find the names of these officials ending in Kāyastha surnames. Thus the provincial governors mentioned are Chirāta-Datta, Brahma-Datta and Jaya-Datta. The Vishayapatis are Vētra-Varman and Svayambhū-Dēva. Those who formed the councils are Dhṛiti-Pāla, Bandhu-Mitra, Dhṛti-Mitra, Śāmba-Pāla, Ṛibhu-Pāla, Vasu-Mitra, Vara-Datta, Vipra-Pāla, Sthāṇu-Datta, Mati-Datta and Skanda-Pāla. The Pustapālas named in these grants are Risi-Datta, Jaya-Nandin, Vibhu-Datta and Patra-Dāsa, Vishṇu-Datta, Vijaya-Nandin, Sthāṇu-Nandin, Gōpa-Datta and Bhaṭa-Nandin.

       It will be seen that most of the above names terminate in Dāsa, Datta, Dēva, Mitra, Nandin and Varman which correspond to Kāyastha surnames in Bengal. The Sanskrit langauge is, however, so elastic that it is possible to contend that these name-endings need not be taken as surnames at all, but considered as integral parts of individual names. Thus Sāmbapāla need not necessarily denote a person who is called Sāmba and surnamed Pāla, but rather an individual who is named Sāmbapāla in the sense of “protected by the god Sāmba.” It is quite possible to explain many of these names in this manner, but this cannot explain them all. For, what plausible explanation can be offered of such names as Chirāta-Datta, Bandhu-Mitra, Patra-Dāsa, Nara-Nandin, Bhaṭa-Nandin and so forth. What philological ingenuity can interpret Chirāta-Datta and Patra-Dāsa, for instance? What we have further to bear in mind is that we have here names, a large number of them, every one of which, curiously enough, ends in a Kāyastha surname. And if we take such names as Vētra-Varman and Patra-Dāsa, they must look like ordinary names to a non-Bengali, and he is sure to look upon –Varman and –Dāsa as the name suffixes of the Kshatriya and Śūdra communities respectively. But even here they can be taken as corresponding to the well-known surnames, Barman and Dās, which are prevalent among the Kāyasthas of Bengal. How, again, can we better explain the two names Dhṛiti-Mitra and Dhṛiti-Pāla? Philology, of course, can explain the former by dhṛitēr=mitraṁ (=Dhṛitimitraḥ) and the latter by dhṛitiṁ pālayat=īti (=Dhṛitipālaḥ). But Mitra and Pāla are well-known surnames, whereas Dhṛiti is not. And Dhṛiti, on the other hand, is not only the common but also the first component of the name. And common sense tells us that Dhṛiti is the individual name in the case of both and that whereas Mitra is the family name of the first, Pāla is of the second Dhṛiti. The conclusion is almost irresistible that the names of the officers specified above are full names, each consisting of the individual name and the family name, the last being the same as the Kāyastha surname. And as the earliest of these inscriptions is dated 442 A.D., it is incontrovertible that the Kāyastha surnames are traceable as early as the fifth century A.D. It must not, however, be thought that the officers who bore these names were, all or any of them, of the Kāyastha caste, because Kāyastha at this early period was an office designation and had not crystallised into a caste. We have already seen that the Dāmōdarpur plates themselves speak of a Prathama-Kāyastha side by side with Nagara-śrēshṭhin, Sārthavāha and Prathama-Kulika, who together formed the administrative board of a district town. This shows that like Nagara-śrēshṭhin and so forth, Prathama-Kāyastha was an office designation. In fact, the earliest mention of Kāyastha is in the Yājñavalkya-smṛiti (I. 336), a work assigned to circa 350 A.D. There too it seems to be used in the sense of an officer. And there is nothing in the text to show that it denotes any particular caste. And, in fact, Kāyastha as a caste does not seem to have sprung into existence before the ninth century A.D.