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THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY ANNUAL February 4, 1961
The State, the Temple and Agricultural Development A Study in Medieval South India
Burton Stein
The focal point of intensive agricultural development of present Indian Community Development Programme has been the Community Project Block,
Here, 100 villages, more or less, are subjected to relatively intensive inputs of capital, technical assistance, and social services with the aim of substantially raising agricultural production and incomes as well as making village communities better places in which to live.
The 100 village area is an administratively functional region into which local, state, and all-India resources can be channeled with efficiency. Intensive regional development is modern in most nays, particularly in the way in which human and material resources from India, and beyond India are brought to bear upon a small village region.
ln other ways, however, this kind of agricultural development has precedents going back to the large irrigation schemes of British India and earlier.
The object of this paper is to examine the role of the state in South Indian regional development carried out by temples daring the Chola and Vijayanagar periods ( 900-1600A.D).
THOUGH the concept and func-l ion of statehood was markedly
different in medieval South I n d i a than it is in modern India , there was the same concern w i t h the product iv i ty and welfare of the village and wi th the relationship of vil lage welfare lo the stabil i ty and strength of the stale. In the Amuktamalyadu. a Telugu epic poem of the sixteenth century which is widely at t r ibuted to the greatest of the Vi jayanagar rulers. Krishndevaraya. the k ing presumably Krishnadevarava, states:
The extent of the slate is not the cause of its prosperity. When a state is small in extent then both v i r tue | "dhurma" | and prosperity |"artha' ' | wi l l increase only when tanks and i r r iga t ion canals are constructed and favour is shown to the poor cult ivators in the matter of taxat ion and services-1
Vet, notwithstanding the recognized impor t a nee of agr icu l tura l development, neither the Chola nor Vi jaya-nagar states had departments of i r r i gation or publ ic works dealing w i t h agr icu l tu ra l improvements. Such activities were left to individuals , separate villages, and extra-village insti tutions such as temples.
The best examples of regional development which took place in this pe r iod were those under the auspices of South Indian temples, often i n v o l v i n g as many as 150 to 300 villages. One reason for the prominence of temple-sponsored development is that the stone and copper inscript ions, the basic historical
sources for this period, give more informat ion about temples because most of the surviv ing inscriptions dealt essentially w i t h temple affairs. A more important reason is that temples mobilized resources of land and money second only to the state and were therefore capable of financing such projects.
Temple-directed regional agricul tural development grew out of the nature of the endowments which temples received. Endowments were made in order to provide income for temple maintenance, for festivals honouring the deities, and for food offerings to the deities. The endowment typica l ly involved the provis ion of a perpetual service for the merit of the donor or someone designated by the donor. In order to provide for these services, a permanent earning resource had to be established, the proceeds f rom which would pay for the specified service. Endowments were of two k inds : land and money. Vil lage or land endowments usually gave the temple the major share of income (mel-varum) while the cultivators retain ed the minor share (kudivuram). The temple, thus, d i d not have ownership over the endowed land, hut a command over a share of its income. There were important responsibi l i t ies toward the endowed land. D u r i n g the Chola period, for example, a scries of Srirangam temple in scriptions f r o m the reign of Kulo t -tunga I (1070-1118) describe a gigantic process of redevelopment of a large po r t ion of temple lands
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buried under -and by Hoods of the Kaveri r iver. Under the auspices of the temple, these ruined lands were leased on a new basis for reclamation and ultimate r e c u r v a tion.2 Money endowments were also made to provide perpetual services. This confronted the temples wi th the need In insert such funds securely in order to realize a perpetual income or interest (po l i yu t tu ) . Money settled upon tin- temple was frequently loaned to village assemblies for developmental purposes which gave the temple an important role in mobi l iz ing developmental funds wi th in a legion. In other places, edowments of money were frequenly baned by the temple to commercial firms for a perpetual interest of around 20 per cent. In most other temples, not favourably placed for commercial investment of endowed funds, it was necessary to invest the funds in their own temple villages. The earnings on such invested funds would come in the form of a greater income from the major share of income already received by the temple.
The Tirupati Temple : An Example
The T i rupa t i temple in Andhra State offers an excellent example of regional agr icul tural development produced by the appl ica t ion of money endowments as capital for the improvement of villages winch had been endowed to the temple d i n i n g the Vi jayanagar period. This case also illustrates the importance of the stale in developmental activities
February 4, 1961 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY ANNUAL
which included some 150 villages by the sixteenth century.*
From the time of its establishment in the n in th century to the middle or the fifteenth century, the T i r u p a t i temple had become a significant centre of Vaishnavism in the northern p a r i of Tami lnad . Its g rowth in importance was due. in part, to the persecution of Vaishna-viles du r ing the Chola period, especially in the eleventh century, and the town of T i r u p a t i was probably established as a sanctuary for Vaish-navites safe from Saivite Chola rulers. Another factor in the growing importance of the Tirupati temple p r io r to the fifteenth century was the occupation and plunder of many Hindu temples in the Southern part of the peninsula by Musl ims du r ing the fourteenth century sultanate of Madura . In this latter per iod, the T i rupa t i temple became a refuge for many Vaishnavite priests f rom southern Tami lnad and even for the major deity Sr i Ranganatha of Sr i rangam when that great temple was under M u s l i m control . In recognition of the increasing importance of T i r u p a t i after the eleventh century. South Ind i an rulers provided endowments to support the r i tua l activities of the Temple. The Yadavaraya rulers of Vengi in the thir teenth and early fourteenth centuries became supporters of the Temple, and maintained a close supervisory control over its affairs3 . In the middle of the fourteenth century , the Yadavaraya state was
- superceded by the young and expanding Vi jayanagar stale. However, the rulers of the first dynasty of Vi jayanagar ( 1136-1485) d id not succeed to the supervision or management of the T i r u p a t i temple: the early rulers were Saiviles and therefore less interested in this Vishnu Temple and they were also p r i m a r i l y concerned wi th the consolidation of their rule in the southern parts of Tami lnad far from T i r u p a t i . The absence of any effective te r r i tor ia l power around T i r u p a t i in the early years of the Vi jayanagar per iod permit ted the Temple to establish an independent managerial and trustee body, the stfianaltar. The emergence of this
For a delailed discussion of the economic operations of the Temple see the writer 's "The Economic Function of a Medieval South Indian Temple," The Journal of Asian Studies. X I X (February, 1960) 163-76.
management body by 1390 was of par t icular importance in the century of r ap id growth w h i c h the Temple underwent f r o m 1456 to 1505. Enormous responsibilities came to rest upon this management body, and it is not too much to say that its establishment was a necessary precondit ion for the scale of growth achieved.4
By 1 156, the Temple had become an, impor tant regional Religious centre which attracted the support of an impor tant ru l ing f ami ly in the T i r u p a t i area, the Saluva f a m i l y . One of the members of this f a m i l y , Saluva Narasimha, while st i l l a m i l i tary leader of on ly local reknown, became an impor tant pa t ron . When Saluva ISarasimha became emperor of Vijayanagar in 1486, his support increased and the fu l l prestige of imper ia l patronage was bestowed upon the Temple . The patronage of Saluva Xarasimha and his successors to the Vi jayanagar throne in the next century ushered in a new era for the Temple . The new era was represented by the establishment of numerous minor shrines at T i r u p a t i and new facilities for the comfor t of p i lgr ims such as rest houses and feeding houses. The new era was also represented by intensified r i tua l activities, par t i cu la r ly festivals, and food offerings at the various shrines.
In order to support the vast increase in r i tua l activities at T i r u p a t i , endowments of money and land increased. Two factors appear to be decisively important relative to the century du r ing which endowments so greatly increased. The first factor was the importance of state support through land and money endowments. The rulers of Vi jayanagar and their officers were the p r in cipal donors of land and money resources which underpinned the growth of the Temple. The second factor was the u t i l iza t ion of money endowments for the creation of i r r i gation works in the villages which hud been endowed to the Temple .
The crucial support of the V i j a yanagar state and the ut i l iza t ion of money endowments for i r r iga t ion works were complementary factors cont r ibu t ing to the economic foundation of the T i r u p a t i Temple. On the one hand, the i r r i ga t i on programme which covered about 100 villages in the T i rupa t i -Chandrag i r i area could never have occurred wi th out the grant of villages f r o m state donors. About ninety per cent of
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a l l villages granted to the Temple in the sixteenth century came, directly or indi rec t ly , f r o m state donors. About one-half of the value of a l l money endowments came f rom state donors. The economic s tabi l i ty of the Temple was therefore cr i t ica l ly dependent upon the grants of state donors. On the other hand, however, the scale of endowments of land and money could scarcely have been achieved had the Temple not offered the assurance that money endowments would produce the secure and stable income necessary to perf o r m specified r i tua l services. This assurance was provided in the Temple's programme of investment in temple vi l lage i r r i g a t i o n . This practice provided an efficient means for absorbing the large endowments of state donors. It also permit ted state officers or chiefs whose fiefs were located at great distances f rom T i r u pati to grant money instead of land to the Temple and thus reduced the problem of managing far-flung temple villages. Moreover, the practice permit ted other donors, even the most modest donors, to make money endowments w i t h the assurance that the money would be invested in i r r i ga t ion improvements and would yie ld a reliable income for the performance of a r i tual service.
It may be useful to cite an early example of agr icu l tura l development in a T i r u p a t i temple village in order to i l lustrate the process which came to extend over many villages in the T i r u p a t i area. In 1420 the Vi jayanagar emperor Devaraya I I 11422-1140) granted three tax-free villages and some money to the Temple for the purpose of p r o v i d i n g specified food offerings at a par t i cular festival. Among the villages granted to the Temple was the Brahmin village Vik ramad i tyaman-gala5. The village of Vik ramadi tya -mangala was next mentioned in an inscr ip t ion of 1495 when it was recorded that Kandadai Ramanuja Ayyangar , the agent for the endowments of the emperor Saluva Nara-simha and an impor tant teacher and official at the Temple, granted 6,500 panam for food offerings to the major deity Sr i Venkatesvara and two minor deities. Of the 6,500 panam, it was provided that 1.300 panam was to be used for the excavat ion of an i r r i ga t i on channel in the temple village of V ik ramad i -tyamangala, "and w i t h the y ie ld obtained by means of the sa id- i r r iga-
T H E E C O N O M I C W E E K L Y A N N U A L
l i on channel, all the necessary a r t i cles [ f o r the food offerings] shall he supplied f r o m the Shri Bhunda-ram [ t emple t reasury] " In the 1429 insc r ip t ion , V ik ramad i tya mangala was granted to the Temple to provide income for specific offerings to be made d u r i n g a festival for the mer i t of the Vi jayanagar emperor Devaraya I I . Each year thereafter, the officers of the temple works office (tiruppani-bhandaram) wou ld collect a share of the regular income of the vil lage to be used for the prescribed offerings. Then, in 1495, the donor Kandada i Ramanuja A y y a n -gar stipulated that 1,300 panam of his endowment was to be used to create an i r r i g a t i o n channel in Vikramadi tyamanga la vil lage and that the addi t iona l income f r o m this improvement would support an addi t ional offer ing. Thus, the regular ineomc f r o m the temple vi l lage of Vikramadi tyamanga la was enhanced by a capital improvement of 1.300 panam, and, on the basis of this improvement , the village, after 1495, .supported two different food offerings.*
Though the two factors of the T i r u p a t i investment programme and state support were interdependent factors in real iz ing the scale of g rowth achieved at T i r u p a t i , there can he no question of the p r imacy of tdate support . F rom the very first record of an endowment to the deity Sri Venkatesvara in the n i n t h century , the endowments f rom rulers of South Ind ian k ingdoms and their officers had contr ibuted the bulk of resources to the Temple . Endowments f rom slate donors not only p rov ided the bulk of resources necessary for the im-reused tempo of r i t ua l activities at T i r u p a t i after 1456, but, by p r o v i d i n g an example, these state endowments also indirectly faci l i ta ted the endowments of temple functionaries and local residents and merchants. Together, the money endowments of temple functionaries and local residents and merchants amounted to fifty per
* It should be pointed out that the Temple was not the sole beneficiary of such an investment and increase in income. The cultivators of the lands of the benefitted village, as holders of the minor share of income (kudivarom). also realized enhanced incomes. This may be taken as a measure of the welfare produced by the irrigation programme of the Temple.
cent of all money endowments by value between 1509 and 1568. In the per iod before 1456, these two donor groups were represented by only a few endowments according to the exis t ing record. F rom 1456 to 1568, however, the temple functionaries and local residents and merchants played a major part as donors. In considering only the money endowments by these two groups, the fo l lowing observation may be made. Temple functionaries contr ibuted about one-fourth of the total money endowments to the Temple d u r i n g the per iod of the greatest development of the Temple, 1509-1568. It has been shown elsewhere in detail by the wr i t e r how functionaries were able to convert their basic l ive l ihood payment of consecrated food (prasadam) into money th rough an exchange system which had developed w i t h i n the Temple precincts but which was not a part of the regular temple organisation. Br i e f ly , consecrated food was sold to p i lg r ims by persons who leased the r ight to collect the consecrated food due to the temple functionaries and others. Th i s exchange system depended upon a large number of p i l g r i m "consumers' of the consecrated food. It can be argued that the T i r u p a t i temple became a major p i lgr image centre largely because the endowments of state donors gave the Temple the prestige of imper ia l support as well as the resources for impressive arid frequent religious services. The -temple functionaries could not have converted their food payments into money except through sales to p i lg r ims , and p i lg r ims would not have massed at T i r u p a t i wi thout the sustaining support in prestige and endowments which the state provided.
The same argument is true for the local residents and merchants of T i r u p a t i , the other major donor group . Local residents and merchants contr ibuted about one-fourth of the total of money endowments by value to the Temple in the period 1509-1568. These local donors were comprised of merchants and a variety of specialists such as teachers. scholars, and artisans, persons who congregated in impor tant religious centres to serve the various needs of the place. A l l of these persons dc r ived their l ivel ihoods f rom the act ivi t ies sur rounding the Temple. Thus, in the same degree that temple functionaries were dependent upon the sustaining economic and
February 1 1961
prestige support of the state which attracted p i l g r i m s to whom the functionaries sold their consecrated food payments, so the merchants and other specialists or T i r u p a t i were dependent upon the, great numbers of p i l g r ims who came to T i r u p a t i to worship and who employed the services of specialists around the Temple. In both cases, the money income finally realized by the functionaries and local residents derived f r o m the tact that the, T i r u p a t i temple had become a rel igious centre* of the first importance. Kndow-ments by state donors were basically responsible for ra is ing the Temple to this k ind of p i lg r image centre.
The i r r i g a t i o n programme carried out by the T i r u p a t i Temple pr imar i l y w i t h state endowed resources raises the question of the relationship of the Vi jayanagar state to i r r i gation and the role of temples in this ac t iv i ty . The Vi jayanagar rulers considered i r r iga t ion to be of vi ta l importance, as indeed they might , given the character of the Vi jayanagar agrarian economy. Agr icul ture in- southern India was based upon small-scale i r r i ga t i on through the use of tanks, wells. and river water sources. The i r r iga t ion programme of the T i r u p a t i temple, based upon the investment of money endowments. is probably a good example of the small-scale i r r iga t ion of the t ime.*
Funds were used to create i r r iga t ion tanks and channels on a village-by-village basis. The income added to a temple village by such improvements was probably calculated wi th care so that part of this income, the. major part, could meet the costs of the rural servise for which the endowment w as made. The i r r i ga t ion p r o l a m i n e of the T i r u p a t i temple villages involved no observable changes in the organization of agr icul ture in the area beyond the probable slight reorganization of agr icu l tura l labour ar is ing out of the introduct ion or extension of i r r iga ted lands in the village. The management of village lands and the regulation of i r r i ga t ion was retained in the hands of cultivators w i t h i n the village organizat ion of labour.
The kind of agrarian operation which Wittfogel calls, "hydroagricul-ture" as distinguished from, ""hydraulic agriculture". In the former the degree of Social and Political control required is slight. Oriental Despotism. New Haven, Vale University Press, 1957. P 3
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THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY ANNUAL February 4. 1961
The Vi jayanagar state appeared lo recognize the. importance of small scale i r r i g a t i o n works upon wh ich most of southern India depended. Yet, despite this recognit ion, there was no department of i r r i ga t i on in the government . 7 In fact, i t cannot he said that the Vi jayanagar state took a direct and active role in the creation of i r r iga t ion facili t ies in the country except around the capital ci ty of Vijayanagar , There are only a few isolated cases of i r r iga t ion works being direct ly established by the imper ia l government. In 1339, a Mysore inscr ip t ion described the construction of a huge tank by the Vi jayanagar prince Bhas-kara Bavadura in the present State of A n d h r a . 8 Under Bukka I I (1405-105-6) a river was redirected into a large channel bui l t under the orders of the emperor and bearing the name of "Bukkaraya c h a n n e l " 9 In 1498, a valley in the present Anan-tapur districts of Andhra was constructed into a large reservoir under the orders of Saluva Narasimha. 10
In 1953. a great tank was constructed near Bangalore under orders from the emperor Achyutadcvaraya and st i l l provides water to that important city. A r o u n d the city of V i j aya nagar, the state look more direct steps. Krishnadevaraya constructed a large tank at Nagalapura. a suburb of the capital city and used the technical assistance of a Portugese engineer della Ponte. 11 As reported in the contemporary chronicle of Paes, the Nagalapura lank was an important i r r i ga t i on work . 1 2 I t was one of a number of impor tan t i r r iga t ion projects of the capital which apparently had an integrated and effective i r r i ga t i on and water supply system. Sir Thomas M u n r o spoke of the i r r iga t iona l system around Vi jayanagar in the fo l lowing manner :
To attempt the construction of new tanks [ i n the capital ci ty area | is perhaps a more hopeless experiment titan to repair those, which have been fil led up. for there is scarcely any place where a tank can be made to advantage that has not been applied to this purpose by the inhabitants, "
Whi le the Vi jayanagar state d id not directly undertake i r r iga t ion works in great number except around the capital , it frequently d id assist individuals to do so, N Venka-taramanayya. the his tor ian of the t h i r d dynasty of Vi jayanagar (1509-
1576) , has stated that "the excavat ion of tanks and canals as well as the d igging of wells was left to in d iv idua l enterprise." 14 The typical procedure followed by those ind i viduals seeking to construct a tank or i r r iga t ion channel was for the state to provide the person who undertook the project w i t h free land watered by the tank or channel as payment. This land payment was iriven the name dusavanda or kattit kodage.15 ' ' Vi jayanagar historians have cited numerous cases in which the state made such arrangements w i t h persons, and state grants of land for this purpose have been cited frequent ly in the Annual Reports of Indian Epigraphy. "'
Other Temple Examples The provis ion of i r r i ga t ion works
through H i n d u temples, however, remains extremely impor tan t according to the corpus of South Ind i an inscriptions. The Saivite temple of Kalahasti , near T i r u p a t i , fol lowed the practice of using money endowments for the excavation of i r r iga t ion channels and the reclamation of temple lands. A Kalahasti inscription of the year 1510 stated:
We the supervisors of the Treasury of the God at [Ka lahas t i ! . . . agree to arrange for offerings of sweet rice cakes on eleven occasions ., . V i rappannar A y y a n deposited w i t h us fo r the purpose 1,306 pan which was to be invested in the new settlements of Mnl layammansamudram . . . w i t h a view to b r i n g the lands under cul t ivat ion [ a n d ] Lakkuset t ipu-ram . . . The lands of the latter settlement were to be i r r iga ted and brought under the plow wi th the help of the waters of Virasa-mud ram lake [ w h i c h w i l l | be repaired and maintained by invest-ing 1,006 pon of the amount deposited. 17
St i l l other examples of temple sponsored i r r i ga t ion works may be cited to indicate the scope of such undertakings. In 158-1. the trustees of a Saivite shrine and a Vaishnavitc shrine along wi th some private persons arranged to have a r iver channel excavated through the lands of one temple in order to supply the tank on the lands of the other temple. As compensation for permission to cross its lands. one acre (300 kuli) of laud was given to the former temple. 18 In another ease, in 1552. some lands belonging
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to a temple which had not been cultivated for a time were granted tax-free status by an arrangement between the temple officials and the local state officer, These lands were then favourably leased to cultivators for reclamation and cul t ivat ion. 19
An early Vijayanagar inscr ipt ion from Mysore recorded that a local state officer and temple officials agreed lo exempt lands f rom taxes which were watered by a tank constructed on temple lands w i t h funds provided by a local merchant. The merchant was to enjoy the income f rom this land for two years after which the lands would revert to the-1
temple along wi th the tank. It was also stipulated that the merchant was to retain a por t ion of the land as his d asm and a. or payment in land for the construction of the tank.20
Another Mysore inscr ip t ion of the year 1 110 provides an example of co-operation between a non-temple and a temple for the purpose of constructing i r r iga t ion works for the lands of the temple and the village. The villagers dammed a r iver and constructed a channel over their own lands to the temple at their own expense. It was stipulated that the water carr ied in the channel was to be used in the proport ion of two-thirds for temple lands and one-third for the land of the v i l lagers. A l l repairs and maintenance were to be borne in the same propor t ion , e g . two-thirds by the temple. A 1424 inscr ip t ion f rom the same place recorded that the dam constructed by the villagers in 1410 had been breached and that the temple officials and villagers asked one of the mi l i t a ry commanders of the area for help in restoring the dam which the latter provided."1
Temple-Sponsored Irrigation
A final example of temple-sponsored i r r iga t ion indicates the h igh degree of planned i r r iga t ional development of temple lands in some places. In 1496. a temple manager in the modern Kolar distr ict of Mysore executed an agreement with a person who excavated a tank in a temple village. The agreement stipulated the quality of the tank const ruction and also the payment in land for the work, i e. the award of dasaianda land watered by the newly constructed tank. The agreement also stipulated the rights and obligations of the persons awarded the dasavandu land. The inscript ion read as follows :
February 4, 1961 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY ANNUAL
Be it well. [On the date specified | to. Alapa's son Narasimha-deva. the temple priest of the Ood Narasimha, kondapa-Tim-m a u n a ' s son Aevapa. granted a [ land payment | agreement as follows : Whereas the Gundala-halli village . . . belonging to the offerings of our God . . . Narasimha . . . and provides for the offerings and ceremonies . . . of the God and the livelihood of the attendants [and] on your ex pending money and causing a v i rgin lank to he const meted . . . forming an embankment with plenty of earth, building it with stone, fixing a stone sluice and making it secure with bricks and good mortar. and thoroughly completing the lank . . . . We grant von in the rice lands that wi l l be formed under the lams | an award of land equal to) three in ten as. a (payment for the construction of a t ank] . If any the least failure occurs f in the tank] we wi l l levy money and grain from | all J of the rice lands [under | the tank, including those of your [ land award] and have i t repaired . . . . The same provisions are laid down for any future extension of rice lands under the tank . . . . If the flow of water allows, you may plant a rea . cocoanut or other permanent gardens in your [awarded land] and have the ful l enjoyment of the same. If the tank .should not fill sufficiently for your three-tenths [land award | rice fields, you wi l l take your turn for the water. For bui lding houses for the [cultivators | who cultivate your [land award | rice fields we wi l l point out the sites. For such cultivators we wi l l not exact house-tax or other taxes. These [ land award] rice fields are granted to you [for | as long as the sun and moon endure, to be enjoyed by you and your posterity, with r ight to bequeath and self 22
These examples of i r r igat ion facilities established under the auspices of temple-, sometimes, with the support of a state officer and sometimes with the support of private persons, are a few among the many referred to in the South Indian inscriptions. South Indian temples were important laud-holders having control over lands second only to the Vijayanagar state in their extent. In addition to in igat ional activities,
these temples were also concerned with land reclamation. A Appa-dorai has stated that the medieval South Indian temples were the chief non-state agencies involved in the reclamation of land.23 Temple sponsored reclamation projects were accomplished under what Appado-rai has called "a system of favourable leases/' Cultivators were attracted to marginal or waste lands which had been endowed to temples by the lease of these lands at very small annual rents. This rent would be gradually increased by the temple until it reached a certain amount and fixed there. Under this system of reclamation, the clearing and levelling of land and the provision of i r r igat ion were conditions of tenancy,"1
Was This Stale Support for Development of Agriculture?
Under the conditions which have been described above, where South Indian temples were among the most important agencies for agricultural development, the question of whether one reason for the vast state support was to achieve agricultural development may be considered. It could be inferred that the Vijayanagar state supported the Ti rupat i and the many other South Indian temples conducting similar programmes in recognition of the contribution which temples made to the provision of i r r igat ion and the reclamation of land. This inferred motive for support would be consistent wi th , even supportive of, the other motives which moved the state to support Hindu temples such as the duty of Hindu kings to maintain the religion and its institutions and. for the Vijayanagar period, the special ideological significance of the Hindu religion in the struggle against the Musl im states of the Deccan. The inference that the state sought to promote land development through its endowments must he examined carefully. The evidence from the Ti rupat i temple and other temples does not, prima-facie, warrant the conclusion that the Vijayanagar state was deliberately helping to provide irrigation facilities for South Indian villages through slate endowments and other forms of support to tem-ples, ft is necessary to distinguish between the manifest and latent functions of these endowments and other forms of support. The manifest function of money endowments to the Tirupat i and other temples
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was to offer a r i tual service for the merit which such an act gave to the state donor. The manifest funct ion of grants of tax-free lands to persons who constructed tanks and i r r igat ion channels, i e, dasavanda or kottu-kodage grants, was a reward by the state for an act of religious merit performed by some person. Similarly, the manifest function of the kinds of state support to temples, such as tax remissions, mediation in disputes, and periodic or regular supervision of temple administration, was to provide for the continuing operation of these important religious institutions.
To be sure, these actions by the Vijayanagar slate had the latent function of supporting the land development activities of temples. However, it is necessary to distinguish the consequences of the support of the state from the motives for which the support was given. Land development was an obvious consequence or function of state endowments. Yet, land development may not have been a motive. It was perhaps enough for the Vi jayanagar state to support temples simply in order to maintain Hindu institutions. State support of temples in order to promote land development is nowhere suggested in the sources, nor is this reason required to explain the support which the state provided medieval South Indian temples. Thus, without ru l ing out the possibility that the Vijayanagar stale supported these temples in order to promote land development through these institutions, it is not possible to assert that the promotion of such development was a motive in the support of the temples by the Vijayanagar state.
The South Indian Temple as an Economie Centre
The development of lands was but one of the economic activities which medieval South Indian temples carried out. W i t h i n the area of their influence, which varied with the importance and wealth of the temple, each temple was an important economic institution. The variegated economic functions of medieval South Indian temples have been commented upon by most South Indian historians. Nilakanta Sastvi spoke of temples as having the following economic functions : ' landholder, employer . . . consumer of goods and services .. , [and |
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bank."2 5 The landholder function has already been dealt w i t h sufficiently. The temple as an employer of large numbers of persons may be seen in the eleventh century insc r ip t ion f rom the Tanjore temple. Here, 609 temple servants are listed not i nc lud ing teachers and p r inc ipa l sp i r i tua l and secular officials.26 Mahal ingam mentioned an inscr ip t ion of the Vijayanagar period which referred to a smaller temple w i t h 370 temple servants.27
Temples were also major consumers of local products which were regul a r l y purchased and used for the performance of r i t u a l . 28 Numerous inscript ions also refer to the loans made by temples to individuals and village assemblies for economically productive and other purposes. Such loans would usually be secured by lands whose income the temple would enjoy in l ieu of interest.
The variety of economic functions which South Ind ian Brahmanical temples came to have by the Vi jaya-nagar period may be viewed in the fo l lowing developmental framework. Du r i ng the medieval period, Brahmanical centres became religious centres w i th respect to a group of villages and other institutions. This occurred as a result of the H i n d u revival which made the Brahmanical temple the most significant insti tution for bhakti worship. The rise of temples was the result of re l igious developments of the medieval period. Necessarily. Brahmanical temples depended upon an allocation of resources in order to support rituals. Necessarily, also, the temple developed close economic lies w i t h local insti tutions not only as the recipient of their endowments, but as landholder, employer, consumer, and source of loan funds. Hence, temples became economic as well as religious centres. An important aspect of the relationship between the temple and the local ins t i tu t ion w i th which economic ties existed derived f rom the nature of religious endowments. Endowments were made for the provision of perpetual services which , in the case of money, required investment for earnings.
Study of the T i r u p a t i and other South Ind ian temples has suggested another aspect of the role of temples as economic centres in medieval South Ind ia . The rulers of Vijayanagar , dedicated to the promotion of H i n d u institutions, poured large sums of money into tem
ples. This money was not bur ied in vaults; it was pressed into immediate service by temple officials. At the T i r u p a t i temple, the fo rm in which these sums of money were employed to earn an income was through i r r iga t ion investments. At Srirangam. it appears, money endowments were employed in making commercial loans to business firms in Tr ich inopoly . At other temples, such funds were loaned to village assemblies or individuals . It appears that every temple had one, or perhaps several, ways in which its monev trusts could be employed for productive or other purposes. The channeling of these funds wi th which the temples were endowed took place wi th in what might be thought of as an economic system formed by institutions and persons which had economic ties to the temple.
Hypothesis Suggested A l l of the foregoing suggests the
hypothesis that medieval South Indian temples functioned as economic centres through which resources of the Vijayanagar state were redistr ibuted* in the form of endowments. Two aspects of this function of temples as redistr ibution centres appear significant.
(1) The nature of this redistribution was both voluntary and indirect. It was volunlarv in the sense that state officers granted money and land to temples as devotees of the deities, not as state agents for the rational allocation of slate resources. This redistr ibut ion was indirect in the sense that the resources which finally came to be used by local institutions were redist r ibuted by temple officials according to the needs of each temple to establish a viable economic foundat ion. In this paper, three important ways of der iv ing earnings f rom
* The concept of redistribution is discussed in a recent shidv by Kail Polanyi. "The Economy aS an Instituted Process." in Trade and Markets in the Early Empires Glen-coe. Illinois: The Free Press, 1957. The concept is also exemplified in an essay in the same volume by Walter C Nenle with the Indian village as the focus. The essential idea of redistribution as as integrative mechanism is the collecting of jioods or the rights over goods into, and distribution from. ;i centre. A "center" need not be essentially economic in its function (p 254).
monev endowments have beet) mentioned : (a) investment in i r r igat i o n ; (b) loans to commercial f i rms: (c) loans to individuals and village assemblies. Presumably there were other ways in which temple officials allocated money which had been granted to them by state donors.
(2) The redistr ibution of state resources through temple centers represented a major allocation of state resources for economic and welfare purposes. There are two reasons for suggesting this. First, the H i n d u re l ig ion and Hindu institutions were pr inc ipa l integrating forces within the Vijayanagar state espe-cially in the face of the threat of poli t ical domination from Mus l im stales of (he Deccan. Fu recognition of this integrative function, the Vijayanagar state allocated an important por t ion of its revenues to support the temples and even maintained an office of temple endowments (but no department of i r r i g a t i o n l ) . Second, there appear to have been no other channels through which state resources could be allocated for economic and welfare projects. The administrat ive organization of Vijayanagar was loosely integrated, and the overall structure of the state was dominated hv its mi l i ta ry needs. The only well-established administrat ive links were for the purpose of maintaining a mi l i ta ry organization. Allocations to temples represented the one important and continuous channel throi iuh which state resources came to he applied to economic and welfare purposes.
The hypothesis that temples served as centres for the redistr ibution of resources, par t icular ly state resources has emerged from the study of some South Indian temples during the medieval period. Research in the economic history of India is s t i l l in its infancy and hypotheses of this sort appear to be necessary. In the present state of knowledge about the economic organization of medieval India South and North
there is a curious eompartmenta-lization of economic l ife. Something is known of the peasant village as an economic unit; the general conditions and organization of trade through guilds, and the role of the state as the recipient of land revenue. characteristically. these institutions and the different levels of economic activity in which they are involved are discussed separately by
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South I n d i a n historians wi thout consideration of possible interrelationships. I f subsequent research should prove it true that temples were impor tan t centres for the red is t r ibut ion of state resources, then an impor tant l inkage between the state and the village or other institutions can be established.
Conclusion
Insc r ip t iona l and other evidence f rom the Tanjore and Sr i rangam temples d u r i n g the Chola period (9th-13th centuries) and the T i r u -pat i , Kalahasti , and Sr i rangam temples du r ing the Vi jayanagar per iod (14th-17th - centuries) make it possible to enumerate the ways in which the state facili tated and supported the regional developmental activites of temples. First, state endowments were impor tant . Laud endowed to temples came p r i m a r i l y f rom the state. The ru l ing group was the only donor group in the country wh ich had command over land resources of an extent which permit ted alienation to temples. The state also endowed money to f inance normal temple r i tua l and special festivals which served to attract the support of other devotees and p i lgr ims. The kings and their officers endowed shrines, sacred tanks, and other physical facilities which made South I n d i a n temples more popular and confortable places of p i lgr image and therefore promoted greater p i l g r i m support. Second, the state frequently remitted taxes on temple lands and properties which contributed to the financial s tabi l i ty of these institutions. Third, the state adjudicated conflicts w i t h i n the temple organizations and between the temples and other institutions such as temple villages, non-temple villages, other temples, and local state officers. Th i s was an extremely important function since a temple such as Sr i rangam had almost 300 villages in the fifteenth century which could have been administered only w i t h state support of the T e m p l e t rights.2 9 F ina l ly , the state frequently took an active role in supervising temple adminis t ra t ion. In many of the larger temples there was frequently a state officer, adhikari duri n g the Chola per iod and paru-palyagar d u r i n g the Vi jayanagar period, who was attached to the temple a$ an inspector of administ ra t ive practices and an agent for the endowments of h i g h state officers. In the Chola per iod there are
references to state audits of temple accounts.
The support which the medieval South I n d i a n state gave to temples and hence to the regional develope-mental activities which they carried out can be explained in a number of ways. Concern w i t h the adminis trat ive and financial stabil i ty of H i n d u temples was par t of the responsibil i ty of the H i n d u state and in accord w i t h proper (dhar-mic) models of state action. To some extent, state support can be understood as mere devotional acts by state officials devoid of poli t ical motives.
In this paper it has been suggested that, whatever the motive for such state support, the latent funct i on of the support was to produce a significant degree of agricul tural development through the provision of i r r i g a t i o n to numerous villages which had been endowed to temples. It has been suggested moreover that this latent funct ion may be seen as a redistr ibut ion of state resources through H i n d u temples which had become significant economic centres in their own r igh t . The temple, as an economic organization, represented what may have been the best way of allocating state resources economic developement and welfare on a small, regional scale. In some significant ways, the Community Development Programme, created by the modern bureaucratic and rational Ind ian Republic, is an extension of the small regional developmental effort, w i th the peasant village as its focus, wh ich existed in medieval Ind ia three or four centuries ago. The differences between the medieval I n d i a n programme and the contemporary one are. of course, great, perhaps the most important difference being that the motives of the modern state are much more direct and the objectives sought are much more considered.
References 1 A. Rangasvami Sarasvati, " P o l i
t ical M a x i m s of the Emperor Poet, Krishndeva Raya," Journal of Indian History, V I , Part I I I ( 1925) , p . 69.
2. Government of Ind ia . Department of Archaeology, Annual Report of Indian Epigraphy for 1947-48, p. 3.
3. T i ruma la i -T i rupa t i Epigraphi-cal Series Report on the Inscriptions of the Tirupati Temple Devasthanam Collection (Madras : T i r u p a t i Sr i Mahant 's
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Press, 1930) , p. 102. 1. For a most insightful discussuon-
of this matter and related ones see the discussion by T K T Viraraghavacharya, History of Tirupati, I ( T i r u p a t i : T i rumala i -T i rupa t i Devasthanams 1953), pp 529-30.
5. T i ruma la i -T i rupa t i Epigraphical Series, Texts and Translations, I ( T i r u p a t i ; T i ruma la i T i r u pati Devasthanam Press, 1931), No. 192.
6. Ibid, I I , No. 134. 7. N Venkataramanayya, Studies
in the Third Dynasty of Vijaya-nagara, (Madras : Univers i ty of Madras, 1935), p. 187.
8. T V Mahal ingam, Economic Life in the Vijayanagar Empire (Madras : Universi ty of Madras, 1951). p. 494.
9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid p. 5 1 . 12. Robert Sewell, A Forgotten Em
pire (Vijaya nagar). (London ; Swan Sonnenschein and Co L t d , 1900) , pp 245-6.
13. Mahal ingam, Economic Life ...., p. 59.
14. Venkataramanayya op at p,187 15. Ibid, pp . 190-91. 16. India . Archaeological Survey of
Ind ia , Annual Report on South Indian Epigraphy for 1913 (New D e l h i : Manager or Publications), p. 85.
17. Ibid, 1922, No 166. 18. Ibid 1922, No 9. 19. Ibid, 1922, No 312. 20. Mysore Epigraphical Series
Epigraphica Cartiatica, IX f Bangalore: Mysore Government Press. 1886-1909) Hosekote Taluq, No 50.
2 1 . Ibid, X I . Devanagere Talmy, Nos 23 and 29.
22. Ibid, X. Mulbagal Taluq. No 172.
23. A Appadora i , Economic Conditions in Sourthern India 1000-1500 A.D [ (Madras : University of Madras, 1936). p 195.
24. Ibid, 25. K A Nilakanta Sastri, The
Cholas, I I . Part I I (Madras : Univers i ty of Madras. 1937)., p 504,
26. Appadorai . op cit. pp 275-6. 27. Maha l ingam. Economic Life...
p 40. 28. Ibid p 38. 29. V X H a d Rao. "A His to ry of
Ph D thesis. Univers i ty of Madras. 1948. Typescript ms P 392,
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