ANOTHER CRUCIAL AREA of the Hindu institutional apparatus lies in the foresight in recognizing the fact that the smallest unit of administration should have the greatest freedom and the least amount of control from the central government. This is the village. For hundreds of centuries, every village in India was a self-contained and self-sustained world in itself.
Let’s now examine a few facets of this aspect.
The first facet is the timely delivery of the only thing that maintains peace and order: justice.
Our history shows that the village headman was also a magistrate who wielded sweeping powers. The extraordinary feature in this regard is that the structure and setup of village administration was almost uniform throughout our history, throughout Bharatavarsha under Hindu rulers. Numerous foreign travelers have noted with surprise how villagers would calmly carry on their farming even when a war was raging just in the distance of their eyesight.
Here are some finer points of how this well-oiled system of village administration worked in real life throughout our history.
1. In 1012 CE under the Chalukya king Vikramaditya V, the Ummacchige village (now in Yellapura) was a great educational hub. The 104 Mahajanas of this village were entrusted with the smooth conduct of temple worship, imparting education, feeding the ascetics, water supply, and punishing criminals. The king had only a nominal say in all this.
2. Next, we have the famous Uttaramerur inscription of the 10th Century in the regime of Parantaka Chola I. This deals with village committees which were empowered to administer the whole village.
3. And now, we can look at an extraordinary inscription during the rule of the Hoysala king, Vira Narasimha III. This is the renowned Hebbale inscription, about which I’ve written in detail. It basically says that all the people of the Hebbale village near Hassan, voluntarily agreed to deposit their entire annual revenue into the royal treasury for funding the payment of the Turushka pilgrim tax for Hindus of South India who wanted to go on a Tirthayatra to Varanasi. In fact, the inscription is so extraordinary that it caught the attention of Mahamahopadhyaya P.V. Kane who has mentioned it in his history of the Dharmasastra.
4. Then there’s an incredible Kadamba inscription found at Sorade, now known as the Choradi village, about half an hour from Shimoga. The inscription says that all inhabitants of this ancient village “are devoted to the observance of Pranayama and other Yogic practices, and have mastered absolute control over their sense organs. This village has resolved to make a gift of wet and dry lands together with the remission of house-tax and family-tax to Cīladalārā Bopadalārā (a village policeman) in appreciation of the victory he won against royal cow-lifters. Even if the king tries to nullify this gift, we will cast him out.”
There are literally thousands of such inscriptions which are the real-life sources that help us to understand the true and accurate history of Bharatavarsha. These were our own people, our ancestors who ran village administration in a truly enviable manner.
And now we can look at a few aspects of the Hindu legal institutions. As I’ve mentioned on several occasions, we notice the same civilizational continuity even in this field. Even during British rule, some of the essential precepts and practices of Hindu jurisprudence were recognised by British judges in India. For example, till the 1920s, a Hindu could take oath in the court on one or many of the following:
Any Hindu Scripture including but not limited to the Veda, Bhagavad Gita and Dharmasastras
Water from Ganga
Salagrama
Tulasi plant
Rudrakshi
Fire or Agni and
The eldest son: This was considered as the most binding oath of all.
Anybody familiar with our social and cultural history knows how ancient these practices are. In fact, even to this day, some of these are used as idioms in daily life by Hindus: this includes for example, Devaraane, Taayi Aane, etc.
In the realm of Hindu jurisprudence this oath-taking was known as Divya or ordeal. Typically, in a dispute, the guilt or innocence of the accused was proven by making the person go through one of the nine time-honoured ordeals.
The system of Divya-s formed one of the central pillars of Hindu jurisprudence from unknown antiquity. For example, Brihaspati, an ancient Dharmasastra exponent and jurist enumerates nine Divyas:
(1) Tula or balance
(2) Agni or fire
(3) Jala or water
(4) Visha or poison
(5) Dharma-Adharma: In this case, two metallic or clay Murtis were made, one signifying the deity of Dharma and the other, Adharma. They were then thrown inside a large earthen jar and if the accused took out the Murti of Dharma, he or she was regarded as innocent.
(6) Tandula or rice
(7) Tapta-masaka or hot gold coin
(8) Phaala or spearhead
(9) Kosha: literally, “Murti-washed water.” The accused person was made to drink water with which the Murtis of the deities of Surya, Devi, etc., had been washed. If the accused fell sick within fourteen days of drinking it, a guilty verdict was pronounced.
Incredibly, this system of Divyas was still in vogue in some villages and towns in the East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh as recent as 1958. As I said, unbroken continuity.
In the next episode, we’ll look at some concrete examples from history of how the Hindu legal system operated.
To be continued
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