Part 3 - The Licchavi land system

The Licchavis of Nepal represent a people who were different from their Kirata predecessors in both their political Ethnically cultural background. genius and too, all the members of their aristocracy, their ideologues and intellectuals, and others of the influential section of their society were of and had come from a different stock from the local people, tenure, 2 1. For a detailed description of the kipat system of land see Mahesh Regmi's Land Tenure and Taxation in Nepal, pp. 534-87. See also Lionel Caplan's Land and Social Change in Eastern Nepal, pp. 56 ff. for an understanding of the process of alienation of Kipat land belonging to the Limbus by Hindu immigrants in that region in recent times. This is the 2. The Pasupati Purana called the Kiratas mlecchas. term used by the early Hindus to describe aliens or non-Aryans. This underlines the awareness of an ethnic difference between the Kiratas and the Licchavis from an early time. Purana, Ch. XVII, verse 11. See Pasupati

26/Kailash India at different times as migrating hordes. The Licchavi rulers themselves were one such migrating group which has already been mentioned. As this is the period when the documented history of Nepal begins, it becomes obvious from its records that extensive indic influences were laid at the base of Nepali culture during this most formative stage. 1 It is, however, quite outside the scope of the present paper to discuss all its aspects here. References to Brahmans can be found in the Licchavi inscriptions in the time of Manadeva I, in connection with making gifts of land to them. Later we see that the Brahmans themselves had become large landowners and made their own land endowments in support of diverse charitable causes (LA 28). The values which guided the Licchavi kings in the performance of their political and other acts derived wholly from either Brahmanism or Buddhism, both of Indian origin. There is a significant line in an inscription (LA 17) which describes the king's position at that time in regard to his adopted values. It describes King Manadeva I as someone who bases the performance of his (kingly) duties on the precepts of the srutis (vedos) and dharmasastras (Hindu Classical Law Books). Let us return now to see what these kings were actually doing in terms of bringing about a change in the land administration system. In attempting change, the king seems to be assuming direct responsibility in the sphere of village fiscal . For 1. The Licchavi stone edicts emulate contemporary styles of India not only in regard to the script and the language they use, but also in the matter of their diction and style. example, if the impressive epithets of the Licchavi kings and rulers are modelled on those used in the stone inscriptions of the Imperial Guptas, their more technical expressions used for making the grants are drawn from the Karitalai and Khoh plates of Maharaja Jayanatha and Sarvanatha in the Gupta Era 174-214, i.e, A.D. 493-533. See J.F. Fleet, CII, Vol. 3, pp. 31 ff. and 117-39.

27/Kailash administration and in the maintenance of law and order there. His responsibility was exercised mainly through the person of the brahmuh, which appears to have been a title of some consequence in the village. In the edicts where the above four officials have their authority checked, the inscription closes each time with a mention of the village brahmun, whom the king appointed in the same manner as he as he appointed the dutakas (LA 25, 26, 31, 32, 44-49). It is true that the term brahmun itself is non-Sanskrit in etymology, but it had apparently been adapted to the new Hinduized administration. Save in the first two edicts, the brahmin are always persons whose names end in gupta. The guptas at this time were an important group within the Licchavi aristocracy. Elsewhere in these inscriptions, many members of their group are seen enjoying high titles of state such as varta and pratihara. Thus the brahmun's title and appointment was of no mean significance, although his jurisdiction and authority was probably limited to the village. 1 There The role of the village agent named brahmun does not seem to have lasted for long, however, as it soon disappeared. It was replaced by a Sanskrit term, svatalasvami (LA 68), and later again by a more common term, dauvarika dauvarika (LA 149), a post which endured permanently in Nepali village administration. was one important effect of all this change, and that was bring all the land under the direct control of the king. The kings made land their chief resource and the base on which they built their political and social hierarchy. The rulers had expansive palace grounds, such as Managrha and Kailasakutabhavana, 1. to This authority (nowadays called dware) as a village agent of the administration continued to be prevalent in the Kathmandu Valley until the turn of the century. Hodgson mentions that dwaria was an active village authority, along with a few others, until the first half of the last century. See Hodgson's 'Some Accounts of the System of Law and Police... .', pp. 247-75.

28/Kailash which, besides containing living apartments for their families, also housed important high offices of state. We learn this from LA 72 and 149. Offices such as the purva-, pascima-, uttara-, and daksina-adhikaranas probably took their names from the respective gates in the king's palace where they were evidently located. This speaks too of the manner in which the king exercised direct control in conducting the affairs of the village. The work of the above offices in the king's palace probably consisted in coordinating the administration in four sectors of the kingdom corresponding to the cardinal directions. In line with this trend for using Sanskrit names for administrative posts, we get references to a visayapati in two identical inscriptions from the Tistung area outside of the Valley (LA 73 and 74). We are told about several tax officials working under the lord of this visaya, or region, such as saulkika and gaulmika, both Sanskrit terms, who, it is said, remained attached to the western door. This western door, we presume, must have referred to the king's palace gate. . the Some of the other administrative positions and titles of the higher echelons constituting the Licchavi aristocracy were represented by such names as dutaka, mahasamanta, samanta, sarvadandanayaka mahapratihara, pratihara and varta. These positions were, in all likelihood, the preserve of a few families: Licchavis, Varmans, Guptas and other relations of the rulers. by marriage. Adding to them the Brahmans, whose social and ritual status was everywhere acknowledged, we get as clear a picture of the land-owning class as it is possible to have from the Licchavi period. The political strength of these people must have been consolidated by extending their control over a great deal of land, which could have only been achieved by alienating the land titles of the Kirati people. It is not possible from the inscriptions to make any estimate of the size of the land-holdings of any of the

29/Kailash privileged classes of this time. Lands belonging to the king and his close relations were referred to by the term rajakula (LA 68). Such crown lands were secured by well-defined boundaries and were made inviolate from any kind of encroachment by government tax officials (sarvakottamaryadopanna acatabhatapravesyo). From the above inscription (LA 58), we also find out that the owners of these lands could make an unlimited use of its products (including forest resources), even though such owners might not be living on the land, a privilege which was not enjoyed by the tillers and tenants who actually lived on the land. The most revealing edict in this connection is the one issued by Vasantadeva, to which we have already made a brief reference above (LA 22). The subject of this edict is a grant of an entire village on the basis of sarvakottamaryadopannah acatabhatapravesyo by the king to his sister, Jayasundari. The village thus conferred appears to have been a large one since its residents included eighteen kinds of prakrti (castes of subjects ?). Further, it was given to her with the stipulation that she and her descendants might enjoy the grant in perpetuity, The government which was the usual stipulation in such grants. tax-officials are warned in the edict not to bother for taxcollecting purposes the residents presently living in the village, nor those who might come to settle in the future. Similarly, all the villagers living in the village thus donated (meaning thereby its tenant-cultivators) are asked to live in a spirit of peace and mutual cooperation, to pay all their tributes such as bhagabhogakarapindakadanadi (which so far were due to the king) henceforth to the king's sister, and to be protected and looked after well by her. The most prevalent form of and commonly paid taxes in the Licchavi inscriptions were the trikara, and these no doubt consisted of the above bhaga, bhoga and kara. What these taxes referred to will be discussed a

30/Kailash little later on. Most likely, these three taxes were paid by every cultivator-tenant of the time. The term pindakadanadi perhaps referred to the tribute a tenant on a land-endowment had to pay to the group to which the endowment had been made. Even though this seems to be the general meaning of the term, this inscription seems to indicate that even in the case of a land-endowment, some share was due to the king from the recipients of the endowment. All of these various forms of tribute and taxes, which earlier went to the king, are now transferred by him to his sister. Such land-grants formed one category of tribute-free lands. Recipients of such grants. would have included members of the ruling class, samantas (feudals or members of the aristocracy), and high ranking officials of the state, with only a few details on the rights of their enjoyment probably varying here and there. The size of the land held by the individual families is known in one or two instances to have been substantial; although a family in those days could imply a large extended family comprising a wide set of kin groups. LA 34 mentions a varta Dhruvasamgha who made an endowment of 400 bhumi (the size of the land-measure is not clear) to his own private and family-managed gosthi. In LA 11 we hear of a single sarthavaha (head of long distance caravan traders) endowing 450 bhumi on a Siva temple he himself had ordered to be set up, and in yet another instance (LA 10) 2,750 bhumi on another Siva temple. Let us return to the subject of village administration, from which I have digressed a little, to see the nature of the change brought about in it by the Licchavi kings. As we have already seen, the kings were eager to appoint village agents or local functionaries. At the same time their efforts ran in another direction towards the creation and setting up of groups called pancalis within the villages. These newly-formed groups of people were closely living and cooperating communities within the village, bound together by common economic, social and ritual ties. Two edicts (LA 71 and 85) state that problems

31/Kailash that might arise in the villages concerning the pancalis were to be brought for examination before the personal court of the king (paramasana or antarasana). This arrangement seems to have been gradually extended later to as many villages as possible, thus completing the process of a centralised control of the villages, directly assumed by the king at his palace. Thus it would seem that the course of development of village fiscal administration went through three stages in the following sequence: brahmun, svatalasvami, dauvarika, all of whom were obliged to refer matters to the Licchavi antarasana. Towards the reign of Amsuvarma, we thus see a significant change occuring in the use of land and its administration by the ushering in of the pancalis. Their introduction had a farreaching impact on the evolution of the social and cultural life of the Nepal Valley. Although these pancalis have the appearance of being kindred to indic traditions, there is no exact parallel of these practices to be found anywhere in India. The word pancali, in the context of the Licchavi inscriptions, a body of people in the village, basically comprising landowners and cultivators, to whom the king assigned specific religious and/or secular duties, and in return for the fulfilment of which he gave them land to cultivate on easy and liberal terms. There were differences in the privileges granted or the terms under which land was given to these various pancali groups to cultivate. Such land was assigned to them, as a group, on a commonly shared basis. Members sharing in the obligations and privileges accruing from such assignments were called pancalikas. The first reference to pancali occurs in an inscription of Amsuvarma (LA 64). In several inscriptions, including this one, the term pancali is used in the sense of a settlement or village cluster. Elsewhere, it is used to indicate a distinct group of people within a village (LA 146). One inscription makes use of the expression sarvapancali kutumbinah (LA 111),

32/Kailash suggesting the existence of more than one pancali in a village. pancali It may be permissible to speculate a little on the circumstances under which the Licchavi kings invented such a system in their land use. Could this have been done in response to the greater indicization of the population and a desire on the part of the rulers to accord greater facilities to the new Hinduized settlers in the cultivation of the land? Several such pancal groups were created for the works relating to the maintenance of and worship in a Sivite or a Vaisnavite shrine, and the management of lands donated to these shrines in endowments (LA 70, 79, 85, 110, 140). One of the inscriptions (LA 85), which is an edict of Amsuvarma, sheds imporant light on the process of creating a pancali. According to this inscription, Amsuvarma's sister and her affinal relations had set up several temples of deities providing them with supportative lands. The task of management was entrusted to the office of the pascimadhikarana. The edict now orders an alteration in this arrangement and transfers this responsibility henceforth to the adhahsala pancalikas. The land endowed to these shrines by the sister of Amsuvarma must have ultimately come from the king's land or state land, which shows how the state was favourably disposed to responding to the needs of the new communities by eschewing its own rights over these lands. In another edict (LA 79), we are told about land south of Matingrama, which had been assumed into the state land (rajabhogyatamapannam) in the past, but was now given over to the pancalikas there for its care-taking. One believes that the above terms describing land as rajabhumi (LA 26) and rajabhogyatamapannam are equivalent to the modern Nepali term raikar. 1. 1 In fact, raikar appears to be a short and derived form of rajabhumikara. The use of rajabhumi in the Licchavi period appears to be the same as that of the modern raikar. Although rajabhumi did denote all state lands, it did not thereby denote that all rajabhumi were crown lands. For a description of the modern raikar system, see Mahesh Regmi's Land Tenure and Taxation in Nepal, pp. 17-21.

33/Kailash References to the pancalikas become more numerous in the later Licchavi inscriptions. We also learn the fact that the role of the pancalis was not limited to performing their obligations in the religious sphere, but also included work in the secular sphere. Several of them were asked to look after the maintenance of irrigation canals (LA 107, 140, 146), for doing which they were given extra land to tend. We also learn in one instance of the pancali created among two groups of artisan-craftsmen who earned their livelihood by practising their respective trades (LA 110). These were the digvara and ginungvrttibhuj. The nature of these two trades is not immediately clear to us, but later on in the same inscription, the pancalikas in the village are waived tax on textiles (cailakaram pratimucyal, levied perhaps on their production. This perhaps means that the professions of digvara and ginung were related to the work of weaving and making of coarse cloth. Everywhere the pancalis are made the objects of big and small favours granted by the rulers. In some cases (LA 64, 106), they are exempted from paying taxes in any form whatsoever (by ordering the tax officials to keep away from their areas). In others (LA 83), they are given benefit of a taxreduction, the waiving of specific taxes (LA 110), or are favoured with the discontinuation of the extraction of forced labour from their settlements ( LA 118). Still later, the pancalikas are offered an entire village as an agrahara grant, i.e. a grant on a fully tax-exempt basis, which in status, comparable to the lands of kotta and acatabhatapravesyam granted to the king's close relations (LA 136). The pancalikas are free to make use of these agraharas as it might please them ( LA 149). The most significant reference to the wide-ranging powers of the pancalikas is found in an inscription at Naxal ( LA 149). It describes how these pancalikas exercised (perhaps limited) powers by investigating cases, awarding justice, and is

34/Kailash retaining for their own use a portion (one sixth) of the fines accumulated in the village (pancalikanameva nyayavalokana vyavaharaparinisthitajatam dravyasya sadbhagam pancalikanam datavyam). This development underlines yet another important fact, namely, that in the matter of a few decades the power to investigate offences committed within the village had come to pass from the kuthera, lingvala, sullya and mapcoka (collectively designated as the 'fouroffices') to the pancalikas, in other words, from the indigenous land-owning chiefs to the indicized communities in the village. But, throughout all the changes which came about, the king made his presence in these villages felt through the dauvarikas who were invariably posted there. A further line in the Naxal inscription (LA 149) says that the dauvarika was to report the matter to the king within a month's time if an offence investigated by the pancalis was of a serious nature. The pancalis were not, however, the only groups to be given land and sundry other benefits by the kings. The edicts also quite often give directives for the benefit of sectarian religious groups and artisans' groups. I have already described an instance of the latter group. Among other such groups to be given land were the workers of the salas, i.e. production workshops (LA 70). The salas thus referred to include the oil press (tailasala, LA 78), copper smithies (tamrakuttasala, LA 149), pharmaceutical laboratories (arogyasala, LA 70) and indigo processing workshops (nilisala, LA 84). Instances of land grants to benefit sectarian religious groups were common during the time of Narendradeva and Sivadeva II. Recipients of such grants were a Vajresvara mandala (LA 128), the vasapasupatacaryas of the Sivaite sects (LA 139), and the Buddhist monastic community (aryasamgha) of Sivadeva vihara (LA 133 and 134). The manner in which such grants were given to these groups not only made the lands fully tax-exempt, but also bestowed the attendant powers of a local authority, reinforced with expressions like sarvakottamaryadopannah or sarirakottamaryadopannah.

35/Kailash The Licchavi land practice also helped the evolution of an enduring cultural institution in the Nepal Valley, the guthi system. References to the word gosthi or gausthika are quite common in the Licchavi inscriptions, the first referring to the body and the second to a member belonging to this body. Such cultural bodies were instituted by giving them land, income from land at a stipulated rate, for which they were to look after specific works enjoined upon them. The work usually concerned ritual or worship. It is difficult to ascertain the difference in Licchavi society between a gosthi and a pancali as their power and functions go, where they are charged with a similar religious responsibility. However, it is possible surmise that a gosthi was a smaller group than a pancali, limited in the amount or work it did and the authority it exercised. The nature of these gosthis becomes a little more evident when one looks at the names of some of the gausthikas listed in LA 70. These names are: bhagavad vasudeva brahmana gausthika, indra gausthika, arcca gausthika, dhvaja gausthika, pradipa gausthika, dhupa gausthika, etc. Occasionally gosthis could also be partly social in nature as to is inferred from the paniya pranali gausthika (drinking water) who, one guesses, was charged with providing water at appointed places. Most of these gosthis were publicly instituted groups. set up by order of the king. In a single instance, however, there is mention of a private gosthi, in which the management of affairs seems to have been confined to the members of the family itself (svajana gosthikadhinam krtya, LA 34). Such private guthis have always been in vogue in Nepal, even up to modern times. 1 1. Private gosthis, or guthis as they are now called, have been known to exist right down to the modern times. In the Muluki Ain of 1854, land under such a guthi was called guthi birta. See Sri Panc Surendra Bir Bikram Saha Deva ko palama baneko Muluki Ain (Simhadarbar: Kanun Vyavasthapak Samiti, Ministry of Law, Vikram Samvat, 2022) I, pp. 8-18. Mahesh Regmi says that such guthi lands were also called duniya guthi. See his Land Tenure and Taxation in Nepal, p. 650.

36/Kailash One or two interesting aspects of the Licchavi land system emerge from our study. It brings to light preferred groups to whom land-grants were made, thereby bringing them within the acceptable framework of a pancali, gosthi, or other group, such as the arya bhiksu samgha, or the pasupatacaryas of the Buddhist or Sivaite sects. It may be assumed that this was part of a consciously adopted policy to forge stronger communal links among these people by settling them around commonly assigned lands and/or enabling them to share in its income. This arrangement must have been a significant contribution to the shaping of the basic structure of Licchavi society, as we will see below.