Territorial Units

Deśa and Maṇḍala

Inscriptions mention deśa, ^[1] which denotes a modern province, the largest administrative unit. Mostly in the inscriptions of the members of the Somavaṃsi dynasty, we find support to the above territorial unit, such as Odra-deśa, Utkala-deśa, Koñgodadeśa, Kośala-deśa, and Kaliñga-deśa. We also find Madhya-deśa, in reference to places like Bengal,which was devoid of vedic brāhmaṇa in a certain period; the rulers had to invite them from other states to perform religious ceremonies and rituals favoring their dynasty. A few inscriptions suggest that the brāhmaṇas came primarily from the Madhya-deśa (Middle India) as well as from other places of the country.

Perhaps there is no difference between deśa and maṇḍala. In the early medieval period, the Somavaṃsis, the Bhauma-kara s, the Sailodbhavas had maṇḍalas as administrative units. The terms deśa and maṇḍala were used to signify the entire kingdom of respective dynasties. However, a detailed study of the significance of deśa and maṇḍala will reveal that both the terms have not been used to signify the entire kingdom. The mention of deśa in the charters with administrators like governors and Sandhivigraśikas/ Sandhivigrahādhikritas denote that deśa has been used in the sense of a province which was divided into many viṣayas and also included maṇḍalas lying in its area. The Hindol plate of Subhākara III issued in c. 839 CE registers a gift of the village Noddiloviśaya in Uttara Toṣālī. Toṣālī was another division, but it seems that such divisions were geographical, not administrative. But we find the territorial division of maṇḍala that corresponded to a province.

However, according to some respected dignitaries, maṇḍala as an administrative division corresponds to a Revenue division.^[2] D.C. Sircar summarized as a maṇḍala denoted at different times either as a district in modern sense or a province.^[3] Most of the inscriptions reveal that a maṇḍala wasa much bigger unit in dimension than a viṣaya or even a khanḍa. ^[4] The description of those gifted villages from the land grant charters it may be said that maṇḍala constituted the next administrative unit after a deśa or a country in the modern sense.^[5] According to the tradition recorded in the Dharmaśāstras, the state was called as a maṇḍala along withthedimension roughly a square of twenty yojanas or forty yojanas. ^[6] Above all, it was another administrative department that existed during the period under discussion. It is the earliest known maṇḍala over which the Sailodbhavas ruled.^[7] We did not found any other reference of territory in North Indian Sanskrit inscriptions.

Bhāga, Bhukti and Bhoga:

We find mention of bhāga, bhukti, and bhoga in land grant charters of northern India. Generally, bhukti and bhoga have the same meaning, which is ‘enjoyment.’ According to D.C. Sircar, bhukti denoted a bigger area like a province which included several viṣayas and maṇḍalas. ^[8] A.S. Altekar also opines that a bhukti was a bigger territorial unit than a maṇḍala in northern India during the rule of the Guptas and the Gurjara Pratihāras.^[9] However, on the contrary, bhukti denoted a small territorial division even smaller than a modern Tāluk, in the Deccan and Madhya Pradesh and Rāṣṭrakūṭa Empire.^[10]

Thus, it can be said without any doubt that the size of a bhukti varied from time to time in northern India. In Kośala maṇḍala, bhukti^[11] corresponded to a district.^[12] On the other hand, bhoga may refer to a su b-division or a district, according to D.C. Sircar. However, bhoga is not found frequently like viṣaya, and maybe attempts were made to convert bhogas into viṣayas in a later period because it seems like both are similar in size.

Viṣaya:

The next most mentioned unit of administration during the early and medieval period was viṣaya which may be compared with a modern district. From the inscriptions of the royal dynasties and their feudatories, we come across a number of viṣayas at that time. Along with the viṣaya in some charters, we also find the territorial unit khaṇḍa, which probably was a smaller territory than a viṣaya.

Grāma:

Each of the viṣaya was divided into a number of grāmas or villages. However, grāmas did not mean modern villages. It was a locality with a particular measurement. R.D. Basu quoted Śukrāchārya and said grāma was a piece of land with more or less two square miles or a krośa in area.^[13] Some bigger villages suffixed the word pura. If pura attached to the name of a village, it would denote a bigger village than a usual grāma, and those big villages maintained a high status like a town for an apparent reason.

In many cases, the royal charters were seen to be issued from there too. Grāmas or villages formed the lowest unit of administration during the period under discussion. There are many examples of villages and the contemporary names of those villages that can be seen in the land grant charters in Northern India.

In this way, the administration of the kings of several dynasties was based on territorial units from the provinces to the village level.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

D.C. Sircar, Indian Epigraphical Glossary, p. 86.

[2]:

B.K. Rath, Cultural history of Orissa, p. 99.

[3]:

D.C. Sircar, op. cit., p. 194.

[4]:

B.K. Rath, op. cit., p. 99.

[5]:

Loc. cit.

[6]:

IA, vol. XXXVI, p. 350.

[7]:

Late 6th century to the first quarter of 8th century CE.

[8]:

D.C. Sircar, Select Inscriptions, pp. 4, 394.

[9]:

A.S. Altekar, State and Government in ancient India, pp. 209-212.

[10]:

A.S. Altekar, Rāṣṭrakūtas and their times, p. 137.

[11]:

CII, vol. III, p. 295.

[12]:

Mostly bhukti did not denote a bigger division than a maṇḍala. Sometimes a bhukti meant a vast territory, but at the time of making grants, it had been reduced to the smaller territorial unit under a maṇḍala. The officers who were in charge of bhuktis were Uparikas. In the bengal inscriptions, the term bhukti was probably applied to an administrative unit than of Northern India and Odisha region. (EI, vol. XXII, p. 137).

[13]:

R.D. Basu (ed.), Sacred Books of the Hindus, vol. XIII, p. 25.