Temples of Munnur (Historical Study)

by R. Muthuraman | 2016 | 67,784 words

This essay represents a historical study of the Temples in and around Munnur, situated in the Dakshina Kannada district in the state Karnataka (India). Munnur is regarded as an important religious city for the followers of both Shaivism and Vaishnavism. The ancient history of Munnur traces to the reign of the Chola, from whom the city derives it's ...

Lease system

The lease system was adopted by those landowners who belonged either to the non-agricultural classes, or by the institutions which had necessarily to depend on the tenants. Certain circumstances made it necessary for the temple to lease its lands. The Priests, the Brahamanas,[1] could not cultivate the land themselves. The lands and villages granted to the temples were scattered over a vast stretch of land. Naturally these lands had to be cultivated through tenants. Moreover, the practice of lease saved the temples from botheration of employing a large retinue of agricultural laborers, from purchasing and maintaining cattle and farming equipment, and from maintaining a close supervision round the year. Therefore, the lease system adopted by the temples, in modern terminology, is absentee landlordism of the temples.

The temple needed the services of a number of tenants to cultivate the lands in order to satisfy the wishes of the donor and to maintain the services of the temples. Hence, there arose the need for cultivating the lands either by the temple staff directly or leasing them out to the temple servants and private parties. This is how the temples came to have tenants under their control. The tenants of the temple lands were known as devakudi. The cultivation work of the temple lands undertaken by the temple staff like srikariyam seivars. The exact number of tenants owned by each of them is unknown. But it depended on the area of the land possessed by the respective temples. As rich land owning institutions, they could not cultivate all their lands directly. For the temple lands were scattered in different villages and were not found at a single stretch. It is evident from records that the temples possessed much landed property both nanjay and punjay (dry and wet lands). These temples were the landlords of the locality.

The share of the temple, if fixed at a high rate previously, could be lowered, though there was no uniform procedure for it. We have obtained from the perusal of records some idea about the terms and conditions on which leases were made by the temple to the tenants. If a family took a lease, its members could continue to be the tenants on that land for generations by regularly paying its dues to the temple.

All tenants, the temple or the state or the other landlords, were expected to keep the land under proper cultivation. The tenants generally had the right to raise the corps of their own choice. In the case of conversion of wet into dry land or garden land or vice-versa, they had to secure the permission of the temple authorities first. In such instances the temple reserved the right to revise the annual rent[2].

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Though Later (in fourteenth century) we find Madhavacharya, Commenting on Parasara allowing them to Cultivate Lands. Parasara -Madhava I, pp. 426-7, of II, pp.158-9 (quoted in A. Appadurai, Op. Cit., p.46).

[2]:

Ibid.,

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