Nadol Cahamänas : Structure of Rajput Polity in 12Th-Century Rajasthan

■ Article ■ Land Distribution and Kinship of the Nadol Cahamänas : Structure of Rajput Polity in 12th-Century Rajasthan

●

Masahiko Mita

Introduction Land distribution among the ruling clan members has been considered a system peculiar to Rajput polity, and often taken as a unique point of Rajput "feudalism" by many scholars since J. Tod [Tod 1829, vol. 1: 153-245; Saran 1952; Banerjee 1962; etc.]. The most vivid picture of this clan land distribution system was presented by G. D. Sharma who analysed a territorial system of the Marwar kingdom of the Rathors in the 16th century. The system was called bhai-bant, in which the territory of the kingdom was divided and distributed among the ruling clan members, and they were allowed to inherit their own land as far as they accepted the sovereignty of their clan chief.1) In the early medieval Rajput kingdoms, too, land distribution to the royal kinsmen can be found, and they formed one of the intermediary strata politically and economically positioned between the

三田昌彦 Masahiko Mita, School of Letters, Nagoya University, Early medieval history of north India Article: "Paddy Production in the Middle Gangetic Basin (from 6th Century B.C. to 3rd Century A.D.)",Journal of Oriental History, Nagoya University, vol. 16, pp. 1-30. (in Japanese) 28 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 8, 1996 kings and villages. The Nadol Cahamanas in 12th-century Marwar has often been taken as its typical case by many historians [R. S. Sharma 1980: 143-45; Gopal 1963-64: 86-103; Yadava 1973: 144- 145; Chattopadhyaya 1976: 71-72; Sudan 1989: 127-28; etc.]. Generally speaking, they seem to tend to consider it the origin of the traditional clan system of Rajputs and the early medieval Rajput kingdoms as "clan monarchies" without detailed comparison between the early medieval polity of Rajputs and the late medieval one [typically, Banerjee 1962: 48-49]. However, the Nadol Cahamana system is different from bhai-bant in the 16th century, which will be revealed in this short paper. Probably, such lack of comparative analyses is a reflection of the gap in the studies between the two periods and the tendency of studies of early medieval history to try to understand only the historical processes from the ancient or the Gupta period up to the 12th century and not beyond that.2) This short paper is a case study of the structure of the early medieval Rajput polity, and the purpose of study here is to understand the relation between the kinship system and the land distribution in the context of the structure of Nadol Cahamana polity in the 12th century, and to present a sample indicating the historical stage of early medieval polity of Rajputs in the historical processes of medieval Rajasthan by comparing it with the late medieval polity. However, the epigraphical records of the Nadol Cahamanas, though relatively rich among the contemporary dynasties in north India, are not sufficient to draw a complete picture of the polity. Hence, this paper can only present a tentative hypothesis. The Nadol Cahamana kingdom was founded in the last quarter of the 10th century by Laksmarja who, a son of Vakpatiraja of the S akambhari Cahamanas, had branched off from the main family. From that date onwards the kingdom lasted more than two hundred years until it declined and fell through the battles against the Muslim armies of Muhammad Ghori towards the end of the 12th century or the beginning of the 13th century. The territory of the Land Distribution and Kinship of the Nadol Cahamanas 29

kingdom occupied the southern parts of modern Pali and Jodhpur districts, which can be said to have been of small or medium size in early medieval India. Situated in the northern-most part of an area to which political influence of the Caulukyas of Gujarat extended, 30 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 8, 1996 the Nadol Cahamanas did not always enjoy their independence, but they temporarily came under the Caulukya's suzerainty in the 12th century. Thus the Nadol Cahamana kingdom is not merely an example of small- or medium-sized kingdoms of early medieval Rajputs, but at the same time an interesting example of the subordinate kingdoms of the Gujarat empire as well. Although the Nadol Cahamanas have a long history of more than two hundred years, the available inscriptions are limited to the period between V.S. 1147 (A.D. 1091) and V.S. 1251 (arround A.D. 1194).3) Therefore, the period of our analysis is limited to the 12th century.

1. Titles of Intermediary Strata and Their Hierarchy In the Nadol Cahamana kingdom, there were various grades of intermediary strata which, lying between the king and villagers, enjoyed the revenues from villages. Their existence can be seen from the following three patterns of expression in the inscriptions, most of which are the documents of the grants made to temples and brahmanas. i) Their existence can be inferred from the term bhokty, which means "enjoyer" [of town or village revenue] and a variety of expressions like svabhujyamana (being enjoyed as one's own), bhujyamana (being enjoyed) and bhukti (enjoyment or enjoyed territory). ii) Tax, tolls and other various cesses of certain villages were granted by particular persons, who can be considered as intermediary strata. iii) In the inscriptions there are some examples of certain people carrying out local rule from certain towns or villages as their political bases. These people also should be considered as such strata, because assignees of villages usually rule over assigned villages and their neighbouring areas, as will be mentioned later. Table 1 represents the intermediary strata in the Nadol Cahamana kingdom composed on the basis of these three criteria.4) Most of the intermediaries figured in the inscriptions had their own titles. In early medieval India, various kinds of titles were Land Distribution and Kinship of the Nadol Cahamänas 31 employed by ruling strata ranging from the "emperors", followed by many subordinate kings, to pitty rulers who ruled over just one village. In the case of the Nadol Cahamanas, it is believed that the kings employed maharizjadhiraja (lit., lord of maharajas) when they enjoyed independence, and maharaja when subject to the overlord, the Caulukyas of Gujarat.5) The other various ruling strata employed a great variety of titles as shown in Table 1. These may be classified into two broad groups in terms of their meanings: i) administrative titles or official posts like baladhipa (leader of the army), mahasahaniya (chief military officer), bhancjarin (officer in charge of the treasury), talara (city police), Mandavyapuradhipati (ruler of Mandavyapura) and Palladhipa (ruler of Palla), all of which indicate specific roles in the state administration, and ii) the titles of status or ranking which do not indicate any particular roles but probably political and social status, i.e., kumara (heir-apparent), rajaputra, rajni (queen), rauta, thakkura, ranaka, etc.6) Fur- ther, the administrative titles can be classified into two groups, that is, those which indicate special works, i.e., baladhipa, bhandarin, etc., and those of < place name + adhipa[ti]> which indicate the posts of the lords or governors of particular villages and territories. Table 1 shows that the royal kinsmen have only status titles with one exception, Mandavyapuradhipati. Among them yuvaraja or kumara is of course heir-apparent of the king, ordinarily the eldest son of the reigning king, as is evident from the inscription of V.S. 1218.7) Except for this heir-apparent and rajnis, all other royal kinsmen have the titles of rajaputras and maharizjaputras. Rajaputra, in the sense of the word itself, is "a son of the king". This term, however, is commonly considered an original form or a Sanskritized form of "Rajput". The title rajaputra was not only conferred on the sons of the kings in the Nadol Cahamäna kingdom. In the Bamnera copper plates rajaputra Ajayasimha (No. 14) was mentioned as the son of maharizjaputra Kumarasimha, and not the son of the reigning kings Alhana in V.S. 1220 and Kelhana in 1223. Rizjaputra Lakhanapala 32 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 8, 1996 Land Distribution and Kinship of the Nadol Cdhamanas 33 34 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 8, 1996 and rajaputra Abhayapala (No. 21) were not sons of the king Kelhana but of his younger brother maharajaputra Kirtipala. Reijaputra does not seem to be employed in the sense of "Rajput" , either. In Table 1, we can find four persons who were evidently the members of non-Cahamana Rajput clans, i.e., Guhilas, Rastrakatas (or Rastauclas) and Saulurnkis (Nos. 6, 13, 16 and 18). None of them employed the title rajaputra, but they had other titles of status like ',dicta and thakkura and administrative titles like baladhipa and talara, neither of which were bestowed on Cdhamana clan members. From this fact, and noting that the royal kinsmen employed rajaputra and maharajaputra, we can conclude that these titles were allowed to be used only by royal kinsmen, and through such a title system they were probably distinguished from other ruling members who belonged to non-Cahamana clans. It can be supposed from the meaning of "maha" (great) that there would have been a difference of rank between maharajaputras and rajaputras. According to the inscriptions it seems to have depended on whether one was the son of the reigning king or not. In the reign of Alhana, his eldest son Kelhana, second son Gajasimha and third son Kirtipala all called themselves maharajaputras.8) In the reign of the next king Kelhana, his son Sodhaladeva was the governor of Mandor and designated as maharajaputra.9) On the other hand, as mentioned above, Ajayasimha, who is a son of maharajaputra Kumarasirnha, was rajaputra (No. 14), and two rajaputras, Lakhanapala and Abhayapala (No. 21), were sons of Kirtipala who was a younger brother of the reigning king Kelhana. Reflecting two such tiers of titling among the royal kinsmen, sons of the reigning kings, maharajaputras, took distinguished parts in the administration; when Alhana issuing the ordinance of non-slaughter in V.S. 1209, it was approved by his sons, Kelhana and Gajasimha.10) In this manner of titling, whenever a new king ascended to the throne, the ranks of the ruling clan members ought to have been Land Distribution and Kinship of the Nadol Cahamanas 35 changed according to the degree of their kindred relation to him. Thus, during the reign of Alharia, the title of his son Kumarasimha was maharizjaputra,11) but after Kelharia succeeded the throne, his title was changed to rajaputra. Interestingly, in the Nadol copper plates of Kirtripala, V.S. 1218 (No. 11), he was designated as maharizjaputra in his signature on this grant charter, but in 1. 19 of the same document he was inscribed as rajaputra. This somewhat inconsistent manner of titling does not seem to have been unre- lated with the mobility of rank among the royal kinsmen. It is, therefore, apparent that between the sons of the kings and the rest of the royal kinsmen was a much smaller gap than between the members of the Nadol Cahamana clan and the others. From the above analyses of the titles of political intermediaries, it can be said that the Nadol Cahamanas adopted the title system based on some kind of clanship or kinship which mainly distinguished the royal kinsmen from the other clan members of the ruling strata of the kingdom, and secondarily sons of the reigning king from the other royal kinsmen. Although non-Cahamana clan members also could participate in the rule of the Nadol Cahamana kingdom, this participation is obviously under the dominance of the Cahamana clan, which is indicated by more frequent reference to the members than others in the inscriptions, as shown in Table 1. The title system adopted by the Nadol Cahamanas might have had a function to maintain such political dominance of the royal kinsmen among the members of the ruling class of the Nadol kingdom.

2. Land Assignment as an Administrative System The intermediaries, whether of the Cahamanas or of non- Cahamana clans, made grants to temples and brahmanas. The inscriptions mention a great variety of grant items; i.e., certain portion of taxes imposed on villages or towns and commercial activities, some portion of revenues from arahatas (Persian wheels) and oil-mills, pieces of land, etc. But these items were probably a 36 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 8, 1996 portion of their possessions. Unfortunately, from the inscriptions, we cannot know the contents of their total share of revenues from the villages assigned to them, so that their economic bases and their manner of land management are totally in the dark. Hence, in this paper, we will approach the nature of their land possession from the viewpoint of political dimensions. Bhoktrs of villages were not merely enjoying (bhujyamana) revenues from them, but also ruled over particular areas including the villages under their own enjoyment. This fact can be deduced directly or indirectly from the inscriptions. The Lalrai inscription of V.S. 1233 says that all the peasants of the village of Bhadiyaua granted a certain amount of barley to the Jaina temple under the rajya (rule) of rajaputra Lakhanapala and rajaputra Abhayapala, both of whom were the bhoktrs of the village of Sonana, it clearly shows that the political power of the possessors of Sonana extended to Bhacliydua as well. Also in the case of heirs-apparent, the situation was almost the same. In V.S. 1238, kumara Jayatasirpha issued a iasana (grant charter) with which he granted to the god Pargvanatha 8 drammas every year out of dany-udgranaka of Samipati which was under his enjoyment.12) In this copper-plate charter, there is no mention of the name of the king, as if Jayatasirriha had been the reigning king. Also the Sevadi stone inscription of V.S. 1172, while recording that yuvarizja Katukaraja granted 8 drammas to Thallaka in his enjoying grama Samipati, does not mention the reign of the Nadol king.13) From these two records it is evident that heirs-apparent could issue grant charters in Samipati at their own discretion, which means that they did not merely enjoy the taxes from Samipati but also exerted political power over it. And moreover, in the same way as the bhoktrs of Sondna, their political power seems to have extended to other villages. The Paldi inscription of V.S. 1249, while recording a donation by mahae Rajadeva in the village of Pattahyall (modern Paldi), mentions the palicakula (some political organ of the village) headed by mahamatya Valhana sub- Land Distribution and Kinship of the Nadol Chamanas 37 ject to (tat-pada-padm-opajivin) the heir-apparent Jayatasimha.14) Although this village was not mentioned as his own enjoyment, Jayatasirpha ruled over it through his own official. Paldi is situated in the southwest frontier of the kingdom which undoubtedly bor- dered on the territory of the Candrävati kingdom of the Paramaras and, at latest after V.S. 1239,15)of the Jalor Cahamänas. The heirs- apparent might have been in charge of control over this frontier from his base Sam-ipati. Another important base was Mandavyapura (modern Mandor), where Manclavyapuradhipati or ruler of Mandor occupied the fort (durga).16) Before discussing his territory, we need note a unique position of Mandor in the kingdom. The spatial distribution of the villages mentioned in the inscriptions of the Nadol Cahamanas (see map) clearly shows a blank between Nadol and Mandor. Actually there were villages in this blank, and among them Palli (modern Pali) was a major city,17) where many contemporary epigraphical records of grants still sur- vive in the temples.18) Nevertheless, there is no inscription which indicates Nadol Cahamana rule, and instead, we have a copper- plate inscription of the Guhilas of Mewar which recorded that the king of Guhilas, Vijayasimha, granted the fifth part of Palli-grama to an aciirya in V.S.1140.19) All of them seem to indicate that Pa11i and its surroundings were beyond the political influence of the Nadol Cahamanas, or if not so, their political control over Pauli was unstable and sometimes it fell to the hands of other dynasties, as is shown by the Guhila record mentioned above. Interestingly, per- haps related to this vacuum of Cahamana power, every grant recorded in the inscriptions was made within each of these two areas of Nadol and Mandor; in other words, one living in the Nadol area made grants to temples in the Nadol area, one in the Mandor area similarly to those in the Mandor area and there was no grant transferred between them. Therefore, it is undoubted that the Nadol kingdom was composed of two segments, i.e., the Nadol region and the Mandor region, and the city or the fort of Mandor was the 38 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 8, 1996

centre of the latter. The Mandor rulers made Mandor their political base to control the region, but they did not enjoy the revenue of the whole region as their own bhujyamana. Upakega (modern Osian) was not enjoyed by them but by Kirtipala. Instead, what the inscriptions clearly show is only that the village of Ghamghanaka was svabhujyamana of the Mandor ruler Sodhaladeva in V.S. 1241.20) However, their political power from the headquarters in Mandor, whether directly or indirectly, seems to have covered the whole Mandor region. Even the bhoktrs who occupied the frontiers do not appear to be entirely independent of the Mandor rulers. In V.S. 1236 Upakesa, which was situated in the northern frontier of the Mandor region, was enjoyed and ruled by Kirtipala when Kummarasimha Simhavikrama was the Mandor ruler. The inscription reads; "In the reign of maharaja Kelhana , and when his son, Kuipmarasirpha Simhavikrama, is the Mandavyapuradhipati and Kirtipala is a rajyavahaka (executor of rajya) [of this place], in the temple of Saficikadevi of Upakesa which is in his (Kirtipala's) enjoyment..."21) After this quotation, it records the rules of labour employment in the construction of the gate of the Salicikadevi temple, the contents of which undoubtedly have nothing to do with the Mandor ruler. If political control by the Mandor ruler could not have reached Upakega, the reference to him in this record would have no sense. On the other hand, no inscription in the Nadol region, where the Mandor rulers' control did not extend, mentions their names. Hence, this mention of the Mandor ruler indicates his control or influence over Upakega. Their indirect control can equally be seen in other villages. Jhamara was occupied in V.S. 1219 by Jasadhavala Saulurpki (Solanki) who was a baladhipa (leader of army) subject to the Mandor ruler Gajasirpha, and in V.S. 1227 by Narmada Rastauda Land Distribution and Kinship of the Nadol Cdhamänas 39

(Rastrakata or Rathor) who enjoyed some revenue from the village (grama-laga).22) Jhamara was "the most important village among the four villages in the land" (asya to bhiimyam padra-caturnam madhye pradhana-padra-sri-Jhammara-sthane),23) which suggests that their political control extended to these three villages of low grade. The Mandor rulers would have ruled over the group of four villages through these intermediaries of Jhamara. Between V.S. 1241 and 1250, under the rajya of the Mandor ruler Sodhaladeva, Palla (modern Pal) was controlled by bhancjarin Yagovira, which is evident from his title Palladhipa or "the lord of Palla" .24) In the Nadol Cahamana kingdom, some non-Cahamana people could also acquire the seats of bhoktrs, though the examples are few. Among them, we have comparatively detailed information about rauta thakkura Rajadeva of the Guhila clan (anvaya), who was the bhoktari (bhoktr) of Nadlai in the middle of the 12th century. The duties imposed on the loads of bull-carts coming from and going to Nadlai were his own share (sviy-adana),25) and a certain portion of oil of his oil-mill in Nadlai was also his share,26) though it is not sure that these two kinds of revenue were com- prised the entire share entitled to him as the bhoktr of Nadlai.27) And Rajadeva also seems to have had political power over Nadlai. The Nadlai inscription of V.S. 1202 says that Rajadeva who was in charge of Nadlai made a grant to the Mahavira temple. But here all the merchants of Nadlai, Baddri and Abhinavapuri assembled together into deii (a kind of guild) and determined the grant items according to the standard of the load tax (paila-laga- mane), which were 2 rugs for each 20 pad& of loads on bullocks and 1 rua for each cart filled with commodities. These grant items look like the same duties as Rajadeva's share mentioned earlier, but they were not his own share. Because if they had been his property, he should not have had to make the merchants fix the amount of the load cess, as in the case of his grant in V.S. 1195.28) This grant, therefore, was not his personal grant from his own share but probably, so to speak, a kind of administrative grant on the basis of his 40 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 8, 1996

political power entitled by the king.") Possibly, as the grant was public in kind, the merchants needed to assemble and determine their contribution to it. In V.S. 1200 riinaka Bhanana, who was apparently a non- Cahamana clan member as is evident from the fact that his home land was Karnata, exempted the dancing girls (pramada-kula) of all the gods of Usapa-pattana from the daia-bandha. If the daia- bandha was a tax equal to one-tenth of income as was interpreted by D.R. Bhandarkar, it proves that he had the right of exemption from taxation in Usapa-pattana.30) The Nadlai inscription of V.S. 122831) says that rand Lakhamana executed rajya in Voripadyaka (modern Borli). Probably he was not of the Cahamana clan because of his title rand . In the Mandor region, Jhamara chiefs of the Saul-ma-is and the Rastauclas mentioned earlier are good examples. In addition , it is worth noting here that at least the chiefs of Jhamara seems to have been appointed by the Mandor rulers. The sentence of the Jhamara inscription dated V.S. 1219, "manarizjaputra-sri- Gajasimghadeva Mamclavyapur-ii sit tasya valadhipo Saulurnki jasadhavala" ,32)indicates that the chief Jasadhavala was not subordinate to the king but to the Mandor ruler Gajasirpha, as is evident from the expression "his baladhipa" (tasya valadhipo). And in V.S. 1227, when the Mandor ruler had already become Camunclaraja, the chief of Jhamara also changed to Narmada. A similar instance can be found also in the Nadol region as we mentioned earlier mahamatya Valhana, head of the pancakula of Paldi, who was de- pendent on the heir-apparent Jayatasiha. The appointment of non- royal persons to local chieftencies will be discussed again later. The above examples of the political power of the intermediaries, though not sufficient, allow us to draw a rough sketch of the structure of territorial administration of the kingdom. The Nadol Cahamana territory was composed of at least two segments, i.e., Nadol region and Mandor region. The latter was controlled by Mandavyapuradhipatis. They occupied the fort of Mandor and Land Distribution and Kinship of the Nadol Caharnanas 41 controlled the villages through the local chiefs, some of whom were appointed by the Mandor rulers. In the Nadol region, the southern border areas were in charge of the heirs-apparent who ruled over the areas from Samipati almost in the same way as the Mandor rulers. In other areas of the Nadol region, which seem to have formed a heart land of the kingdom, some important towns and villages like Nadlai, Sonana, Voripadyaka, Valahi (modern Bali), Sancleraka and Koretaka were distributed to other royal kinsmen and others to control their neighbouring villages. Thus, it is apparent that the land distribution to royal and non- royal people was at the same time a measure to control the territory of the kingdom. Relevant to this, interestingly, in the Nadol Cahamana inscriptions we cannot find any of terms that designate the various grades of administrative units like bhukti, mandala, visaya and pathaka. Bhukti is often found but in the sense of assignments. In the inscriptions of the Guptas and the Pratiharas where the term bhukti means an administrative unit, the manner of discription is as in Paundravardhana-bhukti and Kanyakubhuja-bhukti.33) In the Nadol Cahamana inscritions, however, it is usually like tad-bhukti which means "his bhukti" or "his possession", 34)while, at the same time, we can find only one example of bhukti in the sense of an administrative unit, Manclavyapura-bhukti.35) Such a confused or ambivalent use of the term bhukti was probably related to the manner of land assignment as a measure of local administration, which might have been the best way available in the lack of well-organized bureaucracy suggested by the lack of a series of designations of administrative divisions. There is a very interesting village assignment which has been considered typical of Rajput land distribution; i.e., the 12 villages attached to Nadlai which were assigned to maharizjaputra Kirtipala by the king Alhana and kumara Kelhana before V.S. 1218.36) Groups of 12, 42 and 84 villages in early medieval India have often been taken as the administrative divisions of Rajput kingdoms 42 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 8, 1996

[Ghoshal 1929: 259-60]. However, as far as the 12 villages of Nadlai are concerned, it is very hard to consider them as an administrative unit. As is evident from the map, these 12 villages were dispersed, and between them there seem to have been many assigned and unassigned villages. In addition, the assignee Kirtipala does not seem to have settled in Nadlai, which is suggested by the fact that he issued the copper-plate charter dated V.S. 1218 not from Nadlai but Nadol. It is worth noting that this assignment was made as "prasada". We have a valuable copper-plate charter of the Candellas dated V.S. 1311, that records a village grant to rauta Abhi as a prasada or a bounty for his distinguished military service in the battle.37) Although we do not know whether Kirtipala rendered military service before V.S. 1218, it may be plausible that this 12-village assignment was a bounty for some service rendered by him and not necessarily made for local administration.38)

3. Nature of Land Possession and Its Distribution System Thus, it is apparent from the above discussion that the Nadol Cahamanas distributed land and local chieftaincies to their kinsmen and a few non-royal kinsmen as well to control local areas effectively. However, as far as the available Nadol Cahamana inscriptions indicate, their possession of such assignments were not their own hereditary estate. Thakkura Rajadeva of the Guhilas was the bhoktr of Nadlai at least between V.S. 1195 and 1202 (No. 6 of Table 1), but in or before 1218 Kirtipala, third son of the reigning king Alharia, received 12 villages including Nadlai as prasada assignment (No. 11). And Sonarid, which was assigned to Kirtipala as one of the above 12 villages, was in turn shifted into the possession of thakkura Ariasiha, probably of non-Cahamana clan, in V.S. 1228 (No. 20). Furthermore, in V.S. 1233, the same village was in the joint possession of two riijaputra bhoktrs, Lakhanapala and Abhayapala, who were sons of the above Kirtipala Cahamana (No. 21). In the Mandor region, the village of Jhamara was under the control of Jasadhavala Saulurpki in V.S. 1219 (No. 13), but in V.S. Land Distribution and Kinship of the Nadol Caharnanas 43

1227 it was controlled by Narmada Rastaucla (No. 18). Thus, any of these examples clearly shows the shift of possession from one clan member to another, which means that their assignments were not patrimonial in kind. Again, it is worth noticing that, in the epigraphical records, there is no example to show the inheritence of assignments from a certain person to his son. In the cases of the heirs-apparent, the situation was a little different; every heir-apparent possessed Samipati. From the inscriptions, we can identify four names of heirs-apparent: Katukaraja in V.S. 1167-72, Jayatasirpha in V.S. 1200, Kelhana in V.S. 1218 and Jayatasirpha in V.S. 1238-49. Except Kelhana, whose assignments during his period as heir-apparent cannot be known from the inscriptions, any of them either enjoyed the revenues of Samipati or settled there and ruled the neighbouring villages.39) These facts probably indicate that, in the system of the Nadol Cahamanas, the heirs-apparent always had to be established in the town of Samipati as chiefs who enjoyed revenues from the town and controlled the southern border area of the kingdom. However, they did not enjoy the territorial possession as their own patrimony. Certainly, Samipati was transferred from one kumara to the next, that is, to his son successively. But his right to Samipati endured just as long as he was a kumara, and, needless to say, he never established his own patriarchal family independent of the Nadol royal household, for kumara was its real member. Thus, the chieftaincy of Samipati cannot be considered as a hereditary post in any sense. The Mandor rulers ruled over the Mandor region which geo- graphically formed a relatively independent territory. The rulers themselves, however, could not be independent, for they did not control the region as their own patrimonial domain. The Nadol Cahamana inscriptions mention five Mandavyapuradhipatis and inform us of their titles and their kinship positions in the royal family. Table 2 clearly shows that the Mandor rulers were sons of the reigning kings, excluding kumaras, and vested with the title 44 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 8, 1996 Land Distribution and Kinship of the Nadol Cahamanas 45 of mahiirájaputras." This fact does deny that the post of Mandavyapuradhipati was a hereditary seat. Because, when a new king ascended to the throne, the Mandor ruler inevitably had to give his seat to the next "new son" of the new king. Thus, not only the Samipati rulers but the Mandor rulers were also undoubtedly changed on the occasion of the royal succession. As for the other royal kinsmen, their revenue possession seems to have been often changed on the occasion of the royal succession as well, though we have less clear evidence than that for kumaras and the Mandor rulers. In the Nadol Cahamana inscriptions, with the one exception of rajaputra Ajayasirpha set aside,41) there is no instance of their revenue possession extending over the reigns of two kings. Secondly, all the royal kinsmen who enjoyed assignments seem to have been close relatives of the reigning kings. As far as we can tell from epigraphical records, the remotest royal kinsmen from the reigning kings are rajaputra Ajayasirpha, rajaputra Ldkhanapala and rajaputra Abhayapala, who were all nephews of the reigning king Kelhana.42) If the land distributed among the royal kinsmen had been their own inheritable estate, we would find in inscriptions the Cahamana clan members of much remoter degrees of kinship from the reigning kings. Hence, this fact indicates frequent redistribution of their land. This redistribution might have been inevitable, because, on the occasion of royal succession, new kumara and Mandor ruler emerged and their former assignments must have been given to other royal kinsmen to control the local areas. However, it may be improper to say, like some historians, that the Nadol Cahamana polity is a bureaucratic despotism where the absolute king legally decides on a policy and executes his power through many bureaucrats and the decision of their posts and pro- motions is always in his hands.43) In the Nadol Cahamana polity, the king often needed his sons' approval to issue ordinances as mentioned earlier (section 1). In addition, the distribution of land and posts to the royal kinsmen does not seem to have been de- 46 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 8, 1996 pended on the kings' favour but on their positions in the kinship hierarchy of the royal family. Thus, the Samipati rulers and the Mandor rulers were bound to be kumaras and maharajaputras re- spectively. To show the difference of their possession from the assignment by king's favour, let us compare the land grant documents issued by the Samipati and the Mandor rulers with that by the prasada assignee Kirtipala. When grantors issued land grant charters (iasanas) by themselves, the authority of their possession of the land was usually specified.44) Thus, in V.S. 1218 Kirtipala issued a sasanas in which he proclaimed the yearly grant of 12 drammas out of each of the 12 Nadlai villages after specifying the origin of his possession of the villages, which had been assigned by the favour (prasada) of the king Alhana and kumara Kelharia.45) But on the other hand, among three examples of grants made by the Samipati and the Mandor rulers, the copper plate issued by kumara Jayatasimha in V.S. 1238, which proclaimed the yearly grant of 8 drammas out of Samipati, does not mention prasada of the king but specifies the royal genealogy descending from Anahila to him.46) Two other examples, i.e., the grant made by yuvaraja Katukaraja in V.S. 117247) and the undated grant by the Mandor ruler Sahajapala,48) only mention their genealogy, too. Interestingly, none of these three records gives the names of the reigning kings, so that the grantors look as if they were independent kings. This style of record indicates that kumaras and the Mandor rulers did not owe their power base to the kings' will but to the fact that they were direct descendants of the Nadol Cahamanas.49) So, we may conclude from the above discussion that the land assignment to the royal kinsmen in the Nadol Cahamanas was the distribution of the regional and local bases of political control according to their positions in the kinship hierarchy of the royal family in which the reigning king was the top, and that as the hierarchy was renewed whenever new kings ascended the throne, the land distribution never formed individual patrimony. Land Distribution and Kinship of the Nadol Caliamanas 47

In the cases of the non-Caham5na clans too, the assignees often changed on the occasion of redistribution of land among the royal kinsmen. Because, firstly, transfer of assignments from the royal kinsmen to non-royal people, or its reverse, was not uncommon. Secondly, non-royal intermediaries of the nodal points in the Mandor region seem to have been appointed by the Mandor rulers,50) so that they were often replaced by others when the Mandor rulers changed. The same thing probably happened in the intermediaries under the Samipati rulers. The nature of their possession, however, is different from that of the royal kinsmen at one point; their possession was not based on the authority of their clan. In inscriptions, they did not assert the dignity of their own clans though some of them were well-known Rajput clans like Rathors, Guhilas and Solankis. Far from that, it is not uncommon that even their relationship to their clan itself cannot be identified from inscriptions. Relevant to such manner of description in epigraphical records, it seems that plural Rajput clans settled together in one area and none of them could claim exclusive dominance. For example, as often mentioned so far, the chieftaincy of Jhamara was occupied by a member of the Solankis in V.S. 1219 but in V.S. 1227 by that of the Rathors, which suggests that these two Rajput clans settled together in Jhamara and its surrounding area. Otherwise, they would have been brought from other areas by the royal family. In either of the two cases they did not owe their chieftainship to their clan dignity but to the favour of the kings, the Samipati rulers and the Mandor rulers. It is worth noting that the difference in the authority of possession and chieftaincies between the royal kinsmen and non-royal clan members corresponds to the gap of rank between them indicated by their titles discussed in the section 1.51)

Conclusion : Comparison with the Bhai-bant System We have discussed the structure of the Nadol Cahamana polity concentrating on the relationship between land distribution and 48 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 8, 1996 kinship, in order to compare the Rajput system in early medieval Rajasthan with that in late medieval, especially, the land distribution system of bhai-bant. Now, let us try to show the contrasts between them. Bhai-bant, which was the practice of parcelling out the conquered territories among the ruling clan members, was in principle a kind of patrimonial land-holding system prevailing among the late medieval Rajputs, especially the Rathors in Marwar. This system was grounded on the concept of bhdi-bandh or "ties of brothers", according to which the territorial holders were considered as the "bhais" or "brothers" of the same clan descending from certain clan chiefs, such as Rao Jodha who was the founder of Jodhpur [G.D. Sharma 1975: 157; 1977: 5]. The close connection between the concept of bhai-bandh and their hereditary land holding is quite evident from their claims or complaints when the clan chiefs infringed on their rights; when Rao Maldeo (A.D. 1532-62) at- tempted to force them to be reduced to the position of his simple subordinates and implement land assignment on his good will, one of them, Viramdeo, resisted on the grounds that he had been granted his principality by the same person who had granted him (Maldeo) Jodhpur [G.D. Sharma 1975: 158-159; 1977: 10]. In other words, each clan member enjoyed patrimonial land holding in the same way as his clan chief, because both the chief and the clan members were equally the descendants of the past chief who divided and distributed his territorial domain to his sons and brothers, and both of them had inherited their land successively (therefore, the land distribution by the chief might be said to have been the partition of property of the dynasty). Consequently, the clan chief should not have been more than a mere leader of the clan, and individual domains of the clan members formed "little kingdoms", within which they could enjoy autonomy and hence could freely make hereditary grants of land to their own sons and clients or vassals on the concept of the bheal-bandh.52)Bhai-bandh, therefore, could be one of the major ideological grounds of the Land Distribution and Kinship of the Nadol Cdhamänas 49 actual existence of major and minor Rajput rulers in the late medieval period who formed various levels of territorial domains, from the pargana level to village level, as their own patrimony. In the Nadol Cahamana kingdom in the 12th century, we can certainly find "clan-like" land distribution, but this is fundamen- tally different from that of the late medieval period. Clear differ- ences can be found out in the land distribution among the ruling clan members in the three points outlined below. First, the Nadol Cahamana system is a little different from a real clan system, if "clan" is conceptualized as a group whose members believe themselves to be descendants from a particular ancestor. For, though the Nadol Cahamana members could certainly claim assignments on the grounds that they were members of the royal family, what was determined in the pivotal position of their relationship was not the past memorial king, like in the bhai-bandh, but the reigning king; he occupied the top of their kinship hierarchy composed of the descending titles of kumara, maharajaputra and rajaputra, according to which land and local chieftaincies should have been distributed. Second, land, revenue collection and chieftaincies assigned under the Nadol Cahamana rule were not hereditary assignments but very often transferred to other people, especially on the occasion of a new king's accession to the throne which changed the pivotal point or top position of the royal kinship hierarchy. Even the 12 villages of Nadlai assigned as prasada to Kirtipala, which has been taken as a traditional Rajput land-holding unit, were not a compact unit of villages but considerably dispersed, and often shifted to other assignees in the same way as ordinary assignments to the royal kinsmen. Third, closely relevant to the above two characteristics of the Nadol Cahamana polity, the network of their kindred ties in the context of their land distribution does not appear to have been so wide and lasting as that of the bhai-bant. Because the former was linked to the reigning king and, therefore, its organization was 50 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 8, 1996 changeable, while the latter was linked to a certain memorial ancestor, that is, the so-called clanship. Lastly, needless to say, these three contrasts are logically correlated one another. From the above comparative analyses, there is no doubt that the land distribution among the royal kinsmen of the Nadol Cahamanas differed from the bhai-bant system in the 16th century. The fundamental difference was that their land holding was non- hereditary and unstable. That is our conclusion. This unstability does not indicate powerful kings so that they could crush out the patrimonial rights of the intermediaries. But rather, in the case of the royal kinsmen, it was caused by the kinship system itself, as is obvious from our discussion. In addtion, if we are allowed to speculate, this unstability possibly means that the chieftainship was not yet established on the local level within the domains of the Nadol Cahamanas, as indicated by the fact that the non-ruling clans could not claim their dominance in their local settlements unless they were appointed as local chiefs by the royal family.53) If it is true, it is not unreasonable to say that the significant transformation of the Rajput polity and their territorial system between the 13th and the 16th centuries might have taken place through the process of the formation of patrimonial and stable territorial holdings by various grades of political intermediaries within the kingdoms. This process, when we take account of the logical correlation of the above three contrasts, cannot be considered to have been disconnected with the intensification of their kindred ties. Thus, the kinship ties linked to the reigning king, which were suitable to changeable land holding, must have been inevitably changed to the clan ties on the conditions of their hereditary holding, because they could authorise their inheritence of land by seeking its origin in the past, i.e., the land distribution by a particular memorial king.54) And this would let us suppose that the progress of the petty rulers as patrimonial territorial holders might have been realised through the process of the clan-like concentration among them. Land Distribution and Kinship of the Nadol Cahamanas 51

However, we do not know whether such a non-hereditary holding system in the Nadol Cahamana polity can be seen in other contemporary Rajput kingdoms. That would be the future subject of discussion, as well as the elucidation of the concrete historical processes of the Rajput polity between the 13th and the 16th centuries. Lastly, we must note another important question left to us on the Nadol Cahamana polity, that is, the inter-kingdom relation of the so-called samanta system, where the Nadol Cahamanas were the subordinate kingdom of the Caulukyas of Gujarat. On this level of problem, the Nadol Cahamana kingdom itself can be considered as the intermediary in the Caulukya empire, which means that the political order in early medieval India might have extended to inter-kingdom level.55)Relevant to this topic, we know the inter-clan collaboration based on the inter-clan marriage among the Rajput kingdoms [Chattopadhyaya 1976: 73-75]. But still now, we do not know sufficiently what is the meaning of the matrimonial alliance in the context of the early medieval Rajput system. In any case, these questions cannot be answered properly, as long as we confuse the early medieval Rajput system with the later one.56)

Notes 1) In this system,conquered land was distributedto the sons and brothers of the king, and their hereditaryholding of land was sanctioned.Each land holder ap- pointedhis officersand couldfreely exercise his politicalpower within his territory. Their territorywas consideredas their shareof the collaborativeactivities by the ruling clan members,and therefore,the basis of their landholding sanctioned by the King wasthe fact that they belongedto the rulingclan, rather than the favour of the king.Although territorial holders accepted the suzeraintyof the head of the rulingclan (i.e.,the king),they treated him just asprimus-inter-pares, and even the choiceof the king had to be confirmedby them [G.D. Sharma1975; 1977: 1-24]. 2) The studyby B.D. Chattopadhyaya,1976, is the mostprominent and comprehen- siveon the Rajputsystem in earlymedieval India. However, as is evidentfrom the title of his recentanthology, The Making of Early MedievalIndia, his maininterest in Rajputsis focusedon the emergenceof Rajputsand their stateformation in the contextof the regionalstate formationwhich progressed on a pan-Indialevel during the earlymedieval period [Chattopadhyaya 1983; 1994, introduction]. Probably 52 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 8, 1996

for that reason, his studies are also insufficient to clarify the historical processes from the 13th century onwards.

3) V.S. 1024 and 1039 have been presented as the date of Laksmaria mentioned in inscriptions (Tod 1829, vol. 1: 292]. However, the former inscription has been lost,

and the latter date is mentioned in the Nadol inseription of Kelharia, V.S. 1223

(Bhadarkar List, No. 327). Thus no original text of his own inscription is not available now. Recently, Nadol was excavated and an inscription of Laksmaria dated

V.S. 1025 is said to have been discovered [Times of India, New Delhi, June 6,1992,

p. 13]. But the text does not seem to have been published yet. The Nadol inscription of Jendraraja dated VS. 1124 published by R.V. Somai (Varadd, Vol. 19, Pt. 1 & 2, p. 13) does not have interesting information in our context. 4) For some typical examples of inscriptions of the three criteria; Lalrai inscription in

V.S. 1233 (EI, 11, pp. 50-51, 11. 2-4: No. 21, Table 1) Samnanaka-bhokta (-bhoktiirau) rajaputra-Lakhanapala- rdjaputra-

Abhayapalau tasmin rajye varttamane ... (When the rule (rajye) by the two bhoktrs of Samndnaka (Sonärla), rajaputra Lakhanapala and rajaputra

Abhayapdla, is going on, ... ): criteria i) and iii). Bali inscription in V.S. 1200 (El, 11, p. 33, 11. 2-3: No. 8) rajni-sri-Tihunaka-grassa-bhujyamana-Valahi-gramasya satka-sri-

Bahughrnadevi-yatra-nivi(mi)ttam ... (For the festival of the goddess Bahughrna in (or belonging to) the village of Valahi (modern Bali) which is enjoyed as grasa

(a kind of landed possession often seen among Rajputs) by rajni- Tihunaka, ... ): criterion i).

Jhanvara inscription in V.S. 1227 (JPASB, 12, p. 104, 11. 5-7: No. 18) iri-Jhammara-sthane deva-sri-Mahagana (?) svami Rastauda-virau (?) sri-

Samagha-suta-Namnadena grama-laga-madhyat pradatta-dra•‹1 mekam (-dram•‹ 1

ekam) eva lagam pradattam (In the village of Jhammara, just one dramma [of money] out of the village cess was granted to the god Mahaganasvamin by Narpnada Rastauda, son of Samagha): criterion ii).

Sevadi inscription in V.S. 1167 (EI, 11, pp. 20-30, II. 1-2: No. 3) mahasahaniya-Puavi-pautrena Uttimaraja-putrena Uppalarakena ... Salakhana-

Jogar- adi kuturnba-samam Padrata-grame tatha Medramca grame tatha Chechadiya Maddadi grame (-gramayob?) arahatarn arahatam prati dattah java-

heirakah ekah 1 (Barley-corn equal to 1 häraka from every one of the arahatas

(Persian wheels) in the villages of Padrada Medrarrica Chechadiya and Maddadi was granted [to the god Dharmänatha in Samipati] by maheisdhaniya Uppalaraka, son of Uttitmaraja and grandson of Piaavi, together with his family whose mem-

bers were Salakharia, Jogara and so on): criterion ii). 5) The inscriptions which describe the Nadol kings as maharajas are Kiradu inscrip-

tion of Alhana, V.S. 1209 (EI, 11, pp. 43 ff.), Nadol inscription of Alhana, V.S. 1218 (El, 9, pp. 63ff.) and Nanana inscription of Alhana, V.S. 1219-20 (EI, 39,

pp. 17-26), all of which show that the king Alhana was a subordinate ruler of Caululkya Kumalapala. Nanana copper plate of Alhana, V.S. 1205 (EI, 33,

pp. 238ff.), also inscribed him as maharaja, but it does not mention whether he was a subordinate. Land Distribution and Kinship of the Nadol Cahamanas 53

As far as the Nadol Cahamanas are concerned, the titles maharajadhiraja and maharaja were exclusively employed by the kings, and even when the kings were maharajadhirajas "the lords of maharajas", there was no subordinate who had the title maharaja. This single unity of polity is a peculiarity of the structure of the small-size kingdoms unlike the great empires like the Caulukyas which had many subordinate kings (maharajas). 6) The Prakrit term rauta is said to derive from the Sanskrit rajaputra [CII, 3 (ed. by J. F. Fleet), p. 218, note 1; Sircar 1966: 279], and ranaka from the Sanskrit rajanaka (lit., royal kinsman) [Sircar 1966: 276]. As for thakkura, its etymology is very problematic. While there is a suggestion that it was derived from the Turkish term tegin [Sircar 1966: 340], I. Habib considers the Turkish tarkhan to be a better candidate for its origin [Habib 1994: 13-14]. In any case, all of them were the titles generally bestowed on petty local rulers subordinate to the kings (maharajadhirajas and maharajas). The ranking is, however, very hard to reconstruct. Some historias have been trying but do not seem to have succeeded in ranking them (e.g., Prasad 1990: xxii-xxiv]. The ranking does not seem to have been fixed on all-Indian level but flexible and arranged differently according to the needs of the times and re- gions. 7) El, 9, pp. 68ff. and IA, 40, pp. 146f. 8) El, 9, pp. 66ff.; EI, 11, pp. 43ff.; JPASB, 12, Pr. 2, pp. 101ff. 9) JPASB, 10, p. 409. 10) EI, 11, pp. 43-46. 11) EI, 13, pp. 207-8. The father of Kumarasirnha is not mentioned in inscriptions. D. Sharma, without showing any grounds, seems to identify this Kumarasimha as Kummarasimha Simhavikrama who is the son of Kelhana V.S. 1236 [D. Sharma 1975: 158]. Incidentally, in V.S. 1220 Ajayasimha, son of Kumarasimha, made a land grant in the reign of Alhana, father of Kelhana. If we suppose that one would have been born, when his father was 20 years old and that Ajayasimha would have been 15 years old in V.S. 1220, then the reigning king Alhana would have been 75 years old, Kumara Kelhana 55, Kumarasimha 35 according to Sharma's supposition. And as the latest record of Kelhana is dated V.S. 1250, we must assume that he would have been an active king until 85. It is, therefore, much more reasonable to infer that Kumarasimha would not be identical with Kummarasimha Simhavikiama and, consequently, would not have been the son of Kelhana but of Alhana. 12) El, 39, pp. 179ff. P: R. Srinivasa says that dany-udgranaka is udgranaka (a kind of tax) for dana (gift) and thus its meaing is "share of taxes reserved for gift" (p. 180). 13) El, 11, pp. 30ff. 14) Sodh Patrika, 23, Pt. 2, p. 68; JI, no. 955. In this inscription Jayatasirnha is de- scribed as raja, but undoubtedly in the period of the inscription, V.S. 1249, the king Kelhana had not resigned his throne in favour of Jayatasimha yet, which is evident from the same inscription which mentions the reign of maharajadhiraja Kelhana. I have no idea why he employed the title raja. 15) El, 11, pp. 52-54. 16) See 1. 23 of a copper plate of the Nadol Cahamanas. The text is in D. Sharma 1975: 54 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 8, 1996

213ff. 17) Palli, along with Nadol and Jalor, was attacked by Vigraharajan IV of the Sakambhari Cahamanas in expedition to southern Rajasthan in the middle of the 12th century (EI, 26, pp. 84ff., v. 21), which indicates that Palli was one of the major cities in south Rajasthan. 18) P.C. Nahar edited nine inscriptions of the Jaina temples of Naulkha, Samtinath and Somnath in Pali (JI, pp. 199-206). 19) El, 31, pp. 237ff. Interestingly, the inscription records in the last line Cahamana rajaputra Rariadhavala as the dutaka (messenger) of this grant. 20) JPASB, 10, p. 407. 21) "sri-Kelhanadeva-maharaja-rajye tat-putra-sri-Kurnmarasirnha-Sirnhabikrame sri- Madavyapuriidhipati ... dabhikiinviya-Kirtipala-rajyaviihake tad-bhuktau sri- Upakesiya-sri-Sancikadevi-devagrhe ..." (JI, no. 804) 22) JPASB, 12, Pt. 2, pp. 101ff. 23) JPASB, 12, p. 104, 11.4-5. 24) JPASB, 10, pp. 407 and 409. 25) El, 11, pp. 36f. 26) EI, 11, pp. 41f. 27) Strictly speaking, the latter revenue was not necessarily entitled to the bhoktr of Nadlai, because it is possible that the oil-mill should have been his private property. 28) EI, 11, pp. 36f. In this case, he granted a part of his own share of the load cess to the god Neminatha without a enquiry to merchants. 29) It is hardly plausible to think that this grant was simply an illegal activity or an excess of his authority, because it was inscribed plainly and openly. If it was not illegal, there is no way but to consider it as a grant coming from his authority of administration. 30) PRAS, WC, 1909, p. 45. 31) EI, 11, pp. 46f. 32) JPASB, 12, p. 102, 11.2-6. 33) For the administrative units of the Guptas, see the elaborate introduction by D. R. Bhandarkar in Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, vol. 3 (New Delhi, 1981), and for the Pratiharas, B. N. Puri, The History of Gurjara-Pratiharas, 2nd ed. (New Delhi, 1986), pp. 160-161. Cf., Gopal 1963; Chattopadhyaya 1990: 18-69; etc. 34) Cf., Singh 1964: 289; Gopal 1963: 82. This meaning of bhukti is strangely enough the same as in the Dharmagastras [P.V. Kane, History of Dharmaiastras, vol. 3, pp. 317ff.]. 35) JPASB, 10, p. 409. 36) EI, 9, pp. 68ff.; IA, 40, pp. 146f. 37) CII, 7, Pt. 2, pp. 495-98. 38) Rajakula-pala (oil share of the royal family) in Nadlai enjoyed by Rudrapala, Amrtapala and rajni Manaladevi in V.S. 1189 (EI, 11, pp. 34ff.) might possibly have been a collective possession of the royal family which was enjoyed by the royal kinsmen who did not have administrative duties. For, in the same inscription, Ttimata having the title rauta is listed as the witness of the donation made by Land Distribution and Kinship of the Nadol Cahamanas 55

them; he seems to have been a local chief of Nadlai (No. 5 of Table 1). 39) See, section 2. 40) A few letters after "maharaja" are damaged in the title of Sahajapala of No. 1, but, considering that he was the son of the king Rayapala and that the title of other Mandor rulers was maharajaputra, it is quite natural to fill in the blank with "putra" . In the case of Kurrimarasirpha Sirrthavikrama of No. 4, too, we can properly infer from his relationship, son of the king Kelhana, that his title maharajaputra would have been merely omitted. 41) See, No. 14 of the Table 1. Rajaputra Ajayasirriha or Ajayaraja donated irrigated land to brahman Narayana three times, which are recorded on the copper plates of V.S. 1220,1223 and undated. The record of V.S. 1220 is in the reign of Alhana, and other two in the reign of Kelhana. 42) See, the references of No. 11 ad 21 of the Table 1, and note 14. 43) As far as the present studies on India history are concerned, most Marxist historias, like D. D. Kosambi and R. S. Sharma, do not support Marx's theory of Oriental despotism linked with the Asiatic mode of production. Rather the historiography on individual dynasties in early medieval India tend to describe the kingship and polity as bureaucratic despotism or absolute monarchy. H. Kulke calls this type of state image "the Indian historiographical model" (Kulke 1995: 1-4). For the cases of the Cabamana dynasties, see D. Sharma 1975: 219-20; Singh 1964: 273-74. 44) Reference to the authority of possession is often seen in the cases where grantors' land possession originated in the prasada assignment by their overlords. For instance, in the Bombay Secretariat copper-plate document dated in V.S. 1231, mahamandalesvara Vaijalladeva proclaimed the grant of Alavidagamva village after mentioning the fact that he had been assigned Narmadatata-mandala by the favour (prasada) of his overlord Ajayapala Caulukya (IA, 18, pp. 80ff.). 45) EI, 9, pp. 68ff.; IA, 40, pp. 146f. 46) EI, 39, pp. 179-82. 47) EI, 11, pp. 30-32. 48) ASI, An. Rep., 1909-10, Pt. 2, pp. 102f. 49) Besides, the revenue enjoyment by the royal kinsmen was not necessarily a remu- neration for their administrative service like in the bureaucracy. As mentioned in the note 38, some of them enjoyed revenues from villages without administrative service. 50) See, section 2. 51) What has been discussed here does not necessarily deny the succession of the titles themselves of non-Cahamana clan members, but their successive political bases. For instance, the bhoktr of Nadlai was thakkura rauta Rajadeva of Guhila family (No. 6 of Table 1), whose father Udharana also had the title rauta. But the former delegated chief in charge of Nadlai was not Udharana but probably rauta Ttimata (see note 38). Probably, Udharana had chieftaincy elsewhere, a village which is unknown. 52) That the relationship between the ruling clan members and their own clients were equally based on the bhai-bandh is pointed out by Masanori Sato [Sato 1982: 30- 31]. 56 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 8, 1996

53) Such shifting and unstable holding can be seen in the religious grants as well, as pointed out by B. D. Chattopadhyaya. According to him, in the Nadol kingdom, there were different nodes with which individual villages were connected as a mechanism for channelling village resources, and the link between the nodes and its villages were temporary and often changed [Chattopadhyaya 1990: 70-92]. If it is true, not only secular and religious grants but all the channels of revenues of the kingdom would have been changeable. Such nature of revenue system would be corresponded to the Nadol Cahamana polity as drawn in this paper, though I have no idea on which kind of socio-economic conditions such a revenue system was working. 54) The land distribution by the past kings was not the sole basis of their claims to land in the bhai system. As presented in note 1, they could claim the distribution of newly conquered land on the ground that the conquest was the collaboration of the clan members. 55) One may suppose that the "clan monarcy" would have been formed on the inter- kingdom level and each king been a "bhar of the bhai-bandh of the Cahamana. But this supposition is hardly acceptable. Firstly, in the case of the Nadol Cahamana, they were, probably from the beginning to the last, an ally or subordinate of the Caulukyas who stood against the Sakambhari Cahamanas, though they branched off from the main family, i.e., the Sakambhari Cahamanas [see note 5 and D. Sharma 1975: 138-60; Majumdar 1956: 23-168]. Secondly, they branched out not through the division of territory among the princes of the main Cahamanas, but founded their kingdom by colonizing the land of Nadol [Chattopadhyaya 1990: 71]; accordinly, the Nadol Cahamanas would not have considered their domain to have originated in the territorial division by the past king. 56) Our discussion leaves a very difficult but important problem to solve; despite of frequent transfer of the intermediaries' possessions, they could make perpetual grant to religious institutions out of their own non-hereditary possessions (e.g., El, 9, pp. 68-70; El, 11, pp. 30-32; pp. 36-37; pp. 46-47; EI, 13, pp. 207-11; EI, 39, pp. 179-82). Their frequent transfer is an undeniable fact evident from the inscriptions. Then, how can we overcome the contradiction?

Abbreviations ASI, An Rep. : Archaeological Survey of India, Annual Report. CII : Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi. El : Epigraphia Indica. IA : The Indian Antiquary. JI : Jaina Inscriptions, Vol. 1, edited by P.C. Nahar, 2nd ed., Delhi, 1983 (1st ed., 1918). JPASB : Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society, Bengal. PRAS, WC : Progress Report of the Archaeological Survey, Western Circle.

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