Agrahara

Topic: Economy of Early India: Agriculture, Trade, Guilds, Coinage · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 2 "Kings, Farmers and Towns"

Meaning

An agrahara was land that a king gave to a Brahmana. The Brahmana usually paid no land revenue to the king, and often got the right to collect dues from the local people for himself.

It matters because these grants created a new rural elite: a Brahmana landlord who stood between the king and the peasants, kept the dues, and owed the king very little. Historians still argue over what these grants tell us about how strong kings really were.

Explanation

Background: kings start giving away land

• From the early centuries CE, kings began to give away land.
• The gift was written down so that no one could deny it later.
• A few grants were cut on stone. Most were written on copper plates.
• The copper plate was handed to the donee (the person who received the land). It was his title-deed, meaning his proof that he owned the land.
• The earliest inscriptional grants date to c. 100–200 CE. They were made by Satavahana and Shaka rulers.
• Most of the land went to religious institutions or Brahmanas, such as temples, monasteries and learned priests. The agrahara was the grant made to a Brahmana.

Main features of an agrahara

• Who got it: a Brahmana.
• Privilege 1: no land revenue. The Brahmana paid the king nothing for the land.
• Privilege 2: the right to collect dues. The Brahmana could often collect dues from local people himself.
• Before the grant, this tax went up to the king.

• After the grant, it stayed with the Brahmana.

• The result: the Brahmana became a local lord, and the king had made him one with a grant.

• What a grant could include: many grants listed exactly which royal claims the donee was freed from. Prabhavati Gupta's Danguna grant is the standard example:
• Soldiers and policemen could not enter the village.
• The village did not have to supply grass, hides, charcoal, flowers or milk to touring royal officials.
• There would be no royal purchase of fermenting liquors and no salt-digging by the king's men.

• Rights over hidden treasure, mines, khadira trees and all taxes passed to the donee.

• In this grant she also commands the village's householder-peasants (gramakutumbinas) and the Brahmanas living there to obey the new lord.

Southern versions of the same idea

• Pallava brahmadeya villages were also tax-free villages given to Brahmanas. Brahmadeya means "gift to a Brahmana".
• Chalukya agraharams were the Chalukya version. Some of them grew into centres of learning. Aihole and Badami are the two named examples.
• From the 7th century, grant texts in the south used the local language as well as Sanskrit, Tamil or Telugu:
• The Sanskrit part held the king's praise and the legal words.
• The local-language part gave the village boundaries and the dues.

Results: why did kings do it?

• View ①: a plan to spread farming.
• The king gave away forest or empty land, not rich farmland.
• The Brahmana settled there, cleared it and brought in peasants.

• New farmland meant new revenue and new followers on the frontier, so the state grew.

• View ②: a sign of weak kings.

• Kings were losing control of samantas (big landed chiefs and subordinate rulers).
• So they bought loyalty with land because they could no longer simply give orders.

• In their prashastis (praise inscriptions) they still called themselves "supermen". On this view, the boasting was loudest because their control was slipping. It was a facade (a false front).

• Evidence for View ②: the Gupta pattern. The Guptas ruled through provinces and gave copper-plate grants to local rulers, priests and chieftains. Power was being shared outward, not gathered at the centre.

• Either way: a new rural elite appeared between the king and the peasant.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: the early centuries CE onwards. The earliest inscriptional grants date to c. 100–200 CE (Satavahana and Shaka rulers). Copper-plate grants stayed in use for more than a thousand years.
• Key people and dynasties:
• Prabhavati Gupta was the daughter of Chandragupta II and was married into the Vakataka royal family. She issued the Danguna grant of a village.
• Pallavas: their tax-free Brahmana villages were called brahmadeya.

• Chalukyas: they set up agraharams at Aihole and Badami. Aihole was a Chalukya capital between the 6th and 8th centuries CE. It is the site of the Aihole inscription of Pulakeshin II, dated 634–35 CE [4][5]. Pulakeshin II ruled 610–642 CE and lived at the same time as Harsha [6].

• How we know: copper-plate inscriptions

• A Western Ganga plate of king Durvinita, dated c. 550 CE, records that in his 40th regnal year (the 40th year of his reign) he celebrated his birthday by granting the village Kodungervur to Brahmana donees of the Bharadwaja gotra [2]. This is land going to a Brahmana family, the same kind of gift as an agrahara.

• The Nalanda copper plate of the Pala king Devapala records a grant of five villages to pay for the upkeep of monks and the copying of manuscripts in the monastery [3]. This shows the other main kind of donee, a monastery.

• Language of grants: mostly Sanskrit. From the 7th century, part of the text was in Tamil or Telugu.

Don't confuse with

• Brahmadeya: the same kind of tax-free Brahmana village. In an exam, brahmadeya is the Pallava term, while agraharam is linked with the Chalukyas (Aihole, Badami).
• Grants to monasteries (e.g. Devapala's Nalanda plate): here the donee was a Buddhist monastery, and the land paid for monks and manuscript copying [3]. An agrahara went to a Brahmana.
• Grants to samantas: in the "weak king" argument, land given to subordinate chiefs is a way of buying their loyalty. An agrahara was a religious gift to a Brahmana, although both moved power away from the king.
• Iqta (Delhi Sultanate): an iqta was land whose revenue an officer collected in place of a salary, and it could be transferred. An agrahara was a religious gift to a Brahmana in early India, recorded on a copper plate as his title-deed.

Prelims Hooks

• Agrahara = land given to a Brahmana, exempt from land revenue, often with the right to collect dues from local people.
• Earliest inscriptional land grants: c. 100–200 CE, by Satavahana and Shaka rulers. They were mostly written on copper plates, which worked as the donee's title-deed.
• Pallava → brahmadeya; Chalukya → agraharams, with Aihole and Badami growing into centres of learning.
• Prabhavati Gupta (daughter of Chandragupta II, married into the Vakatakas) issued the Danguna grant. It names the gramakutumbinas (householder-peasants).
• Western Ganga king Durvinita, c. 550 CE: granted Kodungervur to Brahmanas of the Bharadwaja gotra in his 40th regnal year [2].
• Trap: the Nalanda copper plate of Devapala granted five villages to a monastery, not to a Brahmana [3].

Mains Points

• State-building or state decay? One group of historians sees agraharas as a planned way to push farming into forests and frontier lands and create new revenue. Another group sees kings giving away revenue and rights because they could no longer control their samantas, as in the Gupta pattern of provinces plus copper-plate grants. A balanced GS-I answer accepts both: the same grant could spread agriculture and also break up royal power.
• Grants as a picture of the rural economy: exemption lists like Prabhavati Gupta's (grass, hides, charcoal, flowers, milk, liquor, salt-digging, mines, hidden treasure, khadira trees) show what villages produced and what the state demanded from them. Agraharas also turned Brahmanas into a new rural elite, and in the Chalukya south some became centres of learning (Aihole, Badami).
• Law-books vs. real life: Sanskrit legal texts did not allow women to control land on their own, yet Prabhavati Gupta granted a village. Either a queen was an exception, or the texts were not followed everywhere. Law-books say what should happen; inscriptions record what did happen. Kings' boasting in prashastis at the same time they were giving land away is another example of reading a source against what it claims.

Related concepts

• Land grants
• Land grant terms
• Kulyavapa and dronavapa
• Brahmadeya
• Devadana
• Land grant debate

Read more

• Land grants and new rural elites