Brahmadeya

Topic: Economy of Early India: Agriculture, Trade, Guilds, Coinage · NCERT: Class 9, Ch 5 "State and Society up to 1000 CE"

Meaning

A brahmadeya (literally "gift to Brahmanas") was a village or piece of land that a king gave to Brahmanas. They usually paid no land revenue on it. The study note uses the word as the Pallava name for such villages, and it is also used for Chola grants. Brahmadeyas matter because they show how kings in early south India spread farming and Sanskrit learning. They also show how kings created a new rural elite: Brahmanas who controlled land and collected local dues, and stood between the king and the peasant.

Explanation

Background: why kings gave land away

• From the early centuries CE, kings began giving away land and writing the gift down so nobody could deny it later.
• The earliest inscriptional grants date to c. 100–200 CE. They were made by Satavahana and Shaka rulers.
• Most grants went to religious institutions or Brahmanas, such as temples, monasteries and learned priests.
• In the south, a village granted to Brahmanas came to be called a brahmadeya.
• Historians give two reasons why kings did this:
• Spreading farming: the king gave away forest or unused land. The Brahmana settled there, brought in peasants and started cultivation. The state gained new farmland and new supporters.
• Weaker royal power: kings were losing control over samantas (big landed chiefs and junior rulers). So they bought loyalty with land instead of giving orders.

Main features of a brahmadeya

• Donee: the person who received the land. For a brahmadeya this was one or more Brahmanas, often a learned family.
• Tax-free: the village paid no land revenue to the king.
• Right to collect dues: the donee could often collect the dues that local people used to pay the king. That tax now stayed in the village with the Brahmana.
• Written proof: the grant was usually cut on a copper plate, and a few were cut on stone. The plate was given to the donee and served as his title-deed (written proof that he owned the land).
• Language: mostly Sanskrit. From the 7th century, part of the text was also written in Tamil or Telugu.
• The Sanskrit part praised the king and gave the legal wording.

• The local-language part gave the village boundaries and dues.

• Self-rule: in Chola times each brahmadeya was looked after by a sabha (an assembly of the leading Brahmana landholders). The sabha ran the village's affairs.

How it worked: what the donee gained

Grants of this period list the rights that passed to the new lord. Prabhavati Gupta's Danguna grant is a non-Pallava example, but it shows the kinds of rights involved:

• No entry of soldiers and policemen into the village.
• No duty to supply grass, hides, charcoal, flowers or milk to royal officials on tour.
• 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 went to the donee.
• In that grant the queen orders the village peasants (gramakutumbinas, householder-peasants) and the Brahmanas living there to obey the new lord.

Results

• Farming spread into forest and frontier land.
• Learning grew. Brahmana settlements of this kind became places of Sanskrit and Vedic study. Some Chalukya agraharams, at Aihole and Badami, became centres of learning.
• A new rural elite appeared. The Brahmana donee controlled land and dues and owed the king very little.
• Royal power was shared out. Each grant moved revenue and local authority away from the king.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: land grants begin c. 100–200 CE. Brahmadeyas are typical of south India under the Pallavas and later the Cholas, roughly the 6th to 10th centuries and after.
• Region: Tamil country. In the Chola period, many Brahmana settlements grew up in the Kaveri valley.
• Similar grants elsewhere:
• Western Ganga king Durvinita, copper plate of c. 550 CE. In his 40th regnal year he celebrated his birthday by granting the village Kodungervur to Brahmanas of the Bharadwaja gotra [2].

• Chalukya agraharams at Aihole and Badami. Aihole was a Chalukya capital between the 6th and 8th centuries CE and has the Aihole inscription of Pulakeshin II (634–35 CE) [4][5].

• How we know:

• Copper-plate grants, many written in Sanskrit with Tamil or Telugu sections.
• A few stone inscriptions.
• The lists of exemptions in these grants, which also tell us what villages produced.

Don't confuse with

• Agrahara: the general term for land granted to a Brahmana, tax-free and often with the right to collect dues. Brahmadeya is the Pallava (and Chola) word for the same kind of grant in the Tamil south.
• Ur: the assembly of an ordinary peasant village. The sabha was the assembly of a brahmadeya, run by Brahmana landholders.
• Grant to a monastery: the Nalanda copper plate of the Pala king Devapala gave five villages to a Buddhist monastery, for the upkeep of monks and the copying of manuscripts [3]. A brahmadeya went to Brahmanas, not to a monastery.
• Grant to samantas: land given to subordinate chiefs to buy their loyalty was a political grant. A brahmadeya was a religious gift to Brahmanas.

Prelims Hooks

• Brahmadeya = the Pallava term for tax-free villages granted to Brahmanas. The term continues under the Cholas.
• A brahmadeya was run by a sabha of Brahmana landholders. An ordinary peasant village had an ur.
• Earliest inscriptional land grants: c. 100–200 CE, by Satavahana and Shaka rulers.
• Land grants were mostly on copper plates, which served as the donee's title-deed. Tamil or Telugu appear alongside Sanskrit from the 7th century.
• Chalukya parallel: agraharams at Aihole and Badami became centres of learning.
• Trap: the Nalanda plate of Devapala gave villages to a monastery, not to Brahmanas [3]. The Western Ganga plate of Durvinita (c. 550 CE) gave Kodungervur to Bharadwaja gotra Brahmanas [2].

Mains Points

• Building the state or weakening it? One view: brahmadeyas pushed farming into forest land and created new revenue and loyal supporters, so the state grew. The other view: kings gave away revenue and local power because they could not control the samantas, so power became scattered. A balanced GS-I answer says the same grant could do both.
• Spreading culture: brahmadeyas and agraharams took Brahmanas, Sanskrit and temple-centred learning into new areas. Learning centres grew up at places like Aihole and Badami. This shaped the culture of south India.
• Grants as economic records: exemption lists name grass, hides, charcoal, milk, liquor, salt, mines and khadira trees. They show what villages produced and what the state demanded from them. The rise of donees who collected the dues shows a new rural elite forming between the king and the peasant.

Related concepts

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

Read more

• Land grants and new rural elites