Agrahāras have long been associated with the Hindu temple, popularly understood as residential housing schemes for brāhmaṇa families around the main temple. Both in terms of the practicality of affording easy access for conducting elaborate daily rituals which, in the case of Hindu temples, require priests to be available round the clock and at short notice, as well as in terms of the ordinal position in the societal hierarchy, agrahāras are imagined to be a brahminical privilege.

Agrahāras feature, not too infrequently, in the spatial organization of South India during pre-colonial times, the vestiges of which are visible even today showing vigour around some of the older and bigger temples where hereditary priesthood is still practiced. Neighbourhoods away from such temples too, sometimes, bear the suffix ‘agrahāra’ even when there’s hardly anything to distinguish them from any other neighbourhood in the vicinity. The urban agglomeration around such erstwhile agrahāras transformed their intrinsic character into unrecognizable, indistinguishable blocks of secular housing.

The popular rhetoric surrounding agrahāras ranges from accusations of being the ghettos of ritual purity to hotspots of caste discrimination and symbols of privilege. Their present state of being attached to temples obviates and perpetuates such misgivings to commoners and provides ammunition to political opportunists. Agrahārikas, or the original dwellers of agrahāras, are commonly understood to be conservative, seeking and enjoying exclusivity in matters of food, dressing, and intermingling with the wider society, so much so that they are often the subject of jokes. In urban millennial banter, one even finds witty comparisons to Apple’s app store, for being similarly exclusive and non-portable.

Rarely, agaraharas feature in art and architecture discussions. A feature in the real estate section of The Hindu, titled ‘The unique charm of Agrahārams’ reads:

Going back centuries, agrahārams were the Brahmin neighbourhood of a village and consisted of row houses on either side of the road. Also known as Chaturvedimangalams, these row houses were unique in construction, spacious, and extremely well planned. Agrahārams incorporated the way of life back then, which was centred around temples and religion and was spread all over South India. The original residents of these agrahārams were the priests who presided over the local temple and their families.

The article goes about describing the architecture before lamenting on the disappearing tradition of agrahāric way of life.

Today, agrahārams are fast disappearing to make way for bigger, swankier apartments and modern houses. With the younger generation migrating to cities or other countries across the world in search of jobs, agrahārams now stand alone with only memories of a way of life. Urbanisation has made the performance of elaborate rituals shorter, and there is a marked change in modern lifestyle that can no longer be adapted to the agrahāram and its community.

Even as the article reduced agrahārams to residential communities of a privileged class, more akin to today’s gated communities, it unwittingly highlighted the impact of spatial design on practicing a ritual heavy lifestyle.

Modern legends aside, let’s take a look at what inscriptions have to say about agrahārams. Inscriptions, unlike literary or anecdotal evidence, give us a vivid yet earthy picture of the past with largely factual information about the place, people and times. Many such lithic records, strewn across the length and breadth of India, record the gift of lands and other assets to brāhmaṇas and other groups of people. For a start, the lands gifted to brāhmaṇas are called brahmadéyas. These lands are typically agricultural lands that were already brought to revenue. Gifting of such lands has the effect of transferring the tax revenue therefrom to the donees.

The wealth of inscriptions available in South India, especially from Ćōḷ̣a era, has been the subject of academic interest for a long time. Presenting at the Indian History Congress in 1981, B. K. Pandeya writes,

‘Brahmadeya means gift to brāhmaṇs; specifically a grant of village income and its management to brāhmaṇs …. brahmadéyas were not exclusively brāhmaṇ settlements’,

making it clear right at the outset that brahmadéyas or agrahāras are not for the exclusive use of one community, namely the brāhmaṇas. Many inscriptions refer to agricultural lands notified as brahmadéyas with their numerous settlements of a-brāhmaṇa cultivators. Also, it is amply clear that brahmadéyas or agrahāras are not just residential localities or the architecture thereof but villages that are administered by a particular group of people to whom the revenue therefrom is assigned.

‘brāhmaṇs in brahmadéya villages shared a common position along with others engaged in religious functions as Vedic, Jaina, and even Buddhist functionaries and teachers. Merchants and artisans are engaged in the production of commodities and their exchange. The immediate local peasant community was also accorded a special autonomous position free from the dominance of the influential people of the locality with whom substantial political authority and economic power were vested.’

writes Pandeya, depicting the picture of a vibrant and thriving community of interdependent jātis, as opposed to the grim rows of houses attached to each other on either side of a temple lane, as agrahāras have now been reduced to in popular imagination. Brāhmaṇas lived in a-brāhmaṇa peasant villages and similarly, a-brāhmaṇas lived within large brahmadéya villages. Not surprisingly, brāhmaṇas were the most important functionaries in all such villages.

In addition to notifying existing village lands as brahmadéyas or agrahāras, such units can be formed from unoccupied lands under the authority of a royal. Land ownership is distributed among dévadāna or lands donated to temples, dulavay agrahāras or villages granted for military services and agrahāras belonging to other communities.

‘The donee was given the right to form a village, construct houses, plant trees and enjoy the fruits …. In all these villages or townships a number of people in different occupations like agriculture, trade, craftsmanship, oil pressing, weaving etc., lived alongside the brāhmaṇ donees. Thus, it cannot be assumed that brahmadéya villages were entirely exclusively peopled by brāhmaṇs, for people other than the donees were also residing in such villages and enjoying some pieces of land.’

Now that the exclusivity myth is dispelled, let us turn our attention to the objective behind creating brahmadéya villages and forming agrahāras. There is overwhelming inscriptional evidence where the donors explicitly mention the objective, which in many cases is spiritual merit for themselves, their ancestors, the king, and the public at large. Even then, such a gift is not bereft of immediate merit in the temporal world. The grant, while apparently centered around spiritual merit, is made with a view to expand future revenues of the state.

Eminent epigraphist, P V Parabrahma Śastry (PVP Śastry), emphatically argues that the ownership of the entire land in a kingdom belongs to the king alone and that the right of the cultivator on the land is secondary. During pre-historic times, people who brought forest lands under cultivation using iron implements and settled as agriculturalists enjoyed full rights on the land without having to pay taxes to anyone. In due course of time, as kingdoms emerged, all lands including jungles, barren lands, cultivable lands, riverine tracts, mines, etc. became the enjoyable right of the ruler. These lands, collectively called the kingdom, form part of the seven prerequisites to becoming a king. Dharmaś̄astras endow the king with the right to tax the revenue generated on agricultural lands. The cultivator, even as he enjoys certain ownership rights on the land, is only a tenant insofar as he is obliged to pay rent and other taxes as applicable. However, the primary right of the king over his kingdom is not without limitations. Residential houses, cattle sheds, winnowing plots, village tanks, pastures, and cremation grounds are considered jointly enjoyable properties of the villages. Such lands are exempt from imperial control and the right to tax the usage of such property is vested with the village sabhā under the leadership of a grāmaṇi. Even the king cannot acquire such lands without the permission of the village sabhā.

The cultivator too enjoyed certain ownership rights over the land which were inviolable even by the sovereign without a justifiable cause. It is the duty of the king to protect the rights of his citizens even if they are secondary in nature. It is a quid pro quo against his right to collect taxes. A king who fails to so honour the rights of citizens is deemed unfit to rule. PVP Śastry lists out three kinds of rights regarding property viz. the right of the king, rights of the village sabhā, and rights of the citizenry. Agriculture was essentially a collective enterprise. Clearing forests, excavating tanks and canals, building mud dams, and bringing new lands under irrigation was not a family enterprise, let alone an individual enterprise. It required a creative division of labour and some organization. This unique need led to the formation of the typical Indian village structure.

In light of the above organization of land ownership, let’s take a look at the various land grants from medieval times. State lands were let out to cultivators in return for a rent equivalent to half or a third of the produce. This is in addition to the taxes on lands owned by cultivators and various other communities. Such rental and tax income form the main revenue source of the state. In order to expand the revenue base of the treasury, the state incentivizes enterprising cultivators to bring hitherto unirrigated lands under irrigation by clearing forests. In order to sanctify such a deal, brāhmaṇas were sent to oversee the formation of and administer the king’s writ in the newly formed villages. A portion of all the lands newly brought under cultivation were assigned as brahmadéyas. The rest was awarded as rent-free lands to the cultivators on which tax is levied. Dharmaśastras suggest taxation of one-sixth of the produce. The land parcel thus devolved upon the brāhmaṇas was to be cultivated by the same or similar group of cultivators but for a revenue share ranging from 25% to 50%, which is typically gifted back by the king to the brāhmaṇas. Such tenancy was called ardhapaṇa khétiya and the tenants ārdhikas.

The Hiréhaḍgalli copper plates of Pallava Śivaskandavarma attest to the same. Of all the donees who were allotted housing plots, there were four ārdhikas. This indicates that both brāhmaṇas and cultivators shared the agrahāra community. This way, the brāhmaṇas functioned as an extension of the king’s authority in lands far from the reach of the state’s direct control. Dharmaśastras played a major role in defining the king’s authority and its limitations. Brāhmaṇas, who were trained in dharmaśatras, were consulted for everyday administration at the royal court/centres of power and thus enjoyed a degree of trust with the holders of power in administering dharma in newly formed villages and clusters.

The cultivators too held significant power commensurate with their land holdings which far exceeded that of the brahmadéya landholdings. Quite often, in medieval Āndhra, the grāmaṇi or the head of the village sabhā was a gāvuṇḍa (gowḍa) or reḍḍy. The varṇa status of the grāmaṇis was hardly a detriment to their claim to administrative positions. The Uttaramérūru inscription throws light on the democratic nature of the grāma sabhā during Ćōḷ̣a times wherein members were elected after an elaborate draw of lots.

Ancient inscriptions from Āndhra reveal that agrahāra land grants were made to Bauddha, Jaina, and brāhmaṇa communities for protecting and perpetuating the respective dharmas as well as to military generals, craftsmen, grāmaṇis or village heads for their services.
Anirudh Kanisetty, writing in his ‘Thinking Medieval’ column, points to the fact that, at its peak, the Buddhist sangha emerged ‘as a great landowning and trading organization in its own right.’ Various copper plate grants from Āndhra talk about bhikshu-hala, dévabhōga-hala, brahmadéya, dévadéya, agrahāra, dévāgrahāra, manyam, etc. each differing in the rights and limitations attached to them. Brahmadéya lands were often separate from the lands donated to the temple which was serviced by those brāhmaṇas so gifted. Temple properties were considered too pious to be trespassed even by brāhmaṇas and sovereigns. They belong to the presiding deity alone who is the real sovereign.

Valorous nāyakas, or military generals, were also gifted villages in the form of agrahāras for the services they provided to the state. We also see vaiśya agrahāras in Eastern Gāṇga inscriptions. However, these grants in return for services differed from brahmadéya grants in a crucial way. While the nāyaka, vyśya, and other service landholdings were taxable, brahmadéyas were tax-exempt in most cases. While the nāyakas, traders, bankers, and craftsmen were entitled to the revenue from the gifted lands, they are still liable to pay taxes to the state.

At this point, we should dwell a little while on the etymology of the term agrahāra as it is a widely used term that requires nuanced reading. The primary right of the king over land is exercised by collecting a portion of produce as a ‘prime’ (agra) tax. PVP Śastry opines that when such tax revenue is gifted to a donee resulting in a ‘loss’ (hāra) to the state, it is called agrahāra. This definition refutes D. C. Sirkar’s opinion that agra is an advance tax collected at the beginning of the year, as we come across many agrahāra grants that are exempt from paying taxes altogether. It also dispels the popular ‘row-house-garland’ myth.

We find in inscriptions, sa-kara agrahāras that are required to pay taxes, a-kara agrahāras that are completely exempt from taxes, and agrahāras to which various immunities are granted. The donors, usually kings, invest agrahāras with eighteen kinds of immunities (or parihāras). These include the right to deny entry to state officials and military generals, freedom from the interference of the village sabhā, immunity from the appropriation of the land for mining, and exemption from supplying labour and livestock for cultivating state lands or for military expeditions. These immunities are coupled with certain duties. We find many inscriptions reinstating agrahāra grants that were no longer enjoying the exempt status. What could have caused the defeasance of those agrahāras is a topic of academic interest.

The Chammak copper plate grants of Pravaraséna II state that the donees of the agrahāra can enjoy the grant as long as they do not cause harm to others (adrōha). It also specifies that certain acts like committing treason, murder, violating the modesty of women, theft, etc. would automatically revert the grant and the perpetrators of such acts would be dealt with harshly. It is only prudent that a grant that comes with so many immunities is held on a tight leash when it comes to law and order. Where brahmadéyas were gifted to learned brāhmaṇas, their descendants are expected to similarly excel in vedic studies and commit themselves to a life of ritual duties in order to claim inheritance of such grant. Where the next generation fails to live up to this expectation or where the donees die childless, the state has the power to revert the grant. We find many such interesting facts about agrahāras in PVP Śastry’s ‘prāchīnāndhradésa ćaritra — grāmīṇajīvanam’.

To be continued in part 2 ….