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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XXIV.
Now we shall try to see how agrahara came to mean a grant made to a Brahmana.' We have seen that in the Mallasarul grant Agraharins were Mahattaras also. The title Mahattara implies a head-man of a village.' When he performs also the function of a revenue-collector,' he is called Agraharina-mahattara. Manu says that the king should appoint a head-man for every village, every ten villages and so on. The head-man of one village will get as his remuneration what food and drink the villagers are to pay to the king every day. The head-man of ten villages will get land which requires six bulls to cultivate, and so on. Kautilya also says that the Adhyakshas or 'Superintendents of departments' should be endowed with lands. The Sukraniti again says gramapo Brāhmaṇo yōjyaḥ i.e., a Brāhmaṇa should be appointed as the headman or Mahattara of a village'. In this way the land granted as maintenance for the Agraharina-mahattaras who were invariably of the Brahmana caste came to be known as agrahāra.
Sa-viśvāsam-This has been translated as in confidence'. No question of confidence comes in here. We think that Dr. Chakravarti, the Government Epigraphist, has rightly raised the point that after agrahärät some officers should be mentioned. We take Viśvāsa to be the designation of some officer. Sa-karanan', a word similar to sa-viśväsam', is found in the Khalimpur plate of Dharmmapaladēva, as jyështha-kayastha-mahāmahattara-mahattara-dāśagrāmik-adivishaya-vyavahariṇaḥ sa-karanan 's, i.e., the District-Officers such as the Jyeshtha-Kayastha, etc., with their Karanas, i.e., Sub-Departments or the officers constituting their respective SubDepartments. Here it appears that the Mahattara was an officer higher than the Daśagramika or the head of ten villages' and the Jyeshtha-Kayastha was at the head of the Vishaya-Vyavaharins or officers of the district', probably employed in the work of revenue collection. Viśvāsa literally means trust,' hence any officer in charge of some work of trust.' Here it probably refers to the post of revenue-collector of the Ambila agrahara.
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Let us see if there is any evidence to show that there really existed any post of the name of Viśvāsa. The present-day surnames such as Viśväsa, Niyogi, Bhāndāri, Bisi (Vishayi), Majumdar (correctly Majmuadar), Munshi, etc., are nothing but the names of posts, which were held by some forefathers, probably for some generations, of the present holders of these surnames. Arjuna Misra, the Bengali commentator of the Mahabharata, says that he wrote the Mokshadharmmarthadipika under orders of the Gaudesvara-mahamantri-śrimad-Viśvāsa-raya". Again Ramachandra Guha, the poet of the 4indavananda-Nataka, says that he was the son of Gaudendramahāmātya-kavi-pandita-prāpta-Viśvāsa-sthāna(khāna)-padavika". We find that both Visvāsa-rāya and Viśvāsa-khana held high posts under the king of Gauḍa. Ramachandra clearly states that his father held the post (padavi) of Viśvāsa-khāna. Padavi literally means a situation, a place,' but surnames after the post-designations have become so very common in Bengal that padavi means a surname. The term again is so very popular that surnames such as Banerji, Ghosh, etc., which are not strictly padavis go by the name of padavi. Viśvāsa-rāya and Viśvāsa-khāna seem to be similar to the modern Lord Chancellor of the Exchequer.' After this there cannot be any doubt that Viśväsa in the present plate has been used as the designation of an officer.
[Agraharina of the Mallasarul Plate evidently stands for agraharika and has been formed on the analogy of grāmiņa.-Ed.]
Manu-smriti, ch. VII, vv. 115-19.
Arthabastra, Bk. II, ch. 1.
Sukrraniti, ch. II, v. 420.
Above, Vol. IV, p. 250, text 1. 47.
Notices of Sans. MSS., H. P. Sastri, 2nd. Series, Vol. I, No. 295.
Des. Cat. of Sans. MSS., Tanjore, Vol. VIII, No. 4335.
