Everything You Need to Know about Feudalism in India

 

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What is feudalism?

Feudalism in a European sense revolves around the three key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefsb as it is described as a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility. 

However, the system gradually developed from the beginning of the land grants in context with ancient India.

The Dharmashastras, Epics and Puranas laid down the practice of making land grants sanctified to the Brahmanas in the name of custom. A whole chapter was devoted to the praise of making gifts of land (Bhumidana Prasamsa) in the Anusasana Parva of the Mahabharata.

The Land Grants & Administrative Rights:

The rulers of Kosala and Magadha granted villages to the Brahmanas as written in the early Pali texts of the pre-Mauryan period. A term used for such grants was “Brahmadeya“.

Earliest Land Grants:

The Buddhist priests and Brahmanas and other religious establishments were given the earliest of land grants which belonged to the first century BC.

However, even administrative officials were granted land in the post-Guptas period. The landed beneficiaries were given Powers of taxation and coercion both were given to the landed beneficiaries which led to the disintegration of the central authority.

Generally termed as fief holders and free holders were the secular recipients of the grants and the autonomous holders. Decentralization was the major outcome.

However, a Satavahana inscription of the first century BC have the Earliest epigraphic record of a land grants in India, which refers to the grant of a village as a gift in the Ashvamedha Sacrifice.

However, whether those priests got the administrative or revenue rights of these lands were is still not so clear. The administrative rights were guessed to be perhaps given up for the first time in the grants made to Buddhist monks by the Satavahana ruler.

Such a land grant who included the rights was Gautamiputra Satakarni in the second century AD. 

Those rights were:

The royal troops could not enter such land granted.

The government officials and district police was not supposed to disturb such lands.

Changes in Land Grants:

The land grants included the transfer of all sources of revenue, and the surrender of police and administrative functions from the period of later Mauryas.

The transfer of the king’s control only over salt, which implies that he retained certain other sources of revenue were maintained in the grants of the second century AD.

But it was recorded that the donor (King) in some other grants gave up his control over almost all sources of revenue, including pastures, mines including hidden treasures and deposits.

Then, the right to govern the inhabitants of the villages that were granted as well as his revenues both were abandoned by the donor. During the Gupta period this practice became more prevalent.

During the Gupta era there are many instances where Brahmanas were granted an apparently settled village. 

The respective rulers asked the residents, including the cultivators and artisans, to not only to pay the customary taxes to the donees, but also to obey their commands in such grants. The surrender of the administrative power of the state was a clear evidence provided by all these.

The kings used to retain the rights of the punishing the culprits which was one of the important aspect of the Kings sovereignty. The king made over to the Brahmanas not only this right, but also his right to punish all offences against family, property, person, etc. in the Post-Gupta times.

Implications of Land Grants:

As per some experts the state was bound to disintegrate by giving such privileges. Taxation system and coercive power based on the army are rightly regarded as two vital elements out of the seven organs of the state power mentioned in literary and epigraphic sources.

The state power disintegrates if they are abandoned. The grants made to the Brahmins created this system. The land was granted for a permanent basis as it said as long as the existence of the sun and the moon, which implies to the break-up of the integrity of the state.

The Brahamdeyya carried freedom from taxes , Administrative freedom and also the freedom from punishments (Abhayantarasiddhi) in the Post-Gupta period as we can see by the above discussion.

The rise of Brahmin feudatories who performed administrative functions not under the authority of the royal officers but almost independently happened with the widespread practice of making land grants to them in the Gupta period. 

From about 1000 AD what was implicit in earlier grants became explicit and became well recognised in the administrative systems of the Turks.

The creation of powerful intermediaries wielding considerable economic and political power was one of the major implications. The growing number of the land-owning Brahmins saw some of them gradually shed their priestly functions and turned their chief attention to the management of land.

Thus, their religious functions became less important than their case secular functions. The hallmark of the Maurya state which was the comprehensive competence based on centralised control, gave way to decentralisation in the post-Mauryan and Gupta periods. 

The functions of the collection of taxes, levy of forced labour, regulation of mines, agriculture, etc., which were hereby performed by the state officials, were now together with those of the maintenance of law and order, and defence became systematically abandoned, first to the priestly class and later to the warrior class.

The main implications of the Indian Feudalism in early medieval period are as follows:

Political decentralization:

The form of Land grants sown the seed of decentralization which turned into a vividly branched political organization made up of semi-autonomous rulers, Samantas, Maha Samantas and others such as Rajpurushas.

Emergence of new landed intermediaries:

The emergence of landed intermediaries were linked to the practice of land grants which began with the Satavahana. They were a dominant landholding social group who were absent in the early historical period.

Changes in agrarian relations:

The agrarian structure in early historical India and labour services provided by the Shudra were dominated by free vaishya peasants. 

But, from the sixth century AD onwards as the peasants were asked not to leave the village granted to the beneficiaries or migrate to tax-free village so the stuck to the land granted to the beneficiaries.

This resulted in with the isolation from the rest of the world and the immobility of the population. Development of localized customs, languages and rituals happened due to its implications.

Written by: Gourav Chowdhury