Shift of Trust from Words to Deeds: Implications of the Proliferation of Epigraphs in the Tamil South

Abstract

This article seeks to examine the social implications of the proliferation of epigraphs from a specific point of time onwards in the Tamil South. Though the presence of writing goes back to c. 200 b.c., it was during the fourth-fifth centuries that inscriptions in the form of brahmadēya deeds begin to appear indicating the emergence of a stratified agrarian society and its political structure, namely the consecrated monarchy. Through the sixth-seventh centuries issuing of brahmadeya deeds involving exemptions, privileges, rights and powers not known to the pre-agrarian social formation characterized by different economies with the dominance of agro-pastoralism, became more frequent. The increase of brahmadeyas meant expansion of rice-fields, which in its turn presupposed consolidation of relations in plough agriculture through of the system of hereditary specialization of occupations and their ordering into a hierarchy. By the close of ninth century the number of deeds became several hundreds, which in a couple of centuries, rose to several thousands. The use of writing seems to have become essential for legalizing the new rights, privileges and powers ordained from above, which were beyond the purview of conventions based on oral traditions. Further, the spread of the use of writing as a necessary component of the administration meant the rise of bureaucracy and document-based governance. The central argument of the article is that there is a direct link between the emergence of a class of landlords with non-traditional rights, privileges and powers, and the social widening of the use of deeds in early medieval south India, evident in the form of the proliferation of epigraphs.