Licchavi kingdom was an ancient kingdom in Nepal, which existed in the Kathmandu Valley from approximately from ca. A.D. 300 to ca. 879. Centuries earlier at the start of the Buddhist era, a powerful republic known as Licchavi existed in what is today Bihar. It is to be mentioned here, some legendary sources from the Kathmandu Valley also describe the Kirātas as early rulers there, taken over from earlier Gopāls or Ᾱbhiras, both of whom may have been cow herding tribes. In the pre Lichhavi period a village administration existed in the valley of Nepal. In that village administration there were some local chief officials named Brahmum, Shulham, Tepulam who maintained law and orders of the villages. In the Ᾱdī- Nārāyaṇa temple Inscription of Nepal there are 18 functionaries in which Brahmum, Shulham, Tepulam are mentioned. These non sanskritic terms disappeared after sometime and replaced by sanskritic terms such as svatalasvāmī and later dauvārika, a post which endured permanently in Nepal village administration. In the period of Aṁśuvarmā we see a significant change occurred in the use of land and its administration by the ushering in of the pāňcālīs. Pāňcālī has been used in the sense of modern Pāňcāyet. In ancient Nepal Pāňcālī was a village administration and Pāňcālīkā is the member of the administrative body Pāňcālī. In this paper an attempt has been made to discuss about the meaning of the term pāňcālī, its characteristics, responsibilities and roles in Nepal administration.
| Published in | International Journal of Archaeology (Volume 12, Issue 2) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.ija.20241202.11 |
| Page(s) | 23-26 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Pāňcālīs, Pāňcālīkās, Administration, Nepal, Inscription, Village
| [1] | Sudarshan Raj Tiwari, ‘Ancient Towns of Kathmandu Valley: A survey of Legends, Chronicles and Inscriptions’, Contributions to the Nepalese Study, (Journal of the Tribhuvan University, 2001), p. 25. |
| [2] | D. R. Regmi, Inscriptions of Ancient Nepal (New Delhi, 1983), Vol. I, p. 19-148; Vol. II, p. 97; Vol. III, p. 256. |
| [3] | D. C. Sircar, Select Inscriptions, (Calcutta University, 1965), Vol. I, p. 281; p. 144-145. |
| [4] | Epigraphia Indica, (Calcutta), Vol. I, p. 26; Vol. 14, p. 89; Vol. 15, p. 130-138. |
| [5] | Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, (Patna), Vol. V, p. 582-588. |
| [6] | Manabendu Banerjee, Sanskrit Inscriptions of Nepal, (Kolkata, 1985), p. 18-19. |
| [7] | Monier Williams, A Sanskrit- English Dictionary (New Delhi, 1974), p. 614. |
| [8] | These inscriptions are collected and numbered according to the order mentioned in the Inscriptions of Ancient Nepal (Vol. 1) written by Dr. D. R. Regmi. |
| [9] | T. V., Mahalingam, South Indian Polity (Madras, 1967), 2nd ed., p. 394f. |
| [10] | Haripada Chakraborty, India as reflected in the inscriptions of the Gupta Period (Delhi, 1978), p. 203. |
| [11] | Alakananda Bhattacarya, Nepalese Inscriptions in Pre- Newari Eras (Calcutta, 1994), appendix, p. 80. |
| [12] | Anne Vergati, Gods, Men and Territory: Society and Culture in Kathmandu Valley, 2002, p. 90. |
| [13] | A. S. Altekar, State and Government in Ancient India, p. 339. |
| [14] | Quoted in Śabdakalpadruma, III, p. 269. |
| [15] | K. P. Malla, “Epigraphy and Society in Ancient Nepal: A critique of Regmi 1983”, CNAS, Vol. 13-1, p. 68. |
APA Style
Tripathy, A. (2024). Pāňcālī — A Local Administrative Unit of Ancient Nepal (4th to 8th Century A.D.): An Inscriptional Overview. International Journal of Archaeology, 12(2), 23-26. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ija.20241202.11
ACS Style
Tripathy, A. Pāňcālī — A Local Administrative Unit of Ancient Nepal (4th to 8th Century A.D.): An Inscriptional Overview. Int. J. Archaeol. 2024, 12(2), 23-26. doi: 10.11648/j.ija.20241202.11
AMA Style
Tripathy A. Pāňcālī — A Local Administrative Unit of Ancient Nepal (4th to 8th Century A.D.): An Inscriptional Overview. Int J Archaeol. 2024;12(2):23-26. doi: 10.11648/j.ija.20241202.11
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Download@article{10.11648/j.ija.20241202.11,
author = {Arpita Tripathy},
title = {Pāňcālī — A Local Administrative Unit of Ancient Nepal (4th to 8th Century A.D.): An Inscriptional Overview
},
journal = {International Journal of Archaeology},
volume = {12},
number = {2},
pages = {23-26},
doi = {10.11648/j.ija.20241202.11},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ija.20241202.11},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ija.20241202.11},
abstract = {Licchavi kingdom was an ancient kingdom in Nepal, which existed in the Kathmandu Valley from approximately from ca. A.D. 300 to ca. 879. Centuries earlier at the start of the Buddhist era, a powerful republic known as Licchavi existed in what is today Bihar. It is to be mentioned here, some legendary sources from the Kathmandu Valley also describe the Kirātas as early rulers there, taken over from earlier Gopāls or Ᾱbhiras, both of whom may have been cow herding tribes. In the pre Lichhavi period a village administration existed in the valley of Nepal. In that village administration there were some local chief officials named Brahmum, Shulham, Tepulam who maintained law and orders of the villages. In the Ᾱdī- Nārāyaṇa temple Inscription of Nepal there are 18 functionaries in which Brahmum, Shulham, Tepulam are mentioned. These non sanskritic terms disappeared after sometime and replaced by sanskritic terms such as svatalasvāmī and later dauvārika, a post which endured permanently in Nepal village administration. In the period of Aṁśuvarmā we see a significant change occurred in the use of land and its administration by the ushering in of the pāňcālīs. Pāňcālī has been used in the sense of modern Pāňcāyet. In ancient Nepal Pāňcālī was a village administration and Pāňcālīkā is the member of the administrative body Pāňcālī. In this paper an attempt has been made to discuss about the meaning of the term pāňcālī, its characteristics, responsibilities and roles in Nepal administration.},
year = {2024}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - Pāňcālī — A Local Administrative Unit of Ancient Nepal (4th to 8th Century A.D.): An Inscriptional Overview AU - Arpita Tripathy Y1 - 2024/08/06 PY - 2024 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ija.20241202.11 DO - 10.11648/j.ija.20241202.11 T2 - International Journal of Archaeology JF - International Journal of Archaeology JO - International Journal of Archaeology SP - 23 EP - 26 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2330-7595 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ija.20241202.11 AB - Licchavi kingdom was an ancient kingdom in Nepal, which existed in the Kathmandu Valley from approximately from ca. A.D. 300 to ca. 879. Centuries earlier at the start of the Buddhist era, a powerful republic known as Licchavi existed in what is today Bihar. It is to be mentioned here, some legendary sources from the Kathmandu Valley also describe the Kirātas as early rulers there, taken over from earlier Gopāls or Ᾱbhiras, both of whom may have been cow herding tribes. In the pre Lichhavi period a village administration existed in the valley of Nepal. In that village administration there were some local chief officials named Brahmum, Shulham, Tepulam who maintained law and orders of the villages. In the Ᾱdī- Nārāyaṇa temple Inscription of Nepal there are 18 functionaries in which Brahmum, Shulham, Tepulam are mentioned. These non sanskritic terms disappeared after sometime and replaced by sanskritic terms such as svatalasvāmī and later dauvārika, a post which endured permanently in Nepal village administration. In the period of Aṁśuvarmā we see a significant change occurred in the use of land and its administration by the ushering in of the pāňcālīs. Pāňcālī has been used in the sense of modern Pāňcāyet. In ancient Nepal Pāňcālī was a village administration and Pāňcālīkā is the member of the administrative body Pāňcālī. In this paper an attempt has been made to discuss about the meaning of the term pāňcālī, its characteristics, responsibilities and roles in Nepal administration. VL - 12 IS - 2 ER -
Department of Sanskrit, Debra Thana Sahid Kshudiram Smriti Mahavidyalaya, West Bengal, India
