Question

CHOLA GOVERNANCE

You have seen the sheer splendour of the Chola kingdom and their reach to far off lands. It was as much a Golden Age as the Gupta period was. And it was at the centre of global trade as a midpoint connecting the Arabs in the west with China and S E Asia via the Silk Routes. For any empire to become powerful, it needs to have a strong centralised government and surplus (enough to meet current requirements and more to spare) wealth. How did the Cholas do that? What was their system of governance? And what was the source of their wealth?

Q1. What do you understand by the statement written above, "For any empire to become powerful, it needs to have a strong centralised government and surplus (enough to meet current requirements and more to spare) wealth"?



II
You know by now that under the Mauryas, the emperor sent his own officials to the distant parts of his land to collect taxes. Both Kautilya's Arthashastra and the Ashokan pillars talk about the power of officials sent by the emperor to different parts of the empire to collect taxes and settle disputes. It was different under the Cholas, however.

About a thousand years ago, the villages under the Cholas were organised in a certain manner. Each village had a council of farmers known as the UR. Its members were drawn from the most important families in the village.

'The UR looked after the administration of the village - settling quarrels among people, punishing lawbreakers and criminals, keeping land records, distributing water from irrigation channels, etc. It also undertook another important task - collecting taxes from the farmers on behalf of the king'.So unlike the Maurya empire where tax was collected by the emperor's own officials, here in the south, it was the UR council of local farmers which collected taxes from the farmers and handed these over to the king!

Now, above the UR was another council. It was called NADU. There was a NADU for every 20 - 25 villages. It was made up of the most prominent farmers from all these villages. The NADU looked after the overall administration of its group of villages.

If the king wanted any work done in the villages, he used to get it done through the UR or the NADU. The king himself employed very few officials. He also did not pay any salary to any member of the UR or NADU. 'The Chola administration reached a sort of “golden mean” (balance) between local self-governance and centralisation. The king would be responsible for foreign affairs, military matters, and monumental works such as the massive Brihadeshwara Temple. The local assemblies, the UR and the NADU handled day-to-day administration, public goods, and tax collection'.

Q2. What were the differences in the method of collecting taxes between the Mauryan empire and the Chola empire?
Answer:


Q3. The committee of each village was called the ____
Answer:

Answer 1

Answer:

Gilgamesh, superhero king of the city of Uruk. The goddess of ... jacent lands, but in many parts of the world, agriculture ... northern half of Southeast Asia, or northern India, possi-.