to state officials, who may also have been
roughly inferred from the revenue concessions in villages granted for
religious purposes. Assessment was made in settled villages or cultivated
land, whose mineral resources including salt, belonged to the king. The state
officials and police and soldiers could be billetted on the peasants either for
their own maintenance or for the upkeep of the governmental machinery
whose part they formed. The royal share of the produce is represented by
such terms as deya-meya and bhoga. The king also received the karu-kara,
which may mean taxes levied from artisans, and unless they worked for their
chief one day a month, as recommended by the Dharmasastras, they may
have paid taxes in cash. Revenue seems to have been collected in both cash
and kind. Actual finds of numerous coins of ordinary metal suggest that
collection in cash was substantial. This is also supported by the use of the
term hairanyika, keeper of gold, for treasurer.
     Land grants formed an important feature of the Satavahana rural
administration. Inscriptions show that the Satavahanas started the practice of
granting fiscal and administrative immunities to brahmins and Buddhist
monks. Perhaps the earliest epigraphic grant of land is found in the Nanaghat
Cave Inscription of Naganika, who bestowed villages (grama) on priests for
officiating at Vedic sacrifices, but it does not speak of any concessions in this
context. These appear first in grants made by Gautamiputra Satakarni in the
first quarter of the second century AD and include the surrender of royal
rights to the procurement of salt from cultivated fields. What is further
important is that royal officials (apparently policemen, retainers and soldiers)
were asked not to interfere with the administration of the donated field or
village, which is thus left completely in the hands of the religious
beneficiaries.
Units of Adminstration Satavahana inscriptions of the second and third
centuries AD reveal that their kingdom was divided into rashtras, aharas and
gramas in hierarchical order. It was governed by an official hierarchy of
amatya or mahasenapati and gaulmika. The two latter officials as heads of
territorial units appear in the third century AD in Bellary district. Though
aharas are not named in Asokan edicts, the Satavahana inscriptions
frequently mention Govardhana-ahara and some others. Hence, it is difficult
to envisage this neat territorial arrangement uniformly for the whole period
and the entire kingdom of the