was sent to the headquarters of the district
the nearest village, were informed possibly to enable them to offer their
objections if any. If there were no objections and after receiving the
concurrence of the vishayapati (district head), the pustapala’s department
sold the land.
Religious Grants
Agrahara Grants These grants were restricted to Brahmins. They were
meant to be perpetual, hereditary and tax free, accompanied with the
assignment of all land revenue. The Nalanda and Gaya grants of
Samudragupta are the earliest records that throw light on the agrahara grants.
The essential condition of these grants was that the revenue paying tenants
should not be admitted to the privileged villages to the detriment of the king’s
revenue. These grants were specifically declared to be liable to resumption
for breach of certain conditions such as not reason against the king, not guilty
of offences of thefts, adultery, and the like. It is thus evident that the
agrahara grants underlined the privileged position of the Brahmins. Also,
these grants did not obviously allow any administrative function to grantees.
Devagrahara Grants Some inscriptions of the Gupta period show that
villages were granted to secular parties also who administered them for
religious purposes. The records of the maharajas of Uccakalpa dynasty of
central India, who were the feudatories of the Guptas, show that while one of
their known land grants was made in favour of a Brahmin, nearly all the rest
are concerned with donations to persons of various classes such as writers,
and merchants, for the purpose of repair and worship of temples.
Secular Grants
That land grants were made even independently to secular parties is evident
from a grant made by the Uccakalpa dynasty. According to it, two villages
were bestowed as a mark of favour, in perpetuity with fiscal and
administrative rights upon a person called Pulindabhatta. who seems to have
been an aboriginal chief. Other secular grants have been made in this period,
but since they were not connected with religious donations they were not
recorded on lasting material such as stone or copper.
    Epigraphic evidence of