Cholas admin. on land management system led to use of irrigation through different methods and raising of more than one seasonal crop, apart from tree crops. By mid-10th century, with the advet of the later Cholas, specially Raja Raja productive cultivated land constituted a major source of land revenue for the upkeep of the Chola mandalam. Farm villages came to be precisely defined.
As per Chola stone inscriptions and numerous copper plates, a village came to be defined as comprising wet lands, dry lands, ur (cultivators), village site, nadu,mandalam, house gardens, manram (meeting place), wastelands for grazing cattle, tanks, cow pens, hedges, forest land, barren lands, brackish lands, streams, channels, rivers, Arabic land near rivers, pits of water, trees. (Subbarayalu) Villages were further grouped as brahmadeyas (Brahmin villages), Vellala villages (farmer villages), taniyur, devadana villages (gifted to Brahmins, temples and those who have rendered recognized state service. Hundreds of descriptions are noted in inscriptions and copper plates of temple donations (of land or land income), endorsed by the state that give precise locations and measures of lands donated, together with their boundary limits. Though verbal, these descriptions of individual plots of land give indication of an early system of cadastral plans.
The land measurement units used in Tamil Nadu however differ from those prevalent in the northern plains. The smallest unit used is a viral (fi nger). 12 virals (9") make a chaan and 24 virals (18") make a muzham (cubit). A muzhakol (cubit pole) is 9 or 12 ft long and is used as a measuring rod.
The smallest land plot is a 12 ft. square called a Kuzhi. Hundred Kuzhis make a Kaani and fi ve Kaanis is a veil, somewhat similar to the northern bigha. Land as small in extent as 1/52.4288 millions of a veli was measured in the productive Cauvery valley in the Chola period (equal to 1/500000th of a square foot, (Burton Stein).
While the basic cultivated field plot was a veli, and a village was defi ned as stated in the above para and comprised many farm plots, that were as far as possible rectangular of square in shape, except where natural features like water channels formed the bounding limits. The basic agrarian unit was nadu comprising many villages. With land reclamation in the newer delta fringes, new nadus came into existence, though of lower fertility than the core Chola heartland.
The Chola system of land management went on a decline post-fourteenth century, (Heitzman) but the basic framework and structure remained intact to become the basis of the later British cadastral and revenue surveys.
Balu sir, I was really thrilled to read your mail. Infact, I was checking if my forearm (muzham) comes to 24 finger length. Maybe I am short, thats why I am falling short of two finger length. :) But, the crux is land measurements done by this method and building construction using the same, such monuments are still standing when the newly constructed buildings develop cracks soon. :) Ragothaman