Pāňcālī — A Local Administrative Unit of Ancient Nepal (4th to 8th Century A.D.): An Inscriptional Overview

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.