I have written previously about the influence of pharaonic Egypt on Kerala in matters religious and mundane, from local stories, divine myths, and civil calendars to daily wear. In this article, I touch on a legal matter related to land tenure — ownership, use, and enjoyment of agricultural land — arising from the agrarian economies of both pharaonic Egypt and ancient Kerala.
In Kerala, before land laws changed under European colonialism in the 1700’s, land was divided into three sovereign portions: one for the king; another for the nobles; and a third for the temples. They were independent of each other in that none of them paid taxes on the land to the royal exchequer. In fact, land revenue in the form it is understood today came to be levied in the kingdom of Cochin only in 1762 CE. This form of private property, where the owner held the land not for the king, but in common with him, recognizing no superior, rendering no service, contributing no profits to the commonwealth, did not prevail anywhere else in India.
However, it did prevail along remarkably similar lines in ancient Egypt as early as the third millennium BCE. Land in Egypt too was divided into three sovereign portions: one for the pharaoh, another for the nobles and a third for the temples. At least until 1000 BCE, they were independent of each other, just like in Kerala, paying no taxes in common to the royal treasury. It was not until European colonization, when Egypt fell under Rome around 30 BCE, that temple lands came to be taxed in common with the rest of the country.
In both ancient Kerala and in pharaonic Egypt, selling land involved a lot of red tape; it was easier to lease it, a common lease term being one year with one-third of the produce to the landlord and the remaining two-thirds for the tenant. Interestingly, once upon a time, the many different types of leases and mortgages prevalent in Kerala used to be taught to children through poems called vyavahara mala in the oral tradition. With the push to westernize education in the 1800’s under the heavy hands of the British government, such subjects ceased to be taught at schools. As a result, people forgot their traditions over time, so that in the late nineteenth century, there were only a few old men here and there who could speak authoritatively on these topics.
Karaima was one such form of land lease in Kerala. It was an inheritable conditional lease granted by trustees of a temple to certain temple employees for performing future services. Custom dictated that so long as the employee fulfilled the specified duties, and there was no failure of heirs in his family, he could not be ousted from his karaima lease. Due to various laws enacted after independence, temples in Kerala progressively lost their land to the government, but the ancient customs of karaima continued, so that it came to be paid in the form of money rather than as land leases. Oddly, unlike other customary job practices of the modern world, the associated karaima services continued to be not only inalienable, but they were also inheritable according to Kerala’s matrilineal laws of inheritance.
The strange juxtaposition of this ancient form of land lease on modern ways was recently tested in the Kerala High Court in the case of Krishnakumar v. Cochin Devaswom (Mar. 13, 2012). Krishnakumar Pisharady of the Thekkepisharath family claimed on behalf of his family a right to income associated with services, called mala-kazhakam, involving preparation of garlands for the deity in Perumanam Sree Mahadeva Temple. Income from the karaima lease associated with the mala-kazhakam was being received from the trustee of the temple, the Cochin Devaswom Board, by the representative — karanavan — of the Thekkepisharath family, who was tasked with distributing the mala-kazhakam duties among his family members. Contrary to custom, he entrusted one Rama Pisharady from a different family with a portion of the mala-kazhakam. Upon Rama Pisharady’s death, his son quietly continued his work at the temple, and the trustees did not object. But Krishnakumar objected on behalf of the Thekkepisharath family. The case landed in court.
After trial and a round of appeal, the Kerala High Court, relying on Kerala’s ancient practices, decided in favor of Krishnakumar and the Thekkepisharath family, holding that karaima income associated with the mala-kazhakam service was vested in them from time immemorial, and they should be the ones receiving income therefrom. In reaching its decision, the court relied on a 1919 proclamation by the King of Cochin: “[C]ertain services . . . had been formerly granted to and are being enjoyed as karaima by certain families, and . . . the holders of said karaima services had also been granted landed property or other emoluments as remuneration for the due performances of the services.” Had this litigation been fought a hundred years ago, Krishnakumar and the Cochin Devaswom would no doubt have agreed to lease terms on the karaima land associated with the mala-kazhakam.
An analogous situation arose in ancient Egypt thousands of years ago. In temples of pharaonic Egypt, there was a custom of granting land in return for services, similar to the karaima lease of the temples of Kerala. Interestingly, just like in Kerala, when such wages were paid wrongly, litigation ensued. Berlin Papyrus 3407 provides a description of a land tenure dispute between Neferabet and Niay, both secondary priests, called wab priests, similar to the ambalavasi Thekkepisharath family of Kerala. Their dispute was over a share in an estate whose income was administered by Niay as the manager of Neferabet’s family, a position analogous to the karanavan of the Thekkepisharath family. According to at least one interpretation, the estate at issue was owned by the Temple of Mut.
Neferabet claimed that he and his brothers had not been receiving a legitimate share of the income from the estate, probably because of Niay’s mismanagement. Based on the evidence presented, the court decided in favor of Neferabet and ordered Niay to recognize his claim and hand over the property to the temple. Neferabet and Wennenefer, the main priest of the Temple of Mut, thereafter agreed to terms of the lease on behalf of the temple, including harvest tax to be paid by Neferabet.
Comparing Krishnakumar Pisharady’s case to the Egyptian litigation described in Berlin Papyrus 3407, it would appear that Neferabet, like Krishnakumar, claimed a kazhakam in the Temple of Mut, and the court granted it, so that he and his brothers were now entitled to receive the benefits of the associated karaima lease, which also required turning over a harvest rent to the temple, just like in Kerala a hundred years ago. Neferabet’s case was decided around 1200 BCE, during the 46th year of the reign of Pharaoh Ramessis II in Egypt, while Krishnakumar’s case was decided in 2012, three thousand years later, in Kerala. The courts decided identically in both cases, showing that despite the different locations and the long passage of time, the points of fact and law arising from the peculiar social customs and land tenure practices of both lands were so extraordinarily similar that they merited the same judgement. Truly, justice knows no time!
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