Women's Agency in Local Governance During the Pandya Period: An Epigraphic Study of Madurai Region

Abstract

This study examines women's agency in local governance during the Pandya period (c. sixth–fourteenth centuries CE) through an analysis of epigraphic records from the Madurai region. While medieval South Indian administrative institutions such as the ur, sabha, nagaram, and temple organizations have been widely studied, the role of women within these institutional frameworks has received comparatively little scholarly attention. Drawing upon inscriptions published in South Indian Inscriptions and the Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy, this paper investigates how women participated in governance through property ownership, religious patronage, land transactions, and temple endowments.The study argues that although women rarely occupied formal positions within village assemblies, they exercised meaningful influence by supporting institutions that formed the administrative and economic foundations of local society. Donations of land, livestock, lamps, and other endowments initiated administrative procedures involving temple authorities and village institutions, thereby integrating women into governance processes. The inscriptional evidence also reveals significant variations in women's participation based on social status, caste affiliation, and access to economic resources, with queens, elite women, and temple-associated women enjoying greater opportunities for public engagement than women from lower social groups.By reinterpreting governance beyond formal political office, this paper demonstrates that women's contributions were embedded within the interconnected spheres of religion, economy, and local administration. It contends that female agency in the Pandya period was negotiated within prevailing patriarchal structures rather than exercised through direct institutional authority. The study contributes to the historiography of medieval South India by foregrounding gender as an essential dimension of local governance and by offering a more inclusive understanding of political participation in the Pandya kingdom.