Agraharam

An Agraharam (Sanskrit IAST: agrahāram) or Agrahara (Sanskrit IAST: agrahāra) was a grant of land and royal income from it, typically by a king or a noble family in India, for religious purposes, particularly to Brahmins to maintain temples in that land or a pilgrimage site and to sustain their families.

With Brahmins taking up professions in urban areas and some migrating abroad, Agraharams are vanishing fast.

An early example of an existing description of an agraharam has been found in a 3rd-century CE Sangam work called Perumpāṇāṟṟuppaṭai.

If you (bard) reach (the place), fair faced bangled ladies who are as chaste as (Arundhathi) the little star which shines in the north of the bright, broad sky, will after sunset feed you on the well-cooked rice named after the bird (explained by the commentator as the rice called irasanam) along with slices of citron boiled in butter taken, from the buttermilk derived from red cows and scented with the leaves of the karuvembu, and mixed with pepper-powder, and the sweet-smelling tender fruit plucked from the tall mango tree and pickled.

Examples of such settlements include: There are a number of places in Southern Karnataka named agrahara.