Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c31.6

c31.6

Moreover, each member of the community had also a material share in the production, as is proved by inscriptional records, for these state that there prevailed a system corresponding to the offering of “first fruits” to the deity of the ancients, or the “tithes” of Christendom, in which each person subscribed according to his capacity. As a beginning substantial grants of money or revenue from land were provided by the ruler or his ministers, after which we learn that the head men ordered “a great assembly on market day and came to an agreement to set apart for the god certain taxes”, payment to be made in the form of commodities. Thus “in the market-place the shopkeepers were to give a spoonful of every kind of grain that was sold, while of cotton each shop was to give as much as a man could hold in his hand and the reapers of betel-plants were required to make a contribution when they reap, and so forth, the ministers of the king being ordered to recognize these imposts”.¹ Every member of the populace therefore being thus identified with these artistic productions, such a measure could not fail to implant in one and all the seeds of æsthetic feeling a condition which is reflected in all the handiwork of this time, from the wooden house-fronts of the bazaars to works of the merest utility.