A Study in the Economic Condition of Ancient India c8.8

c8.8

It has already been suggested that each estate contained on a rough average 80 acres of land, of which 15 to 20 acres may perhaps be taken as being under cultivation. According to Mr. Moreland “ at the beginning of the present century there were from 100 to 120 persons to each 100 acres of ‘normal cultivation’ in some of the western districts of the United Provinces, while there were from 60 to 70 persons to 100 acres in other districts lying further south; the difference between these figures is adequately explained by permanent features of environment, and the conclusion is that it has probably persisted with relatively little change, and that the western districts required somewhere about 100 to 120 persons, and the southern somewhere about 60 to 70 persons to cultivate 100 acres in the time of Akbar and throughout the intervening period.”² According to the Dāna-mayūkha also the go-carma, equivalent to about two-thirds of an acre, was sufficient to provide one person with food.³ It will not be unreasonable, therefore, if we make an estimate of the population on the basis of one person to each cultivated acre. Multiplying 7,000,000 grāmas by fifteen and twenty, we get 105,000,000 and 140,000,000 acres of land under cultivation, or say the same numbers of people living in India.