Indian Epigraphy c11.t3.1

c11.t3.1

As indicated above, some charters² record the sale of Government land (often fallow land) to an applicant paying the usual price and the Government’s acceptance of his proposal to create a rent-free holding out of the purchased land in favour of Brāhmaṇas or religious institutions. In such a transaction, it was believed, according to an ancient Indian convention, that five-sixths of the religious merit for the creation of the revenue-free holding would go to the purchaser of the land and one-sixth of it to the king of the country, whose government alone could create such a holding.³