The Rashtrakutas and their Times c16.s4.20

c16.s4.20

Remuneration of officers was sometimes by rent-free lands and sometimes by salaries, paid partly in cash and partly in kind. The principle of offering rent-free lands to state servants is recommended by a number of writers, (62) and we have seen already how the country headmen had their own service lands known as *Des'a-grāmakūṭa-kshetra*.(63) It will be shown in the next chapter that village headmen also were paid partly by rent-free lands. The statement made above, that part of the salaries was probably paid in kind need not cause any surprise; for, a large part of the royal revenues were received in kind, as will be shown in chapter XI, and the staple corn often formed the principal medium of exchange. In some of the Chola records(64) the prices of articles like pulses, camphor, plantains, ghee, sugar, etc., are given not in money but in paddy. The salaries of the temple servants etc., are stated usually in paddy, sometimes in paddy and cash, and rarely in cash alone. A similar practice may have probably prevailed in the Deccan under the Rāshṭrakūṭas.