The Rashtrakutas and their Times c18.s1.50

c18.s1.50

The land taxation under the Rāṣṭrakūṭas was probably equally high. The empire was almost continuously engaged in incessant warfare, and its opponents were also powerful rulers like the Gurjara-Pratīhāras, the Pālas and the Cholas. The military expenditure, therefore, must have been very heavy and the taxation, therefore, could not have been light. Al Idrisi, apparently relying on earlier writers, expressly declares that the subjects of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa kingdom were paying heavy taxes, and that, as a result, the king was immensely rich.²⁶ The land taxation, therefore, under the Rāṣṭrakūṭas may have been as high as 20 per cent of the gross produce. Since the Rājarājeśvara temple inscriptions Nos. 4 and 5 give the total demand realisable by the state from the farmers, we may reasonably presume that this 20 per cent taxation included all the miscellaneous dues like the uparikara or bhogakara. It may be pointed out that Sher Shah and Akbar used to claim 33% of the gross produce from the peasant,²⁷ and that in Vijayanagar, the incidence of taxation seems to have been still higher.²⁸