The Rashtrakutas and their Times c18.s1.t2: (1, iv) Viṣṭi or forced labour

The Rāṣṭrakūṭas and their Times c18.s1.t2

Language: English

(1, iv) Viṣṭi or forced labour

c18.s1.t2.1

This tax has been referred to in most of the records of our period. The Hindu polity has laid down the proposition that every citizen ought to pay something by way of taxation to the state in return for the protection that he gets, howsoever poor he may be. Taxation, whether in cash or in kind, was both impracticable and cruel in the case of the poorer classes. The state therefore ⁶³ levied a tax in labour from them. Manu and other writers have laid down that artisans, labourers etc. should be made to work for one or two days in the month for the state. It was obviously impossible for the central government to collect this tax in labour in its central treasury. It was, therefore, realised partly during the tours of the king and the officers of the central government, partly for the routine government work in the village like the cleansing of the government granary, weighing or measuring the land-tax paid in kind etc., and partly when public works in villages like the excavation of village tanks or wells had to be carried out. On such occasions the headman could compel the artisans and the labourers to work for the state or the village community.

c18.s1.t2.2

⁶³ VII, 138.

Linked texts (1)

Mānava Dharmaśāstra — Manu & Bhṛgu, Sanskrit