The Rashtrakutas and their Times c18.s2.32

c18.s2.32

The fact that this king should find it necessary to give only detached pieces of cultivable land situated in the different corners of the village shows that the state was not, and did not claim, to be the proprietor of the entire land of the realm. This conclusion is quite in harmony with the views on the subject prevailing in the Hindu period proper. Jaimini distinctly says that the king is not the owner of the soil and his commentator S'abara agrees with him. The same is the view of Kātyāyana. (92) Nīlakaṇṭha (93) refers to the text of Jaimini and asserts that a king cannot grant in charity the proprietary right in the soil in the realm, because it does not belong to him but to various individual proprietors. The view of Mādhava (94) and Mitramiśra (95) is the same. It is only Jagannātha, who advocates the view that the king is the owner of the soil and the subjects are mere lessees, and that the former's right of ownership arises out the fact of his being the first occupant of the country.(96) But Jagannātha is a very late writer and his testimony is contradicted by the almost unanimous views of both earlier and later writers. It may be observed that Manu(97) also does not support the state-ownership of land as is sometimes contended by some authors. The topic discussed in the verse in question is about the ownership of the treasure-trove and not of land. Some of the Greek writers suggest that the theory of the state-ownership of the land existed in the days of Chandragupta Maurya, but hardly any value can be attached to their statements since they are contradicted by others.(98)