The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c17.147

v1.c17.147

Of the actual functions of the king we hear little detail. He still led in war—the Kuru-Pañchāla princes sallied forth to raid in the dewy season and returned in the hot weather as a matter of course—but the Senānī appears as leader in charge under him. From the Sūtras and from a stray reference in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa, he seems to have taken a very active part in the administration of the criminal law. There can be no doubt that he controlled the land of the tribe. It is not, however, necessary to ascribe to this period the conception of the royal ownership of all the land, though it appears in the Greek sources from the time of Megasthenes downwards, and is evidenced later by the law-books of the time. He had, it is true, the right to expel a Brāhman or a Vaiçya at will, though we do not know expressly that he could do this in the case of a Kshatriya. But these considerations point to political superiority rather than to ownership proper; and we may assume that, when he gave grants of land to his retainers, he granted not ownership but privileges such as the right to receive dues and maintenance from the cultivators. There is a clear distinction between this action and the conferring of ownership; and it may be doubted if the actual gift of land was approved in this epoch: the only case of which we hear is one reported in the Çatapatha and the Aitareya Brāhmaṇas, in which the king Viçvakarman Bhauvana gave land to the priests who sacrificed for him, but the Earth itself rebuked his action. It is more probable that, at this time, the allotment of land was determined by the king or the noble to whom he had granted rights of superiority according to customary law, and that gifts not in accordance with this law were disapproved. It is hardly necessary to point out the close similarity between such a state of affairs and that existing at the present day in parts of West Africa, where kings have introduced for purposes of personal gain the practice of dealing as absolute owners with lands, which, according to the strict system of tribal law, they had no power to allocate save in accordance with the custom of the tribe. Nor is it inconsistent with this view that the king had an arbitrary power of removing a subject from his land. That power flowed from his sovereignty, and though disapproved was acquiesced in, we may presume, just as in West Africa; while the dealing of kings with the land by way of absolute ownership was regarded as a complete breach of the tribal law, the actual removal from his land of any individual was recognised as a royal prerogative, even if the power were misused.