[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922) › v1.c19.s9.48 # The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s9.48 The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s9.48 - **Language:** English ### [v1.c19.s9.48](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s9.48) The rural economy of India at the coming of Buddhism was based chiefly on a system of village communities of landowners, or what in Europe is known as peasant proprietorship. The Jātaka bears very clear testimony to this. There is no such clear testimony in it to isolated large estates, or to great feudatories, or to absolute lords of the soil holding such estates. In the monarchies, the king, though autocratic and actively governing, had a right to a tithe on raw produce, collected as a yearly tax; and only to this extent could he.be considered the ultimate owner of the soil. All abandoned, all forest land the king might dispose of¹; and under this right was included the reversion to the crown of all property left intestate or ‘ownerless’² a custom which may or may not be a survival of an older feudalism. The sovereign was moreover entitled to ‘milk money,’ a perquisite paid by the nation when an heir was born to him³, and he could declare a general indemnity for prisoners at any festal occasion⁴. Besides these privileges he could impose forced labour or \*rājakāriya\* on the people, but this may have been limited to the confines of his own estates. Thus the peasant proprietors enclose a deer-reserve for their king, that they might not be summoned to leave their tillage to beat up game for him¹. A much more oppressive extent of \*corvée\* is predicted only of a state of civic decay². The tithe on produce was levied in kind, measured out either by the village syndic or headman (\*gāma-bhojaka\*), or by an official (a \*mahāmatta\*) at the barn doors³, or by survey of the crops⁴. Some of the rice and other grain may presumably have been told off for the special granaries kept filled for urgency, in war or famine⁵, but Buddhist books make no clear reference to such an institution. The amount levied seems to have varied from ⅙ to 1/12⁶, according to the decision of the ruling power⁷ or other circumstances. And the contributions raised at one or more \*gāmas\* (villages), rural or suburban, could be made over by a monarch (or by his chief queen⁸) to anyone he wished to endow, e.g., to a daughter on her marriage⁹, a minister¹⁰, a Brāhman¹¹, a merchant, etc.¹² Again, the king could remit the tithe to any person¹³ or group¹⁴. - [Previous: v1.c19.s9.47](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s9.47) - [Next: v1.c19.s9.49](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s9.49) - [Up: v1.c19.s9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s9) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s9.48](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s9.48) · Pramāṇa