The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c28.129

v1.c28.129

This important official² dealt with the whole income of the state, including that of the Royal domains. The main heads are (1) the proportion of the produce of land, which in India accrues immemorially to the king in lieu of rent, (2) the minor dues and cesses connected therewith³, (3) the special income from irrigated land, and that from pastures, forests, mines, and other works, (4) the customs at the frontiers, the transport dues at ferries, etc., the road dues and tolls, the octroi at the city gates, the profits of coinage, and the various profits consequent upon the methods of sale, (5) the fees exacted as licences from workmen, craftsmen, traders and professionals, gaming houses and passports⁴, (6) the fines derived from the law courts, also ownerless property⁵, and (7) special taxes, as it were tithes, for religious objects. In times of straitness there were also 'benevolences'⁶ exacted, but in theory only once, from the well-to-do. Under expenditure we understand without difficulty the maintenance of the sovereign and his court, the salaries—which the Arthaçāstra (Chap. 91) carefully defines—of the ministry and the vast army of minor officials and spies, religious provisions, the demands of the army and its equipment, including forts, the expense of mines, forests, etc., and of public works such as roads, irrigation, etc., which was regarded as the function of the state, the maintenance of the families of slain soldiers, officials dying during employment, and finally of helpless persons⁷. We have here matter for the work of a large establishment and an elaborate clerical system; and we learn in fact from the Arthaçāstra (Chaps. 25–7) that the business of the Treasury was carefully and minutely organised, with distinctions of current, recurrent, occasional, and other expenditure and various checks. Moreover, both in town and country the various grades of officials maintained full registers both of property and of the population¹. Thus the bifurcating roots of a vast administration—no doubt more effective in theory than in practice—connected the individual taxpayer with the crown.