Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c8.88

c8.88

The first, fourth, fifth and sixth boards devoted their attention to commercial regulations. The first supervised industries, crafts, trade-guilds, and so on. The fourth board superintended the markets, saw that the weights and measures were duly tested and stamped, and that the proper fixed prices were charged. A curious regulation, due to the specialization resulting from the caste system, imposed a double tax on merchants selling two kinds of goods. The fifth body supervised manufactures, and prevented the frauds arising from adulteration. The sixth was employed in levying the tax of one-tenth upon all articles sold. It is a tribute at once to the Hindu reputation for probity and to the severity of Chandragupta's system, that death was the penalty for a false declaration of sales¹.