Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c10.s3: Section 3. Taxation in Pre-Vijayanagara Times
Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c10.s3
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Section 3. Taxation in Pre-Vijayanagara Times
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The latitude which is thus sanctioned by the lawgivers in matters of taxation was perhaps as much responsible in the shaping of the "financial policy" of Vijayanagara as the precedent set by the kings who ruled over the Karṇāṭaka and Tamil lands. Here it would be worth while to remember that the Vijayanagara monarchs were essentially heirs to the Hoysala traditions, although they judiciously followed, wherever they could, the custom which prevailed under the rule of the Tamil kings. Taxation in the Hoysala times, for example, rested on the main heads of land revenue, customs and excise duties, and taxes on articles and persons.³ All kinds of goods, even firewood and straw, were taxed, excepting glass rings, brass pots and soap balls.⁴ The traders paid mane-bāb; aṅgaḍi gullu was paid by the shop-keepers; the āyagāra and other officers accounted for one-third or one-eighth of the produce to the government; those who sold spirituous liquor paid kallali; the butchers were liable to the half-yearly tax called kasāyi-gutta; the washermen paid ubbe-gutta; those who smelted iron, homla-gutta, annually; the weavers and manufacturers of cotton cloth paid jakāyati; gānige-gutta was the name given to the tax on oil-makers; samayā-chāram, that on the headman of each caste; jāti-mānyam,¹ that paid by the Mādigas or chucklers; the salt-makers had to pay uppinamolla; the cowherds, hullu-banni for feeding their flocks in the public pastures; kāvali-gutta was the name given to the tax which the government got by letting out jungles; and those who were convicted of murder (?) (homicide?) and executors were liable to the jāyiri-gutta.²
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¹ Śukranīti, IV, ii, ll. 19-20, p. 138.
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³ Rice, My. Gaz., I, p. 476, (1st ed); p. 584 (Rev. ed.)
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⁴ Ibid., p. 477 (1st. ed.); I, p. 583, seq. (Rev. ed.).
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¹ Mānya seems to have been used in more than one sense. According to Fleet, mānya means "lands either altogether exempt from taxation or liable to only a trifling quit-rent". I.A., IV, p. 332, n. Mānya may be compared with śeṣe-mānya mentioned in A.D. 1190 together with ōvata-kāruṇya and fixed rent. E.C., V, P. I. Cn 179, p. 203. Among the Holeyas of Kanara, the leaders of the tribe or clan are jam-mānya or jam-mane. These Holeyas belong to the Pariar class which also includes in it the Mādigas. Cf. mānya with manneya. In a stone inscription dated in A.D. 1180 and A.D. 1186 we are informed that the Mahāmaṇḍaleśvaras Tailapa Dēva and Yegahrasa presented the manneya kirukula, āya, and dāya of Kiru Balligāve, for the services of the god Kēdarēśvara Dēva. Rice interprets manneya as Seigniorage. Mys. Ins., p. 77, n. Manneya is also the designation of an office. Under the Western Chālukya king Sōmēśvara Dēva in A.D. 1070, the thousand Brahmans of the great Kuppaṭūr agrahāra together with the local officials and the manneyar gave some lands for the local temple. The same inscription contains under the date A.D. 1180 the name of Boppa Dēvarasa, manneya of Sattalige-nād, E.C., VIII, Sb. 276, p. 47. In A.D. 1173 the Kalachuriya ruler Sōyi Dēva granted the manneya of the 12 chieftains to Kirukuḷa Nāyaka. E.C., VIII, Sb. 139, p. 19. In A.D. 1472 the Mahāprabhu Bhairappa Nāyaka is called "the sun to kill tigers, champion over the manneyas of the Iḍiga eight daṇḍige". E.C., VIII, Sa. 60, p. 103. In about A.D. 1178 Boppa Dēva is called the manneya of the Nāgarakhaṇḍa Kampaṇa. E.C., VII, Sb. 325, p. 56. See also, ibid, Sb. 327 and 328, p. 57.
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² Rice My. Gaz., 1, p. 479. (1st. ed.): 1, p. 582, seq. (Rev. ed.) These details, it may be noted, are taken from the Mack. MSS. My. Gaz., ibid., p. 578. (Rev. ed.). The gutta mentioned herein is not to be confounded with the dere or tegige (tax) which often figures in inscriptions. B.A.S.
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Since these general designations do not exhaust the entire list of articles taxed both in the Karṇāṭaka and Tamil lands, and since the precedent of the ancient rulers both in the south and in the west of the Vijayanagara Empire had a great deal to do with the fiscal arrangement of the mediaeval rulers, we may be permitted to enumerate in greater detail the names of some of the articles taxed by the Karṇāṭaka and Tamil kings. Some idea of the conditions under the latter may be obtained from an inscription of the times of Parakēsarivarman alias Adhirājēndra-dēva which mentions the following:—ūr-kalañju, kumāra-kachchanam,¹ the fishing rent, the rent of the goldsmith, and other minor taxes and rents, the cloth on the loom, velikkam, the tax on collecting rents (tandal),² the sonship(?) of the right-hand and the left-hand, and the other internal revenue which was being collected at the rate of twenty-five kāśu for them and kalam (of paddy). These were the taxes which were entered in the revenue register of the villages of Tiruvallam-Uḍaiyar.³ In the tenth century A.D. areca-land (kamugu) was also taxed.⁴ Some of the money-payments current in the Tamil land in the twelfth century were the following:
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¹ Cf. Kumāra-gaḍiāṇaka, Ep. Ind. IV, p. 99.
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² Cf. Taṇḍalil-akkai, S.I.I., II, p. 115, text, l. 10 seq.
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³ S.I.I., III, P. 1, p. 117.
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⁴ Ibid., P. III, p. 337.
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Kaḍamai, antarāyam, kāryavāratchi, vettipāḷḷam, pañjupili, sandhi-vigrahappēṟu, uluḍāṅkuḍi, arisittuṇḍam, danappēṟu, ponvari manairai, tarirai, sekk irai, taṭṭōlippāḷḷam, and others.⁵
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⁵ 507 of 1916; Ep. Report for 1917, p. 110, n.
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Judged by the number of taxes and imports, the Karṇāṭaka people must also have groaned under their burden. The contributions from the shop-keepers, merchants, daṇḍanāyakas, nobles and goldsmiths of several nāḍus in A.D. 1054, in Balagāmi were these:
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The shops of the nagaras ten visa each a year; the gold merchants ten visa each a year; the sthala gavaregaḷu one paṇa a year per sack; the gavare of other countries one hāga a year per sack; for camphor, musk, kumkuma, sandal, pearls, and all such articles sold by weight, two kāṇi per ponnu; cloth merchants of the place and foreign cloth merchants, two kāṇi per ponnu; for black pepper, cummin seed, mustard, sada flower, bishop's weed and coriander one visa per pon; for sugar, assafoetida, dry ginger, long pepper, cardamoms, green ginger, turmeric, and all fibres and roots sold by weight, one visa per pon.
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The worthies (manneya) of the Jiḍḍuḷige Seventy (i.e., the Chief, the Nāḍ Prabhus, the Gavuḍas, and the Prabhu Gavuḍas), gave five paṇa a year for each village.¹ The taxes in about A.D. 1077, in the reign of Vinayāditya II, were the following:
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¹ Rice, My. Ins., pp. 125-6. These duties and imports, it may be remembered, were assigned to the worship and procession of the god Gavarēśvara-dēva as a gift. B.A.S.
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House-tax, marriage-tax, ūr-uṭṭige, taude, surandu, kavarte, sēse, osage, manakare, kūṭa, kakandi, soldier's tax (bira-vāṇa), hammer-tax (koḍati-vāṇa), scissors tax (kattari-vāṇa), anvil tax (aḍekalu-vāṇa), haḍavaleya, hadiyarāya, potter's tax (kumbara-vṛtti), and blacksmith's tax (kamma-ra-vṛtti).²
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² My. Arch. Report for 1916, p. 52.
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We have some more names of the duties and imposts in Śaka 1058 and Śaka 1066 (A.D. 1163 and 1144 respectively). Areca-nuts, fifty on a load, twenty on a half-load, five on a hasara; betel leaves, one hundred on a load, fifty on a head-load, twenty-five on a hasara; clarified butter and oil, a sollage (= 1/4 of a kuḍava or balla) on each koḍa, half a maund on each siddige,³ one maund on each saṅgadi (=double of siddige?). On each cloth merchant's shop and goldsmith's shop, a paṇam on every gold piece. Cotton, five palas on each malave; two bisige on each malave of karuse (sold) from carts, ten palas on each half-load. On each house of laṅkas (carpenters?) there shall be every six months (a due of) stools, tripods, and maravi, one of each; every year there shall be (a due of) one bedstead. On goods sold by weight such as green ginger, turmeric, dry ginger, garlic, baje (acorus calamus) and bhadramuṣṭe (cyperus hexastachys) there shall be (a due of) five palas on each load, two palas on a half-load, one pala on a hasara; cummin, black pepper, and mustard, one maund on each load, a half-maund on each half-load, a sollage on each hasara; on salt and the other eighteen kinds of grain, one kolaga on each cart-load, two maunds on each load, one maund on each head-load; dry and fresh fruits, ten on each cart-load, four on each head-load; on each cart-load one daṇḍige, five myrabolans; on each pair of hūtes one daṇḍige, two myrabolans; on each basket of flowers one garland, for the potters, one pot on each shop.¹
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³ A siddige=a dry measure for 36 tōlas in Kumṭa, Honnāvūru, and Siddhāpur, and 28 tōlas in Bhaṭkal, and a fluid measure of 33 tōlas in Aṅkōḷa. Ep. Ind., XIX, p. 35, n. (2).
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¹ Barnett, Ep. Ind., XIX, pp. 35, 40. ² My. Arch. Report for 1914-15, p. 50. ³ E.C., IV, Hn. 137, p. 97, text, p. 272. ⁴ E.C., VII, Hl. 46, p. 168. ⁵ E.C., II, No. 333, p. 140. ⁶ My. Arch. Report for 1911-12, p.
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Under Viṣṇuvardhana Hoysala there was a tax on oil-mills.² Payment in gold, export dues, import dues, tax on oil mills, tax on potters, tax on washermen, tax on prostitutes, tax on carts, tax on masons, tax on basket-makers, tax on shepherds, tax on 500 ploughs of paṇṇāya, and tax on barbers (mane chinna, voḷavāru hoṛavāru gaṇadeṛe kumbāra-deṛe asaga (agasa ?)-deṛe toḷḷu-deṛe bhaṇḍi-deṛe oḍḍa-deṛe mēda-deṛe sāda-deṛe uduvalu-deṛe aynūru guliya paṇṇāya deṛe nāvida-deṛe) : these were the taxes in A.D. 1162.³
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In A.D. 1189 they had huḍuke-deṛe (partisanship tax ?), bīra-vaṇa, herjjuṅka koḍavisa, handara haṇa.⁴ We are told in about A.D. 1206 that "for house-tax at Gommaṭa-pura . . . . residents shall pay eight haṇas (once for all) as the capital on which one haṇa can be raised (as interest) and live in peace".⁵ We meet with two names aḷipu and anyāya in A.D. 1251.⁶ In A.D. 1296 they had khāṇa, abhyāgati, kaṭakasēse, basadi, and manakshata.⁷ It seems that there were some kinds of fines which were called tappu and tavudi in 1297.⁸ Hoḍike, hadike, haraṇe and mala-braya were the dues in A.D. 1300. They were called āya.⁹ Those who bought and sold horses in some villages in the Nigirili-Sōḷa-maṇḍalam, in the kingdom of the Hoysalas, in A.D. 1334, had to pay one paṇam for each animal.¹⁰ By A.D. 1334, therefore, the Hindus of the south had already violated one of the principles mentioned in the mediaeval Hindu treatise on polity, viz., that which prohibited traffic in wool and in animals with two rows of teeth (horses, mules, etc). Such traffic was supposed to be common only among peoples of western and north-western India.¹¹
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⁴⁴ Aḷipu may refer to waste or ruin, and anyāya to injustice. See infra. B.A.S. ⁷ E.C., II, No. 347, p. 150. ⁸ My. Arch. Report for 1920, p. 34. ⁹ E.C., III, P. 1, TN. 98, p. 87. ¹⁰ E.C., IX, Ht. 96, p. 99. ¹¹ Sarkar, Pos. Back., I, p. 263.