Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c10.s3.7

v1.c10.s3.7

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: