Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c10.s6.1

v1.c10.s6.1

Having seen at some length the nature of the land and revenue administration of Vijayanagara, we may now consider the manner in which it ordered the taxes to be paid. The general belief has been that under the Hindu monarchs the revenue was paid in kind.¹ "There is another peculiarity", writes Ellis in his well known book on the *Mirasi Right*, "which has ever distinguished the Tamil countries, Tondamandalam in particular, from the surrounding nations; it is, that, until the recent innovations enforced by the officers of our own Government, the revenue from all wet lands and very generally from dry field, was through every successive change of dynasty, invariably rendered in kind. Among the neighbouring nations the revenue has been paid at a fixed rate in money from a remote period, the assessment being sometimes on a whole village, or, as in Canara, on every estate (shist) and sometimes on each field (tirvei).