Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v1.c10.s9.39

v1.c10.s9.39

As regards the tax on houses, we may be permitted to repeat that in about A.D. 1206 it was ordered that eight haṇas had to be paid once for all on houses, and that no more payment would be levied on that account.² Details about the house tax in the Vijayanagara are lacking. Nevertheless, the few notices we have of this tax enable us to gather something about it. Pottarasan, the minister (pradhāni) of Sāḷuva Maṅgu Mahārāja, for example, was authorized to collect two paṇas on every storeyed-house and one paṇa on houses with inside verandahs.³ That this was more or less the common rate can be inferred from other Vijayanagara inscriptions. In A.D. 1368 at Belgola one haṇa a year was levied on every Jaina house, and this seems to have been the rate "throughout the whole kingdom".⁴ In about A.D. 1402, as remarked elsewhere, the rate of the house tax (for the Vaiśya community?) was one haṇa per house per annum.⁵