The Colas c27.2

c27.2

The economy of the mediaeval state had little in common with that of modern governments, and the Indian State was no exception. Taxation was based partly on custom, and partly, especially in the case of new levies, on the consent, tacit or express, of the groups affected. Land was the mainstay of national economy and the land-tax, collected in cash or kind, or as often happened in the Cōḷa State by a judicious mixture of both methods, was the chief source of revenue. Customs and octroi, profession taxes assessed in various ways, and the taxation of gifts of nature worked up by man, such as the produce of mines, forests and salt-pans, were also resorted to. And the *corvèe* (*veṭṭi*, *viṣṭi*) was exacted with more or less regularity. When the cumulative effects of these burdens became too oppressive, the people abandoned their homesteads and betook themselves elsewhere; the fear of local depopulation was an ever-present check on the rapacity of the tax-collector.