The Colas c27.37

c27.37

cracy could have done much to ensure a uniformity of practice among such diverse agencies of tax-collection. Instances are not altogether lacking of oppressive methods adopted in the process of collecting taxes and other dues; the *sabhā* of *brahmadēyam* Mahēndramangalam have left on record⁷⁹ the fact that in A.D. 1001 the military (*padaiyilār*) subjected them to such torture (*vēdanai*), putting them in water and standing them in the sun, that, unable to bear the treatment, they proceeded to Tāñjāvūr with an escort to lay the matter before Rājarāja-Mahārāja; and that the king remitted the matter again to local officers. Supporting the man on the spot is evidently not so modern a device in administration as we are apt to think; though incomplete, the inscription seems to record the enforcement of the original order without any modification being effected. In the village of Jambai, an officer demanded some tax from a woman in the third year of Rājēndra II;⁸⁰ when she denied her liability the officer did something⁸¹ which forced her to commit suicide by taking poison. The officer had to expiate the crime by endowing a lamp of 32 *kāśus*.