The Colas c29.29

c29.29

Another aspect of agriculture that deserves special mention is the steady progress of reclamation of forest and waste land that was being brought under the plough. Popular tradition ascribes to the Pallava kings (*kāḍu-veṭṭis*) or to Karikāla, the early Cōḷa monarch, the credit of having disafforested large tracts of South India and made them fit for agriculture and human habitation. Whatever the historical value of such traditions, epigraphy gives unmistakable proof of the deliberate efforts made from time to time and by easy stages, to increase the area under the plough and the inducements offered to encourage such efforts on the part of the people, by way of concessions in taxes, favourable terms of lease in the initial years, and so on. It is needless to reproduce here details which may be easily gathered from the inscriptions.⁶⁵