The Colas c29.8

c29.8

The data to be gathered from the inscriptions are still too fragmentary and one-sided to allow of a detailed account of the entire agrarian system of the time. Almost all inscriptions record transactions of a religious or eleemosynary character, and one can never tell how far the conditions described in them can be treated as representative of the general features of private cultivation. Considering, however, that cultivation, like other industries, was undertaken mainly to supply local needs, and that there is no evidence whatever of its having attained the capitalistic form in pursuit of profit, it is possible that there was little or no difference in this respect between private lands and those of public or charitable institutions. If the correctness of this surmise may be assumed, much of what is said below on tenures, irrigation, land-values and so on may be accepted as characteristic of the whole system.