The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c18.135

c18.135

Modern financiers are not always averse from employing the 'policy of thinning the rich by exacting excessive revenue (*karśanam*), or causing them to vomit their accumulated wealth (*vamanam*)'.¹ Nor is the practice of selling honours strange to European politicians, though they do not usually care to express themselves in language so plain as that used by Chānakya, who says :—