The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c18.57

c18.57

The third Board was responsible for the systematic registration of births and deaths, and we are expressly informed that the system of registration was enforced for the information of the government, as well as for facility in levying the taxes. The taxation referred to probably was a poll-tax, at the rate of so much a head annually. Nothing in the legislation of Chandragupta is more astonishing to the observer familiar with the lax methods of ordinary Oriental governments than this registration of births and deaths. The spontaneous adoption of such a measure by an Indian native state in modern times is unheard of, and it is impossible to imagine an old-fashioned Rāja feeling anxious 'that births and deaths among both high and low might not be concealed'. Even the Anglo-Indian administration, with its complex organization and European notions of the value of statistical information, did not attempt the collection of vital statistics until very recent times, and always has experienced great difficulty in securing reasonable accuracy in the figures.