Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c42.s2.t1.121

v3.c42.s2.t1.121

So rigid was his system of taxation that nothing escaped it. There was a heavy tax on widows who remarried. Even the gourd of the mendicant paid a tithe, and the ascetic in his cell had a domiciliary visit to ascertain the gains of mendicity, in order that a portion should go to the exigencies of the State. The *tumba barar*, or ‘gourd-tax,’ was abolished after forming for a twelvemonth part of the fiscal code of Haraoti, and then not through any scruples of the regent, but to satisfy his friends. Akin to this, and even of a lower grade, was the *jharu barar*, or ‘broom-tax,’ which continued for ten years ; but the many lampoons it provoked from the satirical Bhat operated on the more sensitive feelings of his son, Madho Singh, who obtained its repeal [546].