The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c7.s7.40

v1.c7.s7.40

In the economic sphere, agriculture was the mainstay of both the people and the government. Gifts of cows, lands, and villages recorded in the epigraphs of those days demonstrate their importance in the daily life of the country. The king had his own royal demesne.¹ From the cultivators he appears to have collected the traditional one-sixth of the produce as the share of the state. The immunities associated with royal gifts of fields prove indirectly that salt was a state monopoly.²