The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c8.s13.20

v1.c8.s13.20

Let us now consider the different items of revenue in the Vākāṭaka state. We can get some indirect idea in this connexion from the privileges and exemptions granted to the donees of the copper plates. They are usually given the right to work salt mines, appropriate hidden treasures, and use village pastures.⁴ This would suggest that normally the state claimed ownership over all mines and treasure troves, as also over the waste lands in the kingdom. The same probably was the case with forests. The ownership of the cultivable lands was vested in private owners. When villages were granted by the state, their rights were not affected. Formerly they had been accustomed to pay their taxes to the state, now they had to pay them to the donee or grantee. It is not, however, to be supposed that the state owned no arable land at all. Sometimes it would reclaim forest land and become its owner. Sometimes some pieces of land would lapse to it for lack of heirs or would be taken over in default for non-payment of the land tax. Pieces of land thus owned by the state formed, however, only a very small part of the total cultivable land. Sometimes we find the Vākāṭaka kings giving such lands to temples or Brāhman colonists.