State and Government in Ancient India c16.89

c16.89

The Revenue Department, which was under a cabinet minister, had a large number of superintendents working under it. One was in charge of the crown-lands. He was called *sītādhyaksha* and his duty was to cultivate them either directly through labourers or indirectly through tenants by leasing them out.³ A second superintendent was in charge of forests and is styled as *araṇyādhikṛta*¹ in Pallava records and *araṇyādhyaksha* in Smṛitis. It was his duty to develop the forest resources of the state. Superintendents of the state herds (*godhyaksha*)² consisting of cows, buffaloes and elephants, for whose grazing a portion of the state forests was assigned, must have worked in close cooperation with the superintendent of forests. In pre-historic times herds constituted a very important item of the wealth of the state ; in historic times also it did not neglect this source of income. These officers figure as *gokulikas* down to the 12th century in some Paramāra and Gāhaḍawāla records.³ There was also a superintendent of waste lands (*vivītā-dhyaksha*),⁴ whose duty it was to develop and sell them, and also to prevent them from being used by undersirable persons for their nefarious ends. The superintendent of land records, usually called *mahākshapaṭalika*, who kept an accurate record of the different fields and their boundaries, must have worked under the supervision of the revenue department. Officers working under this superintendent are known as *Sīmākarmakaras*⁵ in Bihar, *Pramātṛis*⁶ in Bengal and *sīmāpradātṛis* in Assam.⁷ The principal tax collected by the Revenue Department was the land tax ; its officers, who collected it, were sometimes known as *shashṭhādhikṛitas*⁸ and sometimes as *audraṅgikas*.⁹ The land tax being usually collected in kind as a certain share of the actual produce, the revenue department had to employ a large army of officers to supervise its collection ; they were known as *dhruvas* in Gujarat.¹⁰ Some taxes were also collected in cash ; the officers entrusted with this work were known as *hiraṇyasamudāyikas* in Bengal.¹¹