State and Government in Ancient India c20.118

c20.118

There is conclusive and overwhelming evidence to show that at least from *c.* 600 B. C. the ownership of private individuals in their arable land could not be affected by the action of the state, except when there was a failure to pay the land tax. People could freely gift away, mortgage or sell their lands. Ambapalli and Anāthapiṇḍaka gave extensive plots of land to the Buddhist *saṁgha* at Vaiśālī and Śrāvastī. In the Jātakas, we find a Brāhmaṇa of Magadha giving away his portion of land to another.³ Inscriptions also record numerons gifts of land made by private individuals without any let or hindrance from the state.⁴