State and Government in Ancient India c20.121

c20.121

It is no doubt true that some state grants recorded the gifts of entire villages to Brāhmaṇas or temples ; but this procedure does not support the theory of the state ownership of the arable land. For what the grants assign in most of these cases is the state’s right to receive the various taxes, including the land-tax; they never effect any chage in the private ownership of the landed property included in the village. The grant never calls upon private owners of the lands situated in the village to surrender their property to the donee; it simply exhorts them to show him proper courtesy and respect and pay all the state taxes in cash and kind, not to the state officers but to the new grantee. Future kings are requested to desist, not from taking possession of the village land, but from receiving the various taxes due from them.¹