State and Government in Ancient India c20.125

c20.125

The donee in this case would certainly have preferred to get one entire connected piece of land measuring 360 *pādāvartas*, and the king also would certainly have given such a piece, were he the owner of the entire cultivable land in the village. If he gave disconnected pieces, the reason must be that the state possessed only a few fields in the village, the ownership of which had accrued to it, either through failure of heirs or through the non-payment of the land tax. As in modern days so in ancient times, state used to acquire ownership in some such pieces of land in most villages; they have been expressly described as *rājyavastu* or state property in some records.³ When kings wanted to donate, not land revenues but landed property, they used to give such small and usually disconnected pieces under their ownership.¹ Sometimes when kings did not own any land, they used to purchase the piece they wanted to give; thus we find a Vaidumba king (*c.* 950 A. D.) purchasing three *velis* of land from a village assembly in order to assign them to a temple. Some Chola records also expressly refer to the previous purchase of the rights of the former owners and hereditary proprietors, when the state wanted to assign, not land revenue but land itself, in villages where it possessed none of its own.²