State and Government in Ancient India c20.227

c20.227

A comparison of the two budgets shows that the smaller a kingdom, the greater was the percentage of the state revenues spent on the king and his court and retenue. The percentage of the revenue spent on the works of public utility was small. It is possible to argue that the item Prakṛiti in the first budget may refer to the people in general, and might have thus covered the expenditure on the works of public welfare like the building of roads, digging of wells and tanks, maintenance of rest houses, etc. But the word has also the meaning of ministers and officers and the 16% revenue spent on Prakṛitis would then be the expenditure on the civil administration. At several places in his book, Śukra has used prakṛitis in the sense of ministers and officers and *praja* in the sense of people or subjects. Only the item charity (*dānam*) of the budget which included grants for *sattras* (poor houses), hospitals, monasteries and temples; catered for the works of public utility. The two last mentioned institutions used to run schools and hospitals in many cases.¹ The Brāhmaṇa donees of *agrahāra* villages also used to promote the cause of education and culture by imparting free education to deserving students.