State and Government in Ancient India c23.s6.25

c23.s6.25

As in the north, there was a tendency to increase the demands of the state towards the end of the ancient period. There is a case on record showing how in the reign of Rājarāja a woman committed suicide because an ordeal was imposed upon her in connection with an unjust tax (*S.I.E.R.*, 1907, para 42). Villages and their Sabhās however used to organise a united opposition to unjust demands and were often successful. Under Rājarāja III the assemblies of five adjoining Nāḍus resolved to authorise the people to pay only those taxes that were legitimately due (*S.I.I.*, VI, Nos. 48,50 and 58). In the reign of Kulottuṅga I people decided that the government’s share was one fifth of the dry crop and one third of the wet crop under the tank (*E. C.* X, Mb. 49 a). Another record says, ‘Because we were unjustly taxed, we were about to run away. Then we realised that because the whole country was not united in a body, we were unjustly dealt with. Hereafter we shall pay what is just and in accordance with the yield of the crop (*S.I.E.R.*, 1918, para 68). If the Government did not yield, the people used to threaten to migrate in a body and even a mighty monarch like Kṛishṇadevarāya used to be perturbed by such a possibility. In his *Āmaktamālyada*, he says, ‘That king is never prosperous who has an officer who does not call back the subjects who leave the state on account of suffering (IV. 237).