Public Administration in Ancient India c16.27

c16.27

It should be noted that the land-tax was the most important of all the sources of the State revenue. The King, however, was never regarded as the owner of the land, and he never claimed a right to the unearned increment of the land. His claim was limited to a fixed share of the produce.² In later times, kings came to possess private landed properties of their own, and the income derived from such crown lands, as Hiuen Tsiang observed, helped considerably to lighten the incidence of taxation on the people.