Hindu Administrative Institutions c9.s1.30

c9.s1.30

It is then clear that artha is useful, nay, indispensable for the moral and the material progress of the land. What are the sources from which the king generally enriched his treasury? Mention has already been made of the traditional land revenue which contributed the major portion of the income to the state. Inscriptional evidence proves mild rates of land-assessment (kānikka-ḍan), about the commencement of the eleventh century in the Chola kingdom of South India. It was roughly 100 kalams per veli (about 6½ acres), equal to about 80 kalams of the present day,¹ in kind from good lands, and fifty to eighty from less fertile ones. In cash it varied from four to nine kalañju of gold. The revenue assessed was invariably in proportion to the produce: dry-lands one-fifth, and wet-lands one-third.² Those who were in charge of the land revenue are called the dhruvādhikaraṇas (No. 38 of Fleet). The tax-collectors were generally known as the Utkhetavita in an inscription of Bhāskaravarman.³ Other sources of revenue to the state were from commerce, forts, transports, mines, salt, śulka, ferry dues, fines and the produce of forests. Added to these heads of income are the voluntary contributions, tributes from the subject states, and unclaimed property.⁴