Hindu Administrative Institutions c9.s1.5

c9.s1.5

But this rate was but the maximum allowable; for Gautama speaks of three different rates, one-tenth, one-eighth, and one-sixth, to be taken from the land. Manu's rates are one-twelfth, one-eighth, and one-sixth.⁴ Sukra shows himself a sound economist and practical statesman when he recommends one-half from one-third of the produce from the fields irrigated by tanks and wells (irrigation being undertaken by the state), one-fourth from lands which depend for water mainly on rainfall,¹ those richly fed by rivers and streams, and one-sixth from other soils—a sort of graduated taxation according to the nature of the soil and the cost of water-supply. Kauṭalya recommends one-third, or one-fourth, only in cases of financial stringency, but this impost was not to affect the middling, or the inferior qualities of land, and again the field-labourers and forest tribes. In order to realize more revenue it is said that the revenue-officer commonly prevailed upon the labourers to raise summer crops also and thus to increase the produce, so that the one-sixth part to the king might increase in amount.²