Hindu Administrative Institutions c9.s1.9

c9.s1.9

In the opinion of modern Western writers like Sir John Strachey and John Stuart Mill, the land-revenue of ancient Hindu administration did not enter into the sphere of taxation so-called. Evidence, literary and epigraphical, points to the fact that the king was not regarded as the proprietor of the land. The idea that the state owned all land was the feudal conception of the land-law prevalent in western Europe in the middle ages. Ancient Indian literature speaks eloquently of the rights of private property in land. There are a number of texts in favour of this statement—Nīlakaṇṭha, Mādhava, Kātyāyana and Miṭramiśra.³