The Mauryan Polity c8.s3.t3: Income from trade and commerce
The Mauryan Polity c8.s3.t3
- Language
- English
Income from trade and commerce
c8.s3.t3.1
Another source of revenue, next only in importance to the taxes connected with the land, is trade and commerce. The Kauṭalīyan state recognised the value of this unfailing source of revenue and hence endeavoured its best to encourage trade and commerce.¹ What we understand to-day by the nationalisation of industries was, to a great extent, realised in the Mauryan epoch. The state undertook manufactures and industries. State manufactories were established. These were in charge of the Superintendent of Commerce.² But private individual efforts and co-operative activities of guilds were not interfered with. Discrimination was used in the imposition of taxes on commerce. Foreign merchants were allowed a good deal of freedom. Illicit transactions (*vyavahāra*), misappropriation (*upabhoga*)³ and defalcation (*apahāra*) were severely dealt with. To this list of punishable offences were added the offence of tampering with weights and measures⁴ and offering forbidden and bad articles for sale in the market.⁵
c8.s3.t3.2
¹ pracārasamardhiḥ—II.8; paṇyabāhulyam—(*Ibid.*).
c8.s3.t3.3
² Bk. II, ch. 16.
c8.s3.t3.4
³ Bk. II, ch. 8.
c8.s3.t3.5
⁴ Bk. II, ch. 19.
c8.s3.t3.6
⁵ Bk. II, ch. 21.
c8.s3.t3.7
The income under this head of trade and commerce included tolls which varied according as the articles were necessaries or luxuries—;⁶ *dvāradeya* (literally, the gate dues), road-cess probably collected by the *antapāla*⁷ and profits earned from weaving and spinning. This last was pursued by women of different castes and age for both, time and piece, wages.⁸ Under this head came also incomes from ocean, and river, traffic. Fishermen generally paid one-sixth of the value of their haul. Customs duties were levied on ships touching the port towns. Income also came from coastal traffic.¹ Ferry dues (*taradeya*), tax on markets (*paṭṭanam*),² fee from licences of different kinds of passports, tax from the guilds of the artisan classes (*kāruśilpigaṇaḥ*), monopoly of income from salt and other commodities, tended to swell the revenues of the State from commerce. Special mention may be made here of the encouragement given by the State for exports of indigenous goods.³
c8.s3.t3.8
⁶ *Ibid.*
c8.s3.t3.9
⁷ Bk. II, ch. 21 and 22.
c8.s3.t3.10
⁸ Bk. II, ch. 23.
c8.s3.t3.11
¹ Bk. II, ch. 28.
c8.s3.t3.12
² Bk. II, ch. 34.
c8.s3.t3.13
³ See Kauṭilya, p. 200.
Linked texts (1)
- Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit