The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c11.55

c11.55

The tax on the produce of the land mentioned here and consisting in a certain portion of the reaped corn constituted, according to the lawbooks and epic texts, together with other natural products of the cow, etc. The only taxes which could be collected from a proprietor of land. Of a tax which was imposed on the land and which must be paid in the form of a rent, no mention is made here; the tax was fixed upon the annual produce. On the contrary, according to the Greek accounts, the agriculturists occupied the land as the king’s tenants. The amount of the rent goes into the king’s treasury, together with a fourth part of the produce as tax.¹ What do our texts say on this question? It seems as if the statements of the Greek messengers receive confirmation from the Jâtakas. Among the ministers of the king, as we shall see, the “surveyor” (rajju-gâhaka amacca) occupies an important position; in the enumeration of the persons found in the court of the Kuru king, he is mentioned immediately after the house priest (purohita). Moreover, it is mentioned in the Kâma Jâtaka that officers of the king (râjakammikâ) come to a village to measure the fields (*khettrappamāṇa-gahaṇatthāya*, IV. 169), whose owners (so it is said immediately after this) pray for a remission of taxes. Most probably these surveys were undertaken in order to fix the quantity of land and with this the amount of contribution which was calculated upon the land and which had to be paid, irrespectively of the annual produce, as rent to the king. No doubt this inference of the existence of rent, from the simple fact that the land was measured, is not perfectly valid. Surveys would be necessary, even if the tax consisted in a portion of the produce, simply to give the officials some means of calculating the average produce and thus checking the accounts of the occupiers of the land.