The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c12.35

c12.35

By his profession, the "produce-measurer" stands next to the *rajjúgáhaka*; as befits his name *doṇamápaka*,¹ lit., "one who measures with a dry measure," the task devolves upon him of measuring the produce given by the owners of land (*gahapatis*) as the portion of the king (*rájabhága*). He is thus the proper tax officer of the king, whilst the *rajjuka* in my view had no direct connection with the collection of taxes. Whether or not his work as described above, can be called difficult or specially honourable, he must have been one of the important personages in the Court, for to him also the title *mahámatta*, "of great weight, esteem," is given (II. 378). It is probable that even this narrative, like the account of the work of the surveyor, purposely describes the primitive conditions of former times, of which the people had only a faint memory, and that in reality, probably, in Buddha's time, only the title *doṇamápaka* remained and not the work denoted by it, namely, measuring corn with one's own hands. This was probably assigned to an army of subordinate officers in which category we must also include the tax-collectors, and supervision of their work was only allotted to the high official.