The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s4.50

c2.s4.50

According to this system, the king with his town officers sees to the royal capital, while he is represented in other towns by men selected either from the priestly, the warrior, or the people-castes. It is the duty of these men to protect, each his village, their territory from robbers; more particularly, those that govern a village must keep it and the surrounding country to the distance of a kroça (about two miles) in all directions free from thieves, and are bound to repay to the losers whatever is stolen within this district. In the case of a large town the distance guarded is four times as great. They had also to collect the taxes from their districts.* The Epic describes the allotment of territory thus. Every town or village was presided over by a vicegerent, who was under a superior officer called ‘ruler of twenty’ towns or ‘ruler of a hundred.’ In a gradually extending circle these overseers received tribute, heard reports, passed them on to the one of next highest authority, and he to the next, till revenues and reports focused in the king, the lord of all. The king should create one over-lord to be the governor of a thousand villages (i. e. here as example, over the whole realm); all the villages are to be divided into groups, or departments, of one hundred villages each; these, again, are subdivided into counties of twenty each and ten each, while a headman is to be appointed over each division, reckoning from the village as a unit. The head-man or mayor of each village (grāmasya adhipatiḥ) sends to the ten-village-man or county officer (daçagrāmī) returns of all the crimes committed in his village,† and the ten-village-man in turn sends his report to the twice-ten-man (dviguṇāyī or viṃçatipaḥ);‡ who in turn passes his collected reports to the hundred-village-man (grāmaçatādhyakṣaḥ), from whom they go to the general governor (adhipatiḥ). The officer in each division draws his own income from the province placed under his control: one village provides support for the village-man; the village-men from ten villages supply the ten-village-man, etc. The ruler of a hundred villages ought to have to supply his needs the revenue derived from one whole flourishing town, while the thousandvillage-man has a large city, gold, grain, etc., appropriated to his use.*