The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s4.60.2

c2.s4.60.2

larger taxes must not be demanded, it is sometimes said, but begged for, and that from all the castes, except the priests (xii. 87. 13–21; 71. 15). But when the king conquers and is conscious that his taxes are not unjustly levied, then ‘let the king address his new people, saying “give me the rightful tax;” if they give it, it is well; if not, let them be forced’ (xii. 95. 2). The proper tax is formally given as above, i. 213. 9; xii. 24. 11 ff.; 69. 25; 139. 100. The yearly income is regarded as the basis of reckoning the tax in cattle-increase and grain-increase. Compare ii. 5. 78, and M. vii. 80. The Calcutta reading in ii. 212 (=5. 78) *pādikaṃ ca çatam* is certainly to be rejected for the Bombay *pratyekaṃ ca çatam*. The king is here advised to befriend the husbandmen when the crops are poor, and to take one in the hundred of the increase as a moderated equivalent of the normal tax; not to tax (more heavily than before) at the rate of twenty-five per cent. The possibility of the kingdom’s existing without taxation seems especially to irritate the compilers of the pseudo-Epic. They revert to the subject again and again, and prove that the king must have wealth; his army, his happiness, his virtue depend on it; ‘as a robe conceals a woman’s nakedness, so does wealth conceal sin; therefore let him get wealth, even if he be sinful’ (xii. 133. 7).