Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c46.7

c46.7

§ 335. The revenue raised by taxes was under the control of the Council of Ministers who were also vested with the power of collecting the revenue. As early as the fourth century B. C., as we find from Megasthenes (§ 316), the department of the Exchequer was under the Ministry, whose history does not begin there but goes back to the Vedic Ratnins and the Ratnin Treasurer. The evidence of Bhāradvāja (§ 317) is also decisive and goes back beyond the fourth century B.C. The Ministry collected revenue and disbursed expenditure according to him.