History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.361.1

v4.c62.361.1

Great attention was paid to agriculture. In the Sabhāparva 5. 77 the king²⁰² is advised to have large tanks in different parts of the country full of water and to see that agriculture did not depend on the rains alone. Megasthenes (Fragment I. p. 30 of McCrindle's work) notes that the greater part of the soil of India was in his day under irrigation and consequently bore two crops in the year. Even from the Tai. S. V. 1. 7. 3 it appears that two crops were grown in the year (tasmād dviḥ saṁvatsarasya sasyam pacyate). The Vāj. S. 18. 12 contains a list of twelve different kinds of crops such as rice, *yava*, wheat, *māṣa*, sesame, *mudga*, *masūra* &c. and the Bṛ. Up. VI. 3. 13 enumerates ten kinds of grain (grāmyāṇi dhānyāni). In the Hāthīgumphā Inscription of Khāravela king of Kaliṅga (E. I. vol. 20 p. 71) it is stated that (p. 79) a canal which had already been opened in the 103rd year of the Nanda kings (i. e. in the 4th century B. C.) was extended by him in the 5th year of his reign. Rudradāman at great expense from his own treasury without any additional taxation or demand for free labour restored the famous Sudarśana lake near Junāgaḍ (E. I. vol. VIII. p. 36) that had been built by the Governors of Candragupta and Aśoka and been breached by floods. Irrigation had been made use of from Vedic times. Ṛg. VII. 49. 2 refers to rivers and springs naturally flowing and to channels that were dug up.