History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.442

v4.c62.442

The king recovered a sort of road cess through officers called *antapāla* (guardians of borders or boundaries) viz. 1¼ paṇa on each cart loaded with merchandise, half a paṇa on each head of cattle, ¼th paṇa on minor quadrupeds, and one *māṣa* on a load carried on a man's shoulders (Kauṭ. II. 21 p. 111). Śukra IV. 2. 129 permits for the repairs to the roads a tax on those who use roads. Revenues were raised in numerous other ways such as by charging for stamping weights and measures, by fees levied from keepers of gambling halls, from players, singers and musicians, from prostitutes, from forests and pastures &c. Bṛhat-Parāśara X. p. 282 allows the king in a financial crisis to use even temple funds and make them good when freed from his difficult position. Similarly it allows the king (in difficulty) to take the wealth of usurers, of low people, of heretics and prostitutes, as the continuance and prosperity of temples and the others depend upon the king.²⁵⁴