History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c74.69

v5.c74.69

Ancient writers on Dharmaśāstra favoured pilgrimages by prescribing, as stated in the Viṣṇu Dh. S, that¹²⁸⁹ no money was to be demanded from a Vedic student, a forest hermit, an ascetic, a pregnant woman and a pilgrim by a ferryman or by a toll officer and that if he took money from such persons he was to be made to return it. But this prescription was not invariably followed even by Hindu Kings The Rājātaraṅgiṇī (VI 254-255 and VII. 1008) notices that a tax was levied on Kashmīrians performing śrāddhas at Gayā.¹²⁹⁰ It appears that Siddhārāja king of Anahilavāḍ (1095-1143 A. D.) levied a tax on pilgrims going to Somanātha at the frontier town Bāhuloda, that he remitted the tax at the intercession of his mother and that the tax thus remitted amounted to 72 lakhs of rupees every year (this last may be an exaggeration to glorify Siddhārāja).1290a Moslem kings levied this tax. It appears that a great writer called Kavīndrācārya took up the cause of Hindu pilgrims visiting Prayāga and Kāśī and so eloquently pleaded it before Emperor Shah Jehan that the latter remitted the tax altogether and conferred upon the great scholar ¹²⁹¹ the title of 'Sarva-vidyā-nidhāna'. People throughout India felt such relief at the remission of the tax that congratulatory letters and addresses (several of them couched in very poetic language) poured upon Kavīndrācārya. These have been published in a work styled 'Kavīndra-candrodaya' by Dr. Har Dutta Sharma and Mr. M. M. Patkar (in the Poona Oriental series), a characteristic verse from which is quoted below.¹²⁹² In a remarkable copper-plate inscription in Sanskrit ¹²⁹³ and Kannada issued by the Hoysala king Narasimha III in Māgha śake 1200 (1279 A. D) it is said that the king granted the revenues (amounting to 645 niskas a year) of a village called Hebbāle to the pilgrims of Kāśī and to god Śrīviśveśvara for the purpose of enabling the pilgrims to Benares (including those from the whole of Karnātaka, from the countries of Telingana, Tulu, Tirhut, Gauda and others) to pay off the tax levied by the Turuskas (Moslem kings).¹²⁹³