Studies in Ancient Hindu Polity (Based on the Arthashastra of Kautilya), Vol. I c11.22

c11.22

It has been already pointed out that the work of land survey was entrusted to those very officers who conducted the census operations. The duties of the officers in regard to land survey were mainly those of setting and fixing the boundaries of villages, classification and numbering of plots of land as cultivated and uncultivated, plain and upland, wet and dry, and so forth. An account was also kept of gardens and forests, temples and places of pilgrimage, feeding-houses, irrigation works, roads and crematories, storages for travellers, and pastures.¹ The supplementary body of officers or “overseers” had also to examine the accounts of this department regarding the fields, houses and families of such villages.