Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c7.10

c7.10

(a) Tax on wet crops: All the wet crops were taxed by the government. In levying taxes on the lands certain factors were taken into consideration, such as the nature of the village and the tenure of the land, the nature of the soil and the kind of crop raised on the soil. For instance, before the government levied the tax on a particular piece of land, it considered whether it was a *devadāna* (land belonging to a temple), or a *brahmadeya* (land belonging to the Brahmans), or was situated in a *daḷavāy agrahāra* (village granted for military service), or was in a *karagrāma* (revenue village).² Distinction was made between *kārpāśānam* land and *puṇpayir* land, and taxes were collected on the land according to the nature of the crops raised.³ Even in the *kārpāśānam* lands, those that died in the planting (*naṭṭupāl*), those that yielded only blighted grains (*śāvi*), and those that were otherwise damaged (*aḷivu*) were not counted.⁴ In the taxable land a distinction was made between paddy fields, uncultivated waste (newly brought under cultivation), forests reclaimed, and *kaḍaippū* lands (lands on which only the last crop is raised) and lands irrigated by lifting water. The government also considered if they were wet lands on which were grown plantain and sugarcane, or were *paḍugaitākku* (banks of rivers) where these were grown, or marshes in which red lotuses were grown, or lands producing brinjals (*vaḷudilai*), pumpkins, turmeric, ginger, onions, garlic, *nelluparutti*, castor seeds, *varaguparutti*, mustard, Bengal gram, wheat and *kuśumbai* (*carthamus tinctorius*), *ērivāy*, *tāṅgalvāy* and *puḷudi*, (lands producing) gram (*kāṇam*), paddy and *śāmbalādi* and a large number of others crops.⁵ There was also some differentiation made between wet crops being raised on wet lands and wet crops being raised on dry lands.⁶