Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c7.s1: Section IV. The Department of Taxation

Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c7.s1

Language: English

Section IV. The Department of Taxation

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The Taxation Department was known as the athavana,²⁹⁵ and was presided over by the Minister for Revenue. He was helped by a large staff of clerks at the capital in keeping regular accounts of the income of the government from the various districts and sources. Evidently the administration of this branch was divided into a large number of small departments over each of which was a superintendent. The revenue of every district was generally in charge of an officer appointed by the government. Orders conveying the remissions of taxes or the imposition of new ones were communicated to him. Sōmappa Uḍaiyār, the Mahāpradhāni of Kampaṇa Uḍaiyār, and Viṭṭapparaśar, the treasurer, made a gift of tolls for providing (daily) a flower garland and a lamp to the temple of Edirkoṇḍaperumāḷ at Kurumavi (a village) in Puḷināḍu. The order was issued to Meydēvar who was in charge of the taxes of Puḷināḍu.²⁹⁶ Another inscription from the Hoskote taluk in the Bangalore district makes mention of the tax collectors of the Eṟumuraināḍu and the customs officer of the Muḷuvāynāḍu.²⁹⁷ Similarly we get reference in an epigraph at Śrīperumbudūr (Cg.) to the officer called the controller of tolls to whom an order was sent by Śrīgirinātha Uḍaiyār to collect on behalf of the king a duty of one paṇam on every loom in the tirumaḍaivilāgam.²⁹⁸

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²⁹⁵ E.C., III, Sr. 105; E.C., XI, Jl. 7.

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²⁹⁶ 309 of 1912; Rep., 1913, para 51.

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²⁹⁷ E.C., IX, Ht. 149.

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²⁹⁸ 207 of 1922; see also 693 of 1919 for a reference to a similar officer.

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The royal order was sent to the local governors and it was entered in four registers and when a third party was involved in the matter of remissions or grants, the original order of the king was placed in the hands of the party concerned. Dēva Rāya II for instance gave an order to Śrīgirinātha of Candragiri permitting him to remit the jōḍi of 131 poṇ (varāhan) and 6¼ paṇams. or 1,316¼ paṇams at 10 paṇams per poṇ. due to the Candragiri rājya from Tiruppukuli (Cg), in order that the amount might be utilised for the temple of Pōrērriperumāḷ of the place. The order further requested the viceroy to send his own tiruvaccīṭṭu to the sthānikas of the villages, to make copies of the king’s order (rāyasa) in the four registers, and to place the original document in the hands of the sthānikas as a śāsana. Śrīgirinātha issued the tiruvaccīṭṭu in compliance with the order of the king to the sthānikas of Tiruppukkuḷi.²⁹⁹ Here the order conveying the remission of the taxes in favour of the temple which was placed in the hands of the sthānikas of the temple served as their record.

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²⁹⁹ 172 of 1916; Rep., 1916. para 140.

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But where the nāṭṭavar (district assembly) were responsible for the payment of revenues to the government, the communication was sent to them. In the case of such remissions, the assembly, which kept regular accounts for its income from various sources, deducted the amount thus remitted by the imperial officers both from the tax register and the village account. A valuable inscription at Pēraiyūr in the Pudukkoṭṭai State registers such a procedure. It records that one Tirumēni Aḷagiyār of Śūraikkuḍi set apart the amount of 150 vāḷālvali tiraṇdān kuḷiśai paṇam due annually as paccai paṇam from the temple for offerings to God at the service called after his name; and that the nāṭṭavar (district assembly) deducted the above amount, and recorded it in the tax register and the village account.³⁰⁰ This inscription clearly shows that the nāṭṭavar were responsible for the collection of the taxes in the nāḍu, and hence maintained the tax register and the village account. But in later days the village and the nāḍ assemblies showed signs of decay and dismemberment in their organization, and hence they were gradually deprived of the responsibility for the collection of the taxes; and in their stead were appointed the revenue collectors and the revenue farmers who were made responsible for the collection of the taxes of the government.³⁰¹

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³⁰⁰ I.P.S., 699.

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³⁰¹ Here it must be noted that though farming was adopted for the collection of the revenues in many parts of the Vijayanagar empire at a period when the sabhā was also in a flourishing condition and collected the revenues of the state for the government, it was prevalent only in a few places, and when the village assemblies showed signs of decay, naturally the system of renting out the revenues of the state had to be extended to such villages also.

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We see both the imperial and the local governments remitting taxes in favour of certain public institutions as a temple or a maṭha. Can the provincial governor or a local assembly remit taxes without the permission of the government at the headquarters? It seems that the local officers were allowed to remit certain specified taxes, while the power to remit others was reserved to the imperial government; for the power to remit taxes depended upon the nature of the revenue and the allocation of the taxes as between the local and the imperial treasuries. Taxes due to the imperial government could be remitted by the local authority only with the approval and consent of the imperial authority, while local dues could be remitted by them even without the imperial sanction. In the imposition of new local taxes or in their remission the order of the imperial government was more of an advisory character than of a mandatory nature. The marriage tax for instance seems to have been only a local tax. Generally Kṛṣṇadēva Rāya has been credited with the remission of the tax on marriages, but even during the days of Acyuta Rāya the tax continued to be levied as is shown by a few inscriptions of his period. If the tax had been an imperial one, then at one stroke of the pen the tax would have been abolished by the enlightened emperor. In an inscription dated A.D. 1540 in the Hollakere taluk of the Chitaldrug district, the people of the locality wish prosperity to the agents, śīme hebbaruvas, gauḍas, śēnabhovas, śeṭṭis, paṭṭaṇasvāmis, and all of both sects of nānādēśis,³⁰² who were responsible for the remission of the tax on marriages in the said year. This expression of the gratitude of the people to the influential persons in the locality for the remission of the tax clearly shows that it was a local tax. Likewise the tax on the artisans seems to have been only a local one. The tax levied on them was not uniform. At Kanagāṇipaḷḷi in the Dharmavaram taluk of the Anantapūr district is found an inscription which throws some light on this question. It records an order of Īśvarayya, the agent of Vākaṭi Timmappa Nāyaṇivāru, to Bhūvi Reḍḍi Cennama Reḍḍi of Kanagāṇipaḷḷi and Karṇam Cinnaya and a few others to remit the several taxes on the artisan castes (pāñcāḷamvāru) of Kanagāṇipaḷḷi, from which the castes had been exempt since former times, but which were imposed in the time of Timmappa Nāyuḍu, as a result of which the pāñcāḷamvāru migrated from that śīme to Kuṇḍripiśīme and Pākala-śīme.³⁰³ The places to which the artisan migrated were not very far away from their original place. Their migration to the adjacent śīme shows that in that locality no tax was levied on the pāñcāḷas, and if at all they were taxed, such taxes were very light.

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³⁰² E.C., XI, Hk. 111.

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³⁰³ 340 of 1926; Rep., para 43.

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Such variations in the taxation system of one locality from another very near by, are indicative of the fact that many such taxes were generally local in character.

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But the case of the imperial tax was quite different. It could be remitted only by the imperial government. An inscription at Sāligrām in the South Canara district throws some valuable light on this question. It records that a deputation of the *adhivāsis*, *mahājagat* and the *haggaḍes* (chiefs) of Koṭa waited on king Virūpākṣa II at his capital, Vijayanagar, in Ś. 1390 and obtained a remission of three hundred *varāhas*, being a portion of the *siddhāya* which they had to pay.³⁰⁴ It is interesting to note here that Viṭṭharasa, the local governor had nothing to do with either the imposition or the remission of the tax which went to the imperial treasury. Another record from Śaṅkaranārāyaṇa in the same district records a gift of 121 *honnu* made at the instance of Dēva Rāya Mahārāya by Bhanappa Oḍeya, the governor of Bārakūru rājya, to conduct the *bhogapātra* twice a day. It is said in the inscription that the king ordered that the amount was to be realised from the *siddhāya* tax.³⁰⁵ Thus an examination of these two records leads us to conclude that the *siddhāya* tax was payable to the imperial exchequer, and had to be distributed or remitted only by the king or the imperial government. In the case of the *nāyakas* who held lands of the king on a feudal tenure, remissions of taxes by them had nothing to do with their fixed contribution to the imperial exchequer. Their remissions did not affect their fixed contributions. But the communications regarding the remissions made by the central government were sent to those who were responsible for the collection of the imperial revenues, so that they could note the remissions in their account books, to be referred to at times of revenue collection. These account books known as the *paṭṭe* contained the names of the tenants and the amount of assessment they had to pay.

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³⁰⁴ 514 of 1928-20; *Rep.*, para 62.

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³⁰⁵ 412 of 1927-28.

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At times certain taxes were remitted in return for a consolidated amount, perhaps because the items of revenue were so many and petty in detail. This arrangement was made probably to lessen the inconvenience of entering so many items in the account books. For instance the trustees of the temple of Aḷagiya Nāyinār at Tiruvāmāttūr in the South Arcot district leased or farmed out the various taxes to the local Kaikkōḷas (weavers) on the condition that they should pay them at the rate of six paṇams per loom per annum in one lump.³⁰⁶ In the South Arcot district Nāraya Nāyakkar issued an order to the people of Magadai maṇḍala waiving the right of levying varuṣa kāṇikkai in the whole paṟṟu governed by him for, as he himself has stated in the inscription, the Magadai maṇḍala was given away to the residents of the nāḍu (nāṭṭavar), and a certain amount of money was received as subsidy in lump sum (kāṇikkai) that year, and it was unlawful to collect kāṇikkai in subsequent years.307 In another case Vīra Bukkaṇṇa Uḍaiyār (i.e. Bukka II) in Ś. 1326 fixed the taxes payable by the Seṭṭis, Kaikkōḷas, and the Vāṇiyars living in the premises of the temple of Puḷipparakōil at 2 paṇams per year on each individual and 2 paṇams on each loom. This amount apparently covered all the taxes payable by them, i.e., paṭṭāḍainūlāyam, aṭṭai śammādam, pērāyaccemmadam, kaiyērpu, mādaviraṭṭi and daṇṇāyakar magamai.308 Then again a record at Boppasandra in the Malavalli taluk of A.D. 1388 registers that Bhaṭṭa Bhāciyappa’s son, Bukkaṇṇa of the lineage of Tillas, granted, with all rights and taxes named free from all imposts, the village Boppasamudra, a hamlet of Hadaravāgilu, excluding former grants for the office of Gauḍa and for the deities of the village to Kampaṇṇa, Cavuḍappa and others on condition of the payment of an annual rental of 40 varāhas. Among the taxes mentioned are the taxes on the threshing floor, houses and carts, kirukula, beḍabinugu, grāmagadyāna, meḍidere, daḷavili, hādara, hombali, daṇṇayakasvāmya noṭa, nenapu, maḷabraya, the good ox, mulleṇḍige, kūḷu, koṭṭige, sollage and mallige.³⁰⁹ Likewise payment in cash was commuted for payment in kind, as is shown by an inscription at Tirukkaḷakkuḍi in the Rāmnad district. It registers an order of Aḷagiyamaṇavāḷa perumāḷ Toṇḍaimāṇār issued to a native of Nāṭṭinmaṅgalam to measure a fixed quantity of paddy in lieu of the taxes due by him on certain lands in the temple of Agattīśuramuḍaiya Nāyinār.310 Thus we see that such commutations were not infrequent.

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³⁰⁶ 204 of 1921; Rep., para 41.
307. 109 of 1918; Rep., para 69.
308. 293 of 1911; Rep., para 51.

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³⁰⁹ M.A.R., 1920, para 79.

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Nuniz says that the king gave no receipt for the money he received from his ‘captains.’ He says: “He (the king) never gives any receipts to them, only, if they do not pay, they are well punished, they are ruined, and their property taken away.”³¹¹ But it is doubtful if we can believe the words of Nuniz. It is incredible that such an elaborate machinery of administration could have been carried on without receipts for the money granted or the income derived.³¹²

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³¹¹ Sewell, op. cit.. p. 389.

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³¹² We get a reference to receipts in Travancore in the 17th century. Two copies of a record of K.A. 873 in the Travancore State make reference to the grant of receipts. The epigraph under reference says, “when the taxes of mēlvāram and pāttam are paid the receipt shall be obtained by showing the receipts for the previous year.” (nāndaikkuriyum talaikkuriyum kātti . . .) (T.A.R., V, Nos. 71 and 72; pp. 211 and 215). It may be asked how the idea of granting receipts could not have been known in Vijayanagar also.

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The financial year in the Vijayanagar days commenced in September-October, when the Mahānavami was celebrated for nine days. Paes says that it began on the twelfth of September,³¹³ and states that the new year commenced in the month of October. “At the beginning of the month of October when eleven of its days had passed......on this day begins their year; it is their New Year’s Day....... They begin the year in this month with the new moon, and they count the months always from moon to moon”.³¹⁴ Thus the new year began in September-October and the accounts were cleared then. Within these nine days the king was paid all the rents that were due from his kingdom.³¹⁵ Nuniz says: “According to the lands and revenues that they have so the king settles for them .....how much revenue they have to pay him every month during the first nine days of the month of September”.³¹⁶ According to him the dues to the imperial government seem to have been payable every month in accordance with an assessment made annually in the month of September.