Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c7.t2.1

c7.t2.1

According to immemorial custom, the share of the state in the produce from a unit of land was one-sixth, of the Brahman onetwentieth and of the temple one-thirtieth, each of which was paid either in kind or in the money equivalent. Of the remaining three-fourths, one-fourth was retained by the cultivator for his share, while the balances of the gross produce went towards the expenses of cultivation. Wilks when discussing this question remarks that in the early days of the Vijayanagar dynasty Harihara’s minister, Vidyāraṇya. published for the use of the officers of state, a manual founded on the text of Parāśara with a copious commentary in which the assessment of the land and the conversion of the grain revenue into money are elaborately dealt with. Briefly, he took the Śāstra rate of one-sixth of the crop as the government share, and assuming that the average out-turn was twelve times the seed sown, he distributed 30 *kuṭṭis* of paddy, the produce from 2½ *kuṭṭis* of land, as follows :