Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t5.123

c4.t5.123

“A stock phrase used in some of the Jātakas to describe the villages assigned or proposed to be assigned by the kings introduces us for the first time to an important development of the procedure in connection with such grants.”⁵ This phrase⁶ is ‘satasahassuṭṭhānaka gāma,’ meaning ‘the village which produces one hundred thousand pieces (of coins)’. The figure 100,000 is of course purely conventional, but as Ghoshal has pointed out⁷ “a careful consideration of the context in which it occurs is enough to show that it corresponds to the process concerned with assignment which prevailed in Moslem India, and has been conveniently indicated by the term ‘Valuation’, i.e., the estimate of the probable future income from any area, required in order to facilitate the allocation of grants or assignments to claimants entitled to a stated income.”