Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t5.92

c4.t5.92

How was the bali collected? For this we turn to the third personality, an important one, viz. the Doṇamāpaka Mahāmatta, the measurer with the droṇa measure.⁴ The story describes him as sitting at the door of the royal granary and causing the king's share of the produce to be measured.⁵ He takes a grain out of the unmeasured heap of rice and employs it as a marker (lakkhaṃ). Owing to a sudden rainfall, he hastily rushes indoors after counting the markers and then sweeping them all together. He, standing on the doorway, is filled with doubt whether he has thrown the grains used as markers over the measured or the unmeasured heap. And he reflects that if he has placed the markers, over the measured heap, he has improperly increased the king's share and diminished that of the cultivator (gahapatika). "This evidently points to the method of Division of the crop at the granary."⁶ This moreover shows that the Doṇamāpaka, significantly styled Mahāmatta, was in this case the chief collector of land-revenue, probably, corresponding to the Koṣṭhāgārādhyakṣa of Kauṭilya,⁷ who was a subordinate officer to the Sannidhātṛ,⁸ Finance Minister, who looked after the Treasury and the store-house.⁹