Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c5.t3.123

c5.t3.123

The amount of rent depended mainly on custom. Simple as the conditions of those days were, the share of the produce from land which went to the king must here be treated as rent. The productiveness of land must have been understood to depend upon its fertility, both natural and acquired, and on its accessibility, as determined by its proximity to a market and the cost of transport.³ Productivity was, no doubt, a factor in the determination of the actual rent of any plot, but not the sole factor. Rent was not due to mere difference between the produce of any particular plot and the plot on the margin of cultivation, as the Ricardian doctrine supposes, but was, more or less, a definite charge. Of course, as already noticed, rent was subject to enhancement or reduction, and in that case custom was set aside in preference to the whim of the king or his officer.