Local Government in Ancient India c13.141

c13.141

There was also a full recital of what the land would mean to its purchaser in rights and enjoyments, in liabilities and obligations, and in material resources. The rights conveyed meant those belonging to exclusive property, viz. the rights to sell, mortgage or transfer (no. 74, ibid., vol. I). The usual declaration ran as follows:—‘The trees overground, and the hills underground, the wet land and the dry land, included within these boundaries in the four directions; including taxes and rights’ (no. 59, ibid.). Another formula for the declaration was as follows:—‘The wet land and the dry land enclosed within these four boundaries, including every place where the iguana runs, the tortoise crawls, and an anthill rises, the grass for the calves, &c., (no. 21, ibid., vol. III, part I). Other recitals enumerate fruit trees on the land (usually coco-nut, jack, and mango), seedlings, waste lands, low lands, hollows, and mounds. In the case of lands made tax-free by adequate donations and granted for a public object, there was a declaration excluding previous donations connected with the land and expropriating the previous owners and also enumerating the immunities or exemptions (called by the Sanskrit term *parihāra*) and the privileges granted to the donees.