Local Government in Ancient India c9.s2.12

c9.s2.12

The question of payment of interest is connected with that of the investment of the moneys deposited. As may be naturally supposed, the moneys were invested in productive public works yielding a return more than sufficient to cover the stipulated interest on the deposits. As Venkayya points out (*South Indian Inscriptions*, Volume II, Part V, p. 19), ‘in all probability the money thus borrowed was utilized in bringing waste lands under cultivation. From the produce of these lands the interest on the money borrowed was paid’. No. 214 of 1911 (a Cola epigraph of about 1050 a. d.) records the interesting instance of a gift of 100 *kāśu* to an assembly which utilized the money in repairing damages caused to irrigation channels by the Kāverī floods. The interest payable on the deposit was at one *kalam* of paddy per *kāśu* to be paid for certain purposes of the temple (among which was included the exposition of the Śivadharma). The restoration of the damaged irrigation channels must have brought to the assembly an additional revenue from the water-rates and enabled them to discharge their liability in regard to the money thus utilized. Sometimes the deposits of the public were treated by the assembly as convenient sources of the capital or cash they needed to execute some urgent public works (not necessarily productive in their character) in the interests of the people. An instance of this is recorded in no. 284 of 1911 which registers the deposit of thirty *kalañju* of gold with an assembly that utilized the money to construct a bathing hall (*namanamantapa*). The purpose of the deposit was provided for by the assignment of land yielding the required income. Another method of investing the local funds was to deposit them with parties approved by the central government. According to Kauṭilya (IV. i), there was a special department of the central government consisting of three *amātyas* (ministers), or *pradeṣṭṛs*, to look after the interests of artisans (*kārukarakṣaṇa*; cf. also the evidence of Megasthenes), and the parties whom the guilds might trust with their deposits are precisely defined, such as those who can meet their wants, who are themselves money-lenders, who enjoy their confidence and the like. The rule was also laid down that the guilds might get back their deposits in time of need.