Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c8.91

c8.91

In the entire range of Indian economy, nothing is more important than agriculture, and the village round which it centres. Kautalya attacked the problem with all his characteristic thoroughness. It was assumed that if the maximum prosperity was to be attained, the agricultural population must be more or less evenly distributed. Emigration should be encouraged from congested areas to new sites or old ruins. In rarer cases, scarcity of population should be remedied by encouraging immigration. New villages were thus to be founded. Old or new, a village, as a rule, was not to exceed four square miles. Wherever possible, rivers or hills, caves or artificial structures, trees or forests, were to form the boundaries of villages. The population should range from a hundred to five hundred families. Each group of ten, two hundred, four hundred, and eight hundred villages, should be guarded by fortresses of varying strength.