The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c10.91

c10.91

The land-revenue was the chief source of the king's income. Royal servants (Râja kammikâ) seem to have measured the fields and fixed the assessment (IV, 169). There the owners of some fields pray for a remission of taxes. Exemption was occasionally obtained, as, for instance, once by a Seṭṭhi through the king's brother (IV, 169). Raññobhâga is the term applied to the king's share of the produce (II, 378). If taxes were not paid voluntarily they were to be collected forcibly (II, 240; IV, 224; III, 9); V, 98). The taxes seem to have been collected by the gâmabhojakas with the assistance of some royal officers. The latter are called balipatigâhakas, niggâhakas, bali sâdhakas (II, 17). The collectors are sometimes very oppressive and once reduce a village to desolation. "The men could not, for fear of the king's people, live in their houses; they surrounded their houses with hedges and went after sunrise to the forest. In the day the king's people (Râjapurusâ) plundered, at night the the thieves" (V, 98). The property of those who died without heirs escheated to the king. Once (III, 299) we read that "seven days and seven nights the army of the king took to bring the goods of people dying without heirs to the palace." Sometimes whole families renounced the world and the king took possession of their property. In the Haṭṭhipâla Jâtaka (IV, 485) a Purohita and his wife follow their sons into the forest. On hearing of it, the king exclaims, “Unclaimed wealth comes to us.” The rule about treasure-trove is not clear. On the hand, a farmer appropriates the whole treasure he discovers in a field (I, 277). Elsewhere (I, 398) a king exclaims ‘Treasuse-trove is a royal perquisite’ and so hastens to appropriate a woman—really an ogress. Petitioners make presents to the king (II, 166). Some other imposts are levied. The king is entitled to “milk money” on the birth of an heir (IV, 323).