The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c12.58

c12.58

records that Puṣyagupta formed the lake Sudarśana by damming a stream between a citadel and a rock. Its supplemental works were executed by Tuṣâspa.¹ Megasthenes testifies to the work of irrigation officers in rural areas. Besides the scheme of irrigation, there was the unwritten law that agriculturists were exempt from military and other service. "Nor would an enemy coming upon a husbandman at work on his land do him any harm, for men of this class, being regarded as public benefactors, are protected from all injury. The land, thus remaining unravaged, and producing heavy crops, supplies the inhabitants with all that is requisite to make life very enjoyable."² We are told that the agriculturists "pay a land-tribute to the king, because all India is the property of the crown, and no private person is permitted to own land. Besides the land-tribute, they pay into the royal treasury a fourth part of the produce of the soil." Most probably, Megasthenes is accurate in his latter statement. Hindu theory fixed the proportion of the state demand at one-sixth of the gross produce but in practice it might well have been raised to one-fourth. But there is nothing in indigenous sources to indicate that this revenue was supplemented by another tax on the supposition that the crown was the owner of the whole land. The distinction between land-revenue and land-tax does not seem to have occurred to the Hindu mind. It is probable that the assertion of Megasthenes applies only to the crown land which was merely cultivated for the king. In Strabo's version Megasthenes is made to say that "the whole of the land is the property of the king, and the husbandmen till it on condition of receiving one-fourth of the produce."¹ But this is clearly wrong. 'Receiving' has, perhaps, been substituted for 'paying.' Arrian in his version of Megasthenes says that the wandering shepherds and neat-herds "are subject to tribute, and this they pay in cattle,"² though according to Strabo, they received something from the state. Again, he says that handicraftsmen and retail dealers "have to perform gratuitously certain public services, and to pay tribute from the products of their labour." This rule, of course, would not apply to shipbuilders, sailors and manufacturers of weapons of war who were paid by the state.