The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c11.t20.2

c11.t20.2

Under the Tamils also south India's financial backbone must have been furnished by the realizations from land. The rate was not low. The Early Roman Empire used to levy land revenue at the rate of ¹ /₁₀th of the produce.² But in Chola India the government demand was ¹ /₆th. The high rate was indeed the normal *bhāga* or share of the government in land-produce according to the stereotyped "pious wish" of the *dharma-śāstras* (law books) and *nīti-śāstras* (political science).³ And yet in *Realpolitik* this conventional norm was but a fiscal camouflage that may deceive the academic student of financial history but did not fail to press the taxpayers themselves. For in Chola legislation the additional imposts on land, besides the tolls and octrois, were clearly defined as being ¹⁄₁₀th of the yield. The total revenue from land was thus ⁴⁄₁₅ths or more than 25 per cent of the gross outturn in Râjâdhirâja’s time (1035—1053).¹