The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c11.t21: c) The "Modern" Character of Tamil Finance

The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c11.t21

Language: English

c) The "Modern" Character of Tamil Finance

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On the whole the Chola revenues were bulky in dimensions and the people of southern India heavily taxed. Only one ruler is spoken of as having slightly reduced the amount of the people's dues. Kulot-tûnga's name became a household word in Madras of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, for in 1086, the year of the Domesday Book, he abolished the tolls¹ after the completion of cadastral survey, — the second such survey of the Chola Empire. But the general story of *les nerfs de la république*, the nerves of the state, as Bodin puts it, under the Cholas was uniform. Like the governments of Europe in the days of Adam Smith,² the South Indian monarchs knew how to exact as much as they could "only desirous of finding the easiest means of doing so". The one redeeming feature seems to be that the Empire was conscious of the high price at which *pax sârva-bhaumica* was being enjoyed by the people. Râja-râja accordingly expressly instructed the finance officers to be elastic in the collection of revenues.³ But no figures are available as to any of the heads of government income, and there is no means of making an estimate as to the probable national income. It is naturally impossible to form an idea as to the taxable capacity or "faculty" of the people. Nor is it convenient to hazard a conjecture as to the actual "burden of taxation", i. e. the proportion of the aggregate wealth of the people that the state demanded for all its functions and services.

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¹ Aiyangar, pp. 149, 150.

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² *Enc. Brit.* (Taxation).

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³ Aiyangar, p. 182.

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Taxation as such was unknown in France previous to 1300.⁴ As a function of the state and as an institution of "public law" it virtually ceased to exist with the destruction of the Roman Empire by the Teutons. In its place was substituted the "private claim" of customary dues, fines or tolls by landlords and barons.⁵ The transition from this "feudal" to "modern" finance was a lengthy process in England.⁶ It was not before the rise of nation-states in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that the right of government to levy "taxes" became established or rather re-established in the western world. But, for purposes of comparative politics it is necessary to note that the Chola finances do not exhibit the features of the disintegrated feudal polity of mediaeval Europe. The revenues of the Chola Empire possessed the same variety in form as the Roman-Imperial and the modern French. They may be classified by students of *Finanzwissenschaft*, if required, according to the Latin *patrimonium*, *tributum*, and *vectigalium*, or the more popular *domaine*, *contributions directes*, and *contributions indirectes* of modern science. And of course the right of taxation was firmly planted in the political consciousness of Chola India.