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The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c11.t22: 3. The Consumption-Schedule of Chola India

The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c11.t22

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3. The Consumption-Schedule of Chola India

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It is not difficult to explain why the imperial structures of the Hindus should have been heavily assessed organizations. The reasons are to be sought in the great variety and quantity of the state's "consumption". They are essentially identical with what economists like Nitti and Leroy-Beaulieu¹ have traced in the growth of public expenditures in modern times. The functions of Hindu governments were manifold. Consciously or unconsciously, whether backed by a definite theory of *nîti* (statecraft) like the late German empire or not, every state in India was a *Kulturstaat*. The invariable end of all Hindu politics was the protection and development of *dharma*. Like *Kultur* and Arnoldian "culture", *dharma* is a very comprehensive category. Exceedingly elastic in its significance, again, like the English term "law", the concept of *dharma* is the basis of distinction, the *fundamentum divisionis* between man and the brute. *Dharmena hînâh*, says the *Gîtâ*, *paśubhih samânâh*. In *dharma*, the analogue of the "virtue" in Plato's *Republic*, is to be found the *differentium* between the human world and that of *paśu*, or "beasts and birds" as Hobbes would have it. An agency for the promotion of humanism, i. e. for the advancement of all that lets "the ape and tiger die" and develops the people's material and moral interests, of anything, in short, that is conducive to national well-being was necessarily a multi-functional corporate organism. The *dharma-staaten* of India had therefore before them an almost unlimited range of what in scientific parlance is known as "developmental" activity. Not of an Arcadian character could thus be the "appropriations" of the Hindu empires.

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¹ Leroy-Beaulieu, Vol. II, pp. 171—181. Hindu history is diametrically opposite to the picture suggested in Mookerji's statements about the functions of Indian states (*Local*, 3—4). Vide *Infra*, pp. 171—173 for the *nîti* theory of the scope of state activity.

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We need not enumerate the duties of government stated in the *nîti-sâstras*. Let us note only the functions of the historic state-systems that may be gathered from the inscriptions and contemporary reports. The economic development of the country was undertaken by the Maurya Gupta, Kashmirian, Tamil, and Ceylonese governments. Their care for irrigation¹ in different parts of the empire is a solid testimony to their recognition of the secular interests of the state. The construction of magnificent roads was another function along the same line.² The beautifying of cities and measures for street-cleaning, sanitation, etc were important items of state business in Chola territories.³ The promotion of aesthetic as well as "productive" arts and crafts was a normal function of almost every Hindu state. The encouragement or "protection" of skilled workmen, the steady maintenance of shipbuilders and naval architects, and state employment of miners and other industrial artisans were among the duties of the Maurya civil service. Shipbuilding⁴ and manufacture of arms and ammunitions were in reality crown monopolies. Wood-cutting, carpentry and smithery works came naturally therefore under state control. All governments undertook to lay out parks and grounds for recreation and pastime. Pharmaceutical gardens were treated as public necessities.⁴ Palaces and public halls were likewise some of the "useful magnificences" that no state could dispense with. The Pândya rulers (c 100—300 A. C.) were patrons of *pariṣats* or academies of literature.⁵ The Guptas⁶ and the Pâlas⁷ considered universities among important charges on the imperial exchequer. Temples and *vihâras* or monasteries were built at government expense both by the Vardhana and the Châlukya emperors of the seventh century,⁸ indeed by all ruling houses. Not the conventional religion and morality of the time alone found an asylum in these institutions. The financial authorities must have regarded them as schools of higher learning as well. From the cultural standpoint these were at once the art-galleries and museums of the people. And as resorts for the relief of the sick, the distressed and the poor the ostensibly religious buildings discharged an important economic function like the Catholic institutions of mediaeval Europe. Add to all this the minimum functions of every state as state, viz. the protection of person and property, or national defense by army and navy as well as internal policing by adequate executive and judicial staff. The extent of these minimum functions can be realized from the fact that in the Maurya Empire the appropriations on this head absorbed 25 per cent of the total revenues.¹

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¹ *Ep. Ind.* 1905—1906, pp. 46—49; *Gup. Insc.*, pp. 56—65; Kalhana, Bk. V, 68—117; Venkayya's "Irrigation in Southern India" in the *Arch. Sur. Ind. Ann. Rep.* 1903—1904; Deakin, 239—242; Aiyangar, 185—188.

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² Mc. Crindle's *Anc. Ind.* (Mcg. XXXIV), p. 86; Arrian, III; Aiyangar, 188, 189; Law's *Hind. Pol.*, pp. 68—75.

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³ Ayyar's *Town*, pp. 42, 44, 51.

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⁴ Mc. Crindle's *Anc. Ind.*, p. 86; Strabo, XV, 46; *Ind. Ship.*, p. 192.

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⁵ Aiyangar, pp. 70, 337, 359, 360, 379—382.

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⁶ Itsing, pp. 65, 154, 177.

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⁷ *Ind. Ant.* 1888, pp. 308—311.

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⁸ *Si Yu-ki*, Vols I and II (See Hiuen Thsang's account of any of the states visited by him).

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¹ *Ind. Ant.* 1909, p. 263.

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It is not necessary to compare the functions of Hindu states, item by item, as regards quantity and variety, with the long list of modern state activities, expanding daily as they have been under the impact of socialism. The socialistic trend of *dharma*-states is apparent enough. One must not surmise, however, that every public work among Hindus was the undertaking of the state. For, private effort i. e. the patriotism of citizens was responsible in every age for the founding and maintenance of useful institutions. In Gupta India hospitals² were built and endowed by the public-spirited townsfolk of Pâtali-putra, the Rome of the Hindus. Rudra-dâmana (*c* A. C. 150), a satrap of Gujarat, repaired the Sudarśana reservoir at his own expense, the ministers having refused to supply funds from the government treasury.³ General Uṣavadâta's (*c* A. C. 100) endowments in the Andhra Deccan may serve as a standing example of the manner in which the people cooperated with the state and supplemented its activity along developmental or cultural lines.

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² Beal's *Fa Hien*, p. 107.

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³ *Ep. Ind.* 1905–1906, *loc. cit.*

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One of the hill caves in Govardhana (Nasik District in the Bombay Presidency) was excavated at Uṣava-dâta's expense.⁴ Among his numerous benefactions we read of the gift of 300,000 cows, the construction of the flights of steps on a river and the giving away of sixteen villages for religious purposes. This philanthropist used to maintain 100,000 scholars and priests with board. He bore the marriage expenses of eight Brâhmaṇas at Somnath in Gujarat. His quadrangles, public halls and halting places as well as gardens, tanks and wells were spread over the country from Broach and Bassein, the ports on the Arabian Sea coast, to Daśapura in Malwa, far inland in Upper India. Ferry boats were placed by him over six rivers in northern Bombay. Both sides of these rivers were also furnished with rest houses and equipped with arrangements for the distribution of water to travellers. Moreover, he founded ions for the support of several academies of Vedic learning parts of the Maratha country. te endowments for public purposes were undoubtedly every epoch of Hindu history. But none the less the financial of public administration weighed heavy upon the "pillars ate". The government could not afford to depend solely upon riotism and voluntary contributions. The expenses of national eeping had to be met regularly from the resources of the empire. iance department had therefore to raise the necessary revenue k or by crook.

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⁴ *Nasik Inscr.* No. 17; *Early Hist. Dek.* sec. iv.

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sus¹ was an important institution of the Mauryas. It was used municipal corporation of Pâtali-putra as well as by the imperial service. The *gopa* or village magistrate, the *sthânika* or district strate, as well as the *nâgaraka* or mayor of the city were alive to mportance of vital statistics. The numbering of persons, houses cattle, as well as the measurement of lands, pastures and gardens ished the *samâhartâ* or collector-general with definite data for the valuation and assessment of the people's wealth.² The cadastral surveys organized by the Cholas³ in 986 and 1086 were also calculated to ensure the same end. Both these instruments tended to bring about centralization and consolidation of the public revenues and were indeed together with the war office, the judiciary and the executive service the most effective means of establishing *pax sârva-bhaumica*. The financial organization aimed at by the Hindu empires was thus akin to the "integration" of national outlays and revenues that has been the steady achievement of modern Europe since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. And in classical times it is the system of the Roman Empire with its official tax-collectors who replaced the *publicani* or revenue-"farmers" of the republic that should be kept before the mind's eye while appraising the public expenditure, national resources or heads of income, and financial administration of Hindu India from B. C. 322 to A. C. 1300.

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¹ Law's *Hind. Pol.* 106—114.

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² *Ind. Ant.* 1905, p. 5.

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³ Aiyangar, 144, 149, 150, 175—177.

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