The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c11.t26.18

c11.t26.18

It was not with an alleged Machiavellian wickedness but in quite the scientific methods of "high finance" that Kautilya approached the problem of financing a war or meeting an emergency. The financial experts of the Maurya civil service knew how to cause the rich to "vomit" (*vamana*) their accumulated wealth or otherwise deplete and drain (*karṣaṇa*) of their property.¹ Exploitation of "gold-lords" by the state was a process of expropriation that the *Artha-śâstra* does not hesitate to pronounce as the objective of the "ways and means" committee. Like the "liturgies" and *eisphora* of the Athenian city state ² high imposts of various denominations were therefore borne by people of large incomes in Maurya India. And the impact of war or emergency finance must have tended to make the demands of the government even in normal times "progressive" in spirit, if not mathematically so.