The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c15.s3.23

c15.s3.23

The fear of injuring the source or killing the goose, or “spoiling the market”, as economists would say, haunts likewise the financiers of the Śukra school. The cultivator is to pay the dues to the state but the state must take care that he “be not destroyed.”¹ Land revenue is to be realized, as we read in the *Śukra-nîti*, in the fashion of the “weaver of garlands” and not of that of the charcoal merchant.² The latter sets fire to the woods to make charcoal and thus destroys the whole property. But the weaver of garlands plucks from the trees only such flowers as are full blown and preserves the rest as well as the trees for future use. Fortified with this much discretion the finance minister is to test the “faculty” or taxability of the people at every conceivable point. He is to “enjoy fruits everywhere” and “collect funds by hook or by crook.”³