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MAY, 1905.]
CHANAKYA'S LAND AND REVENUE POLICY.
8.
When such begging proves impracticable, the king's employés shall seek subscriptions from citizens and country-people alike under false pretences of carrying this or that kind of business in the interests of the people. Persons taken in concert shall publicly pay handsome donations, and the same fact shall be published among the people at large.
9.
The king's employés shall revile those whose subscriptions fall very low. Worthy people shall be requested to barter their gold for other kinds of precious things which belong to the king. Those who, of their own accord, offer their wealth to the king shall be honoured with a rank in the court, an umbrella, or a turban, or some jewel or medal.
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10.
The king's spies, under the guise of sorcerers, shall, under pretence of ensuring safety, carry away the money, not only of the society of heretics (pashandis) and of temples, but also of the dead, provided that they are not Brahmans.
11.
The Superintendent of Religious Institutions and Temples shall collect in one place the money, jewelry, and other property of different temples, and other religious institutions and transfer them to the king's treasury.
12.
Either shall he collect money under the pretence of holding at night processions of gods or of performing other religious ceremonies, with a view to avert impending calamities.
13.
Or else shall he proclaim the arrival of gods, by pointing out to the people any of the trees in the king's garden which has produced untimely fruits and flowers. Or by causing a false panic from the arrival of an evil-spirit on a tree in the city, wherein a man is hidden making all sorts of devilish noises, the king's spies, in the guise of jogis, shall collect money with a view to propitiate the evil-spirit and send it back.
14.
Or the spies, in the garb of jógis, may call upon spectators to see a serpent with numberless heads in a well connected with a subterranean passage and collect fees from them for the sight.
Or they may place in a bore-hole made in the body of an image of a serpent, or in a hole in the corner of a temple, or in the hollow of an ant-hill, a cobra which is, by diet, rendered unconscious, and call upon credulous spectators to see it on payment of a certain amount
of fee.
