Indian Antiquary Vol 34

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 14

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JANUARY, 1905.
Having divided the country into four districts and having classified the villages as of first, second or third rank, the Collector-General shall register the names of the villages and bring them under one or the other of following heads :
(1) Villages that are exempted from taxation, (2) Villages that are military stations. (8) Villages that have to supply a fixed quantity of grains, money, and raw materials. (4) Villages that have to supply a fixed number of coolies and quadrupeds. (5) Villages that have to supply animal and vegetable produce in lieu of taxes.
A Gopa shall be placed in charge of five or ten villages and shall be answerable to the Collector-General for discharging his duties satisfactorily. It is the duty of Gôpa to maintain the boundary marks, not only of villages, but also of fields, gardens, roads, pasture lands, temples, groves, bathing-places, and countries. It is also the duty of Gôpa to personally supervise the transactions of gift, sale, or mortgage of lands and other properties of the villagers. He shall also keep a register giving in detail the number not only of the souls living in each of the houses in the villages in his charge, the people being at the same time classified according to the various castes to which they belong, but also of the slaves, coolies, quadrupeds, and birds that are maintained in each of the houses. He shall also note in the same register not only the amount of taxes and tolls which each of the houses in the villages has to pay to the Government, but also the probable collection of coolies and fines from each of the houses in the villages.
He shall not only enter in the registor an estimate of the annual income and expenditure of all the inhabitants, male or female, young or old, in the villages, but also record the nature of their respective professions.
A Sthanika shall superintend over the affairs of a district as minately as a Gópa does over the affairs of villages. Minor Government employés under Göpas and Sthanikaa shall gather not only taxes but also sundry information, both in districts and villages. The accounts and various statements made by Gôpas and Sthầnikas shall be compared with those obtained from Government spies who are employed to watch the work of Government servants and the people alike.
(B) Distribution of Land.
Priests, teachers, and other loarned Brahmans shall be given lands which shall be subject to no tax whatever and which shall yield sufficient means of livelihood to the doueu. Government servants, such as superintendents of various departments, accountante, overseers of villages, commanders of the army, physicians, veterinary surgeons, doctors of elephants, &c., sball likewise be given lands free, with this restriction, however, that these employés shall neither sell nor mortgage the lands thus freely given to them for service. Those who are willing to pay a fixed amount of tax to the king shall be given waste but fertile lands, their right over such lands being restricted for life only. Lands that are not made fit for cultivation shall not be taken away from those who are preparing them for cultivation. Those who have allowed their