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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[OCTOBER, 1911.
His theoretic reasoning bas a strong substratum of truth underlying it, and the conclusions which he reached by it are thus shown to be in vulnerable. It is important that we should bear in mind, these remarks of his, since the system of payment in kind continued in Southern India down to its final cession in 1801 and during the later Hindu and Muhammadan times degenerated into the worst engine of oppression in the hands of renters who forced the Government share upon an willing ryots below the market rates. More than this, its effects were of the most demoralising character. It led, as between renters and cultivators, to mutual cheating and common ruin. The practical difficulties that beset its adoption in modern days, as advocated by certain writers, are admirably summed up by the Government of India in its resolution on the Land Revenue Policy of the Government. 23 No one, aware of the history of payment in kind and the worst abuses to which it had been in the past put, would ever hazard a word of its renewal, since sueba retrograde step would involve the exbuming of a system of oppression that has been rightly buried deep and the raising of the assessments all round. Some of its evils seem to have been noticed by the Chola kings as early as the 11th century A. D. One of them, Virarájendra, commuted a portion of the Government share into a money payment, as already stated, but his later Hindr and Muhammadan successors instead of following it up, were only too glad to do away with it and fall back on the system of payment in kind, which always afforded the amplest scope for oppression and rack renting, for which they seem to have had quite a genius. Payment in money is the best British factor in tbe Land Revenue system in India and though its inception in the beginning of the 18th century entailed a great deal of hardship on the poorer cultivators, which was always met by liberal remissions, owing to the remarkable fall in prices that took place then through the insufficiency of the currency of the country, its subsequent and general effect on their well-being and improvement by its characteristic security and certainty has been too great to be superseded by an essentially archaic system which in modern times would inflict several hardships without any compensating benefits.
Chola aseessment, then, ranging as it did between at least 13/30ths and 4/15ths of the gross produce and being paid as it was partly in kind, was from 4 to 7 times heavier than the British assessment of the present day. That the petty imposts of their times were felt vexations and heartily detested is apparent from the praises bestowed on king Kulôttunga Chola I, who ascended the throne about 1070 A. D., and abolished most of them and got the popular sobriquet of Sangandavșitta Kulottunga Soladeva or "the Kulôttunga Chola who abolished the tolls.25 At the same time he seems to have recoa ped the loss thus sustained by a revision of the land assessments. He made A re-survey of the lands in 1086, about the time of the famous Domesday Survey in England36 and revised the assessments. The old survey of the lands, which was correct to 1/52, 428, 800,000 of a véli (6 2/3 acres), or 1/50000 of a square inch,27 had been made during the reign of, if not prior to, Rajaraja, 23 the greatest of CHola kings, who ruled from abont A. D. 985. It would follow from this that as early as the days of Chola kings, temporary and not permanent settlement was the rule. Even in the matter of collections and remissions on reasonable occasions of the land tax, the Chola kings seem to have been more rigorous than the British in modern times. Thus, we see Rajaraja sternly ordering the sale of the lands of defaulters2 and Vikrams Chole, one of his successors, who ruled a century later, refusing the expected remission even when the crops had boun totally destroyed by Vis major, e. g., destructive floods.80 ** Paras. 16 to 17.
See an able article on the subject in the now defanot Bombay Quarterly Review, for April 1857. * Epigraphy Report, for 1900-1 p. 9.
16 Bewden's Domeday, Introd. 12. 11 Epigraphy Report 1899-1900, p. 11; South Ind. Ins., II. 62. A voli-6, acres, see Mr. Vepkasami Row's Tanjore District Manual, 515.
# Bouth Ind. Inus. III. i, Et pausim; Epigraphy Report for 1800-1900, page 11, and Madras Review, VIII, p 112. * South Ind. Inw., III, i,
** Epigraphy Report, 1899-1900, para, 24.
