________________
OCTOBER, 1911.)
EARLY SOUTH INDIAN FINANCE
271
If we take it that his savings represented a third part of his income, of which, if we again suppose, only one-third came from land, then the land revenue of Kțishnaraya would come to about ten million pardaos, an estimate which very well agrees with the statement of another Portuguese trader. Naniz, writing about sixteen or seventeen years after Paes (1536-87), portrays in his interesting Chronicle how the poor cultivators suffered through the exactions of the Vijayanagar renters. “The kings of this country," says he, 48" are able to assemble as many soldiers as they want, as they have them there at their kingdom and have much wealth where with to pay them.
This king Chitarao (Achyutaraya, 1580-1542) has foot-soldiers paid by his nobles and they are obliged to maintain six lakhs of soldiers, that is, six bundred thousand men, and twenty-four thousand horses, which the same nobles are obliged to have. These nobles are like renters, who hold all the land from the king, and besides keeping all these people, they have to pay their costs; they also pay to him every year sixty lakhs of pardaos as royal dues. The lands, they say, yield a hundred and twenty lakhs, of which they must pay sixty to the king, and the rest they retain for the pay of the soldiers and the expenses of the elephants which they are obliged to maintain. For this reason the common people suffer much hardship, those who hold the land being so tyrannical." It would seem to follow from this that although early Vijayanagar kings may have, in accordance with Madhava's text, taken only the then enhanced quarter share of the gross produce in money, the later kings seem to have quite disregarded it and took full one-half in money. At any rate, it seems clear from Nuniz's narrative that the net land revenue of the Vijayanagar kingdom, which included the whole of what is now the Madras Presidency and the Province of Mysore, with the exception of Ganjam, Vizagapatâm, God Âvari, and the northern portion of Kistna district, which never even nominally came under their rule, was about 120 lakhs of pardaos, or 12 millions of pardaos, which roughly agrees with our inference from Paes's narrative that the land revenue of Krishnarîya might have been about 10 millions of pardaos. Taking the pardao, or pagoda, which was at the period treated of equal to 4s. 6d., at Rs. 8}, we see that the Achyutaråga's land revenue amounted to 42 millions of rupees. But the purchasing power of the rupee then was greater than what it is now. Nuniz says that in the markets they give twelve sheep for a pardao, and in the hills they give 14 or 15 for a pardao," viz., about 1 aunas for a sheep. The present price of a sheep, when and where it could be got cheapest, is at least Rs. 2 or 40 annas. In other words, the purchasing power of the rupee then was about ten times what it is now. During the time of Křishộaraya, about 16 years before, it seems to have been a little less. Paesgo, writing about 1520, says that in the city of Vijayanagarin the country they gave one more--they gave threo for a coin worth a vintem, which is equal to 17/20 of a penny. A fowl now, when it is cheapest, costs about 4 annes, which som during the time of Paes would have brought at least 8 fowls. The difference, thus, in the purchasing powers of the rupee between the times of Krishnaraya and Achyutarâya, separated as they were by period of over 15 years, is not very great. Taking, then, the purchasing power of the rupee at ten times what it is now, Achyutaraya's total net land revenue would come to about 430 millions of rapees. The total land revenue at present of the Madras Presidency is about 63 millions, or excluding the land revenues of Ganjâm, Vizagapatâm, Godavari and Northern Kistna, and including that of Mysore it is less than 60 millions. It seems *Sowell's A Forg. Emp. - Sewell's A Forg. Emp., 375.
* Ibid257 01 Madras Administration Report, for 1901-02. Total land revenue, inolusive of coses, of the whole Presidenoy, is Rs. 6,52,99,814. (Pages 5 and 117.)
The following is the average land rovento, inclusive of 008808, of the Districts noted in the text, for th three years ending 1901-21 Ganjam -
17-99 lakhs. Vizaga patam Godavari ... 7161 Kistna
... 71.33 (one half the amount taken into caloulation.) (See Ibid. p. 89.)
The latest figure available for Mysore in that for 1894-95. The total land rovenue for that year is stated to be Rs. 95,57,323. (See Rice's Mysore, 1. 780.)
*
1925
P
