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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[NOVEMBER, 1911.
when it is remembered that in the 16th and 17th centuries much of the country now under cultivation was covered with forest and that the parchasing power of the precious metals was several times higher than it is at present, and that the present land revenue includes cesses, we might form an idea of the large share of the gross produce which the Nayaks took as revenue.c3 Perhaps, a possible approximation of the intensity of Nayak land assessment may be reached in this way. Father Martin, writing in 1713, says that 8 marakáls of rice could in ordinary seasons be bougift for one fanam and would keep a man in food for more than fifteen days. Mr. Nelson, the Editor of the Madura District Manual, takes a fanam as equal to 2 d. and a marakál to be of twelve pounds weight. From these data, he deduces that the purchasing power of the rupee, at the commencement of the 18th century, would have been more than forty times what it is now.64 Mr. Srinivasa Raghavaiyengar, author of the Memorandum on the Progress of the Mudras Presidency during the last Furty Years of British Administration, estimates it even more moderately. If the quantity of rice required, says he, by a person be 3 lb. per diem, that required for fifteen days would be 45 lbs. Even if this reduced quantity be worth 2 d., the price would have been 480 lbs. per rapee or 1/12 of the price at the present time : in other words, the purchasing value of the rupee would have been in the beginning of the 18th century twelve times what it is now. If the purchasing power of the rupee was even half as much as this in the beginning of the 17th century, when Father Vico wrote, then Nayak land revenue would amount to six times 120 lakhs of rupees, or, making allowance for the difference in area, Nayak assessment was over nine times the actual British taxation of the present day, i. e., over 50 per cent. of the gross produce. This estimate would seem to agree with the other statement of Vico that Nayak fendatories took" at least half of the produce of the lands." Besides the land revenge there were the asnal imposts on every kind of profession and art; land customs ; plough tax; ferry-boat tax; free labour service, etc.65
IV.-Nayaks of Coimbatore. The Nayak Government of Coimbatore seems to have been even worse. A Jesuit missionary letter of the first half of the 17th century describes its rulers as "considering themselves rather owners of the people, and their kingdom as a vast farm to be operated upon. While they are of unbounded energy and acateness in extorting from their subjects the utmost possible revenue, they are wholly blind, careless, and weak in the matters of order, justice, and repression of crime." Another letter speaks of it as a "mere tyranny and a mass of confusion and disorder."07
Nor was the administration of Tanjore under the Maratha rulers, who beld it for about a century and a quarter (1674-1799),any way better. The deplorable condition of the ryot in 1683, when Venkäji, the first of the dynasty and brother of the celebrated Sivaji, the founder of the Marathi power in India, was king, is thus alluded to in a letter of the well-known but ill-fated Jesuit Missionary John De Britto, who was an eye-witness of what he wrote. “Tanjore,” he says, " is in the possession of Ekôji (Venkâjt) with the exception of a few provinces which have been seized by the Marava." Here is a short sketch of the administration of this country. Ekôjî appropriates four-fifths of the produce. This is not all. Instead of accepting these four-fifths in kind, he insists that they should be paid in money; and as he takes care to fix the price himself mach beyond that which the proprietor can realise, the result
65 Madura Dt. Manual, Part III, 149-156.
Ibid. 155-56. 60 Malura Dt. Manual, Part III, 153-155. "Coimbatore Manual, 89-90, quoting Mission De Madure, II, 384. *T Ibid. 90, quoting Mission de Madure, II, 6.
Tanjore Manual (Dewan Bahadur T. Youkasami Rao's Edo.), p. 730. & Madura Dt. Manual, Part III, 151, quoting, Mission de M&dure.
