Indian Antiquary Vol 45

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 40

36
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[FEDRUARY, 1916
further put to the necessity of increasing his finances by various means ; for the numerous foreign wars of the day, the expensive character of court life and other circumstances necessitated a larger income to the State. Too orthodox and tactful, however, to incur the odium of popular displeasure by an open breach with the old customary proportion of one sixth, Harihara resorted to indirect and ingenious means for gaining the end he had in view. He had, in the language of Wilks,"recourse to the law of the Sasters,To which authorised him, by no very forced construction, to attack the husbandman by a variety of Vexatious taxes, which should compel him to seek relief by desiring to compound for their abolition by a voluntary increase of the landed assessment."71 He thus introduced, says Wilks, a house-tax, a tax on straw, on the defective coins paid to the State, on transport of grain, on ploughs and ploughsharos, on bullocks and sheep, on the alienation of grain, on planki2 doors (c. f. the Western window tax), etc. The result of all these was that, ils Wilks says,73 there was an increase of 20 per cent in the land tax. “From 1336 until 1618, when the hereditary governors of the province (Mysore) began to aim at independence, this rate continued unaltered, but soon after this latter period an additional assessment of fifty per cent was levied on the whole revenue." It is difficult, owing to the paucity of materials, to say how far the Nâik rulers of Maduras followed the imperial system, and how much they collected from the people; but one of the Jesuit missionaries, Father Vico, writing in 1611, says that they levied " contributions which comprised at least the half of the produce of the lands." At least this was the case in the palayams, and the same thing must have taken place in the territory ruled directly by the Governors. A number of Tamil inscriptions at Dêvikapuram's and elsewhere in North Arcot, discovered in 1913, give a long list of the obligations and taxes which a lessee or landlord of those days was subject to; and these, we can hardly doubt, prevailed in Madura. In return for the right (ulavu-kani or kâ ni-yakshi) of growing any crops, wet or dry, including plantain, sugar-cane, turmeric, ginger, areca and cocoanut, he was bound, we are informed, to pay "the taxes in gold and in grain, such as vasalkadamai, pêr-kadamai, tarikkadamai, sekkóttu, eruttu-sammádam, malarikkum, talayârikkam, aíuvakkadamai, pattadainulayam, idatturai, vettivari, palavari, and puduvari (that may be enforced by the palace), nallerudu (good bull), narpasu (good cow), nallerumai (good buffalo), narkida (good ewe), Kinigai, virimuttu, edakkattayam, viruttupadu, udugarai, and mugamparvai. To this list the other cognate inscriptions add palatali, kanikkai, sandai, ériminvilai, malai-amañji, madil amañji, eduttalavu, viruttumadu, šáttukkadamai, and virarai." It should be acknowledged that the exact meaning of many of these is not known. Some of them are plainly non-agricultural in character, and have yet been included among the burdens of cultivation.
(To be continued.)
70 Wilks I, p. 95 and 127.
71 Ibid, p. 127. T2 It is curious that Wilke mentions about a dozen taxes of non-agricultural character in this list and yet maintains that agriculturists were compelled to compound them for a higher tax. The fact is Wilks here is very confused and inconsistent. See Ibid, pp. 127-8.
73 The result was "he received one ghetsi pagoda for two kauties and a half of land, the same sum only having formerly been paid for three kauties." p. 95. Bellary Gazr. . 50.
14 “Under the Nayakans the same proportion was apparently held in theory to be the revenue duo to the State." (Trichi. Gazt. p. 210). i. e., 60 % of th> gross produce. See also Madu. Manual, 149-50; Caldwell's Tinnevelly; eto. “The established practice throughout this part of the peninsula," says Caldwell, "has for ages been to allow the farmer one-half of the produce of his crop for the maintenance of his family and the re-cultivation of the land, while the other is appropriated to the circar."
75 See Madras Ep. Rep. 1913, p. 122. For the tax on sheep, Cows, and buffaloes in the time of the Hoysala:, Ibid, p. 129.