PANJAB UNIVERSITY

B.A Honors in Social Science

Semester V

Assignment 1 {HIS 502 Economic History

of Early India}

Submitted by: Ajay Kumar

Roll no. : 18041462

Topic: Taxation in Mauryan Period

 Taxation in Mauryan Period

Introduction
Founded by Emperor Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BC, the Mauryan Empire had
stretched across vast portions of North India, centered around the Indo-Gangetic plain.
The Mauryas are often believed to be the largest empire of that the Indian subcontinent
had seen during its time. Reputed for producing some of the most ambitious rulers in
Indian history, the Mauryas were also noted for their remarkable revenue system.

Kautilya names many taxes to be collected from peasants and artisans and traders.
This required a strong and efficient machinery for assessment, collection and storage.
In fact, an elaborate machinery for assessment first appears in the Maurya period. The
list of taxes mentioned in the Arthashastra is impressive, and if these were really
collected very little would be left to the people to live on. We have epigraphic evidence
for the existence of rural store-house, which show that taxes were also collected in kind
and these granaries were meant for helping local people in times of famine, drought,
etc. It seems that the punch-marked silver coins, which carry the symbols of the
peacock, and the hill and crescent, formed the imperial currency of the Mauryas. They
have been discovered in large numbers. Apparently they contributed to the collection of
taxes and payment of officers in cash.
Accordingly, peasants were freed of taxes and crop collections from regional rulers, and
a common taxation system was formulated. The Mauryan army wiped out a large
number of local chieftains and even bandits who went about demanding revenue
returns from the weaker sections. Chandragupta Maurya improvised a common
currency system and created a regiment for collecting revenue from the citizens. Under
Ashoka’s reign, international trade also developed particularly with the Greek and
Hellenic kingdoms. Consequently, the emperor kept aside a significant portion of
revenue for sponsoring roads and waterways.

Type of Taxes
We find that the cultivator paid certain amount of land produce to the king. According to
Diodorus, the peasants paid one-fourth part of the produce and revenue to the king.
According to Strabo, the cultivator received one-fourth part of the produce. In other
words they paid the three-fourth part of the produce to the ruler. Revenues were also
collected from the land under irrigation. According to the Artha[ • stra, water-tax was
collected from the cultivator. It was called udakabh• ga. The rate of water-tax depended
on how the water for irrigation was taken. The occupational groups connected with the
land were also taxed. In the Rummindei Pillar Inscription, at Lumbini village in Nepal,
the birthplace of the Buddha, Ashoka exempted the villagers from taxes and fixed their
grain due at the liberal rate of one-eighth of their produce.

The workers, craftsmen, traders and artisans paid a tribute to and worked for the king.
The ship-builders, sailors and armour-makers paid taxes. We find that if a trader could
not pay this tax, he was to be adjudged to an offending and therefore sentenced to
death. The collection of this type of tax might have been equivalent to that of ‘sales tax’
from a trader. This indicates the state control on the trading activities of the period.
Megathenes informs us that the husbandmen and hunters paid tax to the king. This tax
might have been collected under the heads vraja and vana as mentioned in the 7
Artha[ • stra of Kaum ilya. The text rules that the trade routes were to be assessed with
taxes such as [ ulka, vartan+and toll duties. However, the Artha[ • stra entrusts the
responsibilities of the supervision and organization of the taxation and resources of the
state to the two highranking officers designated as the Sam• hart• and the Sannidh• t• .
The superintending officer Sam• hart• was the Chief Collector of taxes for the king and
the superintending officer Sannidh• t• was the Chief Treasurer for the king. Kautilya
says that the Sam• hart• was to collect taxes from seven such sources such as fort
(durga), province (r• cm ra), forest (vana), mine (khani), irrigation works (setu), herd
(vraja) and trade routes (vaGikpatha).

The ultimate ownership of the land in the village, at the primary level and throughout the
empire, depended upon its nature and quality. The state itself owned and controlled, as
crown lands, extensive areas of terrain. Some of these were highly fertile and
productive, but a great majority were fallow and wastelands. Fertile crown lands were
leased to landlords on the payment of both rent and taxable produce, but only for the
duration of their lifetime. Some of these landlords, described in Buddhist sources as
gahapati or gramabhojakas, were both rich and powerful in their own right. They would
then sub-lease the land to sharecroppers and tenants against paid rent. As regards the
wastelands, the state at first organised the large-scale clearing of desolate areas and
then usually settled shudra cultivators on those newly reclaimed lands. They would be
initially exempt from tax, but once the land began to be cleared the tax was imposed. In
whatever form the ownership of land existed, a range of rural taxes and dues made the
Mauryan state a great beneficiary of agricultural production. Taxes included those levied
on the area of land cultivated, or on the value of the yield. The assessment was
regionally based, and it could range from one-sixth to a quarter of the produce of the
land. The arable quality of the land was normally taken into consideration in any
assessment. A tax, known as pindakara, could also be gathered as a collective sum
from an entire village. Shepherds and livestock breeders were taxed depending on the
number and produce of the animals. In addition there was a labour tax, which could be
provision of labour in lieu of a tax. Sometimes, craftsmen had to provide a stipulated
amount of free time to the state. Then there was a charge for the supply of irrigation
water by the state to private owners, by means of reservoirs, tanks, canals and dams.
Ancient Indian texts, including the Arthashastra, place the king’s share of the produce
(known as bhaga) at 1/6th. Kautilya also mentions other taxes such as kara, bali, and
udaka-bhaga (‘water rate’, 1/5th–1/3rd of the produce, for the use of irrigation works).
The actual rate and realization of land taxes must have varied over the Maurya empire.
The Arthashastra refers to additional levies that the state could impose when the
treasury got depleted. These include a tax on farmers, ranging from 1/4th to 1/3rd of
their produce (depending on the quality of their land), an additional levy on traders, and
taxes on the income of actors, singers, and prostitutes. Urban taxes included shulka—
duties on imported and exported goods and excise duty on local manufactures. Taxes
were realized in cash and kind. In a strikingly pragmatic recommendation, Kautilya
suggests that dues realized in the form of grain should be kept as buffer stock to be
used in time of food shortage.

Emergency Taxation
The Artha[ • stra of Kaumilya contains the provisions of collecting resources in different
ways during the financial crisis of the state. Therefore emphasis was given on the
collection of taxes on the emergency basis in order to avoid financial crisis of the state.
These emergency taxes are called PraGaya in the Kaum il+ya Artha[ • stra. In this situation
the cultivator could be forced to produce more crops. The king had the right to increase
the tax-rate more than the normal tax-rate in the case of collecting taxes from the
peasants, artisans and merchants and herdsmen. Even the prostitutes were also
additionally taxed and in this regard recommendations were also made.

Exemptions
Diodorus states that the artisans (technitai) were exempt from taxes and maintained by
the state. Kautilya emphasizes the importance of protecting agriculture and
agriculturists. Arthashastra states that land laid waste by the enemy or foresters or
afflicted with disease or famine, should be exempted from taxes. It also advocates tax-
free and hereditary grants of land to Brahmanas and priests such as the ritvig, acharya,
and purohita. Grants of land to adhyakshas, accountants, gopas, sthanikas,
elephanttrainers, physicians, horse trainers, and couriers are also recommended; such
land could not be sold or mortgaged by the beneficiaries. There are no references to
land grants in Megasthenes’ account, although it does seem to suggest (at least
according to Strabo) that Brahmanas were free from taxes. If this was so, it would
presumably also apply to land taxes.

Expenditure of Revenue
The large-scale collection of taxes leads us to ask: Where did the revenue go? Most of
it must have been spent on maintaining the royal family and replenishing its treasury,
the military establishment and administrative services. The Mauryans encouraged a
mixed world of state enterprise and private capitalism that was highly regulated; and
their desire to control the ‘commanding heights of the economy’ meant incurring great
expense in the staffing of a bloated civil service. What is significantly missing, however,
is the notion of public finances being systematically expended on supporting public
services, such as health, education, social security or pensions. The notion of the state
undertaking such responsibilities are, however, a relatively recent one, arising out of a
more varied and enlightened understanding of a government’s functions.

Conclusion
The Maurya period constitutes a landmark in the system of taxation in ancient India.
Through the disciplined central authority of the Mauryan Empire, farmers were freed of
regional kings’ tax and crop collection burdens. Instead, they paid through a nationally
administered system of taxation. The system operated under the principles of
the Arthashastra. During his rule, Ashoka also made his laws clear in central public
spaces on rock and pillar edicts, stone slabs that alerted citizens to the rules that
governed them. The Mauryan Empire was strict in revenue collection. The Mauryan
government would have neither understood nor accepted the public finance implications
of the humanistic duties of a government. The large-scale economy of the empire also
concealed an underlying stress of raising enormous revenues through a near penal
form of taxation.

References
1. India’s Ancient Past by R.S Sharma
2. India: The Ancient Past; A History of Ancient Subcontinent from C.
7000 BC to AD 1200 by Burjor Avari
3. A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India from Stone Age to 12th
Century by Upinder Singh