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How Did Mauryan Rulers Take Up The Role of Intermediary? Answer

The Mauryan rulers acted as intermediaries between the peasants and the state by establishing guarded frontiers around villages to collect taxes and control peasant movement. The state also employed spies disguised as philosophers to closely monitor officials for corruption. This extensive control and centralized administration allowed the Mauryan state to directly collect taxes from peasants with no intermediaries and undertake large-scale commodity production and industry. New agricultural settlements were also established by providing initial concessions to attract settlers and make land cultivable.

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Vithika Kundra
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51 views

How Did Mauryan Rulers Take Up The Role of Intermediary? Answer

The Mauryan rulers acted as intermediaries between the peasants and the state by establishing guarded frontiers around villages to collect taxes and control peasant movement. The state also employed spies disguised as philosophers to closely monitor officials for corruption. This extensive control and centralized administration allowed the Mauryan state to directly collect taxes from peasants with no intermediaries and undertake large-scale commodity production and industry. New agricultural settlements were also established by providing initial concessions to attract settlers and make land cultivable.

Uploaded by

Vithika Kundra
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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1. How did Mauryan Rulers take up the role of intermediary?

Answer:
During the Mauryan Empire no peasant could even become a monk without making prior
provision for his dependents. The provisions were enforced by establishing guarded frontiers for
each of the isolated and disjointed agricultural villages called Janapadas. These internal frontiers
served the purpose of toll and tax collection and exercising control over the movements of
peasants. The state also had a full-fledged network of spies to observe and maintain up-to-date
records of every minister and state official to check on their loyalty and honesty. Spies disguised
as philosopher-hermits and placed around the residence of every important person closely
watched and reported any sudden acquisition of wealth or suspicious behavior on part of any
important official. Such was the steel-framed web of the Mauryan state which enabled
preservation of the highly centralized character of the empire.

But the real factor that enabled such centralized functioning was the limited, but widely scattered
Janapadas on which taxes had to be levied. But the state got its revenue directly from the
peasants with no intermediary in between. The smallness of the fiscal jurisdiction led to the
consistently followed policy of not giving land grants and the absence of a hereditary revenue
collecting hierarchy of Jagirdars and Subahdars, a character of later times.

The Mauryan State also undertook commodity production on a large scale. Apart from farmlands
it also owned warehouses, shipyards and mines. In short, the Mauryan economy functioned not
only without intermediary revenue collectors but also largely without individual owners of
means of production in the heavy and basic industries of those days. The state was by far the
biggest owner of the means of production and organizer of the normal economic functioning.
The reason for this control of agriculture, industry, trade and the levy of all varieties of taxes on
the population was perhaps that the state was in dire need of a great amount of surplus for
military considerations. Before the Mauryas, no other state in ancient India maintained such a
huge standing army as did the Mauryas. But by their policy, the Mauryas also introduced
important changes in the face of the rural economy.

New settlements were established and decaying ones were rehabilitated by drafting surplus
settlers from the overpopulated area of the Ganges valley. People were encouraged to move out
of the Ganges valley and settle in the new agricultural settlements. Land was leased out to them.
In order to make the virgin land cultivable, the state allowed non remission of taxes for a few
initial years and other concessions by way of supplies of cattle, seeds and agricultural
instruments which they were required to repay later.

2. Write a note on Kautilya’s land system?


Answer:
le type of land ownership. In some parts of the empire, the gana sangha system with communal
ownership of land continued. State-owned lands were called sita lands.
There were also private owners of land who were required to pay taxes to the king. A section of
the Arthashastra refers to the sale of land. This category of land was auctioned. Village pastures
were apparently held by the entire community.

The officer responsible for the assessment of land revenue was the samaharta, while the
sannidhata was the chief custodian of the state treasury. As part of the revenue collected was in
kind, the sannidhata was also responsible for providing storage facilities.

Bhaga or land tax was the main item of revenue and one-fourth to one-sixth of the produce was
paid as tax by the peasants. Share-cropping was another way by which the state collected
agricultural tax.

The share-croppers were provided with seeds, oxen etc. and arable land for cultivation and
probably gave half the produce to the state.

There were also a large number of customary dues to be paid.Bali, the traditional levy from
Vedic times, continued under the Mauryas. Kautilya mentions another tax called pranaya,
literally meaning gift of affection. This was supposed to be levied in times of emergency and
amounted to one-third or one- fourth of the produce according to the nature of the soil. Further,
in times of emergency, cultivators could be forced to raise two crops.

Land revenue was of two kinds, rent for the use of land and assessment on the produce. The
assessment varied from region to region and, according to the fertility of the land, ranged from
one-sixth to a quarter of the produce.

Assessment was on the basis of individual pieces of land and not for the village as a whole. The
shepherds and livestock breeders were taxed according to the number of the animals and their
produce of milk, etc. Kautilya classifies some villages as revenue-free as they paid revenue in the
form of military service, grain, cattle, forest produce, or labour.

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