320 
Rajendralala Mitra —Two Copper-plate Inscriptions. 
[No. 4, 
fancies that from the mention of this tax, “ it may possibly be inferrible 
that the impoverishment of the imperial coffers had recently given rise to a 
new species of fiscal exaction but the impoverishment is altogether imagi¬ 
nary ; there is nothing to show that Gfovindachandra’s reign was financially 
a bad one, and needed any extraordinary fiscal measures for relief. On 
the contrary, Govindachandra and his two successors, who exercised supre¬ 
macy for nearly the whole of the twelfth century, and possessed the finest 
and richest portion of India, including the Gangetic doab, a good portion of 
Oudh down to Benares, and an undefinable portion of the tract of country 
to the south of the Ganges and Jumna from Tikkari to Gwalior, were rich 
and prosperous, the most distinguished sovereigns of their times, lavish in 
bestowing entire villages, not unoften two, three, or more at a time, in free 
gift to Brahmans, it is extremely improbable that they laboured under 
pecuniary difficulties. Were the difficulty tobe admitted as a fact, still the 
question would remain, how could the bestowal of the right to raise such a 
tax relieve the tightness of the imperial exchequer ? To make it really 
beneficial, the donor should have reserved the right for himself, and not given 
it away to a subject. 
These four forms of taxation are mentioned in the second plate, and the 
grant appears to be limited to the enjoyment of these, which the tenants 
were to contribute. In the first grant the gift is absolute, including the 
power of administering justice, the punishment being limited by the nature 
of the offence, sadrisaparadha danda. But even here the tenants are not 
altogether lost sight of, nor their rights annulled, for it ordains that the 
share ( bhaga ) for each plough, kutaka , should be ten or a tenth (das’a : bhdiga- 
ku tala-dasa). 
The right of the donee in mortgage is fixed at one-twentieth or five 
per cent., which is somewhat more than the stamp tax of the present day. 
He is authorised also to raise a tax for beggars—a poor rate—which is to be 
equal to a prastha, or four kudavas , which is equal to “ forty-eight double 
handfuls but whether that was required to be contributed by every tenant, 
or for every biggah of land cultivated, I cannot ascertain. The tax is named 
agu-prastha. A similar rate of tax is also fixed for the administration of 
justice akslia-patala-prastdia. For the watch and ward of the village, a similar 
rate is likewise fixed. It is called prdtihdra-prastha or a cJiaukidari tax, and 
in some vllages of Bengal, it is still current, though the measure of corn given 
is different. Royalties are also fixed for mines (dkard), collection of fragrant 
grass, meaning evidently the wild Bend grass or Khaskhas (turushka-danda) ; 
wild tree-cotton (< iiiara ); reeds for mat-making (kata); and trade in 
precious metals and jewels, collectively called hiranga or gold. In the 
translation of the Inscription published in the twenty-seventh volume of 
this Journal (p. 249), the word turushka-danda has been rendered into 
* Ante XXVII, p. 248. 
