Chapter 7 - The Business of Keeping up Accounts in the Office of Accountants

[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]

The superintendent of accounts shall have the accountants’ office constructed with its door facing either the north or the east, with seats (for clerks) kept apart and with shelves of account books well arranged.

Therein the number of several departments; the description of the work carried on and of the results realised in several manufactories (karmānta); the amount of profit, loss, expenditure, delayed earnings, the amount of vyāji (premia in kind or cash) realised, the status of government agency employed, the amount of wages paid, the number of free labourers engaged (viṣṭi) pertaining to the investment of capital on any work; likewise in the case of gems and commodities of superior or inferior value, the rate of their price, the rate of their barter, the counterweights (pratimāna) used in weighing them, their number, their weight, and their cubical measure; the history of customs, professions, and transactions of countries, villages, families, and corporations; the gains in the form of gifts to the king’s courtiers, their title to possess and enjoy lands, remission of taxes allowed to them, and payment of provisions and salaries to them; the gains to the wives and sons of the king in gems, lands, prerogatives, and provisions made to remedy evil portents; the treaties with, issues of ultimatum to, and payments of tribute from or to, friendly or inimical kings—all these shall be regularly entered in prescribed registers.

From these books the superintendent shall furnish the accounts as to the forms of work in hand, of works accomplished, of part of works in hand, of receipts, of expenditure, of net balance, and of tasks to be undertaken in each of the several departments.

To supervise works of high, middling and low description, superintendents with corresponding qualifications shall be employed.

The king will have to suffer in the end if he curtails the fixed amount of expenditure on profitable works.

(When a man engaged by government for any work absents himself), his sureties who conjointly received (wages?) from the government, or his sons, brothers, wives, daughters or servants living upon his work shall bear the loss caused to the government.

Three hundred and fifty-four days and nights is a working year. Such a work shall be paid for more or less in proportion to its quantity at the end of the month Āṣāḍha (about the middle of july). (The work during) the intercalary month shall be (separately) calculated.

A government officer, not caring to know the information gathered by espionage and neglecting to supervise the despatch of work in his own department as regulated, may occasion loss of revenue to the government owing to his ignorance, or owing to his idleness when he is too weak to endure the trouble of activity, or due to inadvertence in perceiving sound and other objects of sense, or by being timid when he is afraid of clamour, unrighteousness, and untoward results, or owing to selfish desire when he is favourably disposed towards those who are desirous to achieve their own selfish ends, or by cruelty due to anger, or by lack of dignity when he is surrounded by a host of learned and needy sycophants, or by making use of false balance, false measures, and false calculation owing to greediness.

The school of Manu hold that a fine equal to the loss of revenue and multiplied by the serial number of the circumstances of the guilt just narrated in order shall be imposed upon him.

The school of Parāśara hold that the fine in all the cases shall be eight times the amount lost.

The school of Bṛhaspathi [Bṛhaspati?] say that it shall be ten times the amount.

The school of Uśanas say that it shall be twenty times the amount.

But Kauṭilya says that it shall be proportional to the guilt.

Accounts shall be submitted at the close of the month of Āṣāḍha.^[1]

When they (the accountants of different districts) present themselves with sealed books, commodities and net revenue, they shall all be kept apart in one place so that they cannot carry on conversation with each other. Having heard from them the totals of receipts, expenditure, and net revenue, the net amount shall be received.

By how much the superintendent of a department augments the net total of its revenue, either by increasing any one of the items of its receipts or by decreasing any one of the items of expenditure, he shall be rewarded eight times that amount. But when it is reversed (i.e. when the net total is decreased), the award shall also be reversed (i.e. he shall be made to pay eight times the decrease).

Those accountants who do not present themselves in time, or do not produce their account books along with the net revenue, shall be fined ten times the amount due from them.

When a superintendent of accounts (kāraṇika) does not at once proceed to receive and check the accounts when the clerks (kārmika) are ready, he shall be punished with the first amercement. In the. reverse case (i.e. when the clerks are not ready), the clerks shall be punished with double the first amercement.

All the ministers (mahāmātras) shall together narrate the whole of the actual accounts pertaining to each department.

Whoever of these (ministers or clerks?) is of undivided counsel, or keeps himself aloof, or utters falsehood, shall be punished with the highest amercement.

When an accountant has not prepared the table of daily accounts (akṛtāhorūpahara), he may be given a month more (for its preparation). After the lapse of one month he shall be fined at the rate^[2] of 200 paṇas for each month (during which he delays the accounts).

If an accountant has to write only a small portion of the accounts pertaining to net revenue, he may be allowed five nights to prepare it.

Then the table of daily accounts submitted by him along with the net revenue shall be checked with reference to the regulated forms of righteous transactions and precedents, and by applying such arithmetical processes as addition, subtraction, inference, and by espionage. It shall also be verified with reference to (such divisions of) time as days, five nights, pakṣās, months, four-months, and the year.

The receipt shall, on the Vyuṣṭa, the new year’s day, be verified with reference to the place and time pertaining to them, the form of their collection (i,e. capital, share), the amount of the present and past produce, the person who has paid it, the person who caused its payment, the officer who fixed the amount payable, and the officer who received it. The expenditure shall, on the Vyuṣṭa, or new year’s day, be verified with reference to the cause of the profit from any source, in the place and time pertaining to each item, the amount payable, the amount paid, the person who ordered the collection, the person who remitted the same, the person who delivered it, and the person who finally received it.

Likewise the net revenue shall on the Vyuṣṭa day be verified with reference to the place, time, and source pertaining to it, its standard of fineness and quantity, and the persons who are employed to guard the deposits and magazines (of grains, etc.).

When an officer (kāraṇika) does not facilitate, or prevents the execution of the king’s order, or renders the receipts and expenditure otherwise than prescribed, he shall be punished with the first amercement.

Any clerk who violates or deviates from the prescribed form of writing accounts, enters what is unknown to him, or makes double or treble entries (punarukta) shall be fined 12 paṇas.

He who scrapes off the net total shall be doubly punished.

He who eats it up shall be fined eight times.

He who causes loss of revenue shall not only pay a fine equal to five times the amount lost (pañcabandha), but also make good the loss. In case of uttering a lie, the punishment levied for theft shall be imposed. (When an entry lost or omitted) is made later or is made to appear as forgotten, but added later on recollection, the punishment shall be double the above.

The king shall forgive an offence when it is trifling, have satisfaction even when the revenue is scanty, and honour with rewards (pragraha) such of his superintendents as are of immense benefit to him.^[3]

[Thus ends Chapter VII, “The Business of Keeping up the Accounts in the Office of Accountants,” in Book II, “The Duties of Government Superintendents” of the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya. End of twenty-eighth chapter from the beginning.]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

I.e. the end of the year. On Vyuṣṭa, the new year’s day, the first day of Śrāvaṇa, the examination of accounts begins. See Chap. VI, on Division of Time.

[2]:

“Māsadviśatottara” may mean “At the rate of 200 paṇas for the second month, and 400 for the third month, and so on.”

[3]:

In śloka-metre.