Chapter 2 - Replenishment of the Treasury

[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]

The king who finds himself in a great financial trouble and needs money, may collect (revenue by demand). In such parts of his country as depend solely upon rain for water and are rich in grain, he may demand of his subjects one-third or one-fourth of their grain, according to their capacity. He shall never demand of such of his subjects as live in tracts of middle or low quality; nor of people who are of great help in the construction of fortifications, gardens, buildings, roads for traffic, colonisation of waste lands, exploitation of mines, and formation of forest preserves for timber and elephants; nor of people who live on the border of his kingdom or who have not enough subsistence. He shall, on the other hand, supply with grain and cattle those who colonise waste lands. He may purchase for gold one-fourth of what remains, after deducting as much of the grain as is required for seeds and subsistence of his subjects. He shall avoid the property of forest tribes, as well as of Brāhmans learned in the Vedas (śrotriya). He may purchase this, too, offering favourable price (to the owners). Failing these measures, the servants of the collector-general may prevail upon the peasantry to raise summer crops. Saying that double the amount of fines wall be levied from those who are guilty (among peasants), they (the king’s employees) shall sow seeds in sowing seasons. When crops are ripe, they may beg a portion of vegetable and other ripe produce, except what is gleaned in the form of vegetables and grains. They shall avoid the grains scattered in harvest fields, so that they may be utilised in making offerings to gods and ancestors on occasions of worship, in feeding cows, or for the subsistence of mendicants and village employees (grāmabhṛtaka).

Whoever conceals his own grain shall pay a fine of eight times the amount in each kind; and whoever steals the crops of another person shall pay a fine of fifty times the amount, provided the robber belongs to the same community (svavarga); but if he is a foreigner, he shall be put to death.

They (the king’s employees) may demand of cultivators one-fourth of their grain, and one-sixth of forest produce (vanya) and such commodities as cotton, wax, fabrics, barks of trees, hemp, wool, silk, medicines, sandal, flowers, fruits, vegetables, firewood, bamboos, flesh, and dried flesh. They may also take one-half of all ivory and skins of animals, and punish with the first amercement those who trade in any article without obtaining a license from the king. So much for demands on cultivators.

Merchants dealing in gold, silver, diamonds, precious stones, pearls, coral, horses, and elephants shall pay 50 karas.^[1] Those that trade in cotton threads, clothes, copper, brass, bronze, sandal, medicines, and liquor shall pay 40 karas. Those that trade in grains, liquids, metals (loha), and deal with carts shall pay 30 karas. Those that carry on their trade in glass (kāca), and also artisans of fine workmanship shall pay 20 karas. Articles of inferior workmanship, as well as those who keep prostitutes, shall pay 10 karas. Those that trade in firewood, bamboos, stones, earthen pots, cooked rice, and vegetables shall pay 5 karas. Dramatists and prostitutes shall pay half of their wages. The entire property of goldsmiths shall be taken possession of; and no offence of theirs shall be forgiven; for they carry on their fraudulent trade while pretending at the same time to be honest and innocent. So much about demands on merchants.

Persons rearing cocks and pigs shall surrender to the government half of their stock of animals. Those that rear inferior animals shall give one-sixth. Those that keep cows, buffaloes, mules, asses, and camels shall give one-tenth (of their live stock). Those who maintain prostitutes (bandhakipoṣaka), shall, with the help of women noted for their beauty and youth in the service of the king, collect revenue. So much about demands on herdsmen.

Such demands shall be made only once and never twice. When such demands are not made, the collector-general shall seek subscriptions^[2] from citizens and country people alike under false pretences of carrying this or that kind of business. Persons taken in concert shall publicly pay handsome donations, and with this example the king may demand of others among his subjects. Spies posing as citizens shall revile those who pay less. Wealthy persons may be requested to give as much of their gold as they can. Those who, of their own accord or with the intention of doing good, offer their wealth to the king, shall be honoured with a rank in the court, an umbrella, or a turban or some ornaments in return for their gold.

Spies under the guise of sorcerers, shall, under the pretence of ensuring safety, carry away the money, not only of the society of heretics and of temples, but also of a dead man and of a man whose house is burnt, provided that is not enjoyable by Brāhmans.

The superintendent of religious institutions may collect in one place the various kinds of property of the gods of fortified cities and country parts, and carry away the property (to the king’s treasury).

Or having on some night set up a god or an altar, or having opened a sacred place of ascetics, or having pointed out an evil omen, the king may collect subsistence under the pretence of holding processions and congregations (to avert calamities).

Or else he shall proclaim the arrival of gods, by pointing out to the people any of the sacred trees in the king’s garden which has produced untimely flowers and fruits.

Or by causing a false panic owing to the arrival of an evil spirit on a tree in the city, wherein a man is hidden making all sorts of devilish noises, the king’s spies, under the guise of ascetics, may collect money (with a view to propitiate the evil spirit and send it back).

Or spies may call upon spectators to see a serpent with numberless heads in a well connected, with a subterranean passage, and collect fees from them for the sight. Or they may place in a bore-hole made in the body of an image of a serpent, or in a hole in the corner of a temple, or in the hollow of an ant-hill, a cobra, which is, by diet, rendered unconscious, and call upon credulous spectators to see it (on payment of a certain amount of fee). As to persons who are not by nature credulous, spies may sprinkle over, or give a drink of, such sacred water as is mixed with anaesthetic ingredients, and attribute their insensibility to the curse of gods. Or by causing an outcaste person (abhityaktā) to be bitten by a cobra, spies may collect revenue under the pretext of undertaking remedial measures against ominous phenomena.

Or one of the king’s spies, in the garb of a merchant, may become a partner of a rich merchant and carry on trade in concert with him. As soon as a considerable amount of money has been gathered as sale proceeds, deposits and loans, he may cause himself to be robbed of the amount.

This will explain what the examiner of coins and the state goldsmith may also do.

Or else a spy, in the garb of a rich merchant, or a real rich merchant famous for his vast commerce, may borrow or take on pledge vast quantities of gold, silver, and other commodities, or borrow from corporations bar gold, or coined gold for various kinds of merchandise to be procured from abroad. After having done this he may allow himself to be robbed of it the same night.

Prostitute spies under the garb of chaste women, may cause themselves to be enamoured of persons who are seditious. No sooner are the seditious persons seen within the abode of the female spies than they shall be seized and their property confiscated to the government. Or whenever a quarrel arises between any two seditious parties of the same family, poisoners, previously engaged for the purpose, may administer poison to one party; and the other party may be accused of the offence and deprived of their property.

An outcaste, under the guise of a high-born man, may claim from a seditious person a large amount of money professed to have been placed in the latter’s custody by the claimant, or a large debt outstanding against the seditious person, or a share of parental property. (An outcaste) may pretend to be the slave of a seditious person; and he may represent the wife, daughter, or daughter-in law of the seditious person as a slave-woman or as his own wife; and when the outcaste is lying at the door of the seditious person’s house at night or is living elsewhere, a fiery spy may murder him and declare: “The claimant (of his own property or wife) has been thus killed.” And for this offence others (i.e. the seditious person and his followers) shall be deprived of their property.

Or a spy, under the garb of an ascetic, may offer inducements to a seditious person to acquire more wealth by taking in aid the art of witchcraft, and say: “I am proficient in such witchcraft as brings inexhaustible wealth, or entitles a man to get admission into the king’s palace, or can win the love of any woman, or can put an end to the life of one’s enemy, or can lengthen the duration of one’s life, or can give a son to any one, if desired.” If the seditious person shows his desire to carry on the process of witchcraft, securing wealth, the spy may make rich offerings, consisting of flesh, wine, and scent, to the deity near an altar in a burial ground wherein a dead body of a man or of a child with a little quantity of money has been previously hidden. After the performance of worship is over, the hidden treasure may be dug out and the seditious person may be told that, as the offerings fell short, the treasure is proportionately small; that the richest of offerings should be made to acquire vast amount of treasure, and that he may purchase with the newly-acquired wealth rich offerings. Then he may be caught in the very act of purchasing commodities for offering.

A female spy, under the garb of a bereaved mother, may (in connection with the above case) raise an alarm, crying that her child was murdered (for the purposes of witchcraft).

When a seditious person is engaged in sorcery at night or in a sacrificial performance in a forest, or in sports in a park, fiery spies may murder him and carry away the corpse as that of an outcaste.

Or a spy, under the garb of a servant of a seditious person, may mix counterfeit coins with the wages (he has received from his master), and pave the way for his arrest.

Or a spy, under the garb of a goldsmith, may undertake to do some work in the house of a seditious ‘person, and gather in his employer’s house such instruments as are necessary to manufacture counterfeit coins.

A spy, under the garb of a physician, may declare a healthy person of seditious character to be unhealthy (and administer poison). Or a spy, attending as a servant upon a seditious person, may not only call for an explanation from another fraudulent spy as to how certain articles necessary for the installation of a king, and also the letters of an enemy, came into the possession of his master, but also volunteer an explanation himself.

Measures such as the above shall be taken only against the seditious and the wicked, and never against others.

* Just as fruits are gathered from a garden as often as they become ripe, so revenue shall be collected as often as it becomes ripe. Collection of revenue or of fruits, when unripe, shall never be carried on, lest their source may be injured, causing immense trouble.

[Thus ends Chapter II, “Replenishment of the Treasury,” in Book V, “Conduct of Courtiers” of the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya. End of the ninety-second chapter from the beginning.]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

A kara seems to mean 10 paṇas.

[2]:

Bhikṣeta. beg benevolences.