nepal - payment on delivery doc from nepal 6

8/9/2019 Nepal - Payment on Delivery Doc From Nepal 6

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Payments on Delivery, or Kaualya's Prayma - (Documents from Nepal. 6)

Author(s): Bernhard KolverSource: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 38, No. 1 (1995), pp. 75-90Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3632752

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PAYMENTS ON DELIVERY, OR KAUTALYA'S PRAYAMA-(Documents from Nepal. 6.)

BYBERNHARD KOLVER

(Leipzig)Introduction

In manuscript sources of Nepalese public accounts from the Mallaperiod, i.e. prior to 1769, one sometimes meets with a seemingly minor, yetthoroughly irritating problem, viz., calculations apparently not conformingto the rules of elementary arithmetics. The present paper will present twocases and identify the nature of the deviation, which turns out to derivefrom a term in the Kautaliya that is not perfectly understood. As is oftenwith fiscal terms and usage, this fact is not without its implications for ourpicture of the methods and mechanisms of the administration of a Hindustate.

The irregularity in calculations is documented at greater length than will,perhaps, be thought necessary to prove the point. This is because calcula-tions in documents from the Malla period are a bit shaky at times, 1) andbefore discussing what at first sight is an anomaly, it is surely advisable toestablish it actually does exist.?1. DOCUMENTI. The first example comes from a manuscript 2) listing thewages paid to various artisans who built a bridge in Panauti,3) a smalltown to the east of the Kathmandu Valley' at the time in question (whichis N.S. 828, i.e. A.D 1708), it belonged to the Kingdom of BhaktapurIn itself, the manuscript is of considerable interest: by means of the driestof figures, it gives us an idea how one solved what was after all no minorfeat of engineering. And since other materials from the Kathmandu collec-

1) The 44 figures of Table I (one of whlch-A15-is incorrect) are balanced by fourothers, listed in Note 7, where some mistake, clerical or arithmetical, would seem to haveoccurred. A margin of errors of around 10% may be thought uncomfortably large in what,after all, are justifications of government expenditure; still, this leaves us with approximately90% which turn out to be correct on the theory here proposed. This ought to be sufficientfor an argument-all the more so since there is the analogous case from another documentdiscussed below, ?32) This is Ms.1-1689, NGMPP Reel No. A 1261/4 from the NATIONALARCHIVES,

Kathmandu, dated N.S.828; other sections of the same ms. are dated N.S.833.3) For a description of contemporary Panauti, see the highly interesting study by VBARRE, P BERGER, L. FEVEILE, G. TOFFIN, Panauti. Une villeau Nepal. Paris 1981. The bridgeis entered on the map, p. 53.

? E.J Brill, Leiden, 1995 JESHO 38,1


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tions contain data about prices of elementary commodities, or luxury goods,or fees for rituals, it will eventually be possible to form a fairly exact ideaof the value the actual sums stood for. 4)Even within the same professional group, artisans did not receive auniform renumeration.5) Variation is considerable: with carpenters where it

ranged from between 4 and 7 dam per day, the distribution being 1%at 7, 81.5% at 6, 12.7% at 5 and 4.7% at 4 dam per diem. Brickmakersfell into two groups, with 85% drawing the 6 which formed the standardfor carpenters and masons, and 15% receiving only two: the latter probablyis the wage for the 'boys' (moca)employed. 6) Apart from cash, the workersreceived their food: the ms. contains exact day-by-day listings of the variouskinds of food and the quantities issued.It is not social history, however, which occupies us at present, but thetechnique of accounts or, to be exact, what at first sight seems a recurringerror in multiplications: the accounts credit labourers with wages which inmost cases are fractionally higher than those which were their due.A selection of facts is assembled in the following table. 7) Its first three col-umns repeat the data of the manuscript: for the sake of brevity, I am dispen-sing with the workers' names and have given current numbers instead. Thefourth column converts payments into the lower of the two currency unitsthen in use, viz., into dam 120 of which become one mohar.The fifth columnin a sense in conjectural: it relates payments to the number of days. Andthis is where the problem lies. When dividing the results of Col. IV by thenumber of days, we find odd and varied fractions instead of an overalluniform quotient: Worker All seems to have obtained 6.045 dam per day,A24, 6.05, B5, an even 6. This does not look likely. Hence I have taken thenearest integer to be the actual daily wage. At the present stage this ofcourse is an arbitrary assumption, and in justification, I can only point tothe results of actual calculations: these added fractions of a dam (a) do notform a constant, and (b) cannot be paid out in the currency then employed;

4) It allows us, e.g., to gauge the approximate value of the sums mentioned in a seconddocument presently to be referred to, vlz., the contributions at King Bhfupatindramalla'sdeath.5) It is not clear whether labourers were enlisted, or whether they worked under someform of corvee.6) The same distinction of 6 damfor adults vs. 2 for boys is found in the blcdhcontributionsmentioned below, ?3.7) The manuscript standardizes records so as to follow a fixed pattern: Name-Numberof days-Total disbursed. As a specimen, these are the three first entries (from fol. Iv, lines2-3): vzsnusimhnu 224 mo 11.25 dam 5 I hdkuhnu 237 mo 11. 75 dam 23 I ma.mjusimhnu 198mo 9.75 dam 27 I

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PAYMENTS ON DELIVERY

Table ISUM ENTERED IN MS.

DAYS mohar dam TOTAL RATE ARITHMETICAL DIFFERENCEin dam PER TOTAL in dam (dam)DIEMI II III IV V VI VII

A. Carpenters (karmi)11.25 511.75 239 75 279.25 278.5 268 88 86.75 187.5 137 137 75 77.5 135 75 107 256.25 107 77.25 197 75 73.5 198.75 208.25 266.75 186.5 188 85.25 155 102.75 83.5 11

2.7521.752.250 751

261413224193440

1355 61433 61197 61137 61046 6968 6968 6828 6913 6853 6937 6913 6700 5865 6760 6847 6889 6937 6439 41070 61016 6828 6798 6968 6645 5610 5338 7431 4356 6254 6223 6272 6114 6139 634 1.8840 2

1 2242 2373 1984 1885 1736 1607 1608 1379 15110 14111 15512 15113 13914 14315 12716 14017 14718 15519 10920 17721 16822 137

23 13224 16025 12826 12127 4828 107

1344142211881128103896096082290684693090669585876284088293043610621008822792960640605336428

3542522222701141383440

1111998886777757-27773886685523

22120100OO

B. Masons (lohamkarmi)1 592 423 374 455 196 237 188 20

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C. Brickmakers(avala)1 99 4.75 28 598 6 594 42 99 4.75 28 598 6 594 43 65 3.25 3 393 6 390 34 91 4.5 10 550 6 546 45 91 4.5 10 550 6 546 46 21 1 7 127 6 126 17 33 1.5 19 199 6 198 18 33 1.5 19 199 6 198 1

there was no coin valued at the twentieth part of a dam, and a bonus of onesixth of a daily wage, paid out every twenty days or so, would not seem aconsiderable inducement. We shall see the added fractions stem from apractice only indirectly connected with the wages obtained by workers. Thelast column but one is the result of multiplying this hypothetical daily wagewith the number of days-i.e. it gives the sums which, if the daily wage hasbeen correctly established, ought to have been paid out. One sees the sumsof Col. IV and Col. VI hardly ever tally exactly: the numerical differenceis spelt out in column VII.DOCUMENT I, N.S. 828: Wages of Selected Artisans, Discrepancies inCalculations. 8)The table shows the sums actually entered into the account (Col. IV) arenearly always slightly higher than the product of wages and days (Col. VI).How to account for this?

?2. There can be no doubt as to the solution of the arithmetical part ofthe puzzle: the full moharseems to be calculated at 121 dam, or in more com-prehensible terms, there is a damadded to every full moharof each sum. Thethree lohamkarmiswith lowest wages (B5, B7, B8) as it were, clinch the mat-ter: with them, the sums calculated tally with the sums paid out, and allthree of them amount to less than a mohar

8) Apart from A 15 of the list, four items which do not tally with.the above conclusionshave been omitted from the above Table. These are three karmrsand one dvala: (1) 195 days,payment 8 mo 18 dam; (2) 148 days, at 7 mo 26 dam; (3) 50 days at 2.5 mo 1 dam; (4)-thedvala-100 days and 5 mo 15 dam. Mistakes in calculation are not rare in the kind of recordunder discussion, and their reason needs often remains conjectural: not all of them are asobvious as the mason B7 who apparently did not obtain the wages for one day, or by a scribalmistake was entered at 18 days rather than 17

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?3 DOCUMENTII. On an earlier occasion, we had noted what at first sightlooks like the inverse case: this was when dealing with the contribution paidto the Bhaktapur Royal Palace in N.S. 842 upon the death of KingBhupatlndramalla that went under the name of bzcdh(the etymologicalequivalent of skt. vtcara-), a kind of condolence levy 9) The document whichrecords them10) is divided by the main settlements that made up thekingdom, and proceeds to list the various chiefs of households one by one,with their contributions entered against the respective names. The sumsinvolved range between a maximum of 6 and a minimum of 2 dam perhousehold which looks very much like one daily wage of the N.S. 828manuscript.

Its calculations-and those of other manuscripts in the same bundle-again showed an irregularity To repeat specimens of the evidence:Table II

SUM OF CONVERSION IN MS. ACTUAL DIFFERENCEMS. ENTRIES mohar dam dam

126 1 7 127 -1170.5 1 51.5 171.5 -1144 1 25 145 -1183 1.5 4 184 -1171 1 52 172 -1

DOCUMENT II, N.S. 842: Conversions of PaymentsThe difference in all cases is one dam, only this time it is subtracted ratherthan added, i.e. the full moharwas reckoned at 119 rather than 120 dam.I)

9) For details and facsimiles of relevant folios, see B. K6lver and Thakur Lal Manandhar,"An assessment from Malla Bhaktapur," Zentralastatzsche tudien 17 Wiesbaden 1984, pp.118ff. The above Table reproduces the data of p. 132.10) NATIONAL ARCHIVES, Kathmandu, Ms. No. 3-58; NGMPP Reel No. A610/3.11) Tills principle of having units of measurement not absolutely fixed, but subject to a

certain degree of vanation which depended upon kinds of objects was in Nepal not confinedto money or merchandise. A cubit normally consists of 24 angulas. In certain Buddhist con-texts, it was to be 25: tatra tdvatpramdnambodhzsattvudnmvena angulipramdnena atam vtmsatyot-taram buddhdndmpaicavtmsatyottaramquoted from Hara Prasad Sastri, A Catalogueof Palm-leafand SelectedPaper Manuscripts, 2. Calcutta 1915, p. 41). The theory was actually applied tothe Svayambhunath stiipa: see my Re-building a Stupa, Bonn, 1992, Chapter 3.1.4.

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?4. There is a very obvious question which now emerges, viz., what couldhave been the reason for this surcharge or diminution, who paid for it, whoobtained it, and why.To summarize the occasions when it arose: the two documents show it

applied in what could be called instances diametrically opposed. In I, it waspaid when government disbursed money; in II, it was added to sums whichpresumably went to the royal family In other words, the charge apparentlycame into effect under two conditions: (a) when money changed hands and(b) when the court was involved in the transaction.?5. The explanation would seem to lie in a term employed by theArthasastra'2) which commentators and translators are at a loss to explain,viz., the praydma- of Kautalya 2.7.2. and 2.19.24. In spite of its mor-phological and etymological transparency (pra-yamis 'to give'), the term israrely attested and not well understood.In the Arthasastra, it is first met with in an enumeration of the variousitems which are to be entered in official records, 2.7.2: atra karmdntdndmdravyaprayogavrddhiksayapraydmavyadjyogasthdna-vetanavzstipramdnamiban-dhapustakastham drayet There, he shall have entered into the record booksof the department . of completed transactions: the extent of goods lent and(their) interest, 13) of increase or decrease, of the prayama-(and) the vydjt,ofthe ?place of utilization (MEYER,uncertain), of wages and the corvee.'Of the two words left untranslated, vydji is tolerably well attested in theArthasastra, which is why the attempt to review its meaning will form thebeginning of the discussion. KANGLE usually renders it by 'surcharge'which no doubt it is, the only question being its nature and function. Forthe time being, we shall keep to his gloss (but see ?5, end).From 2.25.40, we learn it was raised from 'measures and money',mdnahzranyayoh..16.10 tells us how it was calculated: sodasabhdgomdnavydji,vzmsatibhdgastuldmdnadmganzyapanyanamkddasabhdgah he 'surcharge' inmeasures of capacity is the sixteenth part, the measure by scales is the twen-tieth part, 14) with kinds of merchandise to be counted it is the eleventhpart. 15)

12) The Arthasastras quoted romKangle'sedition: TheKautalyaArthasastraed. andtransl.by)R.P Kangle.1. A critical ditionwitha glossary Bombay1969.2: An Englishtranslationwith critical and explanatorynotes. Bombay 1972. (Universltyof BombayStudies n Sanskrit,PrakritandPali. 1-2.). Meyerof course sJ.J. Meyer,DasaltzndischeBuch omWelt-undStaatsleben.asArthafastraesKautaliya. epnnt. Graz 197713) Thus translatedn accordancewith2.8.714) The constructions a bitodd:haplographyortulamndnndm,.e. 'onetwentiethwith(goods)measuredby scales'?15) In theintroductiono Yajniavalkya.254,to bequotedpresently,heMitaksaraitesandexplainsNaradawhodistinguishesetween ix kindsof merchandiseothandedover.

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In his discussion of this concept, MEYER has found harsh words for thestate and its greed, without perhaps making due allowance for the fact thatin the Arthasastra model it is the state which itself undertook to trade inessential commodities; the vyadjwas one of the means how it recovered itscost which is why it is counted among the kinds of income of themagazine, kosthdgdra-,2.15.11.For items to be measured, we have just heard this charge ran to 6.25%This tallies with the figures given in 2.19.29 where a dronahas 200 palas ingovernment measurements (ayamdnam), while in measurements for trade(vydvahdrikam)t has 187.5 palas only. The 5% rate which 2.16.10 hadordained for things weighed is applied to several kinds of goods: to salt(2.12.28 etc.), to panzacoins (2.12.26); it was even levied on fines thatexceeded the sum of 100 panas (3.17 15).There are two instances of the vydjiwhich further clarify the picture asit has emerged so far.

(a) 2.6.22 comes from the long list of sources of state income and dealswith those realized from trade. vikrayepanydndm arghavrddhirupajd, mdnon-mdnavisesovydji, krayasamgharse drghavrddhihty ayah 'In a sale, the growthaccruing 16) in prices of wares, the 'surcharge' according to the peculiar pro-perties of what is measured and weighed, 17) or the growth in prices at com-petition in buying-these are income, (too).' The passage is obviouslymeant to ensure a proper evaluation of government stock which, we aretold, is to include increases due to rising demand and to competition andthe 'surcharge'. It would be the trade margin government realizes at themoment of sale, viz., the percentage deduced when government propertywas turned into a marketed commodity

(b) Finally, there is Kaut. 2.19.43 which runs dvdtrzmsadbhdgasaptavydjisarpisah,catuhsastibhdgasailasya:'The heatedsurcharges a thirty-second part forclarified butter, one sixty-fourth for sesame oil' The idea behind it, thetranslators tell us, is fairly clear: there always will be part of the substancebought which sticks to a measuring device when goods are meted out: andThe first three contain an exact repetition of the list Kautalya 2.16.10: wares which are'counted' (ganttam:ruits of the betel-nut tree etc., kramukaphalddt),thers which are weighed(tulimam, 'such as gold, musk, saffron etc.', kananakastuirfkurikumddi),nd as such aremeasured (meyam, rice etc., idlyddz).

16) upaja.On the strengthof 2.29.8 and 11, Kangle (transl., p. 79, note) thinks the wordgenerally refers to livestock. There is no reason to assume this is the case in the presentinstance: what is meant is the increasein the value of storedgoods which will accrue throughthe passage of time, such as those of grain, which the state obtained by way of taxes afterthe harvest, when prices were low17) i.e. According to the rates explained in 2.16.10, as modified by 2.19 43.

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the surcharge is meant to indemnify the buyer-no matter whether it is thestate or a private individual. (We shall have occasion to revert to this.)But what is a 'heatedsurcharge, aptavyaji?KANGLE(p. 137) takes it to mean'a surcharge for heating', which in a sense re-phrases MEYER'S'Vergiitungsgebiihr bei Erhitztem' (p. 162): they think of the viscosity ofthe objects sold, which of course works out against the buyer's interest;when heated, the viscosity is reduced, and the 'surcharge' can be reducedaccordingly. 18)This I confess I find hard to believe. Is it really conceivable for clarifiedbutter and oil to have been heated at sales? Would not the costs and labourof this process be equal to, or rather outweigh, the loss to the buyer whichwas caused by their resistance to flow? And who would care to send a buyerthrough the crowds of an Indian market with a pot of hot oil in his hands?taptahema-, ?riipa[ka]-, ?tdmra- 'heated (i.e. purified) gold, silver, copper'(PW): i.e. materials which had beenheated, the result rather than the pro-cess. Should we not, on the strength of these analogies, say the passagespeaks of measures made from metal, which of course were 'heated' in thecourse of manufacture? The normal Arthasastra measures of capacity were'made of dry, hard wood' (suskasaraddrumayam,2.19.34)-for fattysubstances, a solution much less satisfactory than metal. 'The surcharge formetal (vessels)', then, seems to be what is meant by taptavydji.Their surfaceis smooth, and thus the 'surcharge'-if it was really meant to compensatethe buyer-could be reduced. On the other hand, in all instances so far dis-cussed it was the state which actually collected the vydji. There seems to beno reason why we should not think clarified butter and oil were treated thesame way

Taking taptavyadj o refer to a metal container would explain anotherdetail. Vessels used for measuring have fixed prices which are specified in2.19.36-39. According to 2.19.37, 'the prices of measures for liquids etc. aretwice as much' (duigunamrasddfnadmmanamulyam).KANGLE(Transl., p. 137)says this was because they necessarily included the 'heap', sikhd(presentlyto be discussed), which of course implies a greater volume. 19)No doubt it

18) One notes for clarified butter, it is exactly half of what was prescribed for the trademeasures of capacity, and the rate of sesame oil is again half of that.19) This view drew support from the supposed meaning of 2.19.35 rasasya tu suraydh

puspaphalayostusdagdrdnam udhayas' a sikhmadnamdvtgunottard rddih 'However, in the case ofliquids, wine, flowers and fruits, husk and charcoal, and lime, the measure of the top-heapis an increase that is double' (Kangle), '... steigt die Mehrung zum Doppelten derHaufungsnorm hmauf' (Meyer). I do not understand this rendering.What is it that holds the series together? Surely not common properties referring to heap-ing: blossoms can be piled up high, liquids, not at all. Hence, it can only be a convention which

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does-but the increase alone scarcely justifies doubling the price: 20) themetal vessels also were more costly to produce.By now, the nature of the vydat will have become tolerably clear:

apparently it was something like a tax on the turnover, first and foremostto be paid when goods were sold by the state. 21) It took the form of a reduc-tion in the bulk of goods actually conveyed (which is why 'trade measures'differ from those of 'government').The rate of the reduction depended on the nature of the commodity.Perhaps compensation for reductions of quantities caused by the methodsof weighing or measuring was one of the factors which went into its making:we cannot say The 10% subtracted with goods sold by pieces, though, andthe surcharge on fines clearly show this compensation, if there was a stagewhen it was a decisive factor, no longer was an essential component at thetime when the Arthasastra was compiled.As to its function, the text, alas, tells us nothing. It would not seembeyond conjecture for all that: the Arthasastra has a marked tendency torecover costs at the places where they arose, and the storage of goods andregulation of markets required quite an elaborate machinery. The earlyhistory of the term is unfortunately not apparent; if it really is to be derivedfrom vi + aj-, it would be a remarkable parallel to the disagzo.?6 In preparation to turning to the prayama-, it will be useful to considera very interesting remark by the commentary Cj. In explaining the contextis fixed in the passage.Withliquids,we are on "firmground" it is obviouslyonly anantahsikhdeasure hat willdo:sikhdmdnam,hen,willmean ust that, 'a measurewith(i.e.including) he heap' The last twowordsI taketo be the next injunction,regulatingheincrease n price o bedemandedwhensuchgoodsarebeingsold,vrddhi-n thesenseof thearghavrddhi-f 2.6.22etc. Thiswouldallowus to translate With iquids,however, .., (oneis to use)a measure including)heheap:the increase in price) s twicebeyond theusualrate)'-i.e. three imesas much?Foralcoholic everages, eavyexcisedutiesarereasonable;so is a heavysurchargeorperishable oods,suchas fruitand flowersare.20) Chargesfor authorizedvesselsdo not increasein the same proportionas theirvolumes: he progression y volume s 1 4 16 64, that of correspondingrices,1 612 20.-The biggerantahsikhaeasures f 2.19.34apparentlywere soldat thesame rateas the smallerones which had 'the lastquarteron top' 2.19.36.21) This is quiteclose to Breloer'sGebiihr', .e. fee (Cf. B. Breloer,StaatsverwaltungmaltenIndien1. FinanzverwaltungndWirtschaftsfiihrungeipzig 1934, pp. 228, 396). The factsare as it were summed up in 2.15.11 where the vyadjs, inter alia, defined astulamdnantaram-anxpression oteasily ranslated ecauseof theambiguity f "antara-necouldsay 'what s different rom/beyondthequantitymetedout by) scalesandmeasures'or 'what s included n...' Thetranslations escribe heprocessunderdifferent spects:dif-ferentfrom' takesthe weightsand measuresas absolutes; included'takes the levy as anecessarypartof the transaction.The factualmeaning,though, s thesame in eithercase:it is to be imposedwhengoodsarehandedover to the buyer.In substance, hen,the ruleis identical with that of 2.6.22: mdnonmdnavsesoyadt: ee above, p. 81.

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of 2.16.10, he says sodasaprasthanvikrnnanah kamznvartayet, krfndnahsap-tadasakamadhikamgrhntydt the vendor of 16 prasthas(i.e. when selling: theagent is the state) should hold one back; when buying, he should receive aseventeenth (prastha) in addition (to the sixteen).' KANGLE hinks this'unlikely' (Transl., p. 128): I do not see why It brings the share of the stateup to twice the previous sum: one prasthaadded when buying from the pro-ducer, another one subtracted when selling to the consumer: a total of12.5%. This seems a reasonable and by no means an outrageous sum inview of normal trade margins 22) and the multitudinous devices and dutieswhich fell to the Supervisor of Markets in regulating trade and monitoringtransactions.

According to this reading, the state obtained (of trade, vydvahdrika-, oodsmeasured by capacity) one sixteenth. an example being the trade drona-of187.5 palas just quoted. This was the vyadj,collected from the buyer. Andthere was a second sixteenth which came from the producer I submit thisis what is meant by the term praydma-. For this, I have two reasons. Oneis the sequence of words in the enumeration which opens this section: itcouples praydma- and vyaji just as vrddhz-had been coupled with ksaya-.Second and obviously more important, there is pra-yam- itself. Its generalmeaning is, of course, 'to give', and it occurs in a number of specializedcontexts: there is the king giving (i.e. granting) lands (2.1.7ff.), the physi-cian giving (i.e. offering) medicine to the king (1 1.10), etc. The usageclosest to the praydma-under discussion is illustrated by instances like AS2.8.18: among the cases of misappropriation of funds (apahdra-),there is theofficial who 'does not give (i.e. hand over, deliver) an expenditure whichhas been entered (into official records), nibaddhamvyayam na prayacchati'This has a close parallel in Yajiiavalkya 2.254:

grhitamulyam ah panyam kreturnaivaprayacchattIsodayamtasya ddpyo 'sau digldbhamvd digdgate I'Whoever does not give (= deliver to) the buyer goods for which (he) hastaken the price, should be forced to give (them) to him, together withinterest; or, when someone (i.e. a buyer) has come from a (foreign) country,(he should be forced to give him) the gains (the buyer could have obtained)in the (foreign) country 23)

22) To be sure, at 4.2.28, the Arthasastra allows the tradesman a profit of 5% only onindigenous goods, and 10% on goods imported: but this is to be over and above the 'permit-ted price of purchase', anujidtakraydduparz. Besides, this profit went by the term djiva-, i.e.it was understood as the trader's 'support', his 'subsistence', which is of course of a differentorder from the claims of the state.23) Visnusmrti 5,127 (ed. Jolly p. 24), practically identical with the first three pddas ofYajiiavalkya's verse, offers a slight difference in wording which has interesting implications:

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The prayama-, then, was a charge which government obtained whenthings were handed over to the state, 24)e.g. when taxes were collected. Thisis the point when another rule suddenly makes sense, viz., the payment ofpeople serving the state. For them, measures are to be reduced by anothersixteenth part as against those used in trade: according to 2.19.29 the dronagiven as bhdjanryams to consist of 175 palas instead of the 187.5 which madeup the vydvahdrikam:he same reduction occurs in 2.19.22. It is now easy tosee why. With people who are paid by the state, in whichever form, therewas no prayama-involved: hence, the state would as it were be one sixteenthshort. This was recovered by a corresponding decrease in emoluments.?7. The second quotation from Kautalya is not quite easy It occurs incourse of the discussion on 'Standardization of Weights and Measures'(KANGLE) and runs (2.19.24) purvayoh pancapalikah praydmo mdm-salohalavanamanvarjamof the former two, the prayama-is of five pala-, exceptwith meat, metal, salt, and jewels'The question is what is to be understood by 'the former two'. FollowingBhattasvamin's commentary, MEYERand KANGLE ake the phrase to referto two pairs of scales mentioned in the same chapter, viz., the samavrttd(2.19 12) and the partmdni (2.19 17). Both of them are quite large, and thuspresumably not ideal for weighings that need minute exactness, such as the'jewels' of the text would require. The translators-though they do not sayso-may have thought the 'surplus' ordained was to compensate for anyinaccuracies.

Whatever the idea behind their rendering, I find it difficult to follow. Forone thing, a tolerance or 'surplus' would seem to make sense with, anddepend on, types of commodities, and not so much on types of scales (whichof course are chosen to fit the nature of the merchandise). And one notesKautalya's four exceptions are just that: meat, jewels, etc. Second, it seemshardly conceivable metal and jewels were weighed on the same huge balance(and expressisverbzsexcepting them, of course, implies the process was notin itself thought impossible). Third, the tolerated margin of inaccuracy inweights and measures is, after all, fixed in the Arthasastra itself: according

grhftamulyampanyamyah kreturnatva dadydttasydsau sodayam ddpyah: dadydt vs. prayacchatiis avariant which in substance tells us nothing-but it does give an unmistakeable pointer asto why the levy went by the name of prayama-ather than by some derivation from da- thiswas as it were occupied by the deya- evy24) Breloer (loc.czt.note 20, pp. 227f.) thinks it is the reserves of goods the state keeps,apparently in order to intervene in the market. This is hard to reconcile with the text of2.19.24 (?7) and has no connection whateverwith any meaning one might responsiblyattachto pra-yam-

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to 4.2., half a pala- was allowed in a drona-. This is 0.25%-the twentiethpart of the five palas in a hundred which are ordained in the sentence underdiscussion.

Fourth, there is the text itself. Talking of purvayoh, 'the two former, thetwo afore-mentioned' and meaning the large balances would be distinctlyodd by reason of the sequence of topics within this chapter: 2.19.11 men-tions ten kinds of scales of different sizes; in the next sentence, one learnsabout the samavrttd,then about the partmant:on MEYER'Sreading, purva-would be used to refer to what actually are the last items of the entire listof twelve balances.And finally, there is the context of the rule. The sentences immediately

preceding it are dasadharanikampalam | 12011 tat palasatamdyamdniz 211paicapaldvara vyavahdriki bhajany antahpurabhdjanz ca 11221 | tdsdmardhadharandvarampalam, dvtpaldvaramuttaraloham, sadanguldvards' dydmdh112311'The pala- is of ten dharanas.A (balance) of a hundred palas is the measurefor revenue. The (balance) for trade, for servants (of the state) and forpalace servants is less by five palas. 25)For them, the pala- is half a dharana-smaller (i.e. 95 % etc.), the metal of the Upper (beam) is two palas less, andthe length, six fingers'.Then comes the sentence under discussion, concerning the praydma-offive percent. Surely it would be more natural to refer it to this list of fourwhich immediately precedes it. Which would mean it has to be referred toweighings of (a) state revenue (ayamdnt)and (b) trade measures (vydvahdriki):just as goods measured (2.19.29), goods weighed underlie the deliverycharge.?8. With state revenue, the reason is clear: taken as an isolated term, a'delivery charge' in trade measures is less so.The first interpretation to be explored starts out from 'trade measure-ments' which involve a surplus to hand over. Something that answers to thisdescription was used in Nepalese markets until a few years ago beforemeasures of capacity had been replaced by weights. Vessels were filled, notlevel with the brim (nep. nimtho,new. yald), but 'to overflowing' (nep.jhusi,new jusse), i.e. heaped up for as much as they would hold. This was currentfor a whole range of goods, down to sindur or dmlds.

25) This-and the instructions about the balance which follow-is generally understoodto refer to a gradation: each successive measurement is reduced by five palas, so that thePalace pala- has only 85 dharanas. This is the same type of reduction as that of the drona- in2.19.29' with goods measured, it progressed in steps of 6.25% while with goods weighed thedifference was 5%

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This practice is another of the instances where a straight line connectsnear-contemporary Nepalese usage with the Arthasastra. 2.19.34 fixedrules concerning measures of capacity. In the course of so doing, itdistinguishes between two kinds: the caturbhagasikhams. the antahsikham,i.e. 'one with a heap (or peak, sikhd)of one fourth' vs. 'one with the heapinside'. The latter is the method familiarto all of us, the vessel made largeenough to accommodatethe entire volume; with the former, the vessel holdsonly three fourths, the last quarterbeing constitutedby the heap that pro-trudes beyond the brim.Formeasuring, it must have been an awkwardtechnique. MEYERointedto its first defect: every buyer will try to make the heap as large as possible,every vendor will have the opposite tendency- there will be constant fric-tion.26) The second problem of course is the proportion: the size of the'heap' will depend on the substance measured: husked and unhusked rice

26) In the Kathmandu Valley, there is an interesting change in the shape of calibratedand authorized market measures which was introduced during the 19th century and makesvery good sense as soon as one takes this practice into account. The older ones have a crosssection similar to a trapeze with the wider side on top; more recent specimens usually havea body resembling a globe (with a flat bottom, so as to allow them to stand): but their upperend is a cylinder tapering upwards, with the top diameter lower than that of the globe. Thereis a different form, still used, which achieves the same effect: its cross section again consistsof a trapeze, but this time with the shorter side on top, and ending in a small cylindricalfunnel. I have not seen gauged specimens of this type.

Nepalese Market MeasuresOlder style (copper; right); newer style (brass; left)(not to scale)

The two specimens of the diagram are identical in volume, as tested by water. The sikhd,then, had changed its character: from part of the volume bought and paid for, it haddeveloped into a kind of bonus, which nonetheless the buyer had a right to. The alteredshape of course much reduces the bonus a buyer can claim. It meant considerable savingsto the trading community when they managed to talk government into permitting the newershape, and one wonders which favours they did the court in order to have it accepted.

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behave in different ways: what is one quarter with one of them will not bea quarter with the otherHere, then, we have something the buyer receives over and above the

volume contained in the vessel-as MEYER(pp. 85f., 162) had supposedunder the heading of vyidj. But we see its purpose is not to compensate foran inaccuracy of measurements. And we have shown in the Arthasastraboth the vydji- and the praydma-went to the state and constituted its trademargin.This leaves only one solution for the praydma- surcharge of 2.19.24, aslevied in trading: it was also to be paid on goods the state bought in themarket. Chapters 2.15 and 2.16 contain abundant references to the statetrading and influencing markets.?9 This is as far as Kautalya's text will carry us, and we are now in aposition to return to the calculations we left at ?4. The two charges of theArthasastra are the antecedents of the irregularities which we find in theNepalese manuscripts. Document II, with the additional dam in the moharreceived by the royal family, continues the 'payment on delivery' (praydma-),the vyaj-is the additional dam entered against the artisans' names in Docu-ment I.

As for its function and motive, the Nepalese documents testify to someadaptations of underlying principles.In one essential respect, they differ from the Arthasastra data so far dis-cussed: they do not record transactions of trade and attendant surchargeson merchandise, but payments by and to the state or court. (We have notedthis was not unknown to Kautalya: 2.25 40 ) This raises a very elementaryproblem with the praydma- of Document II. It tells us the royal familyreceived an additional damper mohar;but there is no indication to say whereit came from.Given the detailed style of the document it seems hardly conceivable anyof the householders there listed would have been burdened with theaddition, which after all ranged between one half and one sixth of what hehad to pay, without this fact being entered into the ledgers. Unless thereis a flaw in this assumption, there is only one conceivable source for themoney This is the collector of the contributions; the added dam must havecome from his pocket.

If so, this offers prospects not any less interesting because of beingspeculative in nature. To go by what the technique of accounting wouldseem to imply, the collector of taxes would actually have incurred a losswhen forwarding the sums for the btlcih.He will have seen to it that he wasnot. How, then, did he make up for it?

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One possibility, quite beyond verification but nonetheless not a far-fetched one, is for him to have cajoled people into contributing more for thepurpose than what he actually recorded, viz., the standard sums the Palaceexpected to receive. A second one, closer to attested facts, is provided bythe N.S.828 wage lists just discussed. There is really nothing to tell us thecarpenters actually received more than the simple product of working daysmultiplied by daily wage, i.e., to revert to the three people of Note 7, 1344for Visnusim, 1422 for Haku, 1188 for Ma mjusim, etc., with the differenceof eleven or nine dam going to the collector-or paymaster in the presentcase. For one notes in contrast to Kautalya's 2.7.2 rule, the praydma-doesnot rate a separate entry: the paymaster seems to have been allowed to enterit into accounts as a matter of course-ostensibly, no doubt, to offset thelosses incurred when forwarding the sums collected on behalf of the state,which in their total quantity will of course have far exceeded disbursementsfor public works where he could make money. This is theory, though. Theright to collect taxes always was a lucrative business, and we have no reasonto believe mediaeval Nepal was any different in this respect.The Nepalese documents suggest the praydma-was used to pay for the col-lector and his staff, so that the state enjoyed its statutory income unim-paired: the cost of collection would have been borne, not by the state, butby its citizens. This is of course the same tendency which we observe when,in lieu of an income granted by the court, an official is paid by beingassigned the revenue of a particular place or region. there again, it is theofficial and not the state who has to shoulder the task of realizing his'salary'. This is not to say that the state did not, in this period or that, layits hands on these fees, as we have seen the royal family do with the vzcdra-levy. And finally, the procedure offers an exact analogy to the purposes ofKautalya's praydma-and vydjfwhich were meant to recover the expense thestate incurred in regulating the market.?10 There is one problem remaining. This is the difference in percen-tages. The praydma- and the vyaji as attested in the Arthasastra rangebetween 1.56% (for sesame oil) and 6.25%; as against this, the Nepalesecharges amounted to slightly more than half of Kautalya's lowest rate,0.833%.

A possible explanation would lie in an extension of the principle theArthasastra followed when fixing amounts: the sum of the actual levydepended on the nature of the merchandise. To see cash at the bottom ofthe scale is not really surprising: 2.25.40 (supra, p. 81) had told us the vydjiwas also raised from money (or gold: hirantya-).The rate is not mentioned,but apparently was subject to fluctuation.

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?11. This much for the technicalities. No doubt there is a considerablegap in history that is being bridged: explaining Nepalese levies by meansof terms attested in the Arthasastra perhaps has a certain metaphorical ele-ment to it. I do not mean to assert the Nepalese levies positively are theprayama- and the vyadji.27)But there is the continuity in practices and, attimes, in basic notions, a continuity in this instance as in others, 28)a con-tinuity which of course extends into the more remote past.For the terminological use should not blind our eyes to the implicationsof the etymology. pra-yam-is 'to give, to grant'-with all the overtones thatMarcel Mauss, or Sir Moses Finley, have taught us to perceive. 29) How thenotion developed from a social obligation into a legal and fiscal term, to endup as a mere administrative charge-this could also be viewed as a chapterin the history of rationalization and mechanization of relations betweenmen.

27) The terms are not found in the Nepall brhat sabdakos, nor in the current legal dic-tionaries (T.B. Simha: Kinunii abdakos. Kathmandu 2038; H.S. Bhattarli: Prasasaklyatatha kanuni sabdakosa. Kathmandu 2041, S.K. Srestha: Nepali kanuni sabdakos.Kathmandu 2046). The relation between the vyadj nd the modern bydj interest' (cf. H.H.Wilson, A Glossary fJudictaland RevenueTerms.Repnnt. Delhi 1968, s.v vyaji 'bearnginterest, loan, debt') is of course the next problem.28) Cf., e.g., my papers "Kautalya's ptndakara-reconsidered," Indologyand Law.Festschrift.D.M. DerrettWiesbaden, 1982, pp. 168ff., "Kautalyas Stadt als Handelszen-trum: der Terminus putabhedana-,"n: ZeitschrifterDeutschenMorgenlandischenesellschaft35Wiesbaden 1985, pp. 299ff.29) M. Mauss, Die Gabe.Ubs.v. E. Moldenhauer rankfurt1968; M.I. Finley, The Worldof OdysseysHarmondsworth, 1979, p. 66: "... there were taxes and other dues to lords andkings, amends with a penal overtone (Agamemnon's gift to Achilles), and even ordinaryloans-and again the Homeric word is always 'gift' "

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