DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

10.2 ] FEUDALISM 1 AND COMMODITY PRODUCTION 365
ambitious Kasmirian kings or foreign attempts at invasion. Whenever the
state was strong enough, saffron remained a state monopoly. Difficult, transport,
impossibility of dense settlement, the need for defence against tribesmen,
robbers and wild beasts, made it out of the question to disarm the countryside.
The caste system was notoriously lax in Kasmir. Any merchant or village headman
who accumulated a little surplus by trade could arm a few retainers of any caste,
command a following, and lord it over his locality. He would collect taxes
without passing them on to the state. This led to a struggle of extermination
between the king and such damaras, ultimately won by small-scale feudaism
under different names. Accumulation was strengthened by periodic famine
during which ministers,, royal (Tantrin) guards, and others who had any store of
grain, would sell it at greatly enhanced prices. The king often created his own
feudal barons for local support, while opposing feudal barons set up their
own kings or supported pretenders.
Indirectly, the crisis was intensified by the very measures necessary for floodcontrol
and irrigation. These go back to the oldest times, but when first
increased by the great Lalita-ditya-Muktapada, they created a fresh surplus and
enabled that king to raise a very fine army. Lalitaditya then raided India
extensively, down at least to Malwa, probably to the sea. His heirs received
the legacy of a costly central army, administration, tradition of luxury (including
fine Sanskrit court-poetry) , heavy endowments to temples, and the valuable
advice, not to let villagers accumulate any goods beyond the barest minimum
for subsistence, lest they revolt; this last principle was later adopted by the
Delhi sultans. The extraordinarily complete and scientific watenvorks undertaken
by the genius of a Candala minister Suyya (under Avantivarman) increased
village settlement vastly, but prices of the main crop, rice, went down so
very much that it became impossible to pay for essential commodities that had
to be imported. So Kasmrian kings like Jayapida (8th century A. D.) and
Samkara-varman (883-902) began to rescind brahmin and temple grants,
taxing temple property. This is the exact parallel of similar repressive
measures taken by Chinese emperors and provincial governors to free for
mint use the metal locked up.