342 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
who has amassed riches, becomes proud, and, by his insolence or neglect, gives pain even to Brahmens.
He concludes :—
X. 130. Such, as have been fully declared, are the several duties of the four classes in distress for subsistence, and, if they perform them exactly, they shall attain the highest beatitude.
The privileges to some were not merely social they were also financial, Says Manu :—
VIII. 35. From the man, who shall say with truth, ‘This property, which has been kept, belongs to me’, the king may take a sixth or twelfth part, for having secured it.
VIII. 36. But he, who shall say so falsely, may be fined either an eighth part of his own property, or else in some small proportion to the value of the goods falsely claimed, a just calcultion having been made.
VIII. 37. A learned Brahmen, having found a treasure formerly . hidden, may take it without any deduction; since he is the lord of all.
VIII. 38. But of a treasure anciently deposited under ground, which any other subject or the king has discovered, the king may lay up half in his treasury having given half to the Brahmens.
IX. 323. Should the king be near his end through some incurable disease, he must bestow on the priests all his riches, accumulated his kingdom to his son, let him seek death in battle, or if there be no war, by abstaining from food.
VII. 127. Having ascertained the rates of purchase and sale, the length of the way, the expenses of food and of condiments the charges of securing the goods carried, and the net profits of trade, let the king oblige traders to pay taxes on their saleable commodities.
VII. 128. After full consideration, let a king so levy those taxes continually in his dominions, that both he and the merchant may receive a just compensation for their several acts.
VII. 129. As the leech, the suckling calf, and the bee, take their natural food by little and little, thus must a king draw from his dominions an annual revenue.
VII. 130. Of cattle, of gems, of gold and silver, added each year to the capital stock, a fiftieth part may be taken by the king; of grain, an eighth part, a sixth, or a twelfth, according to the difference of the soil, and the labour necessary to cultivate it.
VII. 131. He may also take a sixth part of the clear annual increase of trees, fleshmeat, honey, clarified butter, perfumes, medical substances, liquids, flowers, roots, and fruit.