4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST perform the functions ascribed to them.1 Such things happened earlier also. Examples of popular revolts against oppressive rulers appear in the Buddhist birth stories called the Jatakas, which belong to 500-200 BC. According to B.C. Sen, 'whenever a story is told of a popular victory over royal absolutism or acts disapproved by the people, it is shown to be the result of an amalgamation of the Brahmins, the Kshatriyas and the Vaisyas. The voice exercised by these communities was made effective by the joint use of physical force.'2 But the king was supposed to represent the kshatriyas, and it seems that in several cases the brahmanas led the revolt. In one instance, both town and country folk joined in the revolt, and the king was beaten to death along with his priest.3 We can better appreciate the significance of the kali phenomenon if we bear in mind the nature of the socio-economic formation which seems to have been upset by it. In spite of the presence of some rich landowners in the Buddhist birth stories, in ancient times we do not find unequal distribution of the chief means of production, i.e. land, on any large scale. We however find unequal distribution of agricultural products as well as the forcible use of the labour power of the sudras for the cultivation of land and other purposes. A good portion of the produce of the land went as taxes to the rulers who were called kshatriyas, Another portion went to the brahmanas and other religious elements in the form of gifts. For supplying labour to the three higher varnas including the vaisya peasants and merchants, the sudras were considered to be the common source. But really sudra labour seems to have been utilised more by landowning village communities or individuals comprising the kshatriyas and brahmanas, who were exempted from taxes. This kind of social formation, in which the vaisyas were the principal taxpayers and the sudras supplied the main source of labour, was certainly riven with contradictions. Many instances of deviation from this norm could be cited. But by and large until Gupta times this kind of production relations existed in its 'essentials. The social conflicts indicated by the passages describing the kali age leave no doubt that the rulers found it difficult to collect taxes; apparently the brahmanas together with various types of renouncers could not receive gifts. Thus the kali social disorders affected those who exercised authority but did not produce directly for themselves. In order to put down the disorders effective use of force or violence was recommended. Danda was glorified in a manner in which it was never done before. From the fourth century onwards payment for services through grants of land revenues became a significant factor in a good part of the country. Although the texts do not clearly connect the widespread practice of land grants with the preceding social crisis, the former seems to have followed from the latter. From the fourth and fifth centuries onwards land grants on a large scale served to solve the problem of tax collection and its disbursement to non-producing classes