PEASANT PROTEST IN EARLY MEDIEVAL INDIA 5 engaged in military, administrative and religious services. Much remains to be done about the area, period and the dynastic kingdoms or personalities involved in the resurrection of the machinery of surplus collection in a new garb. However as early as the fourth and fifth centuries some of the kings who claim to .have restored dharma also issued land grants for religious purposes. The social formation that emerged out of the widespread practice of land grants was dominated by the landlords. The royal charter which gave lands tended to deprive a large number of peasants of communal rights which they enjoyed in respect of pasture grounds, pathways, fisheries, forests, orchards, etc. The new assignees had the right to enjoy these communal resources at the cost of the village or the tribal community. The assignees were given the right to collect not only fixed taxes which hitherto went to the king but were also empowered to levy fresh taxes. The list of land taxes in early medieval charters gets longer and longer. On the ow hand it presupposes agrarian expansion and increase in productivity. On the other it shows that the burden of taxes was becoming heavier and heavier in the areas directly governed by the State but more so in the benefices granted by it. The charters worsened the production relations. There could be conflict between one beneficiary and the other, between the king and his vassals, and above all between the landlords and the peasants. These conflicts could assume various forms. One important form was litigation to which obviously only the beneficiaries and advanced sections of the peasantry could resort. The landed beneficiaries and some other landed elements who may have acquired land by fo^ce or custom may have been involved in lawsuits. Apparently it was the need of settling land disputes in favour of the grantees that a new provision was inserted and emphasized in the Dharmasastras or the law-books. According to it, the claim based on royal charter would override the claims based on custom, agreement and religion. In other words, a rajsasana would prevail over dharma, vyavahara and carita. This particular provision first appears in verse form in the Arthasastra of Kautilya, which is mostly written in prose; the provision therefore may have been inserted in it at a later stage. It occurs from the fifth to the tenth century in the law-books of Narada, Brhaspati and Katyayana, and also in the Agni Purana. It is obvious that the claim to land made by the peasant or any other party on the basis of custom, contract or even religion was not sustainable in the face of the charter-based claim of the beneficiary.4 In addition to litigation, peasants protested in various other ways. They took advantage of royal visits to complain to the king. When Harsa's army was passing through the countryside, a large number of rural folk came out to welcome him, but at the same time they complained to him against the oppressions of the bhogpatis who had been given the right to enjoyment of revenues from the villages. Self-immolation, particularly in south India, was another form of protest.