Explain the duties and privileges of Samantas.
Answers
Explanation:
It was like an intermediate ruling class, responsible for law and order in their territories and for extracting revenue from the land that they were granted. They also had other rights and duties (judicial, revenue, and so on) over these land grants which the King had issued to them, often instead of salary
Samantas is the name given to tributary kings or landed chiefs who were granted a piece of land by the King in return for their allegiance to the crown and had to perform mandatory military duties whenever called upon by the King to serve.
The role they played
They were vassals of the all-powerful monarch, thus symbolized a sort of distribution of power even as the King was the ceremonial head of all of them.
They constituted a sort of an intermediate ruling class that was in charge of law and order of their areas and collection the revenue of the land granted to them. But they also had other rights and duties (revenue, judicial etc) over these land grants issued to them by the King, often in lieu of salary.
They also had to maintain a regiment of troops to be produced in service of the King whenever he ordered. They also had to pay regular tribute to the King.
This trend of landed military class began in the medieval ages in India i.e 750–1200 AD.
Basically, they can be compared in some ways to the feudal lords of medieval Europe. Although European feudalism and Indian “feudalism” were different in many other aspects.