| Abstract: |
This essay falls into two parts. The first is a critical commentary on the fact that Karl Wittfogel, in developing his twin concepts of "hydraulic society" and "Oriental Despotism" in his recent study <i>Oriental Despotism</i>, has entirely ignored the evidence from Ceylon. The second discusses the "service tenure of land" as it occurs in Ceylon and a number of other regions in Asia and suggests a connection between this type of tenure and the puzzling historical fact that many of the most successful archaic societies were located in flood ridden arid terrain in which agriculture was only made possible through the use of irrigation engineering. Most readers are likely to find the second (and shorter) part of the argument more interesting than the first, but, since Wittfogel's thesis, which I criticise, is also, in part, an hypothesis as to why early "hydraulic societies" were economically successful, my commentary on Wittfogel forms a necessary preliminary to the presentation of my own positive contribution.
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