The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c8.33

c8.33

The wonderful organisation of Chandragupta's empire, of which Megasthenes gives us glimpses, was not the creation of the Mauryan statesmen, but the centralisation of the social and economic activities of the self-governing Indo-Aryan village communities. Pâtaliputra itself was only an aggregation of Indian villages joined together by spacious parks (the sacred groves) and stately avenues. The administration of the city by a board of thirty commissioners,² divided into six committees of five members each, was only an enlargement of the elected *panchâyat*, or Council of Five, assisted by a staff of permanent officials—the headman, accountant, watchman, banker, master-craftsman, schoolmaster, story-teller, and musicians—by which every Indo-Aryan village managed its own affairs. An inscription of the tenth century a.d., lately discovered in Southern India, prescribes the qualifications of voters and the mode of election for a municipal commission, similar to that of Chandragupta's city, consisting of thirty members—one for each ward of the town.³