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The Rashtrakutas and their Times c15.s1: Ministry

The Rāṣṭrakūṭas and their Times c15.s1

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Ministry

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All the writers on the Hindu political science hold that ministry is the most important wheel of the administrative machinery, and evidence can be adduced to show that realpolity included that institution since very early times. The Rāṣṭrakūṭa administration is no exception to the general rule. Ministers under this administration were very important and influential members of government. Nārāyaṇa, the foreign minister of Kṛṣṇa III, has been described in the Salotgi inscription³³ as another hand, as it were, ‘*Pratihastaḥ*’ of the emperor, as dear to him as his own right hand. The Pathari Pillar inscription of the feudatory Rāṣṭrakūṭa chief Parabala states that he used to regard his premier as worthy of salutations by his own head.(34) A record of king Kṛṣṇa of the Yādava dynasty compares his minister to his own tongue and right hand.(35) Another record of the same king states how his premier's feet were brightened by the crest-jewels on the head of the feudatories. It is, therefore, no wonder that the ministers sometimes possessed feudatory titles and were entitled to the Pañcamahāś'abdas. Dalla, the chief foreign minister of Dhruva, was a Sāmanta entitled to the use of the five great musical instruments.(36) Kālidāsa, the war minister or commander-in-chief of the Cālukya king Jagadekamalla, is described as entitled to the Pañcamahāśabdas in a record of his hailing from Badami.(37) Consultations with the ministry before embarking on a particular course or policy are rarely referred to in our records, probably because there was no occasion to do so. But the above evidence regarding the influence of the ministry would show that ministerial consultations are not mentioned simply because the copper-plate grants are not treatises on constitutional theory and practice. It may, however, pointed out that a record of the Yādava dynasty, which succeeded the Rāṣṭrakūṭas in the northern portions of their dominions, states while recording the grant of some shops for certain religious objects, that the king had consulted his ministers before making the grant in question.(38)

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³³ तस्य यः प्रतिहस्तोऽभूत्प्रियो दक्षिणहस्तवत् । E. I., IV, p. 60.

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It must, however, pointed out that there may have existed some rulers in our period who may have ridden roughshod over the heads of their ministers. Naturally the majority of our records would pass over such cases. A perusal of the Rājatarangiṇī shows that side by side with ministers who ruled wisely and ably, there existed others who were worth.

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³⁴ E. I., IX, p. 254.

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³⁵ I. A., XIV p. 69.

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³⁶ E I., X, p 89.

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³⁷ I. A., VI, p. 140.

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³⁸ Cf. श्रीसेउणाख्येन नृपेण प्रधानयुक्तेन विचार्य हट्टद्वयं दत्तम् । I. A., XII, p. 127.

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less puppets in the hands of their tyrant masters. The same may perhaps have been the case under some of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa rulers like Govinda II or Govinda IV, who were notoriously licentious. But the power, influence and utility of a ministry vary with the capacity, nature and temperament of the king and the ministers even in the limited monarchies of our present day. The same may have been the case in a slightly aggravated degree in the past, when the constitutional checks of the modern types were unknown. But these occasional exceptions do not disprove the proposition that under normal conditions abler ministers exercised a great influence on the administration in the age of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas. How the weal of the kingdom was regarded as very intimately connected with the ministry may be seen from the following verse in a grant of Govana III of the Nikumbha feudatory family of Khandesh which, though belonging to a slightly later time than our period, may be regarded as embodying the views of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa age as well:—

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राष्ट्रस्य पुष्टिस्वजनस्य तुष्टिः ।
धर्मस्य वृद्धिसकलार्थसिद्धिः ॥
नन्दन्ति सन्तः प्रसरन्ति लक्ष्म्यः ।
श्रीचंगदेवे सति सत्प्रधाने ॥(39)

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'When Changadeva was the good premier, the nation flourished, subjects and allies were content, religion (i. e. virtue) increased, all aims were attained, the wise were happy and prosperity was visible everywhere.'

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Our records being usually copper plate grants do not dilate upon the merits and qualifications of ministers. The Salotgi inscription of Kṛṣṇa III, however, shows that ministers were expected to be learned and well-versed in the science of politics.(40) Some of them, like Nārāyaṇa of this record, were also poets, as was the case in the age of the great Guptas as well.⁴¹

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³⁹ I. A., VIII, p. 41.

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⁴⁰ Cf. पारगो राजविद्यानां कविमुख्यः प्रियंवदः । E. I., IV, p. 60.

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⁴¹ S'āba, a minister of Chandragupta II, was a poet as well. C. I. I. III, No. 6.

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Arthaśāstra, book I, chapter 3, Śāntiparvan, chapters 82, 83 and 85, Kāmandaka-Nītisāra IV, 25-31, Nītivākyāmṛta X, 5, Sukra II, 52-64, Bārhaspatya Arthaśāstra II, 42, etc., lay down in great details the qualifications of ministers. But a perusal of these passages does not leave the impression that ministers were expected to be military leaders or generals. Kāmandaka and Somadeva observe in passing that ministers should be brave and Somadeva adds that he should know the use of missiles but even such general statements are not made by any of the remaining writers on the topic. In the Deccan during the period under review we, however, find that ministers were very frequently military leaders and were accustomed to take a leading part in the warfare of the times. Thus Chāmuṇḍarāya, a minister of Noḷambāntaka Mārasimha who was a feudatory of Kṛṣṇa III, had won for his master the battle of Gonur by defeating the Noḷambas;⁴² in 1024 A.D. the minister of records and the director-general of registration in the administration of the later Chālukyas had the title of 'Mahāprachaṇḍadaṇḍanāyaka', showing that he was a high military or police-officer. If we travel a century more, we find a reference to ministers being chased in battle in the Teridal inscription.⁴³ This record further shows that all the five ministers of Kalachuri Bijjaladeva were military leaders or Daṇḍanāyakas. Recruitment of ministers from military officers was fairly common in the Deccan of our period. It may be also pointed out that the great Shivaji had insisted that all his ministers, with the exception of the Pandit, should be competent military leaders. It is possible to conjecture that most of our theoretical writers do not include military ability among the qualifications of the ministers because they hailed from the north, where the recruitment of ministers from the military ranks does not seem to have been very common.

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⁴² E. I., V, p. 173.

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⁴³ I. A., XIV, p. 26.

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The charters issued by the Śilāhāras, who were the feudatories of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas in Konkan, frequently describe the whole administrative machinery, naming all the ministers and their respective portfolios. Thus under the Śilāhāra prince Chittarājadeva, the ministry consisted of five members in 1024 A.D.⁴⁴ 61 years later under king Anantadeva of the same dynasty it was reduced to four.⁴⁵ The Yādavas of Chandor, who were ruling over a petty state, had a ministry of seven in 1069 A.D.⁴⁶ It is to be very much regretted that the Rāṣṭrakūṭa secretariate did not follow the practice of the Konkan feudatories and name the various ministers and their portfolios in the copper plates grants. We have, therefore, very little information about the actual strength of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa ministry and the various portfolios of its members. A perusal of the provisions upon the subject in the Niti and Smriti works shows that there were no hard and fast rules about the strength of the ministry. The number varied from 8 to 20; some predecessors of Kauṭalya preferred very small ministries of 2 to 4. In actual practice the Hindu king seems to have remembered the saying of Kauṭalya that the strength of the ministry should vary with the needs of the situation and acted accordingly. Considering the extent of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa empire, we may well presume that the ministry at the capital must have been fairly large, since those of the smaller contemporary feudatory states consisted of as many as 5 to 7 members. Unfortunately very few of the ministers are actually mentioned in our epigraphical records; their number and portfolios will have, therefore, to be inferred from the practice of the contemporary dynasties in the south.

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⁴⁴ I. A., V, p. 278.

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⁴⁵ I. A., IX, p. 35.

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⁴⁶ E. I., II, p. 225.

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The Sukranīti, which is a fairly late work, gives prominence to Pradhāna or the premier whom it describes as *sarvadars'in* or general superintendent over the members of the ministry.⁴⁷ Jiyanta, who is called *sarvasya anushthata* or the person in charge of all administration in a record from Halasi belonging to the 6th century A.D.,⁴⁸ Babhiyaka, who is styled as a *mahapradhana* or the prime-minister in the Vaghli inscription of Seunachandra, dated 1069 A.D.,⁴⁹ and the premier of the Yadava ruler Kannara, who is designated as *sarvadhikarin* or the officer with powers over the whole administration,⁵⁰ were all of them occupying the status corresponding to that of the *Sarvadars'i Pradhana* of S'ukra. Bhadravishnu, who was a *Puranamatya* under Kapardin, a feudatory of Amoghavarsha I,⁵¹ and Krishnambhatta, who was a *mahamatya* under Dantivarman of the Gujrat Rashtrakuta branch in 867 A.D.,⁵² were also holding similar positions in the respective administrations. Since earlier contemporary and subsequent administrations are seen to be having the post of the premier in the ministry, it may be regarded as almost certain that the Rashtrakuta administration could have formed no exception to the general rule. As in modern times so in our period too, the premiers often used to take some particular portfolio as well. Thus the premier of the Silahara ruler Anantadeva was also the Lord High Treasurer in 1085 A.D. ⁵³ and that of the Yadava king Seunachandra II was also in charge of the revenue administration.⁵⁴

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⁴⁷ II, 82.

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⁴⁸ I. A., VI, p. 24.

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⁴⁹ E. I., II, p. 225.

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⁵⁰ I. A., VII, p. 304.

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⁵¹ I. A., XII, p. 136.

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⁵² E. I., I, VI, p. 287.

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⁵³ I. A., IX, p. 35.

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⁵⁴ I. A., XII, p. 127.

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Owing to his exalted position the premier often enjoyed the status of a *Mahasamanta* entitled to the *Panchamahas'abdas*; he was also saluted by the feudatory chiefs of the Imperial power.⁵⁵ It is no wonder then that we sometimes find feudatory chiefs making grants at the dictation of the premiers of their overlords. When the king was temporarily absent from the capital or was unable to attend to duty owing to illness or some other similar reason, the administration was entrusted to the premier, as would appear from an anecdote narrated by Mahmud Ufi.⁵⁶ Such, of course, would have been the case when the heir-apparent was too young to assume the responsibility of the administration.

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⁵⁵ See *ante.* p. 160.

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⁵⁶ Elliot, II, p. 163.

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The designation of the Foreign Minister, who has been invariably called a *dūta* in the works on politics like the Arthaśāstra, Rājadharmaparvan and Manusmṛti (chapter VII) etc., seems to have undergone a change by this time throughout India. Most of the epigraphical records use the more pompous and expressive title of *Mahāsandhivigrahaka* to denote the person who held that responsible office in the ministry. This minister figures several times in the Rāṣṭrakūṭa record, and we see him usually entrusted with the drafting of the copper plate charters creating alienated holdings. One expects the Revenue Minister to draft such charters, but the work was usually entrusted to the secretariate of the foreign minister, probably because the charters had to describe the genealogy and the exploits of the grantor and his family and the foreign office had the most reliable and up-to-date information on the point. It would be interesting to note that there is an agreement in this respect between the epigraphical practice and the dicta of the contemporary Smṛitis on the point. An anonymous text quoted in the *Mitākṣarā* on Yājñavalkya I 319-20 states:—

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संधिविग्रहकारी तु भवेद्यस्तस्य लेखकः ।
स्वयं राज्ञा समादिष्टस्स लिखेद्राजशासनम् ॥

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'The drafter (of the copper plate charter) should be the person who is the foreign minister; he should draft the charter as dictated by the king himself.' The *Mitākṣarā* itself adds that the charter should be caused to be drafted by the foreign minister and by no one else.

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Rāṣṭrakūṭas had several feudatories and neighbours. Mahāsandhivigrahaka or the chief foreign minister must, therefore, have had several ordinary Sandhivigrahakas under him. This inference, suggested by the formation of these two words, is confirmed by the Bhandup plates of Chhittarājadeva from which we learn that among the members of that king's ministry Sihapeya was the principal Sandhivigrahaka and Śrī-Kapardin was Karṇāṭaka-Sandhivigrahaka or the foreign minister for Karnatak. If the small feudatory kingdom of the Śilāhāras required two foreign office officials both of the status of a minister, the ministry of the big Rāṣṭrakūṭa empire must have had at least about half a dozen foreign ministers, bearing titles like Gurjara-Pratīhāra-mahāsandhivigrahaka, Gauḍa-mahāsandhivigrahaka, Pallava-mahāsandhivigrahaka etc. The post of the foreign minister was an important one; the well-being and prosperity of the kingdom depended upon his skill and ability. It is, therefore, natural that he should have often enjoyed the dignity and status of a Sāmanta entitled to the Pañcamahāśabdas under the Rāṣṭrakūṭa administration.⁵⁷ As he had to draft foreign despatches, he was expected to be skilful in penmanship.⁵⁸

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⁵⁷ E. I., X, p. 89.

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⁵⁸ Nitivākyāmṛta, XXXII, 2.

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A third member of the ministry figuring in Rāṣṭrakūṭa records is the chief justice who is mentioned in the Sanjan plates of Amoghavarsha I as ‘the drafter of the grant.’ The chief justice is mentioned as a member of the ministry in almost all the works on administration and he was the final appellate authority for cases coming from the lower courts, except when the king decided them himself.

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Since many of the ministers and governors were military leaders, it is obvious that the commander-in-chief must have been a member, and an important one, of the ministry. Nitivākāmṛta⁵⁹ no doubt lays down that commanders of the army should not be members of the council, but Śukra includes the commander-in-chief in the ministry and the Deccan administrations are seen to be following the view of S'ukra, rather than that of the Deccanese Somadeva. The war-minister is called Sachiva by S'ukra, (60) Kampana by Kalhaṇa (61) and Mahāprachaṇḍa-daṇḍanāyaka by a Yādava record. The Gahadwala records use the prosaic title of Senāpati. It is extremely probable that in the Rāṣṭrakūṭa ministry there may have been several war-ministers like the foreign ministers. The empire was a large one and constantly engaged in warfare with its neighbours; hence this inference seems to be most natural and almost certain. The status of generals and war-ministers was very high. Kālidāsa, the commander-in-chief of the forces of Jagadekamalla, was also his premier as already shown. The Kalas inscription of Govinda IV (62) informs us that generals were supplied with palatial buildings, were permitted to use elephants for riding, were invested with brilliant robes, and cunningly worked staffs, which were the insignia of their office, and were authorised to use a multitude of curiously made parasols. They had, like the Mahāsāmantas, the great musical instruments of their own office. These privileges are no doubt mentioned in connection with generals. But we have seen already that even civil ministers were generals and, therefore, the war-minister could hardly have been a civilian; hence he must have enjoyed similar, if not higher, honours and privileges. Similar privileges were continued under the later Chālukyas, one of whose generals, Kālidāsa, was the supreme chief of great feudatories and entitled to the Pañchamahāśabdas. (63) Examples are not unknown of grateful monarchs commemorating the memory of their successful generals by granting them villages renamed after them. (64) When it is remembered that during our period the successful general of to-day had every chance of becoming a king or even an emperor to-morrow, the privileges associated with the office of a general or war-minister need not cause any surprise.

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⁵⁹ Chapter X, 101-102.

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⁶⁰ II, 90.

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⁶¹ VII, 365.

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⁶² E. I., XIII, p. 334.

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⁶³ I. A., VI, p. 139.

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⁶⁴ I. A., VIII, pp.279-80.

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Purohita, who was since early times an important member of the ministry, (65) seems to have ceased to belong to that body in the period we are studying. In the S'ilāhāra records he is differentiated from Mantrins and Amātyas, (66) and in the Nitivākyāmṛta (67) and Gahadwala records from the mantrins. (68) We do not possess any evidence about the Rāṣṭrakūṭa administration, but it is not improbable that here too he may have been an officer of the royal household rather than a member of the ministry. The place of the Purohita was taken in our period by an officer whose business it was to excercise general superintendence over religion and morality. Paṇḍita, the minister of morality and religion in the S'ukranīti, seems to embody the tradition of the Dhammamahāmātyas of Asoka, Samaṇa-mahāmātas of the Āndhras (69) and the Vinayasthitisthāpakas (70) of the Guptas. The tradition was continued in the north by the Chedis, one of whose records mentions Dharmapradhāna in addition to Mahāpurohita. (71) The office existed under the early Rāṣṭrakūṭa ruler Nannarāja in 708 A.D., (72) and the officer bore the significant title of Dharmāṅkus'a. It is not unlikely that the descendants of Nannarāja may have continued the office when they rose to the imperial position in the Deccan. One may be reasonably certain that at least under kings like Amoghavarsha I and Amoghavarsha III, who were more interested in matters.

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⁶⁵ Cf. Gautama, II, 2. 12.

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¹⁷ Budhāyana Dharma-Sūtra, I. 10.

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⁷ Arthas'āstra I Chap. 10; Kāmandaka IV, 32. S'ukra III, 78.

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⁶⁶ Bhadup plates, I. A., V., p. 277.

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⁶⁷ XI, 2.

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⁶⁸ E. I., XI, p. 24.

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⁶⁹ Nasik Inscriptions, E. I., VIII, p. 91.

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⁷⁰ A seal of this officer was discovered at Vaisali by Bloch; A. S R., 1903-4, p. 109.

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⁷¹ Kumbhi plates of Vijayasimha, J. A. S. B. XXXI, p. 116.

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⁷² Multai plates, I. A., XVIII, p. 230.

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spiritual than temporal, the office must have been revived, if it had been allowed to lapse under their predecessors.

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Amātya or the Revenue Member figures in a record of the Yādavas of Chandor, belonging to the 11th century.⁷³ It is obvious that a similar portfolio must have existed under the Rāṣṭrakūṭas as well. The functions of this minister must have been similar to those described by writers like S'ukra (II 103-5) and Somadeva (XVIII). In the Malkhed administration he must have had a very big staff and secretariate under him, for, as will be shown in the next chapter, the central administration of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas had hardly left any revenue powers in the hands of the provincial governors and the district officers. In our grants we no doubt find the king making the grants and the foreign minister usually drafting them; but the officer who must have been principally consulted by the king must obviously have been the Revenue Member or Amātya, whose office used to keep the necessary records connected with land tenures and ownership. The Inspector General of Records must have been working under the supervision and control of the Revenue Minister. He is not mentioned in Rāṣṭrakūṭa records, but documents of contemporary dynasties refer to him and mention his designation sometimes as 'Mahākshapaṭalika' and sometimes as S'āsanādhikārin. From the Miraj plates of Jagadekamalla⁷⁴ we learn that this officer had a big clerical establishment under him; when his Mahākshapaṭalika interviews Harsha we find him accompanied by a number of Karaṇis or clerks. There is ample evidence to show that revenue records were carefully preserved in the Rāṣṭrakūṭa administration. One instance may suffice. Dhruva I of the Gujarat branch had alienated a village named Trennā in favour of a Brahmana. We find the grant renewed by his grandson Dhruva II when he ascended the throne. When Gujrat branch came to an end by the annexation of its dominions by the Malkhed house, we find the descendant of the previous donees approaching Indra III to get his title confirmed by the new administration.⁷⁵ The history of this village makes it graphically clear that the secretariate of the governments of our period used to preserve careful records bearing upon land-ownership. The originals of the copper plates were preserved at the district head-quarters; the Bhadana plates of Aparājita,⁷⁶ issued in 997 A.D., expressly declare that the original draft of the copper plates in question was preserved at Sthānaka or modern Thana, which was the head-quarter of the division. The copper plates were carefully compared with the original draft when they were inscribed by the smith; the Surat plates of Karka, which I am editing, state at the end that the chief of the imperial secretariate had certified that the contents of the plates, as they were engraved on copper, were identical with the original draft. From the Daulatpura plates of Bhoja⁷⁷ we learn that if the copper-plates granted by the grantor were lost by the donee, government used to enquire into his claims by a reference to its secretariate.

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⁷³ E. I. II, p. 225.

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⁷⁴ I. A., VIII, p. 11.

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⁷⁵ E. I., IX, p. 24.

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⁷⁶ E. I., III, p. 271.

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⁷⁷ E. I., V, p. 208.

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Treasurer, who is stylled as Samāhartā by Kauṭalya and Sumantra by S'ukra, was another member of the ministry. Saṃgṛhītṛ who figures in the list of the Ratnins of the Vedic period was discharging similar functions. We do not find this minister mentioned in the records of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa dynasty, but he figures in S'ilāhāra records bearing the title of Bhāṇḍāgārika. A large part of government revenues in our period was collected in kind and so this title given to the minister in charge of the treasury is significant. In 1094 A.D., S'ilāhāra king Anantadeva had a small ministry of only 3, and yet Bhāṇḍāgārika was included in it. This would show that the office was regarded as very important; Mahābhārata, (S'āntiparvan 130, 35), Kāmandaka (XXI, 33), Nītivākamṛta (XXI, 5) etc. declare that the treasury was the very root of the state and must be properly looked after. The treasurer figures invariably in the Gahadwala copper plates and his omission in our records must be due to the fact that the Rāṣṭrakūṭa secretariate was not following the practice of mentioning all the ministers and their different portfolios in the copper plate charters.

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Pratinidhi is the only minister mentioned by Sukra whom we miss in our epigraphical records. His function was to act for the king and S'ukra gives him a status inferior only to that of the heir-apparent.⁷⁸ His absence in our records may be due to the fact that kings of our period were accustomed to attend to the administration either themselves or through their heir-apparents, but not through a Pratinidhi. Palitana plates of S'ilāditya, dated 574 A.D.⁷⁹ mention an officer called Rājasthānīya, immediately after Rājaputra and before Amātya; he may, therefore, be possibly occupying the position of the Pratinidhi of S'ukra. The Antroli-Chharoli plates of Rāṣṭrakūṭa Karkka,⁸⁰ however, use the term Rājasthānīya to denote royal officers of a very low grade. It would, therefore, appear that Pratinidhi or Rājasthānīya was not a usual member of the ministry in our period. It may be pointed out that among the writers on political science only S'ukra includes him in the ministry.

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⁷⁸ II. 71.

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⁷⁹ E. I. XI, p. 115.

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⁸⁰ J. B. B. R. A. S., XVI, p. 108.

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Our records supply us with very little information about the manner in which the daily business of administration was carried on at the capital. The secretariate at Malkhed must have been a big one; it must have been divided into several branches, each supervised over by its chief. S'ukra lays down that each minister was to be assisted by two secretaries,⁸¹ but in big empires like those of the Guptas, the Rāṣṭrakūṭas and the Gurjara-Pratīhāras, the actual number of secretaries must have been obviously greater. The same writer lays down that ministerial orders were to be approved by the king before they were issued;⁸² this practice, too, we may well presume was followed in our period, especially since towards the end of the Surat plates of Karkka, we find the king expressly stating that he had perused the document. Some of the Chola records show that royal orders, when drafted by the secretariat, were countersigned by the Chief Secretary; (83) in our documents, however, we come across the royal sign-manual, and the names of the composer of the grant and the person who conveyed it to the grantee. Ministers and Secretaries are conspicuous by their absence. It is, however probable that daily routine orders may have been issued by the ministers with the counter-signature of the king or the heir-apparent.

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⁸¹ II, 109-10.

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⁸² II, 363-9.

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