The Rashtrakutas and their Times c15.s1.16

c15.s1.16

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.