The Rashtrakutas and their Times c16.s3.11

c16.s3.11

Our records do not supply us with the information as to whom the town prefects were responsible for the administration. They may have been possibly under the control of the Rāṣṭrapatis in whose jurisdiction their towns were situated, or perhaps to a special minister or officer at the capital. Our records hardly supply any information about the methods whereby the local, district, and provincial governments were supervised and controlled by the Central Government. The control and supervision were, as shown already, fairly rigorous and it may have been exercised partly through the regular official hierarchy, partly through periodical tours,—a principle recommended by Manu⁴⁰ and S'ukra⁴¹ and practised by Asoka and Harsha,—and partly through direct orders from imperial secretariate carried by special messengers, who were known as *Vallabhājñāsañcāriṇaḥ* ‘carriers of royal orders’. The precise nature of the postal arrangements made by the state in our period is not definitely known, but it is obvious that postal runners and mounted couriers must have been used for the purpose with relays at convenient intervals. Such arrangements were witnessed by Ibn Batūta in the first half of the 14th century⁴² and it is very likely that Mahomedan administration may have borrowed the system from its Hindu predecessors.