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The Rashtrakutas and their Times c16.s4: Selection of Officers

The Rāṣṭrakūṭas and their Times c16.s4

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Selection of Officers

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It would be necessary to say a few words here about the selection of officers to the various posts mentioned above. The selection was governed partly by military, partly by hereditary, and partly by educational considerations. We have already seen how many of the ministers, and provincial, district, and town governors were military officers. Very probably they must have owed their appointments to distinguished service on the battlefield. In many cases offices were transmitted from the father to the son. The viceroyalty of Banavasi 12,000 had continued for three generations at least in the family of Bankeya, who had won it by his military achievements. When Kaṇṇapa, who had won the governorship of Purigeri 300 and Belvola 300 by his bravery on the battlefield died, his younger brother Sobhaṇa stepped into his place.(43) Kauṭalya, Manu and Śukra recommend this principle of preference for heredity and the recommendation was acted upon in the Gupta period as well, at least in some cases, as clearly appears from the Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudragupta(44) and Karmadanda inscription of Kumāragupta I.(45) From Al Masudi we learn that high offices in our period were often hereditary in India,(46) and the submissive Brāhmaṇas, who were appointed to lower administrative posts by Kasim in Sindh after its annexation, were assured by him that their appointments would be continued hereditarily.(47) The Rājatarangiṇī also affords numerous examples of offices being transmitted hereditarily.(48) This principle was thus widely prevalent in our period and the Banavasi governorship was no solitary example. The Surat plates of Karka, which I am editing, show that the father of Nārāyaṇa, the chief Foreign Minister of that ruler, was also occupying the post to which his son was later appointed.(49) There may have been many more cases of this nature in the administration.

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The minister Nārāyaṇa of Kṛṣṇa III, who is described as a prominent poet, a skilful speaker, and a great expert in the science of polity,(50) did not belong to a family of hereditary ministers, as was the case with his namesake just mentioned; he was very probably selected for his educational qualifications. I-tsing, who had visited India just before our period, has recorded how distinguished scholars used to be appointed by the Valabhi administration to responsible posts,(51) and the same practice must have been fairly prevalent throughout India for obvious reasons.

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Many appointments must have also gone to royal favourites, who possessed no other qualification than that of being in the good books of the ruling king. This need not cause any surprise, for such scandalous appointments are by no means rare even in the present age. No concrete cases of unworthy favourites being raised to high offices are known from our records, but in contemporary Kashmir, many court-flatterers were often appointed to responsible posts by some of its worthless rulers, (52) and it is not unlikely that the phenomenon may have been repeated in the reigns of some of the dissolute monarchs of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa line like Govinda II, Govinda IV and Karka II. Two of the generals of the last king are compared to the feet of Kali in a Chālukya record. (53)

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⁴³ E. I., IV, p. 20.

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⁴⁴ C. I. I., III, p. 1.

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⁴⁵ E. I., X, p. 70.

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⁴⁶ Elliot, I, p. 20.

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⁴⁷ Ibid p. 103.

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⁴⁸ Cf. VIII, 2473, 3322 etc.

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⁴⁹ Being published in E. I., XXI.

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⁵⁰ E. I. IV, p. 60. 51. p. 181.

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The average officer of our period was highly attached to the throne; many cases are recorded in the Kashmir chronicle of loyal and devoted officers burning themselves on the funeral pyres of their dead masters. (54) The custom seems to have been fairly common in our period, for Abu Zaid also refers to it. (55) This writer informs us that at the time of the coronation of a king his deeply attached followers used to take voluntarily a portion of the rice prepared for the king on the occasion. All such persons were obliged to burn themselves when the king was dead or slain. The custom existed in Malbar during the 13th century, for it is referred to by Marco Polo also. (56) Epigraphical evidence of our period shows that Abu Zaid's account is no cock and bull story. Honale No. 47 (57) informs us that when Taila II died, Boppana made good his vow, entered fire and went to heaven. We do not know from the record the occasion of this vow, but it is quite possible that it may have been the king's coronation. Two other records, Arkalgad Nos. 5 and 27, refer to two officers of the Ganga ruler, Nitimārga, who burnt themselves to death when their master died. From one of these records, we learn that pensions were often provided for the bereaved families of such loyal servants.

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⁵² See *Rājatarangiṇī* VII, 580, VIII, 183, etc.

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⁵³ E. I., XII, p. 152 Kauthem plates.

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⁵⁴ V. 206-7, VII, 481, 1488, 1490, VIII, 1447 etc.

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⁵⁵ Elliot, I, p. 8.

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⁵⁶ II, p. 339.

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⁵⁷ E. C., VII.

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Abu Ishtak Al Ishtakhri and Ibn Haukal state that the Rāṣṭrakūṭa administration was very partial to the Muslims and that none but Muslims ruled over their coreligionists living in that empire. (58) This statement, if not exaggerated, will only show that the personal law of the Muslims was administered to them through their own Kazis. (59) The administration seems to have given them the same privileges, which were recommended to the guilds, traders, foresters etc., by the Smritis. (60) Muslim administrators nowhere figure in epigraphical records, and if they had really existed, the Muslim chroniclers would not have been content to observe that none but the Muslims ruled over the Muslims in the Rāṣṭrakūṭa empire; they would have claimed that there were Muslim officers in the administration who were ruling over the non-Muslims as well. The statements of these Muslim writers are also sometimes wild and unreliable; some of them like Al Idrisi gravely inform us that in the kingdom of Balhara, *i. e.* Gujrat of the 12th century A.D., concubinage is permitted with all persons except married women, including even daughters, sisters, and aunts if they are unmarried. (61)

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Remuneration of officers was sometimes by rent-free lands and sometimes by salaries, paid partly in cash and partly in kind. The principle of offering rent-free lands to state servants is recommended by a number of writers, (62) and we have seen already how the country headmen had their own service lands known as *Des'a-grāmakūṭa-kshetra*.(63) It will be shown in the next chapter that village headmen also were paid partly by rent-free lands. The statement made above, that part of the salaries was probably paid in kind need not cause any surprise; for, a large part of the royal revenues were received in kind, as will be shown in chapter XI, and the staple corn often formed the principal medium of exchange. In some of the Chola records(64) the prices of articles like pulses, camphor, plantains, ghee, sugar, etc., are given not in money but in paddy. The salaries of the temple servants etc., are stated usually in paddy, sometimes in paddy and cash, and rarely in cash alone. A similar practice may have probably prevailed in the Deccan under the Rāshṭrakūṭas.

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⁵⁸ Elliot, I, p. 27 and p. 34.

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⁵⁹ Such was the case in the Chinese Port of Khanafa in c. 850 A.D., where a number of Muslim traders had settled down for whom the Chinese government had appointed a Kazi to look after their religious and judicial affairs. See *Sulaiman Saudagar*, Hindi Translation, by Mahesh Prasad Sadhu, pp. 35-6.

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⁶⁰ Brhaspati, I, 26; Gautama, XI, 23; Manu, VIII, 59.

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⁶¹ Elliot, I, 89.

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⁶² Kauṭalya, II, i; Manu VII, 118-9.

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