The Age of the Imperial Guptas c6.2

c6.2

Immediately after the fall of the Kuṣāṇa empire the system of administration and the bureaucracy underwent a great change. In the Benares inscription of the third year of Kāniṣka I we are introduced to a Viceroy and a Governor who were most probably in charge of the North-eastern provinces of the Scythian empire. The Viceroy was styled *Mahākṣatrapa* and the Governor *Kṣatrapa*. This inscription, therefore, proves that the Scythians had changed the names of the great officers after their conquest of India. The Maurya bureaucracy, a glimpse of which is to be obtained in the *Artha-śāstra* of Kauṭilya, was therefore changed, at least to some extent. It was not changed entirely because nearly fourteen centuries after the fall of the Maurya empire *Mahāmātras* continued to be appointed in Magadha. In the 12th century A.D., a *Mahāmātra* named Ḍallahāpiccha dedicated an image of a Bodhisatva in Bihar town.¹ Therefore, it is evident, that either the Maurya official designations had survived to a certain extent till the Musalman conquest of the country or that it had been revived by some later kings. It may have remained in force in popular vocabulary because in the Maratha country a police officer is still called a *Faujdār*. In the inscriptions of the Gupta emperors there is no trace of the retention of the old Maurya official terms. In the earliest inscriptions of the Gupta dynasty, the Gayā plate of the reign of Samudragupta, of G.E., 9 we come across a new series of officials. The charter was written according to the orders of an *Akṣapaṭal-ādhikṛta*. In subsequent inscriptions we become quite familiar with a class of officials called *Akṣapaṭalikas* or *Mahākṣapaṭalikas*, but this is the first time that we hear of this class of officials in Epigraphy. The Gayā grant is a very short record but it has supplied us with a new term which has not attracted the attention of scholars up to this time. This is the word *Valat-kausham*. The translator of the record recognised it as a technical official term but was not able to offer any explanation. The existence of a new class of village officials, who had to be addressed on the occasion of a transfer of land, is very interesting. In the Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudragupta one does not expect details about the system of government of the new kingdom because it is a *praśasti*, written in the *kāvya* style in praise of the king. But in 1.24 divisions of territory, unknown to us from previous inscriptions, are mentioned. Here for the first time in Indian history we hear of the term *bhukti*, which corresponds to a modern Commissioner’s division in British India, consisting of several districts, and the *viṣaya* which corresponds to the Mughal *Cāklā* or the British district. The officials mentioned in the Allahabad pillar inscription are also new to us. The composer of the inscription, Hariṣeṇa, was a *Kumārāmātya*, a *Sāndhi-vigrahika* and a *Mahādaṇḍanāyaka* and a son of the *Mahādaṇḍanāyaka* Dhruvabhūti. The superintendence of the incision of the record was entrusted to another *Mahādaṇḍanāyaka* named Tilabhaṭṭaka. The Allahabad pillar inscription therefore contains the titles of three new classes of officials :—