Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c8.84

c8.84

The seventh and last class was that of the *Royal Councillors*, the ministers who formed the Privy Council of the Emperor. Like the philosophers of the first class, they must have been all, or nearly all, Brahmins, but Megasthenes distinguishes between those Brahmins who devoted themselves to priestly and literary occupations, and those who, like the great Chāṇakya, made politics their occupation, and became, as priests in many countries have done, the power behind the throne. Nearchus observed this. “Some of the Brahmins,” he says, “enter political life and attend the king as councillors, while others devote themselves to philosophy¹.” This class had the monopoly of the great offices of State—posts as “Judge, governor, deputy-governor, ruler over a province, quaestor, superintendent of agriculture, admiral or general,” says Arrian.