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Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s10: Bureaucracy

Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s10

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English

Bureaucracy

c11.s10.1

In fact the great elaboration with which the machinery of central government is dealt with by Kauṭilya in the *Adhyakṣa-prachāra* (Book II) is worthy of a modern Manual of Administration; it contemplates a vast, numerous and all-pervading bureaucracy keeping itself in touch with all phases of the economic and social life of the country, and having at its command a mass of accurate and detailed information on the human and material resources of the entire country. The speedy and successful creation of an army of officials and the organisation of them into a well-ordered bureaucracy was by no means an easy task; and the performance of this great task with reasonable efficiency is another point of resemblance between the Mauryan State and the Hellenistic monarchies. Both were aided here no doubt by models set by the empire of the Achaemenids; for there is good reason to believe that the Persian administration had in its hands itineraries containing descriptions of the roads in the empire with a record of distances and stopping places, and that for purposes of taxation and preparation for war they maintained a fairly reliable census of the towns and villages, their inhabitants and resources. It is certain that the administrative machinery of Alexander and his successors was virtually a continuation of that of the Persian monarchs, and such continuity would not have been possible without the help of documents and information accumulated and preserved in the Persian archives.

c11.s10.2

Mauryan administration was a growing system subject to constant change under the stress of new situations and problems; and the *Arthaśāstra*, though to a large extent based on contemporary practice, is still a *śāstra*, a normative plan rather than a description of existing conditions. Aśoka, as will be seen, introduced changes into the system, some of which he outlined in his inscriptions. Nevertheless, the central machinery of administration envisaged in the *Arthaśāstra* may well be accepted as a representation of its condition towards the close of Chandragupta's reign, and Kauṭilya probably had no small share in building it up.

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