Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s14: Provinces
Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s14
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Provinces
c11.s14.1
That the empire was divided into a number of provinces, each under a governor, and that princes of the blood royal were employed as governors whenever possible, becomes clear from the Aśoka inscriptions and Buddhist literature. The *avadānas* contain stories of oppression by wicked ministers in the outlying provinces like Gandhāra, and of the revolt of subjects against such oppression. But few definite facts bearing on the details of provincial administration are forthcoming, and we do not know exactly the relations of the governors to the central government on the one hand and the autonomous tribes and kingships comprised within their sphere of control on the other. We may guess that the provincial courts were smaller replicas of the imperial court at Pāṭaliputra, from which the emperor directly administered the home provinces. The distinction between rural and urban administration must have prevailed in the provinces also. There is a short and pithy reference in the Girnār inscription of Rudradāman (A.D. 150) to the construction of lake Sudarśana by the Rāshṭriya Vaiśya Pushyagupta in the reign of Maurya Chandragupta, and its extension and improvement by the addition of pipes, sluices and so on by the Yavanarāja Tushāspa acting on behalf of Aśoka¹; this is solid testimony to the continuous attention given by Mauryan emperors to large works of public utility, to the efficiency of their bureaucracy, and to the preservation of the memory of both through several centuries. Two records, the Sohgaura copper-plate from the U. P. and the Mahasthān inscription from Bengal, both fragmentary, are engraved in characters of the Mauryan epoch, and may well belong to that age; but difficulties of interpretation detract much from their value to the historian. The Sohgaura plate seems to record an order of the Mahāmātras of Śrāvastī issued from their camp at a place called Mānāvasiti; the order mentions the koṣṭhāgāras of some places and the articles stored in them¹. Storehouses also find a place in the Mahasthān record the import of which is still less certain.² Even these faint gleams should serve as warning against the facile characterisation of the vast administration of the Mauryan empire as ‘no doubt more effective in theory than in practice.’
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¹ *EI.* VIII. 43.
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¹ IA. XXV. 261-6; JRAS. 1907, p. 501ff; ABORI. XI. 32 ff; EI. XXII. 1-3.
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² EI. XXI, 83 ff, IHQ. X, 57-66.
Linked texts (1)
- Sohgaura copper plate (ed. Bühler 1896) — Prakrit