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Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s40: 29. Administration

Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s40

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29. Administration

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The administrative organisation of the Mauryan state is described by Megasthenes under three heads : (1) rural administration, (2) city administration and (3) military administration¹. The distinction between town and country for administrative purposes was well established in Indian polity, as is clear from the constant references to *paura* and *jānapada* in literature ; and as the Mauryan empire was the nearest approach to a war-state ever attained in India, army administration attracted the special attention of an observer of the type of Megasthenes. The picture he presents is that of a highly organised and efficient bureaucracy engaged in regulating activities in almost every important sphere of national life.

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¹ Meg. Frag. XXXIV (pp. 86-9)=Strabo XV, 1, 50-2 (pp. 53-5). McCrindle's translation saying that the first class of officers 'have charge of the market' is now seen to be a mistake due to the word *agroronomoi* having somehow crept into Strabo's text in the place of *agronomoi* which is obviously required by the context. Cf. Stein, *Op. cit.*, pp. 233-4. Monahan *Early History of Bengal*, pp. 160-61, traces analogies in detail between Megasthenes and Kautilya in the administrative organisation of town and country.

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The officials of the rural branch so to say, to whom Megasthenes applied the general designation *agronomoi*, supervised irrigation and land-measurement, hunting and enforcement of forest laws and all the occupations connected with agriculture mining, carpentry and metal industries. They also collected taxes and maintained the roads, setting up mile-stones indicating distances at every ten stades (a little over a mile). This seems to be a summary account of the duties of a large number of officials rather than of the activities of a single board².

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² *Contra* Stein, *Op. cit.*, p. 235.

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Those in charge of the city (the *astynomoi*) were divided into six bodies of five each. Their functions were respectively (1) supervision of industrial establishments ; (2) care of foreigners including provision of lodging and assistants who would watch their doings, attention to sick persons and burying the dead³ ; (3) census of population and property ; (4) control of trade and commerce, regulation of weights and measures, and marking with the official stamp articles passed for sale¹, no one being allowed to deal in more than one commodity except on payment of a double-tax ; (5) similar duties regarding manufactured goods, the traders being required strictly not to mix new goods with old ; (6) collection of the tax of ten per cent on sales, the penalty for evasion being death. The six bodies acted together in general matters like the maintenance of public buildings, regulaion of prices, and care of markets, harbours and temples.

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³ Cf. Meg. Frag. I-Diod. II, 42 (pp. 44-5). 'Among the Indians officers are appointed even for foreigners, whose duty is to see that no foreigner is wronged. Should any of them lose his health, they send physicians to attend him, and take care of him otherwise, and if he dies they bury him, and deliver over such property as he leaves to his relatives. The judges also decide cases in which foreigners are concerned, with the greatest care, and come down sharply on those who take unfair advantage of them.'

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¹ I follow here Smith's correction of McCrindle—See *Aśoka* (3rd edn.) p. 88, n. 1.

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This account of city-government does not correspond *prima facie* to anything known from Indian sources. It has been pointed out² rightly that while in the pages of the *Arthaśāstra* we come across individual officials in charge of more or less the same duties as are discharged by some of the boards of Megasthenes' account, there is no trace whatever of a body of thirty dividing into six pentads ; and as the same arrangement recurs in his description of military administration, it has been suggested that Megasthenes gave a schematic and idealised account far removed from realities. On the other hand, urban administration has always been different from rural, and there is evidence that at the time of Alexander's invasion some of the larger cities had an administrative system very like what Megasthenes has detailed. Thirty deputies from Nysa accompanied Akouphis on his visit to Alexander; and, ‘from the Oxydrakai came the leading men of their cities, and their provincial governors, besides 150 of their most eminent men, entrusted with full powers to conclude a treaty³’. It is possible that in these republican cities, the entire aristocracy had a voice in government and the executive work was carried on by groups of five ; for the *pañchāyat* is after all a very widespread Indo-Aryan institution⁴. The rise of the Mauryan empire did bring about a considerable change, and it is possible that Megasthenes was either not fully abreast of the new situation, or probably his account is coloured by his knowledge of the historians of Alexander.

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² Stein, *Op. cit.*, pp. 248—66).

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³ Arrian, *Anabasis*, V, 1 (*Invasion*, p. 79) : ib. vi, 14 (p. 154).

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⁴ Breloer, *ZDMG*, 1935, pp. 61—7.

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Lastly the war office comprised a board of thirty, functioning in six divisions of five members each. The first division was the admiralty; the second, transport and commissariat providing, among other things, servants to beat the drum, and groom the horses, and mechanists to tend the machines; the remaining four were respectively in charge of infantry, cavalry, war-chariots and the elephants. There were royal stables for the horses and elephants and an arsenal for the arms, ‘because the soldier has to return his arms to the magazine, and his horse and his elephant to the stables’. Horses were broken in by professional trainers forcing them to gallop round and round in a ring, especially when they saw them refractory; the *Arthaśāstra* devotes whole sections to a description of the movements to which the war horses and elephants should be trained, besides describing their proper care in considerable detail¹.

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¹ Meg. Frag. XXXV (p. 89). *AS.* ii, 30-31.

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