The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c18.110

c18.110

The inveterate and universal suspicion which regulated the dealings between every Rāja and his fellow-rulers governed the conduct of the prince to his officials and subjects. Nobody was to be trusted. The government relied on a highly organized system of espionage, pervading every department of the administration and every class of the population. The formal rules concerning spies occupy a prominent place in the treatise, every chapter of which assumes that the working of the machinery of government depends mainly on the successful utilization of secret information.³