The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c7.s7.10

v1.c7.s7.10

Inscriptions furnish us with only a skeleton of the administrative machinery. They show that a large portion of the Sātavāhana dominions was governed by royal officers and the rest by feudatory chieftains. For administrative purposes the state was divided into a number of āhāras or rāṣṭras, each of which consisted of at least one central town (Nigama) and a number of villages (grāmas). There were the āhāras of Govardhana, Sopārā, Māmala, Sātavāhana, &c. An āhāra represented the same subdivision as the viṣaya of the Sālankayana records. Epigraphs notice only a few of the royal officers who assisted the sovereign in the government of the realm: the amātyas were employed as governors of the divisions known as āhāras;¹ the rājāmātyas were probably invested with the duty of attending on the king and constituting the advisory body; a mahāmātra was commissioned to execute a specified task; the bhaṇḍāgārika discharged the functions of the superintendent of stores; the heraṇika acted as a treasurer; the mahāsenāpati was obviously a commander of state forces; but sometimes he acted as a governor.² The lekhaka functioned as the secretary of state and drafted all documents emanating from the king;³ and the nibandhakaras looked after the registration of such documents. These and several other high officers, whose existence may be inferred from the inevitable needs of an extensive and well-organized state, constituted what may be characterized as the central services. That the state was well organized is proved by the formalities connected with official grants, viz. oral orders of the donor, drafting, preparation of the charter, registration in the government archives, and finally delivery of the document to the donee.⁴ It is easily understandable that such a state could not have functioned for a day without essential departments such as those of police, finance, justice, army, commissariat, agriculture, industries, &c., although contemporary inscriptions do not actually refer to any of these.