State and Government in Ancient India c17.s1.5

c17.s1.5

Provincial viceroys, being often royal princes, had their own courts and ministers. It is against the oppressive ministers that the people of Taxila had their grudge when they rose in rebellion in *c.* 280 B.C. Agnimitra, the viceroy over Mālwa, had his own ministry; the same was the case with the southern viceroys of the Rāshtrakūṭas and the Yādavas, who usually had the status of *mahāsāmantas* or feudatory rulers.¹ Viceroys were required to follow the policy of the Central Government as communicated to them either by imperial writs or through special messengers. Communications being difficult, they naturally enjoyed considerable autonomy. Like the provincial governors of the East India Company before the Regulating Act of 1773, we sometimes find them declaring their own wars and dictating their own peace, as did Agnimitra with reference to the kingdom of Berar.² This was to some extent inevitable, because there was the tacit understanding that they would try to extend the extent of the empire. They had their own military forces, and the Central Government would often summon some of their battalions to put down rebellions in other parts of the empire. Thus the Kushāṇa emperor summoned his Deccan viceroy Rudradāman to put down the revolt of the Yaudheyas in northern Rājputānā; Baṅkeya, the viceroy of Banavāsi, had to repair to Gujarat to put down the revolt there, when the Rāshtrakūṭa emperor Amoghavarsha I could not cope with the situation.