State and Government in Ancient India c22.5

c22.5

The student of ancient Indian institutions like the caste, the marriage, the Āśramas etc. has sufficiently ample material to trace their development from age to age. The same is not the case with the student of ancient Indian polity and administration. We can give a picture only in broad outlines of the government in the Vedic age. The developments that took place during the next thousand years or so are more or less concealed from our view owing to the lack of original sources,. When the curtain rises with the Mauryan period, we find a fully developed administration, undertaking a vast number of ministrant functions of the state. The different stages of development by which the state, which in Vedic age was performing only a few essential functions, began to undertake a number of ministrant activities, are more or less concealed from our view. The State machinery and administration, of which we get so full a picture in the Mauryan period, become stereotyped later and we can hardly notice much development and variation in later centuries.