State and Government in Ancient India c22.s3: Section III: Magadha Administration Before c. 320 B. C.

c22.s3.2

Magadha began gradually to expand its power and territory from the time of Bimbisāra, *c.* 520 B. C. Aṅga, Videha, Kāśī and Kośala were incorporated in Magadha by *c.* 450 B.C. At the time of the invasion of Alexander the Great, the whole of the Gangetic plain, consisting of the modern Uttara Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal, was under the Nanda suzerainty. How the administration of this fairly big empire was carried out is but imperfectly known. In the time of Bimbisāra and Ajātaśatru the provinces were usually under royal viceroys. The central government, however, used to keep direct contact with the villages ; for we hear of Bimbisāra convening a meeting of 80,000 village-headmen in his kingdom. The Nandas believed in the centralisation of the administration, as would appear from their titles Samrāṭ and Ekarāṭ. We may well presume that the Nanda empire was divided into provinces, and the latter into divisions and districts, as was the case later under the Mauryas. The high judicial, executive and military officers were known as Vohārika Mahāmātras, Sabbatthaka Mahāmātras and Senānāyaka Mahāmātras respectively . The Nanda state was famous for its riches and was maintaining a fairly huge army consisting of 3,000 elephants, 20,000 cavalry and 2,00,000 infantry.