State and Government in Ancient India c23.s3.14

c23.s3.14

Our original sources supply information only about two of the departments of the government; the Foreign department and the Army department; the chief of the former department was known as *Mahāsandhivigrahādhikṛita* and its incumbent was a person named Avanti at the time when the *Harshacharit* was written. This office must have been very busy in the early days of Harsha, when he was engaged in incessant warfare. The latter presupposed a strong military force. The army consisted of the infantry, the cavalry and elephant and camel corps. According to Yuan Chwang ‘Harsha’s cavalry was 1,00,000 strong and the elephant corps consisted of 60,000 elephants’. The latter figure seems to be exaggerated, for even the Maurya empire possessed an elephant corps of 9,000 only. The horses for the cavalry were recruited from Sindh, Persia and Kamboja. The infantry must have been several lakhs strong; its exact strength is not referred to in our records. Ordinary soldiers were called *chaṭas* and *bhaṭas*, cavalry officers, *bṛihadaśvavāra* and infantry officers, *balādhikṛitas* and *mahābalādhi-kṛitas*. The commander-in-chief was called *mahāsenāpati*.