State and Government in Ancient India c23.s4.8

c23.s4.8

The emperor carried on the administration with the help of a council of ministers. Our records do not supply the names of the portfolioe of the various ministers, but to judge from the contemporary evidence, it is clear that the ministry must have consisted of the prime minister, the foreign minister, the revenue minister, the treasurer, the chief justice, the commander-in-chief, and the Purohita or royal chaplain. In the modern administration, a minister is a member of government, quite distinct from the official who is the head of the department; in ancient times the two posts were often held by the same person. Our records are silent about the qualifications of ministers and the manner in which they were selected, but we can safely conclude that they must have been chosen for their general competence and proficiency in political and military matters. Most of the ministers were usually also military officers. Some of them, like Dalla, the foreign minister of Dhruva,¹ enjoyed feudatory status, and were also assigned *jāgīrs*. There was, as a rule, complete confidence between the emperor and his ministers; the latter are often described as the right hand of the former.²