State and Government in Ancient India c23.s6.12

c23.s6.12

Reference has already been made to some aspects of the working of the secretariat under the Cholas (Chap. IX, p. 189) We do not get any information about this institution during the earlier period. The graphic description of the Vijayanagar secretariat by Abdur Razzak may give us some further idea about the secretariat. 'On the right hand of the palace there is the Diwankhana or ministers' office, which is extremely large and consists of a forty pillared hall, and in its front runs a gallery higher than the stature of a man, thirty yards long and six yards broad, where the recrods are kept and scribes seated.¹ We may well presume that in the secretariat of the Pallavas and the Cholas also there were similar arrangements though perhaps on a smaller scale.