Hindu Administrative Institutions c5.5

c5.5

The Central administration, as it is described, is administration of a centralized character which provides for the carrying on of only such part of the administration as falls to the lot of the imperial head-quarters. The actual details of the administration given in the work cannot be understood unless we postulate an efficient local administration for the rural localities as a whole, such as we are able to claim for periods much later than Kauṭilya in certain parts, but not necessarily one part of the whole of India. Local administration has to be studied in detail in the different localities of India, and it seems to be that they were of the same character in localities for which we have more information and in localities for which we seem to have almost none. If that is granted, what is left to be administered by governments of petty kingdoms and broader ones did not differ much, and if, within this, a division is made, between the imperial head-quarters and the separate state head-quarters or provincial head-quarters, it cannot be difficult to understand that what the Kauṭilīyan administration in principle, as well as in the practical machinery, provided, would be adequate even for the requirements of the Mauryan Empire at its best.