Hindu Administrative Institutions c5.8

c5.8

'Megasthenes's account is obviously superficial and inaccurate, and, when all allowances have been made, there remain discrepancies which it is difficult to explain. But, on the whole, it seems that this theory bears the test indicated above, and that, for the purposes of history, the best means of arriving at an idea of the social conditions in Bihar and Bengal during the Maurya period will be by analysis of the *Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra* and its comparison with the description attributed to Megasthenes and with the Asoka Edicts. There is evidence of the survival in those countries, in various forms and with diverse changes, through later centuries, of political institutions and the ories of the Maurya age, and to the *Arthaśāstra* we may look for elucidation of expressions occurring in records of the Gupta period in the fourth and fifth centuries of our era, of the time of Harṣa's Empire in the seventh, and of the Pāla and Sena Kings.'