The Mauryan Polity c13.s12.120

c13.s12.120

It is further said that the king shall also construct reservoirs (*setu*) filled with water either perennial or drawn from some other source. Or he may provide with sites, roads, timber and other necessary things to those who construct reservoirs of their own accord.² *Setu* is translated 'reservoir' but it is a waterway by which water is regulated. Again the superintendent of rivers is the *nadīpāla* of Kauṭalya.³ The question whether measurement of lands in general was in vogue is easily answered by a reference to the chapter entitled 'measurement of space and time'.⁴ Here the following statements occur: 'One *hasta* used in measuring pasture lands and timber forests, one *kiṣku* used in measuring the camping grounds as well as forests and palaces, one *gārhaspatya dhanus* for measuring roads and fort walls, one *daṇḍa* for measuring *brahmadeya* lands.' Certainly officials must have been there to measure these various lands and places. It should be noted as a significant fact that Kauṭalya uses the terms '*rajjus*' and '*corarajjus*' translated as 'ropes' and 'ropes to bind thieves.'⁵ But the translator has remarked in the footnote: "The precise meaning of the word is not known. The *Jātakas* or the Buddhist literature contain similar expressions, *rajjuka* or *rajju-grāhaka*, as the Aśokan inscriptions *lajuka* or *rajuka*."⁶