The Mauryan Polity c5.s1.1

c5.s1.1

Historians of Ancient India generally classify the original authorities for the early history of India into four definite divisions: (1) tradition mainly based on literary records, (2) contemporary literature, (3) notes and accounts of foreigners who visited India, and (4) archæological evidence.¹ Let us take up these sources one by one and categorically examine their value in reconstructing the Mauryan epoch of Indian History, especially its administrative side. Though the ancient Hindus did not possess the so-called historical sense in that they had not left accounts of the different members of a dynasty with dates of their accession and succession together with their activities in chronological order, still they had an historical outlook and a geographical outlook as well. Much is spoken to-day of the value of geographical studies and their importance to the historian. A similar study of geography coupled with history was attempted with success by the composers of the Purāṇic literature. Each of the eighteen Mahāpurāṇas, called such because there were numbers of other smaller purāṇas (in later days even the Sthalamāhātmyas became included into this class), deals, though not systematically, with five main topics (pañcalakṣaṇa), namely, primary creation (sarga), secondary creation (pratisarga), genealogies of gods and patriarchs (vaṃśa), reigns of various Manus (manvantara), and the history of the old dynasties of kings (vaṃśānucarita).¹ In a recent valuable work of Von Willibald Kirfel entitled "*Das Purāṇa Pañcalakṣaṇa*"² an attempt is made to group together the common texts of these purāṇas on the five main topics. An early endeavour in this direction was made by F. E. Pargiter who in his works "*Ancient Indian Historical Tradition*" and "*Purāṇa Text of the Dynasties of the Kali Age*" was concerned chiefly with the last of the five topics of this class. Reducing these five topics for the sake of convenience to two—creation of the universe and the genealogy of gods and kings—we find the principal aim of the purāṇas to be a comprehensive study of the geography and the history of the then known world. The first two out of the five deal with the earth and its surface, atmosphere, climate, land and water forms, geography of vegetation and animal life including the habitations of man. The last three topics are the history of gods, of Manu the first king and of the other later kings. From this the object of the Purāṇa literature is evident that it is to impart a knowledge of the geography and the history of the land. If we are permitted to make a conjecture, the ancient writers conceived that a study of geography, i.e., the various phenomena of nature precedes any study of history. Having thrown open the study of these purāṇas to the members of all castes and creeds it seems that the Purāṇic writers of Ancient India expected every citizen of the land first to acquaint himself or herself with a scientific knowledge of the historical geography of the land.