The Mauryan Polity c5.s4.13

c5.s4.13

The inscriptions of Aśoka are important from political and economic points of view also. It is the narrow view of the writer in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th edition) who remarks²: “The inscriptions, which contain altogether about 5,000 words, are entirely of religious import, and their references to worldly affairs are incidental.” Perhaps the same view is held by another authority, E. Hultzsch, who says: “His Edicts are not concerned with public affairs, but are of an almost purely religious character.”³ This is due to the want of correct understanding of the ancient Hindu ideal of politics and religion. To the ancient Hindus politics and religion were intertwined, and neither could exist by itself. In fact secular affairs, as we understand to-day, were largely governed by religious and ethical ideas and ideals.⁴ It was the dharma of the State, without which any function of the State would be ineffective and perfectly useless. Much of political and economic history could be gleaned from these inscriptions as could be seen from the following pages. Suffice it to say here that the inscriptions have enabled us to reconstruct an account of the central and provincial administration of the Mauryan empire. Aśoka's interest in live-stock, their improvement and efficiency, in agriculture, in the census for taxation and other purposes bears the testimony to prove that the Emperor was much concerned with the material welfare of the State.¹ This is the trivarga conception of the ancient political philosophers. A statesman like Aśoka must have known that both material welfare and moral welfare depended for their progressive realization on the political machinery of the land. Hence Aśoka took so much pains to carry on the administration of the land. In these respects the author of these inscriptions did not materially differ from the author of the *Arthaśāstra* and, on the other hand, the latter was the model for Aśoka to follow. Thus the inscriptions of Aśoka have a many-sided interest. They are in every way concerned with public affairs, the latter consisting mainly of the propagation and preservation of dharma in the wide sense of the term. In the absence of these records of incalculable value, there could be no authoritative history of Mauryan India. It is the discovery of the *Arthaśāstra* and the more important discovery of these Edicts that have enabled us to speak of Mauryan empire and Mauryan history. These have enriched the history of this epoch for which we had to depend till very recently only on the writings of Megasthenes and other classical writers. We are to-day in possession of different and independent sources of information, a comparative study of which bears the test that the Mauryan India was socially, economically, and politically in an advanced state, its institutions largely anticipating those of modern times.