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The Mauryan Polity c7.s1.t1: Introductory

The Mauryan Polity c7.s1.t1

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English

Introductory

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At the helm of this vast Empire girt by the seas in the east and the west were, one after another, Candragupta, Bindusāra, Aśokavardhana and other great kings for nearly a century and a half. It was Puṣyamitra Śuṅga who extinguished the line and started the Śuṅga dynasty. The evidence of the *Arthaśāstra*, of classical writers like Megasthenes, of Buddhist literature, and of inscriptions like those of Aśoka supply us with a wealth of material which helps us to frame an accurate picture of the polity in vogue in these early days of Hindu India. From all the pieces of evidence literary or epigraphical, we come upon one clear fact, that the king was an important limb of the body politic. In fact, he is one among the seven constituents constituting a state (the *saptāṅga* of the Hindu literature). The *Arthaśāstra*, as has been already said, is one of the sources of information for this period. There is a view that the *Arthaśāstra* is merely a theoretical treatise on polity in general and does not treat of the conditions of the time. But a significant circumstance in this connection is that there is an express statement by the author in unequivocal terms that the treatise was composed for the use of Narendra. In this term there has been no difficulty in recognising Candragupta Maurya.¹ Besides the fact that the Purāṇas give a second name of Candragupta as Narendra, Jayaswal draws out attention to the term narendrāṅka, being the monogram or mark to be put on arms.²

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¹ Bk. II, ch. 10. sarvaśāstrānyanukramya prayogamupalabhya ca| Kauṭalyena narendrārthe śāsanasya vidhiḥ kṛtaḥ||

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² See In. Ant., 1918, p. 55, and Hindu Polity, Pt. I, p. 214.

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