The Mauryan Polity c7.s1.t8.1

c7.s1.t8.1

This was not all. There were the chambers of the council and of the assembly where the representatives of the groups and communities sat and discussed the affairs of the state. One was the mantri-pariṣad of which the important official was the Purohita who was the king’s conscience-keeper, or in plain language, confidential adviser to the crown in matters spiritual and secular. In addition to other duties these ministers with the Purohita were to guide the king in the right path lest he should fall into pitfalls due to carelessness.¹ That these ministers of the Maurya kings discharged their duties properly is evident from the peaceful administration of the land during this epoch. A vast empire like that of the Mauryas could not be sustained for a long time if it were simply crushed down by the heavy weight of the iron hands of the king. The kingdom endured for a long time because the people willingly acquiesced in the administration of the land. They acquiesced because the kings ruled them justly and in a perfectly constitutional manner. In this connection it may be remembered that the empire depended on the dominant personality of the emperor. Whence once that personality disappeared from the arena of the empire, the latter collapsed. In other words, the empire arose under strong rulers and broke under weak ones.¹ There was, then, an institution, a council or assembly, the *pariṣad* of Aśoka inscriptions² which proved an effective check on the monarch by going astray from the ordained path.³