The Mauryan Polity c8.s1.t1.1

c8.s1.t1.1

The chapter entitled *mantrādhikāraḥ* in the *Arthaśāstra* helps us much to understand the details connected with the *mantripariṣad* or the royal council of the Mauryas.¹ The learned discussion as regards the number of councillors to form the council enables us to infer rightly that an institution of the kind was not an innovation of the Mauryan genius but an institution of much earlier times. In the discussion Kauṭalya incorporates the views of other political philosophers such as Viśālākṣa, Piśuna and Parāśara who were his predecessors, and who lived long prior to the inauguration of the Mauryan epoch.