Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

The Mauryan Polity c8.s1.t3: The composition of the council

The Mauryan Polity c8.s1.t3

Language
English

The composition of the council

c8.s1.t3.1

Next our discussion centres round the composition of the council, the number of members and their qualifications.¹ There are different schools of opinion on this question. Viśālākṣa discarded the *mantra* with a single member and advocated a number of men grown grey in wisdom, though young in age. In the opinion of Piśuna, only those who were experts in the special business to be undertaken were to be consulted if *mantra* had to fructify at all. He had made a distinction between ability to offer counsel (*mantrajñānam*) and ability to keep it secret (*mantrarakṣaṇam*). Kauṭalya did not subscribe to this view, for such a position is *anavasthā*. In other words, the number of works, their variety and nature are such that a consultation with experts in each and every business needs a number of heads, and to hold counsel with a good number is an impossibility and an impracticability. Hence three or four are generally to be consulted. The consultation with a single member would lead to no resolution. The minister would be all in all. Nor is consultation with two desirable. For if they happen to take two opposite views, the king has to favour one view against the other. He who is not in the good grace of the king will try to bring about the ruin of that undertaking. Hence three or four are recommended as the safest number. That would enable a king to decide a definite action (arthaniścaya).

c8.s1.t3.2

¹ *Ar. śās.*, Bk. I, Ch. 15.

Linked texts (1)