The Mauryan Polity c8.s3.t6.1

c8.s3.t6.1

The vastness of the empire and the many-sided activities in which the Mauryan state displayed itself chiefly from the point of view of the yoga-kṣema of the citizens involved a costly machinery and consequently heavy expenditure. Public expenditure depended primarily on the various functions which the State imposed on itself. The functions of the Mauryan State were political, economic, social, religious, and sociological. One of its chief political functions was to afford proper defence from internal dangers through an elaborate police system, and external dangers through the organization of the army and navy. In this direction the State built fortresses on the frontiers of the empire and garrisoned them under the control of the officers known as *antapālas*. There are the *antamahāmātras* mentioned in the Edicts of Aśoka.¹ In the interior the rural divisions of the *sthānīya*, *droṇamukha*, *kharvāṭika* and *saṃgrahaṇa* were primarily headquarters though the officials in charge of those places there were entrusted with various other duties.² In addition to these arrangements in the frontiers and the rural parts, the central administration maintained a large army and navy if we are to believe the Greek accounts. A fragment speaks of the Maurya army as consisting of six-hundred thousand footmen, thirty thousand cavalry-soldiers and thirty-six thousand elephant-men and twenty-four thousand chariot-men. The same source testifies to the fact that the naval force was equally elaborate. These are corroborated by the *Kauṭalīya*. Under the category of political functions mention must be made of the civil side of the administration and its establishment though it must be borne in mind that the Mauryan State did not draw any line of demarcation between the military and civil establishments.