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The Mauryan Polity c9.s2.t1: Diplomatic Agents

The Mauryan Polity c9.s2.t1

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Diplomatic Agents

c9.s2.t1.1

These new acquisitions were treated as protectorates or vassals, in modern political parlance. The border-peoples to which repeated reference is made in the Edicts of Aśoka² come under the category of these protectorates. The principle underlying the foreign policy was the maintenance of the balance of power.³ This was effected by the diplomatic agents of the Empire. Kauṭalya makes mention of different classes of such agents.⁴ Some of them correspond to our ambassadors. The *cāras* are those employed in secret service. There is the *ubhayavedana* who was perhaps the permanent ambassador in a foreign court. It is difficult to interpret the term as it comes under the common title of Gūḍhapuruṣas. These latter were the secret informants in war in addition to their office in the rank and file of the Mauryan bureaucracy.⁵ They gathered news about the strength or otherwise of the enemy-state, and reported the same to the head-quarters. In accomplishing their ends they assumed different guises—, of a trader, an ascetic, a physician, an agriculturist, lest they should be unable to get at the required information, and lest they should be detected, and the real state of affairs be kept from them. These perhaps are meant by Megasthenes’ ‘supervisors’.

c9.s2.t1.2

² R.E. II and XIII.

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³ *Ar. Śās.*, Bk. VI, ch. 2.

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⁴ Bk. I, ch. 11, 12 and 14.

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⁵ Ibid.

c9.s2.t1.6

The inscriptions of Aśoka furnish us with a specialised kind of reporters designated *prativedaka* who were engaged in a similar work of furnishing to the capital, information collected about the enemy’s country.¹ As these officers were entrusted with responsible duties Kauṭalya recommends the appointment of only tried men to these posts. The state was to render all possible help to them when they were in service. It is said that the king gave audience to them only at nights. This was perhaps to avoid the common people and interested men, lest the secrecy should be divulged. Whenever they put down some information in writing, they did it in a special form of writing *gūḍhalekhya* translated as ‘cipher writing.’ The idea was that even if it were miscarried the ordinary citizen could not make out its contents. Though the state had implicit confidence in its employees, still it did not hastily resort to action on a single report. Unless the report was confirmed by two sources, other than the one received, no action was taken.²

c9.s2.t1.7

¹ R.E. VI, *Corpus*, p. 58.

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² *trayānām ekavākye sampratyayaḥ* *Ar. Śās.*, p. 21; cp. *Rāma*: Ayod., ch. 100; p. 36.

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