The Mauryan Polity c9.s5.1

c9.s5.1

The control and the organisation of the army and navy were under an efficient staff of six boards consisting of thirty commissioners in all. Five members constituted each board. The boards were those of the infantry, cavalry, chariots, elephants, the admiralty, and the commissariat.³ Kauṭalya makes no mention of such management by boards. According to this authority the six departments were under the control of different superintendents, such as the padyādhyakṣa, the aśvādhyakṣa, the rathādhyakṣa, the hastyādhyakṣa, the nāvādhyakṣa, and the āyudhāgārādhyakṣa, the last possibly the commissariat department of the Greek chronicles. Coincidences exist between the board of infantry and the department of padyādhyakṣa, the board of cavalry and the department of aśvādhyakṣa, the board of chariots and the department of rathādhyakṣa, the board of elephants and the department of hastyādhyakṣa, and the admiralty and the department of nāvādhyakṣa. Suffice it to say here that every department looked after the proper training of animals and men, their feeding, their health, their equipment, and their discipline. It is unnecessary to enumerate here every one of these. Though there is no pointed reference to the naval force and a department of admiralty in the Kauṭaliya, still we can assume that Kauṭalya has in mind a similar institution by his regulations to prevent smuggling, and other regulations as regards instruments of warfare, native vessels leaving for foreign countries, and foreign vessels entering the native ports. This assumption is well supported by the Greek evidence.