Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c36.29

c36.29

(5) Sūta (the court-minstrel and chronicler). Probably in early times he combined in him some important office other than that of the chronicler. In the Mauryan Civil List of the Artha-Sāstra (V. 3-91, p. 245), he is placed amongst minor officers (Paurāṇika etc.) who got 1000 (silver paṇas) a year. It seems that every provincial capital had its sūta, as Bṛ. Up., IV. 4. 37, indicates. He is the later histriographer whom Yuwan Chwang (Hiuen Tsang) found in the empire of Harsha Vardhana, whose duty it was to register 'good and evil events, with calamities and 'fortunate occurrences' in every province. That the record of each year was kept is evidenced by inscriptions of Khāravela and others.