Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c44.14

c44.14

§ 312. We have seen that extraordinary business was decided, according to the Arthaśāstra, in a full meeting of the Council. This implies that ordinary business went through only ministerial offices. That would have required written notes. There is evidence that written notes as a matter of fact were used. Aśoka in his inscriptions speaks of his oral orders³ which implies that the orders were generally written orders. The Arthaśāstra also says that the ministers who were not in attendance wrote notes for the King.⁴ We have not yet discovered any document which passed through the offices of the ministers. There is, however, on the point a very valuable piece of detail furnished by the Śukranīti. The detail evidently belongs to the early centuries of the Christian era as the official designation *Dūta*, which is superseded in later (Gupta) times by *Sāndhi-Vigrahika*, indicates. It is highly important from the constitutional point of view. The procedure it depicts of a matter going through the offices and then reaching the king and becoming a resolution of the ministry, is as follows: