Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c44.74

c44.74

seven or ten years.¹ For "authority should "not be given in one's hand for a long "time. A capable minister should be put "in charge of another work [department], and "a new competent man should step into his shoes." The rules of three-yearly transfer and of five-yearly transfer are referred to as 'dharma' or law by Aśoka in his inscriptions at Dhauli and Jauga&迎接;a (Separate Proclamations). The whole Council (*varga*) of Ministers (*mahāmātras*) went out or rather were 'made to go out', to quote the language of the Emperor, every three or five years. The process is officially called *anusaṃyāna*, that is, 'regular departure' which may be compared with the word *anugata* in the above quotation from the Śukranīti and with *anusaṃyāntu* in the Rāmāyaṇa.² In the Rāmāyaṇa it comes in connection with the '*going out*' of guards to the passes on the route which Bharata was shortly to use.