History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.339

v4.c62.339

The above provisions from Kauṭilya's work show how States in ancient India engaged in almost all the activities of modern States, had an equally complicated machinery of administration and an army of high and low officers. It will also be noticed how, as in India at present, comparatively very high salaries were paid to ministers and heads of departments as compared with the salaries of clerks (e. g. the ordinary clerks received five hundred, while the chief minister and samāhartṛ, the collector-general, received respectively 48000 and 24000 i. e. 96 and 48 times as much respectively. If all the different officers mentioned in the works on dharmaśāstra, arthaśāstra and in inscriptions be collected together, they will make a formidably long list. A list from one inscription is set out below as a sample.¹⁹¹ Vide Vogel's ‘Inscriptions from Chamba’ pp. 120-136 for explanations of about 30 titles of officers occurring in the inscriptions.